The Orchestra Now Presents Egypt in Music and Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on December 7

New York, NY, November 13, 2025 — Music Director Leon Botstein and The Orchestra Now (TŌN) present Egypt in Music and Art as part of its popular Sight & Sound series at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, on Sunday, Dec. 7 at 2 pm. The program features Grammy-nominated pianist Terrence Wilson, winner of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Juilliard Petschek Award, in a performance of Saint-Säens’ Piano Concerto No. 5, “Egyptian.” TŌN also offers two free concerts in NYC: at Symphony Space on Nov. 23, and a concert at Julia Richman Educational Complex on Dec. 21, featuring the New York premiere of Arturo Márquez’s 2018 Autumn Concerto, performed by award-winning trumpeter Pacho Flores.

In the popular Sight & Sound series, The Orchestra Now explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. Each performance includes a discussion with conductor and music historian Leon Botstein, accompanied by on-screen exhibition images and live musical excerpts, followed by a full performance of the works and an audience Q&A.

Egypt in Music and Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Sunday, December 7, 2025, at 2 pm
Leon Botstein, conductor
Terrence Wilson, piano
Johann Strauss II: Egyptian March, Op. 335
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: The Magic Flute Overture, K.620
Camille Saint-Säens: Piano Concerto No. 5, “Egyptian” in F Major, Op. 103
Artwork from the exhibition Divine Egypt
Ancient Egyptian religious practice flourished across millennia and encompassed a staggering array of gods, goddesses, and other divine beings. In such artworks as figurines, jewelry, and animal mummies, the iconography used to represent Egyptian deities evolved alongside the roles of the gods themselves. In the 18th and 19th centuries, European composers like Mozart and Johann Strauss II incorporated their view of the Middle East’s “exoticism” in some of their music. Saint-Saëns’s Fifth Piano Concerto was written in Egypt, where the composer included the melody of a Nubian love song he heard sung along the Nile.

The exhibition Divine Egypt is on view at The Met Fifth Avenue now through January 19, 2026, in gallery 899.

Tickets, starting at $35, include same-day museum admission and may be purchased online at metmuseum.org, by calling The Met at 212.570.3949, or at The Great Hall box office at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Free Concerts in New York City

Don Juan and Vaughan Williams
Sunday, November 23, 2025, at 4 pm
Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95^th St.
Zachary Schwartzman, conductor
Ryan Michki, tenor
Richard Strauss: Don Juan, Op. 20, in E Major
Ralph Vaughan Williams: On Wenlock Edge
Henry Purcell (arr. Steven Stucky): Funeral Music for Queen Mary
Samuel Barber: Symphony No. 1 in One Movement, Op. 9
TŌN Resident Conductor Zachary Schwartzman returns with the Orchestra to Symphony Space for a concert that opens with Strauss’s beloved tone poem, Don Juan. Tenor Ryan Michki, a winner of the 2024 Bard Conservatory Concerto Competition, performs Vaughan Williams’ English song cycle On Wenlock Edge, written after the composer had spent three months studying with Maurice Ravel in Paris. Also on the program are Steven Stucky’s arrangement of Purcell’s Funeral Music for Queen Mary, originally composed 330 years ago, and Samuel Barber’s epic Symphony No. 1 in One Movement.

Tickets are FREE. Advance RSVP is requested at ton.bard.edu.

TŌN + All-City High School Orchestra
Sunday, December 21, 2025, at 3 pm
Julia Richman Educational Complex, 317 E 67th Street, New York, NY
Leonardo Pineda, conductor
Pacho Flores, trumpet, cornet, and flugelhorn
Selections performed with the All-City High School Orchestra
David West, principal director
Manuel de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat, Suite No. 2 (El sombrero de tres picos)
Arturo Márquez: Concierto de Otoño (Autumn Concerto) NY Premiere
Georges Bizet: Selections from the Carmen Suites
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov: Capriccio espagnole
Conductor Leonardo Pineda leads TŌN in a holiday concert beginning with Falla’s second suite of dances from his ballet The Three-Cornered Hat, followed by the New York premiere of Arturo Márquez’s 2018 Autumn Concerto, performed with the soloist for whom the piece was written, acclaimed trumpeter and Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist, Pacho Flores. After intermission, TŌN is joined by NYC’s All-City High School Orchestra directed by David West for a side-by-side performance of selections from Bizet’s beloved Carmen Suites and Rimsky-Korsakov’s jubilant Capriccio espagnole.

Tickets are FREE. Advance RSVP is requested at ton.bard.edu.

