El Sistema National Orchestra

Danish National Symphony Orchestra / Khatia Buniatishvili / Fabio Luisi

Glamorous appearance, outstanding talent, deep artistic seriousness: star pianist Khatia Buniatishvili effortlessly combines all of these facets – and delights audiences all over the world. With Sergei Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto, she brings a work to the stage at her ProArte concert that is one of the most demanding in the Romantic piano literature. Deep emotion, dramatic outbursts, incredible virtuoso speed: »Rach 2« demands everything from its interpreters. No problem for Khatia Buniatishvili: she masters the technical and emotional demands of this Romantic masterpiece with ease. She is supported by the Danish National Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its chief conductor Fabio Luisi – who celebrates nothing less than life itself in the second half of the concert with Carl Nielsen’s enchanting Fourth Symphony – subtitled »The Inextinguishable«.

Romantic programme by the Korean National Symphony Orchestra

It will be the first time the Korean National Symphony Orchestra will perform in Amsterdam. It will offer the Dutch audience the opportunity to come together and to celebrate National Foundation Day. In South-Korea this day is celebrated with huge fireworks displays throughout the country. In Seoul, it takes place in Yeouido Han River Park and is very popular. The orchestra will bring world famous soloists from South-Korea.Bellini's aria Casta diva is one of the three well known, and virtuoso arias that star soprano Sumi Jo will perform. The long flowing lines of the melody require incredible control and expressive nuance. Tonight's instrumental repertoire also includes brilliant melodies, as in the Overture to Mozart's Zauberflöte and in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations for cello and orchestra, performed by the eighteen-year-old cello virtuoso Jaemin Han. Schumann's Fourth Symphony has a dramatic structure, in which melody lines keep returning, but played by different instruments. Slowly, a story unfolds. The opening movement sets a dramatic tone with its dark and brooding themes, while the following movements explore a range of emotions, from the lyrical Romanza to the spirited and energetic Scherzo. Conductor David Reiland is an expert in this field, as he serves as the Schumann Guest of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra.

National State Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine / Raphaela Gromes / Volodymyr Sirenko

The celebrated young cellist Raphaela Gromes and the National State Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine had planned their joint concerts, which kicked off in Kyiv, in the hope that peace would come soon. Now the war is still raging, making the concerts, which feature two of Antonín Dvořák’s most beautiful works and an overture by Mozart’s Russian-Ukrainian contemporary Dimitrij Bortnjanski, all the more a mission of peace. »I was deeply impressed by the solidarity of the Ukrainians, by their incredible courage and will to fight staunchly for freedom and democracy,« said Raphaela Gromes after her performance in Kyiv in December 2023. In Dvořák’s Cello Concerto she is accompanied by the National State Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine under the baton of long-standing chief conductor Volodymyr Sirenko, who have seen themselves as cultural ambassadors of their homeland since the orchestra was founded. With its vocal melodies and dramatic climaxes, it offers the soloist plenty of scope for virtuoso dexterity and unbridled passion. The many famous melodies from the composer’s subsequent Ninth Symphony, »From the New World«, are sure to resonate long after the concert, carrying the hope for peace from the concert hall out into the world.

Eurasian Student Symphony Orchestra of the Kazakh National University of the Arts