The 2024 season will be a particularly special one for the Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo: In the upcoming year Osesp celebrates its 70th anniversary, the Osesp Choir its 30th and Sala São Paulo its 25th. In more than 100 concerts music director Thierry Fischer will take over 13 symphonic programs including an international tour. Find the full program HERE.
Addressing the São Paulo public he states:
Osesp’s anniversary is not a retrospective, it is a door to the future. It is also an invitation for everyone to collaborate with us in creating the next chapters. I believe that, for an arts organization, this is as vital, if not more, than just reflecting on what we have already accomplished. An anniversary is about what we are going to do, what we want to do, what drives us and, furthermore, it is about how we will reach new territories, new perspectives, new audiences, new guest artists: new music. And so, we will build the foundation for the next 70 years.
It is with this look to the future that we commissioned seven new works from seven composers, who will each write a 10-minute piece — one for each decade of Osesp — and all of them will be recorded on disc. They are Brazilians Clarice Assad and Felipe Lara, Argentine Esteban Benzecry, South Korean Unsuk Chin, North American Andrew Norman, Swiss Heinz Holliger and the winner of the Latin American Composers Competition, who we will meet in February 2024. We hope you are all inspired by these new sounds and the absolute need to invent new utopias.
In an entirely celebratory year, the month of August has a new international tour in store for us. I believe this is important so that people outside of São Paulo can also be inspired by what we do. And, at the same time, we are inspired by what is done in other states in Brazil and in other countries, by other cultures, by other reactions to what we do. And that, hopefully, will give us unstoppable energy to find other audiences, other concert halls. All of this is part of the celebratory spirit of this party — and I witness, at all times, the joy of our musicians and their desire to always deliver the best.
All of this is part of a vibrant year, in which Osesp will also celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Sala São Paulo — with me conducting the same “Symphony No. 2” by Mahler that opened our house on July 9, 1999 — and the 30th anniversary of the our wonderful Choir — when we will welcome back a friend of the institution, maestro Celso Antunes. Part of this celebration is the holding of almost 120 concerts at Sala São Paulo, with around 60 guest artists and more than 130 works.
What I wish, not just for 2024, but forever, is that you come and watch us with the certainty that something very elevated will always happen when we are on stage. Something that surprises, enchants, disturbs, confronts and comforts. We want all your feelings to be elevated by the music you will hear in Sala São Paulo or wherever we are. We sincerely hope that we can, even if for a few brief moments, bring new perspectives into your lives.