Yuja Wang returns to Carnegie Hall for her final performances of her Perspectives series with the New World Symphony & America’s Orchestral Academy, led by Michael Tilson Thomas. On May 1, Yuja reprises Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 5, one of the composer’s least-performed concertos. For the NWS season finale concert in Miami, Ms. Wang was heralded by South Florida Classical Review for her interpretation of this rare work: “She played in a deliberate, mechanical style in the opening Allegro con brio, hitting the notes in an almost sarcastically machine-line way.”
Making its New York premiere is Julia Wolfe’s Fountain of Youth, and concluding the program is Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. The concert on May 1 will also be streamed live at Medici.tv, beginning at 7:00 PM (CDT). On May 2, the program showcases Mr. Tilson Thomas as a conductor and a composer. Yuja performs his Sunset Soliloquy and You Come Here Often? (originally written for Ms. Wang), both for solo piano and making their New York premiere. Completing the program is his Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind (NY Premiere), featuring soprano Measha Brueggergosman and vocalists Kara Dugan & Kristen Toedtman, and Schubert’s String Quartet in D Minor, D. 810, “Death and the Maiden” (arr. for string orchestra by Mahler; edited by Michael Tilson Thomas).