Frequent guest conductor Dima Slobodeniouk leads this celebration of Caribbean composers, beginning with the Pulitzer Prize-winning Cuban American Tania León’s BSO-commissioned Time to Time, whose title reveals the composer’s characteristic preoccupation with duration and rhythm. Puerto Rico-born Roberto Sierra wrote his effervescent, jazz- and Latin-tinged concerto especially for James Carter’s lyricism and technical prowess on both soprano and tenor sax. Johannes Brahms’ Second Symphony is considered among his warmest, most pastoral works.

Brahms Symphony No. 2

Boston Symphony Orchestra

The BSO opens its season with a tribute to some of the great American composers, past and present. The pulse-pounding energy of John Adams takes us for a Short Ride in a Fast Machine. Jessie Montgomery’s arrangement of I Want to Go Home and Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915 both reflect on memory, history, and longing. John Williams’ "Escapades" from the Spielberg film Catch Me If You Can evokes an air of cool mischievousness with its dynamic interplay of saxophone, vibraphone, and bass. The jazzy swagger of Gershwin’s famous An American in Paris finishes the evening.

BSO Opening Gala

Detroit native Carter shared his childhood home with five musically inclined siblings in “a house filled with all manner of sounds, from The Beatles to Funk and Hendrix.”

The Jazz influence came from Carter’s mother who “brought the voices of greats like Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald into my life.” It was his mother who in 1980 took young Carter to see the Count Basie Orchestra at the Detroit Music Hall, where the big-band sound made a lasting impression, but it was a World Saxophone Quartet concert two years later that would set music as a path for life. “To watch four saxophonists individually and collectively, literally shred the stage” recalls Carter, “it sparked a furnace inside of me that won’t quit to this day.”

James Carter

Events

Past events

13 - 15 Nov, 2025

Brahms Symphony No. 2 · Boston Symphony Orchestra

Sep 19, 2025

BSO Opening Gala · Boston Symphony Orchestra

Future and recently performed repertoire

Saxophone in Catch me if you can by Williams

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Saxophone in Concerto for Saxophones and Orchestra by Sierra

Boston Symphony Orchestra

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