Beethoven looms large in Atlanta Symphony’s 2024-25 season

The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s 2024-25 season (its 80th) can be summarized in a single word: Beethoven. The season will feature eight Beethoven symphonies as a belated 250th birthday tribute to the classical grand master. The ninth and final symphony will open the 2025-26 season.

“Because of the pandemic, we’d been robbed of the [Beethoven] anniversary celebration,” Gaetan Le Divelec, the ASO’s vice president of artistic planning, told ArtsATL. 

The fall of 2024 will kick off conductor and Musical Director Nathalie Stutzmann’s third season with the orchestra. Her initial appointment was met with considerable fanfare in 2021 when she became the ASO’s first female director and only the second woman to lead a major symphony orchestra. The ambitious “Beethoven Project” is part of her larger initiative to explore mainstays of the classical repertoire alongside Mozart, Hayden, Vivaldi and others.

Performances of Beethoven seldom require justification, but Stutzmann intends for the concerts to help invigorate the orchestra. 

“I often say that composers like Beethoven are doctors for the orchestra’s sound, medicine for the orchestra’s soul,” Stutzmann stated in a press release.

ASO concertmaster and first violinist David Coucheron tells ArtsATL he appreciates Stutzmann because she has “great musical integrity. . . a passion for trying new things — every concert feels different and she keeps us on our toes.”

“I am really excited to work through all the Beethoven symphonies in one orchestra with one conductor and one vision,” continues Coucheron. “We play Beethoven symphonies all the time but we rarely have the opportunity to be a part of the journey from beginning to end.”

Choosing works that will continue to elevate the orchestra is consistent with the newfound energy the conductor has brought out in the ensemble since her appointment. 

The Beethoven Project will launch on January 23 and January 25 with Symphonies No. 1 and No. 3, “Eroica.” On May 10 and May 11, Stutzmann will conclude the project for the season with the composer’s “Missa Solemnis” for orchestra and chorus.

The 2024-25 season opens on September 19, 2024, with Stutzmann conducting Mahler’s Symphony No.1, “Titan,” and cellist Edgar Moreau playing Schumann’s Cello Concerto.

ASO Music Director Laureate Robert Spano will return March 20 through March 22, 2025, for a program featuring the works of Copland and Vaughan Williams — pieces chosen to bookend a harp concerto by Jennifer Higdon.

“We’re keen to maintain a presence of Jennifer’s music in ASO seasons,” said Le Divelec of the Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning composer.“Robert and I started thinking about what would work well with that piece.” Spano will return the following weekend for an evening featuring Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade.”

The season’s trend toward titans of the classical world continues with the return on December 5, 2024, of cellist Yo-Yo Ma. He will play Haydn’s Cello Concerto no. 1 — the only work from the composer’s core repertoire that Ma has not yet played in Atlanta. Eric Jacobsen will be guest conductor.

“Jacobsen is one of the most exciting young American [conductors],” said Le Divelec. “He’s worked quite closely with Yo-Yo over some of his projects, including Silkroad.”

An audience favorite for the last two seasons, Vivaldi’s “Four Seasons” returns January 12, 2025, with ASO Concertmaster David Coucheron leading the orchestra, as well as playing.

The performance schedule is already a tour-de-force, but the season will also see the release of Stutzmann’s first recordings with the ASO in the form of Dvořák’s “American Suite” and “New World Symphony” to be released on August 30, 2024. An EP featuring just the “American Suite” also will be released. 

::

Jordan Owen began writing about music professionally at the age of 16 in Oxford, Mississippi. A 2006 graduate of the Berklee College of Music, he is a professional guitarist, bandleader and composer. He is currently the lead guitarist for the jazz group Other Strangers, the power metal band Axis of Empires and the melodic death/thrash metal band Century Spawn.