The Orchestra Now Presents an All–Richard Strauss Program Featuring an Alpine Symphony at Carnegie Hall, On May 12

New York, NY, April 13, 2026 — The Orchestra Now (TŌN) performs its final concert this season in an all–Richard Strauss program, conducted by Music Director Leon Botstein on Tuesday, May 12, at Carnegie Hall. The evening includes Strauss’s Alpine Symphony, which has an immense score that features Members of the Bard Festival Chorale, led by James Bagwell, and the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra alongside The Orchestra Now. The evening also offers the composer’s Burleske with pianist Blair McMillen, named one of the piano’s “brilliant stars” by The New York Times; and Times of the Day, a setting of four poems by the German poet and novelist Joseph von Eichendorff, a major writer of the Romantic period. 

Strauss’s Alpine Symphony
Carnegie Hall, Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage
Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at 7 PM
The Orchestra Now
Leon Botstein, conductor
Blair McMillen, piano
Members of the Bard Festival Chorale
James Bagwell, choral director
Members of the Bard College Conservatory Orchestra (for An Alpine Symphony)
All-Richard Strauss Program
Burleske in D Minor, TrV 145
Times of the Day, TrV 256, Op. 76 (Die Tageszeiten)
An Alpine Symphony, TrV 233, Op. 64 (Eine Alpensinfonie)
After a string of successful tone poems, An Alpine Symphony was Richard Strauss’s first such composition after nearly a dozen years of focusing on opera. Written for a massive orchestra that includes such rarities as the heckelphone, thunder sheets, and a wind machine, this rich masterpiece takes listeners through the ascent and descent of a mountain in the Alps, with meadows, streams, storms, and vistas along the way. Strauss’s Burleske for piano and orchestra is performed by Blair McMillen. A faculty member at the Bard Conservatory and the Mannes School of Music, he is co-founder and co-director of the Rite of Summer Music Festival at New York City’s Governors Island. Also on the program is Times of the Day, a setting of four nature poems by Joseph von Eichendorff.
 
Tickets, priced at $25-$50, are available by calling CarnegieCharge at 212.247.7800, or at the Carnegie Hall box office at 57^th & 7th Avenue.

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 30 new members, for a total of 63 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 Orchestra Now, 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 04-15-2026

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