DALLAS, TEXAS (January 13, 2020) – Chairman of the Dallas Symphony Association Board of Governors Sanjiv Yajnik and Dallas Symphony Orchestra Ross Perot President & CEO Kim Noltemy today announce the exciting news of a contract extension for Fabio Luisi, Louise W. and Edmund J. Kahn Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The renewal is for a further five years through the 2028/29 concert season. Luisi began his first season as Music Director in the current 2020/21 season after a year of holding the title Music Director Designate.

“Fabio Luisi comes with a reputation on the world stage, and he has already shown his tremendous impact in Dallas. In spite of this year’s challenges, I have been inspired by his passion and ingenuity,” said Yajnik. “An orchestra creates the soul of a city, and Fabio will continue to play a key part in the cultural fabric of our community.”

“The DSO is thrilled to extend our contract with Fabio—it is a testament to his relationship with the orchestra,” said Noltemy. “The joy of music making is evident in every performance Fabio leads. We look forward to many years of collaborating in the Meyerson Symphony Center, through online performances, with new recordings and on tour.”

With the extension of his tenure as Music Director, Luisi will continue to focus on the works of contemporary and iconic American composers, and will also conduct an annual opera-in-concert presentation, following last season’s exceptionally successful Salome concerts, as soon as larger ensembles are again able to gather. Under his leadership, the DSO has launched a ten-year commissioning program to foster the creation of 20 new works, ten of them by women. Next to appear will be the world premiere of Composer-in-Residence Angélica Negrón’s En otra noche, en otro mundo (On Another Night, In Another World) on February 4, 2021, and new orchestral works by Jessie Montgomery, Xi Wang and Bruce Adolphe scheduled to be premiered in the orchestra’s 2021/22 season. This follows already recently premiered compositions under this initiative including Julia Wolfe’s Fountain of Youth, Magnus Lindberg’s Absence (Abwesenheit – L’Absence) and Bryce Dessner’s Trombone Concerto.

“I am so very pleased to extend my tenure with the Dallas Symphony and to continue and to grow the relationship with these talented musicians. Though the beginning of my time with the orchestra was different than planned, we continued to make music with passion and conviction. I am proud of the work we have done, and I look forward to sharing our music and our performances with so many.”

Luisi will return to the Dallas Symphony to conduct four weeks of concert performances in January and February 2021.

For their first concerts of the new year, Luisi and the orchestra pair Bizet’s exuberantly youthful Symphony in C with Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2, featuring Italian pianist Alessandro Taverna, “a serious and potentially major talent” (The Guardian), as guest soloist (live Jan 28–31; streaming from Feb 5).

Next Luisi and the DSO give the world premiere performance of En otra noche, en otro mundo (“On Another Night, In Another World”), by Angélica Negrón, whose music has been credited with “revealing personal truth through beautiful illusion” (National Sawdust Log). Bookending Negrón’s new work are Beethoven’s Leonore Overture and his sole Violin Concerto, with former Gramophone Artist of the Year Leonidas Kavakos as soloist (live Feb 4–7; streaming from Feb 12).

An “outstanding Straussian” (Gramophone magazine) who has made numerous recordings of the composer’s music, Luisi leads the DSO in Richard Strauss’s neoclassical Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite. To complete the program, the conductor and orchestra join DSO Concertmaster Alexander Kerr, known for his “beautiful, sweet tone, a technical mastery of his instrument and a complete understanding of musical style” (Washington Post), for Mozart’s Third Violin Concerto (live Feb 18–21; streaming from Feb 26).

For their final winter collaboration, Luisi and the DSO perform Mahler’s joyous Fourth Symphony in a chamber arrangement by Klaus Simon. Soprano soloist Rachel Willis-Sørensen, a familiar face at the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera and Covent Garden, who “has without doubt one of the most impressive voices in the opera world” (Le Monde, France), joins them for the final movement (live Feb 25–28; streaming from March 5). Last fall, when Luisi led the DSO in a similar chamber adaptation of Mahler’s Song of the Earth, the Dallas Morning News observed: “Luisi lovingly shaped this deeply personal music. … The ending, gently caressed by winds, horn and strings, with tinkling celesta, was magical.”

Dallas Symphony Orchestra: Fabio Luisi Concerts in Winter 2021

Texas Instruments Classical Series

(All concerts take place at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, TX.)

Jan 28, 29 & 30 | 7:30pm
Jan 31 | 2:30pm
Streaming from Feb 5

FABIO LUISI Conductor
ALESSANDRO TAVERNA Piano

SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 2
BIZET Symphony in C

Feb 4, 5 & 6 | 7:30pm
Feb 7 | 2:30pm
Streaming from Feb 12

FABIO LUISI Conductor
LEONIDAS KAVAKOS Violin

BEETHOVEN Violin Concerto
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN (DSO Composer-in-Residence): En otra noche, en otro mundo (world premiere)
BEETHOVEN Leonore, Overture No. 1

Feb 18, 19 & 20 | 7:30pm
Feb 21 | 2:30pm
Streaming from Feb 26

FABIO LUISI Conductor
ALEXANDER KERR Violin

MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3 in G, K. 216
R. STRAUSS Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite

Feb 25, 26 & 27 | 7:30pm
Feb 28 | 2:30pm
Streaming from March 5

FABIO LUISI Conductor
RACHEL WILLIS-SØRENSEN Soprano

MAHLER (arr. Klaus Simon) Symphony No. 4 in G