Concertgebouworkest | Klaus Mäkelä

Janine Jansen | Concertgebouworkest | Klaus Mäkelä

Klaus Mäkelä will officially become chief conductor of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2027. He's already working with the orchestra and will be opening the new season of the Cologne Philharmonic. The program includes Mozart's "Paris" Symphony, Bartók's "Concerto for Orchestra", and Prokofiev's first Violin Concerto featuring Janine Jansen.

Klaus Mäkelä

Klaus Mäkelä and Concertgebouworkest: Mahler's Symphony No. 5

The SummerConcerts powered by VriendenLoterij presents two months of wonderful concerts, from classical to jazz and from pop to film music. Top musicians from the Netherlands and around the world bring you all your favourite classical pieces, as well as video game music and hits from Broadway musicals.We also present a host of young talent in our summer concerts, including youth orchestras from Greece, Australia and Cuba, and top young classical soloists. After many of the concerts, we offer a meet-and-greet with the artists in an informal setting, or an afterparty with DJ in the Entrance Hall. In one of the world’s finest concert halls, there’s something for everyone this summer at The Concertgebouw!

Concertgebouworkest Kerstmatinee: Klaus Mäkelä & Strauss' Ein Heldenleben

The chief conductor has traditionally led the orchestra in the Christmas Matinee – and now its future chief conductor, Klaus Mäkelä, assumes that role, leading the Concertgebouw Orchestra in a programme based on the theme of love. Wagner surprised his wife Cosima with the Siegfried-Idyll on Christmas Day, 1870. Marital love also inspired Richard Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, which he dedicated to the Concertgebouw Orchestra: the lifeblood of this autobiographical work is a lovely violin solo representing the hero’s life partner.Unsuk Chin’s subito con forza is a declaration of love for the music of Beethoven. It was with this same work that Klaus Mäkelä opened the programme he conducted on his Concertgebouw Orchestra debut in September 2020, when sparks between maestro and orchestra first flew. The performance took place during the coronavirus pandemic in the presence of a small audience. Now it’s time to perform the work again and to share their mutual affection with the entire world, thanks to radio and television.

Mahler Festival: Concertgebouworkest and Klaus Mäkelä - Mahler's Symphony No. 8

Klaus Mäkelä has been artistic partner of the Concertgebouw Orchestra since 2022 and will become chief conductor in 2027. Earlier in this festival, he already conducted the First Symphony, today the Eighth. The Concertgebouw Orchestra shares the stage with no fewer than four vocal ensembles: the National Radio Choir, Laurens Symphonic, the Choeur de l'Orchestre de Paris and the National Children's Choir.Mahler wrote to his friend Willem Mengelberg that his Eighth Symphony was his greatest work ever. 'All the other symphonies were anticipating this.' Moreover, he experienced it as if the piece of music was dictated to him in a vision. In two monumental movements, Mahler says he sings of the entire universe. 'There are no longer human voices sounding. They are planets and suns, revolving in their orbits.' Practically speaking, it is also a rather voluminous work. Mahler did often need very many performers, and in this Mahler's 'symphony of a thousand', there are close to four hundred. Or more: in 1912, Mengelberg conducted a version with two thousand musicians and singers.

Mahler Festival: Concertgebouworkest and Klaus Mäkelä - Mahler's Symphony No. 8

Klaus Mäkelä has been artistic partner of the Concertgebouw Orchestra since 2022 and will become chief conductor in 2027. Earlier in this festival, he already conducted the First Symphony, today the Eighth. The Concertgebouw Orchestra shares the stage with no fewer than four vocal ensembles: the National Radio Choir, Laurens Symphonic, the Choeur de l'Orchestre de Paris and the National Children's Choir.Mahler wrote to his friend Willem Mengelberg that his Eighth Symphony was his greatest work ever. 'All the other symphonies were anticipating this.' Moreover, he experienced it as if the piece of music was dictated to him in a vision. In two monumental movements, Mahler says he sings of the entire universe. 'There are no longer human voices sounding. They are planets and suns, revolving in their orbits.' Practically speaking, it is also a rather voluminous work. Mahler did often need very many performers, and in this Mahler's 'symphony of a thousand', there are close to four hundred. Or more: in 1912, Mengelberg conducted a version with two thousand musicians and singers.

Klaus Mäkelä Dmitri Shostakovich

“It was immediately clear that this first symphony by Shostakovich was the living, individual and striking work of a composer with an original approach,” said Nikolai Malko, who conducted the Leningrad premiere of Shostakovich’ Symphony No. 1.Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) celebrated the 12 May 1926, the day he heard his own symphony in the concert hall, as his second birthday. The symphony was a huge success and soon gained international recognition—the year after, the Berlin Philharmonic played it.One can hear glimpses of sources of inspiration such as Mahler and Stravinsky in the symphony, but it is a new and unmistakable composer’s voice that shines through with strong contrasts, beautiful parts, violent outbursts, humor, grotesque whimsy, and, in all things, sparkling craftsmanship.“I don't myself quite know why the quotations are there, but I could not, could not, not include them,” Shostakovich told his friend Isaak Gliman about the quotes in his Symphony No. 15. The symphony is a cornucopia of references both to the history of music and to the composer’s own work.Shostakovich wrote Symphony No. 15 in the summer of 1971. During the 45 years since his first symphony, the Soviet government had made his life difficult for periods. Towards the end of his life, he often spoke cautiously and ambiguously, even about his own music. Shostakovich has described his first movement as a toy shop with memories from childhood, a protest against death. The third movement is brisk and moody, while the first, second, and fourth movements have a more melancholic and introspective feel, like a wistful farewell to the symphonies.

Wiener Philharmoniker | Klaus Mäkelä

28-year-old Klaus Mäkelä, already chief conductor of four orchestras, has been invited by the Vienna Philharmonic. His debut tour with them includes a stop in Cologne, featuring Mahler's 6th Symphony. This powerful masterpiece, while tragic, allows for indulgence in beauty and combines otherworldly devotion with a longing for hymnic transfiguration.

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Klaus Mäkelä

There are few orchestras that can boast as long a Mahler tradition as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from Amsterdam. Even during Gustav Mahler’s lifetime, the orchestra regularly performed his symphonies and helped the composer achieve the fame he enjoys to this day. Klaus Mäkelä, who takes over as the orchestra’s chief conductor in 2027, continues this tradition with a performance of Mahler’s First Symphony. The composer wrote about his work: »It has become so overpowering – it flowed out of me like a mountain stream!« Also on the programme is Arnold Schönberg’s early work »Verklärte Nacht« for string orchestra, based on Richard Dehmel’s poem of the same name. Before Schönberg climbed to the top of the avant-garde and shocked the music world with his twelve-tone music, he wrote deeply Romantic pieces in his younger years, in which he endeavoured to unite the styles of Wagner and Brahms.