09/12/2026
Lincoln Center and Jonathon Heyward earn glowing reviews in The New York Times for the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center’s 2026 season!
Music & Artistic Director Jonathon Heyward is praised for programming that puts new music in conversation with the classics — making it look easy, but as the Times notes, “that’s no small feat.”
“Strong curation can expand understanding, provide context for new works and recontextualize the canon. Jonathon Heyward, closing out his third year as the music director of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center (and his second as its artistic director as well), is a strong curator. Across two concerts of premieres and perennial favorites recently, he refined a formula and invited audiences into the program...conducting with shrewd musical and dramatic instinct, inspiring an orchestral sound that was confident and nuanced, while also relaxed.”
Jessie Montgomery’s cello concerto “These Righteous Paths,” performed by Abel Selaocoe in its NY Premiere, was among the season’s most celebrated moments.
“Jessie Montgomery’s cello concerto These Righteous Paths, in its New York premiere, addresses the death of her mother, Robbie McCauley, the playwright, director, activist and poet, whose words provide the titles of the concerto’s three movements. Montgomery and the cellist Abel Selaocoe carefully turn grief over like a stone in the hand, feeling its sharpness but noting its stark beauty.”
📰 Read the full review at nytimes.com!
📸 © Lawrence Sumulong / Lincoln Center
