Saturday, October 17, 2026
8:00 PM
In her long-awaited return to Symphony Hall, Hilary Hahn teams up with cellist Seth Parker Woods in a new BSO co-commissioned work written for them by BSO Composer Chair Carlos Simon. Simon’s vibrant, often joyful musical language is tailor-made for the interplay of soloists and orchestra. His Double Concerto Suite is framed by sparklingly orchestrated music from two of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s stage works, his opera Eugene Onegin and brilliant character dances from The Nutcracker ballet.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Hilary Hahn, violin
Seth Parker Woods, cello
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY “Polonaise” from Eugene Onegin
Carlos SIMON Double Concerto Suite for violin and cello (BSO co-commission)
TCHAIKOVSKY The Nutcracker, Act 2
Learn more about the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2026-2027 season on their site.
In a conversation with CRB's Brian McCreath, composer Carlos Simon, violinist Hilary Hahn, and cellist Seth Parker Woods describe the creative processes of composing and performing behind Simon's Double Concerto Suite. To listen use the player above, and read the transcript below.
TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for clarity):
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Seth Parker Woods, with Hilary Hahn and Carlos Simon. I'm so fortunate that all three of you are here for a talk about the Double Concerto Suite that you've written, Carlos, and that you two are performing, Seth and Hilary. It's not often that I get the chance to talk with soloists and composers together, and there's a lot of great things we can talk about. Seth, I want to ask you first, because, just for some background, I understand that you and Hilary have collaborated for a long time on various projects. Tell me where that began.
Seth Parker Woods Well, I guess it started in the pandemic. So around 2022, I believe, is when we first started working together. And that was a trio tour headlined by Hilary and Andreas Haefliger, the pianist, a Swiss pianist. And that was on the East Coast. So that was kind of our very beginnings as far as performing together. That took us to Washington, D.C., to the Kennedy Center, Chicago, a few other places. But it was also kind of our connection with playing Carlos's music for the first time, and that was his Piano Trio, be still and know.
Brian McCreath And so, Hilary, was that the first time you had played Carlos's music?
Hilary Hahn Yes. I loved the trio, and I wanted to perform it in this particular program. Yeah.
Brian McCreath So, Carlos, we are in the very fortunate position here in Boston of your being here as BSO Composer Chair. So we've heard a lot of your music in the last few years, some amazing things. I love your Gardner Suite. That's one of my favorite things that you've written. But this Good News Mass that you wrote was absolutely overwhelming. But this particular piece, the Double Concerto Suite, is a little bit different because you chose not to have any particular external inspiration or anything like that. It's what we call "pure music." And tell me what led you to that direction to write this piece of music.
Carlos Simon Well, simply, I didn't have an idea, you know? And I'd say, you know, composers, like, I try to come up with ideas and be inspired, but, you know, music is inspiring in itself, honestly. And I think I wanted to try the route of the composers we'd been doing it for hundreds of years, writing absolute music. You know, the Beethoven symphonies, we assign meaning behind them, but these pieces often are just for the audiences to kind of create a narrative on their own. And that's what I wanted for this piece, for folks to listen to the piece and take away something that they bring to it.
Brian McCreath The title, "Double," we can easily understand as a piece for two soloists and orchestra. "Concerto Suite" is not a combination of words we often find in a title, so tell me how that title came to be what you needed to put on this particular piece.
Carlos Simon Sure, it's really a marriage of two different art forms, right? You know, you have the concerto, which is, you know, for soloist, but then you have this suite, which I've used the Baroque dances as inspiration, and these often came as a suite. You had the gavotte, the passacaglia, and gigue and so forth. And so I was inspired by that, and so I kind of wanted to bring the two together and include another element, the blues, which I love. It's an American art form, and I wanted to include it in this platform because I do believe that blues is truly inspiring. It should be a part of our literature and our repertoire.
Brian McCreath Well, having heard the piece now for the very first time myself, it feels like it just integrates seamlessly. I mean, this blues language comes in the middle of everything else you're writing, and it doesn't feel like it's a departure or anything like that. It's just a piece of the language, as you just described.
Hilary, I'm always fascinated by how performers take on new pieces of music, and you both have commissioned so many composers. You've had to absorb so many composers' languages, their intentions. So generically, but then also with this particular piece by Carlos, tell me about your moment of first encounter with this piece and how you take the markings on a page and begin to imagine how you're going to inhabit it as a soloist.
