The 2010/2011 symphony season for Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia was announced earlier today in Rome. The season opens on October 16, 2010 in a concert version of Rossini's last opera, Guillaume Tell. Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley sings the lead under Music Director Antonio Pappano's measures.
The season highlights are many and include works by Chopin and Schumann, both in their bicentenary birth years, to be performed by Lang Lang and Maurizio Pollini. The Orchestra di Santa Cecilia will play 28 concerts running through June 7, including a Christmas concert with Honegger's Christmas Cantatas and Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker. In January 2011, Pappano will conduct all of Mahler's symphonies on the double occasion of the Austrian composer's birth and death anniversaries. In March, a special program to honor Liszt will celebrate the bicentennial of his birth.
The season concludes with Brahms' German Requiem and a new commission by Ivan Fedele. It also ends the contract of Pappano, which had started in 2005. Music Director at the Royal Opera House, the 50-year-old Italian-American Brit recently told The Times vaguely that he'd be staying in London until 2013-14 season, but you never know which way the wind blows.
For tons of details on the new season including instrumental and vocal soloists go here for the details.