Kent Nagano and the Orchestra will kick off the event with a work by Penderecki in the summer of 2018
Regarded as the most important event of its kind, the Salzburg Festival, a world-class opera, classical music and theatre extravaganza, has invited the OSM and Kent Nagano to present the opening concert of its next edition.
On July 20, 2018, on the stage of the grandiose Felsenreitschule, or the “rock riding school,” the OSM will perform the imposing St Luke Passion, a work for chorus, orchestra and soloists, by Krzysztof Penderecki.
As part of the composer’s 85th birthday celebrations, this concert will also be performed in the context of Ouverture spirituelle, a series dedicated to sacred music and religiously inspired works.
The OSM has maintained a special relationship with the Polish composer and conductor for close to 50 years. In addition to having played many of his works, the OSM had the privilege of being conducted by Krzysztof Penderecki on many occasions, the first time being on March 27, 1979.
His most recent appearance was on September 20, 2015, when he conducted the OSM Chorus in the Canadian première of his Psaume III.
“For nearly a century, the Salzburg Festival has been an international reference in performances of the highest standard. The OSM is proud to take part in this important tradition by joining the Festival’s programme in a concert featuring Krzysztof Penderecki’s St Luke Passion—an important yet rarely performed work by one of the 20th century’s greatest musical voices. The St Luke Passion combines a large orchestra, three mixed choirs and soloists, in a full and fervent expression of its sacred text, and the profound faith of its composer,” said Kent Nagano.
Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
SALZBURG FESTIVAL, AUSTRIA, OPENING CONCERT, JULY 20, 2018
Program
Krzysztof Penderecki: St Luke Passion (Passio et Mors Domini Nostri Jesu Christi Secundum Lucam) Orchestre symphonique de Montréal
Kent Nagano, conductor
Sarah Wegener, soprano
Lucas Meachem, baritone
Matthew Rose, bass
Warsaw Boys’ Choir, Krzysztof Kusiel-Moroz, chorus master
Kracow Philharmonic Chorus, Teresa Majka-Pacanek, chorus master
About the work
The St Luke Passion by Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki is a poignant work for soprano, baritone, bass, narrator, children’s choir, two mixed choirs and orchestra, written in 1965-1966.
Like other musical frescos for voice and orchestra—Bach’s Passion settings and the Requiems of Mozart and Fauré come to mind—this work, inspired by the Latin liturgical tradition, is remarkable in its power and depth. Penderecki’s Passion was first performed in Germany on March 30, 1966.
Touring: a tradition of excellence for the OSM.
Over the years the Orchestra has performed on more than forty tours and some thirty national and international excursions, including ten in Asia, eleven in Europe and three in South America.
Having just returned from a performance at Carnegie Hall (October 18 2017), Kent Nagano and the OSM have appeared in New York in 2008 and 2011, where the Orchestra played almost every year between 1982 and 2004 to sold-out halls.
Kent Nagano and the Orchestra toured South America (2013), Europe twice (2009 and 2014), and Asia twice as well, where they performed the OSM’s first concerts in China, in 2014.
In spring 2016, the OSM embarked on a major tour to the United States, to mark the 40th anniversary of the Orchestra’s first appearance in that country. In 2011, for the first time, the OSM took part in the Edinburgh International Festival.
Always under the direction of Kent Nagano, the OSM presented a concert at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (2006), went on its first cross-Canada tour (2007), and, in September 2008, Maestro Nagano and seven of the Orchestra’s musicians set off on a historic tour of Nunavik, in northern Québec.
