“On the podium, he cuts a figure both streamlined and angular, and his taut podium gestures convey a wiry intensity;”
so wrote The Boston Globe when Maestro Ken-David Masur led the first of two last-minute subscription weeks with the Boston Symphony Orchestra last winter, substituting for indisposed guest conductors as the BSO’s Assistant Conductor.
In spite of the high stakes, Masur had fine successes in programs of Berlioz, Saint-Saens and Rimsky-Korsakov, and Debussy, Anatoly Liadov and Stravinsky.
He then led a summer BSO concert at Tanglewood, and next month leads the BSO in a regularly-scheduled subscription week, Nov 5-10, with a program featuring Schumann’s Symphony No. 3, Liszt’s Totentanz (with Louis Lortie) and the American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s Mannequin (a BSO co-commission).
Leaving Symphony Hall behind for a month, Masur leads concerts in Hong Kong with the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong; in Munich, as the Principal Guest Conductor of the Münchner Symphoniker; and in Moscow where he is a frequent guest with the National Philharmonic of Russia.
These international dates follow a Summer debut with the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra, where Masur led a program of Beethoven, Schubert and Dvorák.