A Philharmonic Commission Meets Mahler's Fifth

Tania León wrote Imágenes mestizas on a New York Philharmonic commission, and this concert carries its debut. The piece shares the program with Mahler's Symphony No. 5, a work that runs past seventy minutes on its own. Gustavo Dudamel conducts both halves. A premiere and a warhorse on one bill is an unusual pairing, and the order asks the room to listen twice over. León has lived and worked in New York for decades, which threads through the writing.

You arrive at 10 Lincoln Center Plaza and pass through the lobby into the renovated auditorium. Seats wrap the stage on three sides, and the orchestra sits low in the middle rather than behind a proscenium. Latecomers wait until the end of a movement. The rear terrace seats look straight down at the brass, a view that changes how the Mahler lands. Applause holds until the final movement, and the players stand section by section.

The concert starts at 7 30 in the evening on Thursday, September 24, at 10 Lincoln Center Plaza. Allow twenty minutes for the lobby and coat check on a first visit. Doors into the hall close once the first work begins, which matters more here than at a club. It suits anyone who wants a long symphony played by a full orchestra in a room built for it. If you were hoping for a short recital, this is not that.