What’s on my desk today (and my iPod)?

I just finished the year at New England Conservatory with a memorable performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. After 100 years, this masterpiece is as fresh and exciting as ever and the enthusiasm and virtuosity of the students were inspiring. In June, I'll be touring Argentina with NEC's Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, and guest conducting the Seoul Philharmonic in Korea and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony in Japan, before returning to Aspen in July.

The CD I made last year with cellist Steven Isserlis has been released. It's called In the Shadow of War and features music of Bloch, Stephen Hough, and Frank Bridge (his rarely played masterpiece Oration, a cello concerto and homage to the fallen of World War I). Gramophone has raved about it. I am really pleased for Steven and happy with the contribution I made with the Deutsches Sinfonie Orchestra in Berlin.

Recent Press

"Wolff's Shostakovich 10 was powerful, three-dimensional and devastating, and the Atlanta Symphony blossomed by his approach. Much of the opening movement builds to an unbearable tension. Wolff paced it tautly and meaningfully, with understated authority. When the music finally crossed that emotional threshold and plummeted into some dark netherworld of a broken psyche, Wolff did not, would not, relent... Credit Wolff with delivering the crucial essence of a harrowing masterpiece of the 20th century."

"Conductor Hugh Wolff presided over one of the Utah Symphony’s most high-spirited programs of the season on Friday. From Beethoven’s ever-popular "Leonore" Overture No. 3 to Saint-Saëns’ playful Cello Concerto No. 1 to Charles Ives’ invigorating Symphony No. 2, the concert was a sheer delight."

"The evening's strength was the conductor, Hugh Wolff, an urbane host who without undue Sturm und Drang made Mendelssohn's Scottish Symphony, the composer's third, an absolute delight."

Click here to read the Washington Post review of Wolff's recent concerts with Joshua Bell and the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center