Buried Alive The Orchestra Now, Michael Nagy & Leon Botstein

• Arthur Honegger (1892 - 1955):
• 1 Symphonic Movement No. 2, H. 67 "Rugby" 07:47
• Othmar Schoeck (1886 - 1957): Lebendig begraben, Op. 40:
• 2 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 1, Wie poltert es! 04:25
• 3 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 2, Da lieg' ich denn 02:57
• 4 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 3, Ha! Was ist das? 02:04
• 5 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 4, Läg' ich, wo es Hyänen gibt 01:24
• 6 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 5, Horch! Stimmen und Geschrei 02:48
• 7 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 6, Als endlich sie den Sarg hier abgesetzt 03:47
• 8 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 7, Horch, endlich zittert es durch meine Bretter! 03:40
• 9 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 8, Da hab' ich gar die Rose aufgegessen 01:31
• 10 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 9, Zwölf hat's geschlagen 01:33
• 11 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 10, Ja, hätt' ich ein verlass'nes Liebchen nun 02:25
• 12 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 11, Wie herrlich wär's 03:35
• 13 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 12, Der erste Tannenbaum, den ich gesehn 05:29
• 14 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 13, Der schönste Tannenbaum, den ich gesehn 03:22
• 15 Lebendig begraben, Op. 40: No. 14, Und wieder schlägt's, ein Viertel erst 06:08
• Dimitri Mitropoulos (1896 - 1960): Concerto grosso:
• 16 Concerto grosso: I. Molto largo 06:11
• 17 Concerto grosso: II. Allegro - Largo 04:08
• 18 Concerto grosso: III. Chorale. Largo 10:21
• 19 Concerto grosso: IV. Allegro 04:47
• Total Runtime 01:18:22

Info for Buried Alive

Conductor Leon Botstein has consistently offered the musical public some of the most innovative and fascinating programs to be found on today's concert stage. This album combines three orchestral works written within during the years 1926-1928, featuring Othmar Schoeck's stunning 45-minute song cycle for baritone, chorus and orchestra, ""Lebendig Begraben"" (Buried Alive), alongside Arthur Honegger's wildly colorful ""Rugby"" and Dimitri Mitropoulos's rarely heard ""Concerto Grosso. Leon Botstein is a Swiss-American Jewish conductor and scholar, and the president of Bard College. He is currently conductor of the American Symphony Orchestra and conductor laureate of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra where he served as music director and principal conductor from 2003-2010.

The Orchestra Now
Leon Botstein, conductor
Michael Nagy, baritone
The Bard Festival Chorale

The Orchestra Now (TŌN)
is a group of vibrant young musicians from across the globe who are making orchestral music relevant to 21st-century audiences by sharing their unique personal insights in a welcoming environment. Hand-picked from the world’s leading conservatories—including The Juilliard School, Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Royal Conservatory of Brussels, and the Curtis Institute of Music—the members of TŌN are enlightening curious minds by giving on-stage introductions and demonstrations, writing concert notes from the musicians’ perspective, and having one-on-one discussions with patrons during intermissions.

Conductor, educator, and music historian Leon Botstein, whom The New York Times said “draws rich, expressive playing from the orchestra,” founded TŌN in 2015 as a graduate program at Bard College, where he is also president. TŌN offers both a three-year master’s degree in Curatorial, Critical, and Performance Studies and a two-year advanced certificate in Orchestra Studies The orchestra’s home base is the Frank Gehry-designed Fisher Center at Bard, where they perform multiple concerts each season and take part in the annual Bard Music Festival. They also perform regularly at the finest venues in New York, including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and others across NYC and beyond. HuffPost, who has called TŌN’s performances “dramatic and intense,” praises these concerts as “an opportunity to see talented musicians early in their careers.”

The orchestra has performed with many distinguished guest conductors and soloists, including Hans Graf, Neeme Järvi, Vadim Repin, Fabio Luisi, Peter Serkin, Gerard Schwarz, Tan Dun, Zuill Bailey, and JoAnn Falletta. Recordings featuring The Orchestra Now include Ferdinand Ries piano concertos with Piers Lane on Hyperion Records, and a Sorel Classics concert recording of pianist Anna Shelest performing works by Anton Rubinstein with TŌN and conductor Neeme Järvi. Upcoming albums include a second release with Piers Lane on Hyperion Records in the summer of 2020. Recordings of TŌN’s live concerts from the Fisher Center can be heard on Classical WMHT-FM and WWFM The Classical Network, and are featured regularly on Performance Today, broadcast nationwide. In 2019, the orchestra’s performance with Vadim Repin was live-streamed on The Violin Channel.

