Juilliard Orchestra Perform "Don Quixote" & More

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 11 February 2026 09:40

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photos by Paula Lobo, courtesy of Juilliard.

At Lincoln Center’s extraordinary Alice Tully Hall, on the night of Monday, November 24th, 2025 I had the privilege of attending an excellent concert presented by the precocious musicians of the Juilliard Orchestra, under the accomplished direction of Nicholas Carter.

The event started very promisingly with a sterling account of Kaija Saariaho’s atmospheric, enigmatic Ciel d’hiver from 2013, which according to the useful notes on the program by horn player and Juilliard graduate Carys Sutherland “is an arrangement of the second movement from” the composer’s “symphonic work Orion (2002), which itself was commissioned by the Cleveland Orchestra.” Even more pleasurable was a marvelous realization of Richard Strauss’s wonderful tone poem, Don Quixote, Op. 35, from 1897, which is colorful, often playful, even irreverent; it featured the fine soloists Stephen Adam Savage on viola and Elena Ariza—who wore a fabulous, cherry burgundy gown—on cello.

The second half of the evening was also memorable, consisting of an admirable performance of the masterly Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Op. 98, of Johannes Brahms, from 1884. The initial, Allegro non troppo movement opens gracefully and melodiously but this music is interpolated with more dynamic episodes and darker intimations—it builds to a powerful finish. The ensuing Andante moderato has a sunnier, leisurely quality for much of its length, though at moments it acquires a greater intensity, closing gently. The Allegro giocoso that follows is exuberant but with quieter interludes; it ends forcefully. The finale, marked Allegro energico e passionato, is the most dramatic of the movements—it concludes emphatically.

The artists deservedly received a standing ovation.