9 - Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal

Kent Nagano became Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra in September 2006. At the time of his appointment he said…
 
"It is with great pleasure and keen anticipation that I accept the invitation from the board of directors of the Montréal Symphony to be the new Music Director of this highly respected Orchestra as of 2006 – and, at the same time, become part of the wonderful Montréal community which, for me, combines the best features of North American and European Cultures”
 
A common thread ran through Nagano’s first season in Montreal: Ludwig van Beethoven and his musical heirs including Mendelssohn, Brahms, Schumann and Wagner. Highlights of the season included Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder and performances of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde alongside the more contemporary works of Ives, Ustwolskaja, Nono and Messiaen. New Music also featured prominently with commissions from Canadian composers Michel Longtin and Ana Sokolovic.
 
Kent Nagano has taken the OSM on tours in both Canada and internationally. In 2006 he took them to Paris Théâtre du Châtelet and the following year Kent and the OSM completed their first coast-to-coast Canadian tour.  Tours to Japan and South Korea followed in Spring 2008 and in 2009 they toured in Europe, for the first time in 10 years, visiting cities in Spain, Austria, Germany, France, Luxembourg and Croatia. In September 2008 Kent and seven OSM musicians visited several villages in Nunavik in Northern Quebec performing Stravinsky’s L’Histoire du soldat narrated in local dialect.
 
In April 2008, Kent and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal released their first joint recording on Sony/Analekta. The double album, entitled Beethoven: Ideals of the French Revolution is devoted entirely to the music of Beethoven and includes the Fifth Symphony and The General, an original work that pays tribute to the Canadian humanist Lieutenant-General Roméo Dallaire and recounts the events that took place in Rwanda in 1994. One year after, Kent Nagano and the OSM released Mahler’s The Song of the Earth with tenor Klaus Florian Vogt and baritone Christian Gerhaher on Sony. Also in 2009, Analekta released a recording of works by contemporary composer Unsuk Chin featuring violinist Viviane Hagner. In February 2010 a recording of Beethoven's Fourth and Fifth Piano Concertos by Kent Nagano, the OSM and pianist Till Fellner was released by ECM/Universal. In May 2010 Kent Nagano and the OSM recorded for Sony Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 as well as the incidental music to Beethoven’s Creatures of Prometheus in collaboration with the award winning Montreal writer Yann Martel, who wrote a new text for the Prometheus music.