On November 9, 11, and 14, 2017, Leonard Slatkin conducts Bernstein’s Symphony No. 3, Kaddish – with Jeremy Irons as speaker, soprano TaMara Wilson in her Philharmonic debut, Concert Chorale of New York directed by James Bagwell, and Brooklyn Youth Chorus directed by Dianne Berkun Menaker – and Richard Strauss’s Don Quixote, featuring Principal Viola Cynthia Phelps and Principal Cello Carter Brey.
Jeremy will also travel with the New York Philharmonic to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor for a performance on Sunday 19 November.
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These performances of the Kaddish Symphony will feature Jeremy Irons reciting the 1977 revised version of Bernstein’s text, in which he made it possible for the speaker to be either a woman or a man.
Bernstein dedicated his Symphony No. 3, Kaddish, to the memory of President John F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated less than three weeks before the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra premiered the work in December 1963. In the Jewish liturgy, Kaddish is used as a prayer for mourners, although it never explicitly mentions death. The structure and content of the Kaddish Symphony reflect Bernstein’s complex relationship with religion and his nuanced reflections on faith and mortality. He led the New York Philharmonic in The New York Premiere of the work in April 1964.
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