Fresh Air’s Terry Gross to open Philadelphia Orchestra’s new season

From Philly and the Pa. suburbs to South Jersey and Delaware, what would you like WHYY News to cover? Let us know!

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s opening night celebration for its 2024 season will be hosted by Terry Gross, host and executive producer of WHYY’s “Fresh Air with Terry Gross & Tonya Mosley.”

Gross will be onstage with conductor and music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin on September 26, guiding the audience through the evening’s program, which will include violinist María Dueñas performing a solo of Max Bruch’s Concerto No.1 with the ensemble, and the world premiere of the orchestral suite of Terence Blanchard’s Grammy-winning opera “Fire Shut Up In My Bones.”

Gross and Nézet-Séguin are not strangers to each other. The conductor has been a guest on “Fresh Air” three times. Most recently, in February 2023, Gross asked Nézet-Séguin to come with a playlist of his favorite songs.

She asked him about the inclusion of Debussy’s “The Little Shepherd.”

“I know you like to play Debussy for your cats,” Gross asked. “Is this one of your cats’ favorites?

“Definitely,” he replied. “They’re both very musical.”

“Oh, you’re the father. Of course you think that,” Gross interrupted.

“I swear! I swear!” Nézet-Séguin insisted. “They’re the most musical.”

The two are fond of one another, according to orchestra CEO Matías Tarnopolsky, and will spend the evening “exchanging kind words and witticisms.”

“Her interviews with Yannick on Fresh Air — and with Yo-Yo Ma and many, many others — are from someone with deep knowledge and deep love of classical music,” he said. “She has massive musical tastes, and opera and classical music are a key among them.”

The event will be the first opening celebration in the newly named Marion Anderson Hall, which had previously been named after Verizon. Nézet-Séguin conducted the world premiere of the opera “Fire Shut Up In My Bones” at the Metropolitan Opera in 2021, which marked the first time the Met performed an opera composed by a Black artist.

“We look forward to marking another milestone in the history of this groundbreaking work, here in Marion Anderson Hall,” Nézet-Séguin said. “I can think of no better way to begin the first full season of our newly rededicated hall.”