Despite cancelling the remainder of its 2019-20 season and the entirety of the 2020 Boston Pops season due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is looking toward the future.
The BSO announced its 2020-21 season lineup on Thursday, highlighted by a 250th anniversary celebration of Beethoven’s symphonies, Shostakovitch’s landmark opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” Holst’s “The Planets,” and many other landmark orchestral works.
In a video that accompanied the announcement, BSO music director Andris Nelsons acknowledged the difficulty of announcing a yearlong orchestral lineup with so much uncertainty amidst the COVID-19 outbreak.
“With the world going through so much upheaval around the coronavirus, I find it absolutely essential to look toward the future when we will all gather again as a community around the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s magnificent music-making,” Nelsons said. “When I think about the BSO’s 2020-21 season and its wealth of inspiring programs, I realize once again what performing means to me and so many in our BSO family. I find myself so deeply appreciative and grateful to be a part of an orchestra that is at the heart of a relationship connecting such a wonderful circle of friends, supporters, and audience members, united by their love of the Boston Symphony.”
The 2020-21 season, which runs from Sept. 16 through May 1, will kick off with two weeks of all-Beethoven programming, starting with Symphony No. 1 and Piano Concerto No. 2 on Sept. 16 and concluding with the maestro’s eighth and ninth symphonies on Oct. 3. The season wraps up from April 29 through May 1 with performances of Stravinsky’s “Petrushka,” Liadov’s “The Enchanted Lake and Kikimora,” and Scriabin’s “Prometheus” and “The Poem of Fire” for piano, chorus, color organ, and orchestra.
According to a press release, the BSO will offer complimentary concert nights and a season-long 50 percent ticket discount offer in honor of Greater Boston’s essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis. More details about the discounts will be available on the BSO’s website in the coming months.
The BSO previously announced that it would make final decisions about whether to cancel the annual Boston Pops Fireworks Spectacular and the Tanglewood 2020 season (June 19-Aug. 30) by mid-May. The organization also announced pay cuts and furloughs for its staff in order to offset a fraction of its estimated $10.2 million in lost revenue due to the public health crisis.
For both the summer programs and the 2020-21 season, the BSO said it will follow recommendations of public health officials as to whether performances can be held safely.
“Though the BSO is announcing its usual full complement of performances for its 2020-21 Symphony Hall season and hopes the season will proceed without interruption, the organization is prepared to respond to all recommendations from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the City of Boston, should circumstances necessitate changes to its performance schedule or to its current health and safety policies,” the BSO said in a release.
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