Sinfonia Varsovia / Pinchas Zukerman

Guest performance Sinfonia & Yearning

Sinfonia Leipzig / Knut Andreas

Whether the rousing and energetic Boléro by Maurice Ravel, the Suite from the opera »Carmen« or the Fire Dance by Manuel de Falla: the Sinfonia Leipzig under the direction of Knut Andreas sets the musical mood for spring with this special concert.

Britten Sinfonia: 1945 – A Kind of Haunting

80 years after the end of WWII, we hear musical responses from then and now.

Chris Thile and Special Guest with Britten Sinfonia

Mandolinist, singer, songwriter and composer Chris Thile is described by The Guardian as 'that rare being: an all-round musician who can settle into any style, from bluegrass to classical.'

Jacob Collier and Chris Thile with Britten Sinfonia

Grammy-winning musical phenomenon Jacob Collier will perform with a UK orchestra for the very first time in January 2025, joining forces with the 50-piece orchestra Britten Sinfonia.

Britten Sinfonia: Magnum Opus Composer Scheme 2025 Launch Concert

Enjoy three short premieres from the composers embarking on this year’s edition of Britten Sinfonia’s composer development scheme.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Kirill Gerstein / Omer Meir Wellber

Omer Meir Wellber’s conducting is »a miracle of transparency and rigour« according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Israeli conductor has held a number of posts, including chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and he will be assuming the position of general music director at the Hamburg State Opera in 2025. Those who’d like to see the globetrotter in action in the Hanseatic city before then now have their chance. The unconventional conductor – who once inserted a techno interlude into an acclaimed Verdi production at the Bavarian State Opera – gave his debut with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in 2019. And he is now back on the conductor’s stand here for the third time. As an introduction to the programme, Wellber has chosen a work that was originally conceived as incidental music for a play: Gabriel Fauré’s »Pelléas et Mélisande«. Shortly after composing it, Fauré revised his opulent music for Maeterlinck’s Symbolist fairy-tale to create an independent orchestral work. The suite featuring the famous »Sicilienne« is followed by Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, which »was written in the spirit of Mozart’s and Saint-Saënsʼs concertos,« as the composer himself emphasised. That, however, does not mean that Ravel neglected his own tonal language – he opens the concerto with a spirited lash of the whip and Spanish sounds. Jazz harmonies and rhythms then increasingly come to the foreground. The soloist tasked with performing this virtuosic score is the American pianist Kirill Gerstein – a popular guest with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra for many years now. The concert comes to a close with Franz Schubert’s Third Symphony. Schubert composed the masterpiece in just a few days when he was only 18 years old. With that level of productivity, it is no surprise that the composer, despite his early death at the age of 31, still managed to leave behind an impressive oeuvre. The theatre critic Eduard Hanslick described Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 as »a work of youth and of youth’s gleefully raucous zeal «.

Haydn-Orchester / Sarah Christian / Rida Murtada

The Haydn-Orchester Hamburg is regarded as one of northern Germany’s top amateur orchestras. Founded in 1977, Rida Murtada has occupied the position of musical director since 2003. The orchestra performs biannually at the Laeiszhalle.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Kirill Gerstein / Omer Meir Wellber

Omer Meir Wellber’s conducting is »a miracle of transparency and rigour« according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung. The Israeli conductor has held a number of posts, including chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, and he will be assuming the position of general music director at the Hamburg State Opera in 2025. Those who’d like to see the globetrotter in action in the Hanseatic city before then now have their chance. The unconventional conductor – who once inserted a techno interlude into an acclaimed Verdi production at the Bavarian State Opera – gave his debut with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in 2019. And he is now back on the conductor’s stand here for the third time. As an introduction to the programme, Wellber has chosen a work that was originally conceived as incidental music for a play: Gabriel Fauré’s »Pelléas et Mélisande«. Shortly after composing it, Fauré revised his opulent music for Maeterlinck’s Symbolist fairy-tale to create an independent orchestral work. The suite featuring the famous »Sicilienne« is followed by Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, which »was written in the spirit of Mozart’s and Saint-Saënsʼs concertos,« as the composer himself emphasised. That, however, does not mean that Ravel neglected his own tonal language – he opens the concerto with a spirited lash of the whip and Spanish sounds. Jazz harmonies and rhythms then increasingly come to the foreground. The soloist tasked with performing this virtuosic score is the American pianist Kirill Gerstein – a popular guest with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra for many years now. The concert comes to a close with Franz Schubert’s Third Symphony. Schubert composed the masterpiece in just a few days when he was only 18 years old. With that level of productivity, it is no surprise that the composer, despite his early death at the age of 31, still managed to leave behind an impressive oeuvre. The theatre critic Eduard Hanslick described Schubert’s Symphony No. 3 as »a work of youth and of youth’s gleefully raucous zeal «.

Igor Levit / Berliner Barock Solisten

When Igor Levit takes his seat at the keyboard, one thing is for sure: you’ll hear the pieces on the programme as never before. The German-Russian pianist makes his very own mark, often as unexpected as it is brilliant, on every work he plays, whisking even veteran repertoire warhorses into the here and now. In this concert Levit is accompanied by the Berliner Barock Solisten in music by two composers who can be described without exaggeration as pinnacles of music history: Johann Sebastian Bach and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The most famous of the Bach sons made a no less illustrious career for himself than his father, and was admired by fellow composers like Mozart, Beethoven and Haydn. In this cleverly thought-out programme, Levit and the Berlin ensemble create a father-son dialogue along entirely modern lines.