LEONIDAS KAVAKOS & ENRICO PACE

Herbert Blomstedt & Leonidas Kavakos

Herbert Blomstedt & Leonidas Kavakos

David Robertson & Leonidas Kavakos

Bernhard Lang’s musical language is characterized by unpredictability and intuition, and is exemplified in his latest orchestral piece: GAME 18 Radio Loops, which utilizes station identification signals from the BBC, BR, Deutsche Welle Köln, Radio Kiev, Radio Beijing, Radio Moscow, and Radio Warsaw. The Second Violin Concerto by Korean composer Unsuk Chin creates a labyrinthine soundscape. It was written for Leonidas Kavakos as a portrait of a musician glowing with intensity and simultaneously playing flawlessly with absolute focus. Finally, the BRSO engages with Philippe Manoury’s spatial sound composition Anticipations, in which a group of musicians who are moving around confronts the stationary musicians onstage: “Sometimes the music seems to come from far away, sometimes it seems to freeze,” says Manoury, “as if in a hallucination.”

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Leonidas Kavakos / Alan Gilbert

Smetana, Martinů, Dvořák: Alan Gilbert’s programme for the final concert of the 2023/2024 season brings together rousing music by three Czechs, two of whom made a career in the USA at the end of their lives – an evening of successful cultural transfer between Europe and America.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Leonidas Kavakos / Alan Gilbert

Smetana, Martinů, Dvořák: Alan Gilbert’s programme for the final concert of the 2023/2024 season brings together rousing music by three Czechs, two of whom made a career in the USA at the end of their lives – an evening of successful cultural transfer between Europe and America.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Leonidas Kavakos / Alan Gilbert

Smetana, Martinů, Dvořák: Alan Gilbert’s programme for the final concert of the 2023/2024 season brings together rousing music by three Czechs, two of whom made a career in the USA at the end of their lives – an evening of successful cultural transfer between Europe and America.

Season Opening: Leonidas Kavakos / Yo-Yo Ma / Emanuel Ax

If the term all-star team applies to one line-up, then it’s this one: violinist Leonidas Kavakos, cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Emanuel Ax are among the greatest in their respective fields – and are a force to be reckoned with as a trio. The Washington Post raved about the musical chemistry of their interaction as »almost supernatural«. For the opening of the Elbphilharmonie season, the three of them take to the stage of the Grand Hall, which they easily fill with their luxurious sound and concentrated charisma. On the programme: seemingly symphonic trios by Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven. Since their first encounter in 2014 at the Tanglewood Festival in the US, the three superstars have appeared together many times, and have released two albums with arrangements of his Symphonies Nos. 2, 5 and 6. »The fullness of sound here almost makes you forget that it’s not a large orchestra playing,«, marvelled Rondo magazine. The Archduke Trio, which Beethoven dedicated to his aristocratic patron and music lover, the Habsburg Archduke Rudolph, and a trio arrangement of his Sixth Symphony will now be performed in the Elbphilharmonie. The Trio in C major by Johannes Brahms was composed at almost the same time as his Second Piano Concerto. The piano part in the trio is also extremely virtuosic and soloistic, while the violin and cello become a miniature orchestra, but of course also appear as soloists repeatedly themselves. Yo-Yo Ma is looking forward to the concert: »We tend to put people in categories: soloists, chamber musicians, orchestral musicians and so on. Such pigeonholing prevents creativity and fruitful collaboration. That’s why we’re returning to a basic principle of music – interaction between friends who want to do something together.«

Kavakos & Fujita

»Ecstatic screams from the audience, standing ovations« was how the Tagesspiegel described Mao Fujita’s DSO debut in April 2023. Fujita’s god is Mozart. One music track from his ›Mozart Reworked‹ CD made it all the way to the top on Apple Music’s ›Piano Chill Playlist‹; his recording of all the piano sonatas has been enthusiastically received by the critics. A real discovery.

Honeck, Kavakos · Auerbach, Korngold, Beethoven