Hilary Hahn Every composer creates a different kind of visual language on the page. So even down to which software they use for the printing process, how they space lines, and more in the musical vein, how they indicate the information that they want the performer to know. And, some scores are just full of maybe six or seven instructions stacked on top of every single note, and some have nothing. And so I've done things that range in between all of those. Like, I've done examples of a lot of different kinds of scores. And I feel like Seth probably has done even more of that. But for me, I found when I worked a lot more on contemporary music that it informed my understanding of older music, because I could actually ask composers what they meant. And I could look at the score and start to understand maybe the things that are not written in a score and draw my own conclusions. And so I think I just look at them all the same way now when I learn an older work. that I haven't played before, when I learn something I've never heard before because it's new, I first just try to figure out how to play it physically and get the logistics out of the way.
And then as I'm doing that, I start to notice patterns. I come up with some questions that maybe I realize I can actually ask the composer because I can just text or call the composer. And then I'll follow through with those questions, and also ask more general things. And then from there, I have to also be at one with the piece. So I want to make sure that I'm not trying to do too much, that I'm actually doing what I'm doing rather than trying to do something that doesn't feel right to me. So I kind of take all of the information and let it flow for a while, and that winds up leading to the interpretation. With an ensemble work, it's really also not having a final interpretation before we start working together because working together can change everything that I thought I knew. And also the other person has their own set of conclusions from the same information or the same process, or maybe a very different process. And I never want to have to put on the brakes on what I was doing or have a moment where I just can't reconcile things. So I intentionally leave my conclusions unfinished.
Brian McCreath Sounds very wise. And also, as you describe in this particular case, maybe a little more complex than, say, a new violin concerto in which you're the only soloist. So, Seth, tell me about your process of the first encounter with Hilary with this music. And is your approach the same, that you come in a little bit neutral on how it's going to be played, certainly available with all the technique and navigating the piece, but leaving some interpretation a little bit unformed? Is that essentially kind of how you would do it? And if so, how did that first encounter with the piece with Hilary work out for you?
Seth Parker Woods Yeah, I would say for the most part we align in the same way. But I think for me, speaking specifically for Carlos's music, I've known Carlos almost 20 years now, when we were both students. And so I've watched his language at that specific time in the early 2000s from where it was and kind of watched his... Really his process changed so much, his sound world changed, or I would say become even more authentically himself. And so looking at those days to the trio, to solo cello, solo violin pieces, and now this concerto, you start to see a very clear through line. And I low-key also just stalk all the videos of him playing keyboard. Because I think it heavily informs the language, just how expressive he is. He's deeply rooted in the church, but also deeply rooted in R&B music with a whole past there. So you find a lot of this coalesce for his work. So I think when you're lucky enough to play the same composer's music over and over and through a wide breadth of their writing, you really start to surmise kind of what they're after. But I think on top of that, then adding your spin on it. So being able to just interpret it in the same way you have choreographers and dancers interpreting the choreography. It's never going to be the exact thing, but it's an interpolation of it inside of one's body.
Brian McCreath Hilary, what surprised you once you got together with Seth and really started putting this piece together for the first time, even with orchestra? I think you did it with St. Louis first together. And so was there anything that surprised you in that process of preparing those concerts?
Hilary Hahn I think for me it was just really understanding the styles that we're referencing and the rhythms, the way the rhythms bend and the way the slides bend and the way things sort of pace out. It's not as literal as it is on the page, but saying to someone "play freely" doesn't actually tell them anything about what they need to know. So for me, I'm always trying to understand, like, if it's supposed to be free, what kind of free? What kind of tension? Where is the release? Where is the motion? Where is the suspension? So I knew that Seth has such an experience with so many aspects of Carlos's writing, so I just wanted to try to understand how Seth was interpreting those things and try to fit into there. And then I got a little bit more confidence in my own sense of it too, as we've gone through the process.
Brian McCreath This is really interesting, though, because, I mean, I'm sure you've both played, you know, kind of double concertos in various forms. I mean, the Brahms you've done at various times with various soloists. And I can imagine two wonderful soloists and wonderful people being maybe a little bit too deferential to each other and never actually arriving at something. And so you both have to have the confidence of your convictions no matter what, but still have a negotiation about how something's going to go. Does it feel that way to you, Hilary?
