Jeremy Irons Performs with The New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic’s three-week Bernstein’s Philharmonic: A Centennial Festival, saluting their beloved Laureate Conductor Leonard Bernstein, took place in November 2017.  Jeremy Irons narrated Bernstein’s Kaddish Symphony at concerts on November 9, 11, 14 and 19.  The first three concerts took place at David Geffen Hall in New York City.  The November 19th concert took place at Hill Auditorium on the campus of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.  All four concerts were conducted by Leonard Slatkin and featured Soprano Tamara Wilson.

Click on the player below to listen to the performance from 19 November at The University of Michigan, recorded live by Interlochen Public Radio:

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Review: Son Confronts Father to End a Leonard Bernstein Festival – The New York Times

The Best Classical Music Performances of 2017 – The New York Times

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Jeremy Irons to Perform with New York Philharmonic

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.

Click here for more information and to book tickets.

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.

Click here for more information and to book tickets.