Philadelphia Orchestra: Yannick & Yuja Open the Season - 6abc Loves the Arts

After making its annual August pilgrimage to Saratoga, the Philadelphia Orchestra is back home and ready to kick off a new season.

Opening night is just a few weeks away and the Orchestra is ringing in the new season with an all-French program, "The French repertoire is an area of exploration for Yannick this season," says Jeremy Rothman, Vice President of Artistic Planning, "This is a great way to kick off the season and build that crescendo all the way through the end of the year."

This is music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin's 5th season leading the Fabulous Philadelphians, and he'll be joined by a Philly favorite, the Chinese-born, Curtis-trained pianist Yuja Wang who's become world-renowned.

"She's known not only for her technical virtuosity but also a really thoughtful depth of music making," says Rothman who adds that she'll be performing Chopin's 2nd Piano Concerto, "Chopin is a highly technical work; it's a great show piece for any pianist. The way he marries the piano and orchestra is a really fantastic texture."

Symphony Fantastique by Berlioz will round out the program.

"He has an incredible way of sort of utilizing the orchestra and all the various instruments to create different colors, different characters," says Rothman, "It sort of starts the year off with a bang."

And it's a teaser of what's to come, with a 3 week-long Paris festival slated for January and a roster of classical superstars throughout the season.

"Whether it's Simon Rattle, who comes a little later in the fall, or the great violinist Perelman, who's going to be here later on in the spring, this orchestra always presents the highest level of artists internationally," says Rothman.