New York, 9 April, 2026:- Andris Nelsons led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a thunderously applauded performance Thursday night at New York’s Carnegie Hall. It was the first of a two-night stand there by the BSO. It marked the last of Nelsons’s appearances with the orchestra this season until they join forces again in July at Tanglewood.
The BSO offered a repeat of a program performed recently in Boston that presented excerpts from John Adams’s Nixon in China with Renee Fleming and Thomas Hampson as soloists. The second half was Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony Number 9, From the New World.
The famously cool New York audience was receptive to the Adams’s work and utterly rapturous in their response to the Dvořák. The kind of foot-stomping and loud cheering that has become a regular feature of Nelsons’s appearances at Symphony Hall in the weeks since his termination shook the rafters at Carnegie Hall. Clive Gillinson, the executive and artistic director of Carnegie Hall told the BMInt, “I have never seen anything like this in my 20 years here.”
As in their recent concerts in Boston, the players, as well as the Tanglewood Chorus who were on hand for the Adams opera, all wore red carnations, as did Nelsons. Many in the sell-out audience were seen wearing them as well. Word of this symbolic rejection of the BSO’s management to terminate Nelsons’s contract after August 2027 had clearly spread to New York.
Outside the hall, members of the American Federation of Musicians Local 802 were handing out copies of their letter of support for the musicians of the BSO “…who have been reeling following a recent breach of trust” when the management of the orchestra decided to terminate Nelsons “against the wishes of the musicians and without a clear explanation.”
Several BSO trustees listened to the concert from one of Carnegie Hall’s elegant boxes. At the end of the concert, after Nelsons had saluted soloists in the orchestra, he acknowledged the box with a friendly wave to the worthies, including CEO Chad Smith and Board Chair Barbara Hostetter.
Smith, whose handling of Nelsons’s dismissal has come under withering criticism from musicians and orchestras across the North America and Europe, was seen leaving the box after the music had ended while the audience was still applauding, though of course we don’t know why. Apparently neither he nor Hostetter attended the after-party that Nelsons hosted for the symphony players and friends in Carnegie Hall’s Rohatyn Room, though Vice-President of Artistic Planning Anthony Fogg did.
At that gathering, Nelsons, wearing his designer black leather biker’s suit, spoke movingly about what it means for him to lead the BSO, especially in the uproar that has followed his dismissal.
“I have never experienced so much love and humanity and support ever in my life. Whatever happens, my prediction is positive. Whatever happens we keep playing the music we love and you love and you play it so amazingly. We will keep doing that as a first thing. And then we share it with each other and of course with our wonderful audience.” Some BSO players were seen to be wiping tears from their eyes.
“I have to be a little bit childish,” Nelsons continued. “Yesterday, I had my third-degree black belt test. I got the third degree, and I am very proud,” he said to applause and laughter. “And independently I just wanted to say maybe sometimes you hear… I am part of the community and I have been part of the community, not only the orchestra.”
Nelsons continued, “I am so, so, so happy that we are, the orchestra and chorus and our wonderful soloists… I think what happens in the world sometimes is disturbing, not sometimes but most of the time, but what you do with making your music and giving your hear,… You see how the audience reacts. They feel that you are honest and see what’s in your heart. You are extremely professional and amazing performers, but you also have a really big heart and that combination makes the best opportunity to make the best music. I am really thankful for that. I am also thankful for forgiving my mistakes.” More cheers erupted.
“If I have ever upset somebody, I am apologizing I love you all.
“Enjoy the day as much as you can and I am looking forward to tomorrow. Let’s enjoy the concert tomorrow. And, of course, and then in Tanglewood. And,” he added softly with a smile in his voice, “this is not the end.”
Quinn MacKenzie and George Whiting, who contributed extensively to this report, have been circulating a petition seeking to have Nelsons’s contract extended; they attended the concert and the party. Within a few weeks they have gathered more than 3,000 signatures. To provide updates as the events go forward, they have also created a website: StandWithAndris.org.
They reported that among the guests at the after party was a man, Matteo, introduced as Nelsons’s best friends from the time they were kids in Riga. Matteo is now a chocolatier in Italy. He flew in from Milan just hours before the concert. “He represents the kind of fierce loyalty that Andris Nelsons instills in those who know him ,” one of the volunteers stated.
Stephen Landrigan is a former print journalist and concert presenter.
