Which season for GM anniversery festivals? 2009-10 or 2010-11?

[Toblacher]

Anyone have any ideas or thoughts on when the most GM festivals by orchestras might or shoud take place?

The 2009-10 season would cover only his 150th birthday, though being completed before his actual birthday in July. 

The 2010-2011 season would be able to cover both the birthday and the 100th anniversery observance of his death in May.

[techniquest]

2010-11 would seem most appropriate. I hope that the anniversaries are top priority for every orchestra worldwide!

[barry guerrero]

I'd like to see festivals that include orchestras and conductors from South America, China, and southern Asia - expanding markets for the "Mahler boom". It would be nice to get completely different perspectives - as much as there possibly can be.

Barry

[techniquest]

I second that. I have a recording of a live performance of M2 by the Sao Paulo State SO and choirs under John Neschling and it is one of my favourite M2 interpretations. From the othjer side of the world, I have another live recording of the Osaka Philharmonic with the Masashino Chorus, Junko Ioka and Setsuko Takemoto under Takashi Asahina from 1995. From the same year I have the same conductor and orchestra doing M3 with Kazuko Nagai as the soloist. (These are not commercial recordings).
It would be really fascinating to hear Mahler from Chinese orchestras, and also SE Asia such as the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra or the Malaysian Philharmonic (who, fwiw, have quite a few Rimsky Korsakov recordings to their credit).
If you're quick you can whiz across to Singapore and hear their forces perform their M3 premier!!
Lan Shui  conductor
Nancy Maultsby  mezzo-soprano
Ladies of Singapore Symphony Chorus, Singapore Bible College Chorale and Hallelujah Chorus
Singapore Symphony Children’s Choir
Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

[barry guerrero]

Just judging from their BIS recording of Villa-Lobos' big, orchestral "Bachianas Brasileiras" works, they're not afraid to bash gongs in that Sau Paulo State S.O. It's little wonder that Brazilians so readily take to Mahler's music, because it shares a very common trait with popular Brazilian music: a constant interchange between major and minor modes.

[Ben]

Well, if you're around Carnegie Hall next May 2009, the Berlin Staatskapelle will be doing all the Mahler Symphonies with Pierre Boulez and Daniel Barenboim.  What a work out for the orchestra!  I believe it goes from May 6 to around the 19th.

Ben

[bluesbreaker]

Well, I am from Taiwan, so maybe I can contribute to this topic a bit. 
Taiwan's National Symphony Orchestra already dedicated the whole 2004-2005 season doing Mahler. How it was, I don't know, because I was still living in the US.
The Singapore forces already premiered the M2 and M8 during the last 3 years or so, as you may know. And now they are doing M3........wow, I guess they have huge interests in Mahler's big choral stuffs!
But I wouldn't expect too much about Chinese orchestras. Chinese musicians (no matter from PRC, Taiwan, HK, or Singapre) are way too conservative in order to "dig in" into the music as wild and emotional as Mahler's. Surely they can play note for note if prepared well, but it's too difficult for them to deliver a performance that can bring the house down. I remember when China Philharmonic did M1 in Taipei, the critics bashed by saying: "All the notes are there but too dreadful. All I hear is Brahms. Where the hell is MAHHLERRR???"
OF course, my assumption may be wrong....... 

[barry guerrero]

Let me get this straight   .    .   the Staatskapelle Berlin is going to repeat their entire Mahler cycle - with Barenboim/Boulez - in successive days at Carnegie Hall!!??!!!?!?  That sounds outrageous.