KENT NAGANO, conductor

NIKOLAJ LUGANSKI, piano

OLIVIER LATRY, organ

 

Programme:

Béla Bartók: Ballet Suite from the Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19

Camille Saint-Saëns: Symphony No.3 in C minor, Op. 78, “Organ”

Johannes Brahms: Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No.2 in B-flat major, Op. 83

 

This is the third time that Maestro Kent Nagano has been in Zagreb and the second time with one of the New World’s oldest orchestras, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, with which he also performed in the season’s finale of the Saturday at Lisinski cycle in April 2009. Zagreb liked them right away. And they liked Zagreb! The critics lauded their freshness of interpretation, unburdened by conventions, and their freedom of expression, and said that “the Montreal Symphony Orchestra finished its sensational first appearance in Croatia with bombastic sound”.

 

The Orchestra, founded in 1934, certainly owes its excellence to the great Nagano, its artistic director since 2006. The American musician of Japanese origin is undoubtedly one of the most successful conductors of today. He studied Sociology and Music at the University of California Santa Cruz and at San Francisco State University. He received further training in conducting with the world's leading conductors: Seiji Ozawa, Pierre Boulez, Leonard Bernstein, Bernard Haitink and Claudio Abbado. He attracted public attention in 1984, when Olivier Messiaen chose him to be Seiji Ozawa's assistant while he was preparing the world premiere of his opera St. Francis of Assisi. It was the beginning of a great career. Today, Kent Nagano is general music director of the Hamburg State Opera, chief conductor of the Hamburg Philharmonic Orchestra, honorary conductor of Berlin's German Symphony Orchestra and of the Concerto Köln baroque orchestra, with which he does excellent projects of period interpretations; the latest one is dedicated to the interpretation of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung. As guest conductor, he collaborates with the world’s best orchestras, such as the Paris and San Francisco opera orchestras, Chicago and Washington Symphony Orchestras and the Vienna, Berlin and New York Philharmonic Orchestras. He founded the Virée Classique / Classical Spree festival in Montreal. He has received prestigious awards for his brilliant interpretations, among which three Grammy Awards and three Grand Prix du Disque awards. His rich opera and orchestral conducting repertoire also includes Bela Bártok’s Ballet Suite from the Miraculous Mandarin, Op. 19, with which he will begin his this season's appearance in Zagreb. In the performance of Saint-Saëns’s Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78 “Organ” they will be joined by Olivier Latry, titular organist of the fire-stricken Notre Dame Cathedral. He has been recognized as the world's leading ambassador of organ, who delighted us with his recital at Lisinski Hall in December 2019.  The solo part in Johannes Brahms’s Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 83 will be played by another favourite with the Zagreb audience, a renowned Russian artist, “piano prince” Nikolai Lugansky, a rare pianistic personality, whose versatility creates unbelievably varied interpretations.