The Orchestra Now
Founded in 2015 by Bard College, The Orchestra Now (TŌN) is a graduate program of Bard College that trains the next generation of music professionals to become creative ambassadors of classical music. Led by conductor and educator Leon Botstein, TŌN offers accomplished young musicians a full-tuition fellowship toward a master’s degree in curatorial, critical, and performance studies or an advanced certificate in orchestra studies. TŌN’s innovative curriculum combines rehearsal, performance, recording, and touring with seminars, masterclasses, professional development workshops, teaching, and more. The members of the Orchestra are graduates of the world’s leading conservatories, and hail from countries across North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Many have gone on to careers in the Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston, Vancouver, and National symphony orchestras; Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia; the United States military bands; and many others. In the 2025-26 season, the Orchestra welcomes 29 new members, for a total of 64 musicians from 17 countries around the globe.

TŌN performs dozens of concerts a year at venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Fisher Center at Bard. Specializing in both familiar and rarely heard repertoire, the Orchestra has given numerous New York, U.S., and world premieres, and performed the work of living composers including Joan Tower and Tania León. In May 2025, TŌN performed two concerts in Koblenz and Nuremberg, Germany marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany. In 2023, TŌN appeared with Bradley Cooper in the Academy Award-nominated film Maestro, and was featured on the Grammy-winning Deutsche Grammophon soundtrack, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin. The Orchestra has performed with many other distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Leonard Slatkin, Gil Shaham, Neeme Järvi, Stephanie Blythe, Fabio Luisi, Vadim Repin, Peter Serkin, Tan Dun, and JoAnn Falletta.

TŌN has released several albums on the Hyperion, Sorel Classics, and AVIE labels. Fall 2025 releases include Premieres with violinist Gil Shaham and Transcription as Translation. Other highlights include 2024’s The Lost Generation and Exodus, and rare recordings of Othmar Schoeck’s Lebendig begraben and Bristow’s Arcadian Symphony. Recordings of TŌN’s live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard regularly on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and the Orchestra has appeared more than 100 times on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide.

Visit ton.bard.edu to find out more about TŌN’s academic program, concerts, musicians, albums, and broadcasts; sign up for the email list; and support the orchestra with a donation.

Leon Botstein
Leon Botstein is founder and music director of The Orchestra Now (TŌN), music director and principal conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra (ASO), artistic co-director of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival, and conductor laureate and principal guest conductor of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra (JSO), where he served as music director from 2003 to 2011. He has been guest conductor with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Aspen Music Festival, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, Mariinsky Theatre, Russian National Orchestra in Moscow, Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, Taipei Symphony, Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, and Sinfónica Juvenil de Caracas in Venezuela, among others. In May 2025 he led two concerts with TŌN in Koblenz and Nuremberg, Germany marking 80 years since the surrender of Nazi Germany. With ASO he has revived numerous neglected operas and rare repertoire, such as Schoenberg’s massive Gurre-Lieder, Richard Strauss’s first opera, Guntram, and the U.S. premiere of Sergei Taneyev’s final work, At the Reading of a Psalm.

Albums include The Lost Generation and Exodus, two 2024 releases with TŌN; Hindemith’s The Long Christmas Dinner with the ASO; a Grammy-nominated recording of Popov’s First Symphony with the London Symphony Orchestra; and other various recordings with TŌN, ASO, the London Philharmonic, NDR Orchestra Hamburg, and JSO, among others. Fall 2025 releases include Premieres with violinist Gil Shaham and Transcription as Translation, both with TŌN. He is editor of The Musical Quarterly and author of numerous articles and books, including The Compleat Brahms (Norton) Jefferson’s Children (Doubleday), Judentum und Modernität (Bölau), and Von Beethoven zu Berg (Zsolnay). His many honors include Harvard University’s prestigious Centennial Award; the American Academy of Arts and Letters award; and Cross of Honor, First Class, from the government of Austria, for his contributions to music. Other distinctions include the Bruckner Society’s Julio Kilenyi Medal of Honor for his interpretations of that composer’s music, the Leonard Bernstein Award for the Elevation of Music in Society, and Carnegie Foundation’s Academic Leadership Award. In 2011, he was inducted into the American Philosophical Society.

For detailed information about the 2025-26 season, visit ton.bard.edu.

Press Contacts
Pascal Nadon
Pascal Nadon Communications
Phone: 646.234.7088
Email: [email protected]

Jennifer Strodl 
Director of Communications
Bard College
Phone: 845.758.7015
Email: [email protected]

 

This event was last updated on 11-13-2025

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