Leon Botstein
brings a renowned career as both a conductor and educator to his role as music director of The Orchestra Now. He has been music director of the American Symphony Orchestra since 1992, artistic codirector of Bard SummerScape and the Bard Music Festival since their creation, and president of Bard College since 1975. He was the music director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra from 2003–11, and is now conductor laureate. In 2018 he assumed artistic directorship of Campus Grafenegg and Grafenegg Academy in Austria. Mr. Botstein is also a frequent guest conductor with orchestras around the globe, has made numerous recordings, and is a prolific author and music historian. He is the editor of the prestigious The Musical Quarterly, and has received many honors for his contributions to music.

Michael Nagy
Stuttgart born baritone with Hungarian roots, began his musical career with the Stuttgart Hymnus Boys’ Choir. He studied singing, Lied interpretation and conducting with Rudolf Piernay, Irwin Gage and Klaus Arp in Mannheim and Saarbrücken and enhanced his education in master classes held by Charles Spencer, Cornelius Reid and Rudolf Piernay, whom he still consults.

Michael Nagy became an ensemble member of the Komische Oper Berlin before moving on to Frankfurt Opera, where he was able to develop his repertoire in roles such as Paragon (The Magic Flute), Count Almaviva (The Marriage of Figaro), Wolfram (Tannhäuser), Valentin (Faust), Prince Yeletsky (Pique Dame), Marcello (La Bohème), Albert (Werther), Frank/Fritz (Die tote Stadt), Dr. Falke (Die Fledermaus) and the title role in Owen Wingrave, as well as Jason in Reimann’s Medea. He still has close ties with these two opera houses: most recently in Frankfurt as Spielmann (Humperdinck: Die Königskinder) and he can soon be heard as the Forester in Janáček’s Cunning Little Vixen; in Berlin he last sang Count Tamare (Schreker: Die Gezeichneten) and Eugene Onegin on tour at Edinburgh Festival.

He continues to broaden his repertoire on the world’s major opera stages: Wolfram in Tannhäuser (Bayreuth Festival), Hans Heiling in H. Marschner’s opera of the same name at the Theater an der Wien and Stolzius in Zimmermann’s Die Soldaten (under Kirill Petrenko at the Bavarian State Opera), Kurwenal (Tristan und Isolde) in Baden-Baden and Berlin conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, as well as the title role in Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il Prigioniero in Hamburg and the world premiere of Andreas Lorenzo Scartazzini’s new work Edward II at the Deutsche Oper Berlin.

Last season Michael Nagy made two important role debuts: Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte) at Zurich Opera House and Amfortas (Parsifal) at the Bavarian State Opera conducted by Kirill Petrenko – he returns to both houses in the 2019/20 season to sing in three revivals: Die Fledermaus, Alceste and Così fan tutte.

Michael Nagy is highly in demand as a concert and oratorio singer around the globe. He has appeared with the most renowned international orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouworkest, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, Orchestre de Paris, the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, the Berlin Konzerthausorchester, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and has performed at various festivals, for instance in Schleswig-Holstein and in the Rheingau, at the Salzburg Festival and the Tanglewood Festival (USA), as well as in Grafenegg and San Sebastian.

Michael Nagy is inquisitive in the best sense of the word – besides familiar repertoire the coming season offers new discoveries: he opens the season singing in Mahler’s Eighth Symphony conducted by Christoph Eschenbach at the Berlin Konzerthaus and in Dvořák’s Te Deum, which marks the commencement of Cristian Macelaru’s term as new principal conductor of the WDR Cologne. Michael Nagy gives guest performances with the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Copenhagen conducted by Gianandrea Noseda in a concert performance of «Il Prigioniero» by Luigi Dallapiccola, with Hess Radio in Frankfurt as soloist in «Ein deutsches Requiem» by Johannes Brahms conducted by David Zinman, with the NDR Elbphilharmonie-Orchester in Hamburg under Marek Janowski singing Frank Martin’s «Jedermann Monologues», with the Brussels Philharmonic conducted by Stéphane Denève singing Brahms/Glanert «Four Serious Songs», with the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stefan Solyom in orchestrated songs and arias by Gounod, Mahler, Bizet and Schubert, at the Musikfest Stuttgart under H. C. Rademann singing in Bruch’s «Lied von der Glocke», in the opening concert of the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival in 2020 with Nielsen’s Third Symphony conducted by Alan Gilbert; he performs «Lebendig begraben» by Othmar Schoeck with The Orchestra Now! in the USA (combined with a CD recording) conducted by Leon Botstein in the Carnegie Hall in New York and at Bard College.

In the 250th anniversary year of Beethoven’s birth, works by this composer feature prominently in Michael Nagy’s engagements, for instance he is a soloist in the Missa solemnis with the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and on tour with Thomas Hengelbrock; he sings in Beethoven’s Mass in C conducted by Karina Canellakis in Utrecht and the Ninth Symphony conducted by Teodor Currentzis in St. Petersburg, Bonn, Vienna and Luzern.

Booklet for Buried Alive