The Embrace Everything podcast series is an exploration and celebration of the music of Gustav Mahler. Throughout his life, Mahler insisted that music had to, literally, embrace everything. This makes his compositions unusually rich in what they offer both audience and musicians. Each season will explore a different Mahler symphony and include interviews with leading conductors, music scholars and musicians. Additionally, Mahler’s own words and those of his contemporaries will be read by actors.
Season 1 focuses on Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 in D major (1888), taking listeners back to the work’s origins in the street songs, folk tunes and bugle calls of Mahler’s childhood. Each episode is devoted to a movement of the symphony. Guests include conductors Kent Nagano and Michael Tilson Thomas; principal musicians of the Boston Symphony, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam; scholars from Columbia University and the University of Chicago; and introducing James Lurie as the voice of Gustav Mahler.