MUSIC

Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons makes his BSO debut in these concerts, having previously conducted the orchestra at Carnegie Hall. He is joined by the exciting young Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, who makes her BSO debut as soloist in Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, which was written in the late 1940s but only premiered in 1955, after Stalin's death helped relax the constraints on artistic expression in the USSR. The second half of the program is devoted to Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, the second of his well-known last three symphonies.