Hilary Hahn I prefer building together a piece that's maybe not so steeped in tradition as the Brahms Double, because the Brahms Double, everyone arrives with an assumption, and then you have to figure out if you are going to break the assumption or play into it. And the two soloists may have opposite ideas about that, as well as the conductor and the orchestra. But here, we're all working together to build something. I think being open to each other is far preferable to being headstrong and "this is how it's going to go and go with me." I just don't think that that's the spirit of a double concerto. However, the two soloists have to act as one in the role of soloist with conductor and orchestra. So it has been interesting being able to work together on this and really kind of find a joint interpretation. It hasn't been very laborious. It's just been really enjoyable.
Brian McCreath And I imagine, Seth, that the previous collaborations you've had with Hilary have informed how that process has worked in this case as well.
Seth Parker Woods Yeah, we both ask a lot of questions. We're both very quite flexible, and there's things I think we're very clear on or ideas we're clear on. But we both still kind of come to the table with lots of questions and a lot of openness to kind of find our version and not, "well, this is kind of how it's always been done," which is like, okay, well, that may not be right. But so let's find our through line for this that actually makes it our reading of this work. And I always say, you know, the piece is never done after the first performance or the premiere of the work. We actually are just beginning to learn what's actually happening. And so it's been exciting kind of watching our journey with this work and kind of arriving here to Boston. And now it really feels like, ah, this is what we're doing. This is what really what we're doing. This is what we're saying and praying that Carlos smiles. And that he's happy with it. I think, I think he is. I think he is.
Brian McCreath That's great. Carlos, there was a moment in rehearsal where Andris said, "we want it to be like Bach, but without the beard," he said, which then he thought, well, wait, Bach didn't have a beard. So it was "Bach without the wig." Right. And it was a— I felt like it was a nice encapsulation of maybe something. I wondered how that resonated with you, this idea that there is Bach kind of quoted in the piece. There's a Bach-esque element to parts of it. And I think what Andris was asking for was a little bit more punch. than you would maybe put in authentic Bach, that this is going to be Bach but with a little extra punch. Maybe I'm going out on a limb too much, but tell me your reaction to that moment.
Carlos Simon Well, I mean, whatever he said, the orchestra clearly got it, and, you know, it's interesting how conductors convey what they want the orchestras to sound like. Harmonically though, and just musically, I was inspired by Baroque music, but, you know, I love the harmony and like just terms of how things change and even the rhythm. But I wanted to kind of expand that, and I actually find there's a lot of similarities in Baroque music and jazz. And if you look at a lot of the chorales and you see the ground bass and the figured bass, it's very similar to jazz notation. And so I wanted to blend, try to blend that. You know, I'm very steeped in jazz, and I love playing jazz music and also Baroque music. So, to understand that he's kind of, you know, the "Bach without the wig," you know, it's probably Thelonious Monk that he was probably— meets Bach, I guess.
Brian McCreath That's awesome. I love that, taking that vision a little further. Well, I've asked Hilary and Seth about the sort of first encounter with the notes on the page and then with each other as soloists. And now I want to hear from you about the first encounter and now this subsequent encounter with our soloists. on stage with an orchestra. Tell me if there's anything that became more illuminated to you about your own music once you heard this in its first performances and now as you've been listening here in Symphony Hall.
Carlos Simon Well, you know, Brian, I spend months working on the piece and toiling, and it's a very solitary profession to be alone and to be writing and just kind of toiling. And so when I'm done with the piece, and finished writing and then revising and copying the piece and making sure the score and it looks good, I kind of hand it off to the performers. And so you see me in rehearsal today, I'm quiet, you know, so because it's really in their hands at this point. But I'm always amazed. It's probably the third time we've performed this piece, and I was just amazed by the first performance. And, you know, it's grown, and it's always interesting to hear how the ideas on the page kind of come to life in the hall. It's different every time. It really is different. You know, every performance has a different acoustic, and every orchestra has a different way of playing, and the conductor has a different way of conveying that, you know. And so that's one of the joys, I think, of being a composer. It's getting something different every time. Even though the notes on the page are the same.
Brian McCreath Well, Carlos, Hilary, Seth, I'm delighted that you are all here for this piece this week. Carlos, we again, we're so blessed to have your music be such a big part of the BSO for these years that you're the Composer Chair. And Hilary, wonderful to see you back at Symphony Hall on stage. And Seth, welcome to Symphony Hall on stage with the BSO. It's great to have you all here. Thanks for your time today. I appreciate it.