“Bach meets Bernstein” Tour
This tour was the crown jewel of my time in the Boston Youth Symphony - a two week collaboration with the Jugundchor of Leipzig, Germany (where Bach and Mendelssohn worked for most of their lives). During our stay there, we performed Bach (what else?) at Bachfest and a Beethoven violin concerto at Altenburg castle.
For the finale, we performed Mendelssohn’s 3rd symphony at the Gewandhaus Concert Hall in Leipzig, the site where Mendelssohn himself premiered that work in 1845, when he was the director of the Gewandhaus orchestra.
As part of our collaboration, the Leipzig Jugundchor also visited Boston, where together we performed pieces by Copland and Bernstein.
Bernstein in Boston
During the Boston half of Boston Youth Symphony’s collaboration with the Leipzig Jugundchor, we put on a joint performance at Symphony Hall. My favorite piece from this program were Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms. In the third movement, the piece begins with a rare cello quartet soli (performed by the first two stands of the cello section) that’s beautiful and solemn. In our performance of this same piece in Leipzig, I was so thrilled to be part of the cello soli!