New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Presents MAHLER 9, Now thru 6/10

Music Director Jacques Lacombe and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra present Mahler's Ninth Symphony for the Orchestra's 2011–12 classical-season finale tonight, June 7 and June 9 and 10 in Newark and Morristown.

Performances take place tonight, June 7, (1:30 p.m.) and Sunday, June 10, (3 p.m.) at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) in Newark and Saturday, June 9, (3 p.m.) at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown.

Lacombe says that something inherent in Mahler's music makes his Ninth Symphony a perfect capstone for the classical season. "You can't come out of a performance of Mahler's music and be unchanged," the music director says. "There is something that happens when you hear a piece like that; both performers and listeners come out of it transformed somehow by the deep messages that are in his music.

"For a time after Beethoven, composers were not able to write a symphony past their ninth; they would die, and Mahler was obsessed with that idea. There were things in Mahler's past-losing a brother at an early age, personal struggles and his health-that made him come back to the idea of death. Those fears and troubles culminate in his Ninth Symphony; it is a very tender and moving farewell to life. In a way, it is like a shout for love and a cry that his life is potentially coming to an end."

The Orchestra closed its 2010–11 classical season-Lacombe's first as music director-with Mahler's Third Symphony.

Tickets range in price from $20 to $85 and are available for purchase online at www.njsymphony.org or by phone at 1.800.ALLEGRO (255.3476).

THE PROGRAM:

MAHLER 9

Tonight, June 7, at 1:30 pm | NJPAC in Newark Saturday, June 9, at 3 pm | Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown Sunday, June 10, at 3 pm | NJPAC in Newark

Jacques Lacombe, conductor MAHLER Symphony No. 9 This program will be performed without intermission.

Jacques Lacombe, conductor New Jersey Symphony Orchestra Music Director Jacques Lacombe is renowned as a remarkable conductor whose artistic integrity and rapport with orchestras have propelled him to international stature.

Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montre?al from 2002 to 2006, he led the orchestra in more than 100 performances. He served for three years as Music Director of both orchestra and opera with the Philharmonie de Lorraine in France; he has been Music Director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Trois-Rivie?res since 2006.

Lacombe's engagements for the 2011–12 season include his debut with the Orquesta Filarmonica de Malaga in Spain, return engagements with the Vancouver Opera in Rome?o et Juliette and with the Deutsche Oper in Un Ballo in Maschera, as well as two rarely performed operas: Felix von Weingartner's Die Dorfschule and Carl Orff's Gisei – Das Opfer. Lacombe will make his Carnegie Hall debut as part of the May 2012 Spring for Music Festival with the NJSO.