NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Julia Bullock / Alan Gilbert
New Year’s Eve Concert – R. Strauss / Gershwin / Boulanger / Ravel
Viennese waltzes and songs from America
To accompany the New Year’s Eve dancing, chief conductor Alan Gilbert and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra strike up music of the early 20th century. While Strauss and Ravel debunk the legendary Vienna cheerfulness, soprano Julia Bullock exudes American vibes.
In the composer’s own lifetime, Richard Strauss’s opera »Der Rosenkavalier« was already such a success that he compiled a »best of« for orchestra. The work’s popularity comes not least from the many waltzes, which always have a hint of irony about them. After a short and impressionistic burst of spring fever in Lili Boulanger’s »D’un matin de printemps«, her countryman Maurice Ravel throws the Viennese waltz into chaos in his dark »La valse«.
Julia Bullock makes her Elbphilharmonie debut in this concert. Like Alan Gilbert, the singer, curator and activist comes from the USA, where she made her first appearance under his baton with the New York Philharmonic in 2015. The magazine Musical America voted the exceptional soprano its Artist of the Year 2021, describing her as »an agent of change«. Tonight she performs American songs by Margaret Bonds and George Gershwin.
Performers
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester
Julia Bullock soprano
conductor Alan Gilbert
Programme
Richard Strauss
Suite aus »Der Rosenkavalier« op. 59
George Gershwin
Somebody from Somewhere from the film soundtrack to »Delicious«
Margaret Bonds
The Negro Speaks of Rivers / Bearbeitung für Orchester von Jannina Norpoth
George Gershwin
Summertime / aus der Oper »Porgy and Bess«
Margaret Bonds
Winter Moon / Bearbeitung für Orchester von Jannina Norpoth
George Gershwin
Soon aus Strike up the Band
Encore:
Leonard Bernstein
Somewhere / aus: West Side Story
Lili Boulanger
D’un matin de printemps für Orchester
Maurice Ravel
La valse / Poème chorégraphique for Orchestra
Encore:
Leonard Bernstein
Ouvertüre aus Candide