Concert conducted by Alfonso Caiani

Teatro Malibran

Get ready to experience the thunderous power and sheer spectacle of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana—a work that has captivated audiences for generations, from the unforgettable opening of “O Fortuna” to its celebrations of spring, love, fortune, and revelry. This production brings together a full chorus directed by Julie Noeson, a live orchestra conducted by Bill Cocca, a children’s choir directed by Onna Hacker, and choreography by Anna Krzemien. Featured soloists include Lydia Herren, Kimberly Merrill, Colleen Brecker, Ky Van Hoef, and Tyler Huk. Carmina Burana promises an experience that is powerful, exhilarating, and completely alive.

EPSG:4326

Carmina Burana

Gowanda Hollywood Theater

The season begins with music driven by rhythm, voice, and collective force. Experience Orff’s Carmina Burana in a new chamber orchestration that heightens its raw, percussive energy, alongside Tarik O’Regan’s Critical Mass. A powerful contemporary mass created around his Agnus Dei first sung at the 2023 Coronation of King Charles III in Westminster Abbey, it is shaped by texts that move from anger and forgiveness to light, belief, and peace. A world premiere by GRAMMY Award–winning composer Starr Parodi adds a spark of discovery to this bold opening night.

Orff's Carmina Burana

Segerstrom Center for the Arts

O Fortuna! Two words, a few notes, and an entire hall holds its breath. Composed in 1937 by Carl Orff to medieval Latin and Middle High German poems, Carmina Burana is one of the most frequently performed choral works in the world. A celebration of fortune, love, and the pleasures of life, it summons an orchestral and choral energy of extraordinary magnitude. For this production, director Anne Lopez imbues the stage with a powerful scenic vision, enhanced by Mathieu Cabanes' lighting. Conductor Roderick Cox leads the Orchestra and Chorus of the Opéra Orchestre national Montpellier Occitanie, joined by the young voices of Opéra Junior and the Goyang Festival Choir from South Korea. Two hundred artists on stage, all dedicated to the same score. An event worthy of the work: total, collective, unforgettable.

Carmina

Le Corum

Join the National Youth Choir of Scotland for a landmark 30th anniversary celebration alongside the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

NYCOS 30th Anniversary Gala Concert: Carmina Burana

Usher Hall

Time stands still, and the whole world holds its breath as the great moments of sport unfold – both in reality, on the big screen and on the TV screen.

Sports in Symphony

DR Koncerthuset

To celebrate its 30th anniversary, the National Youth Choir of Scotland returns to Carl Orff’s iconic Carmina Burana. This exhilarating cantata, famous for its dramatic opening O Fortuna, sets 24 medieval poems alive with rhythm, colour and vivid storytelling.

NYCOS 30th Anniversary: Carmina Burana

Perth Concert Hall

Summer 2026 Concert

Davies Symphony Hall

Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy begins with a dramatic piano solo, performed by the festival’s director, before Cristian Măcelaru takes up the baton. The Vienna Singverein delicately enters and everyone rises together to the anthemic conclusion.

Grafenegg: Beethoven and Orff with Cristian Măcelaru

Grafenegg Wolkenturm

The passionate sounds of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana are back to light up the Arena di Verona An unmissable lyrical/symphonic date with the Arena Orchestra and Chorus at their best.

Arena di Verona

Circus Maximus

Join us for a very special evening of music featuring the premiere of “To Champion Our Future” by composer Mark Surovchak, commissioned in honor of Morrie Brand and made possible through generous community support recognizing his extraordinary musical contributions.

Summer Wind Ensemble Concert

Seton Hill Performing Arts Center

“The Final Frontier” propels our American Adventures season beyond earthly borders, charting a course through music inspired by the boundless pull of the stars. The journey ignites with Strauss’ iconic opening of Also Sprach Zarathustra,” instantly recognizable from the infamous opening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, before soaring into John Williams’ cinematic worlds, from the wonder of E.T. and Star Wars to the triumphant theme from Superman. James Horner’s Apollo 13 selections and Holst’s relentless “Mars” conjure both the peril and majesty of space exploration. Broadway anthems like “The Impossible Dream” and “Bring Him Home” will be brought to life by vocalist Devin DeSantis, alongside nostalgic favorites from Star Trek, The Flintstones, and The Jetsons, rounding out an evening that blends spectacle, adventure, and heartfelt aspiration—reminding us that the spirit of exploration lives as much within us as it does among the stars.

Topilow Pops: The Final Frontier

Riverwalk Center

Singen mit Sir Simon

Circus-Krone-Bau

Turniergebäude

It was his involvement with musical theater, music education, and his turn to historical music that led Carl Orff to his "archaic" compositional style. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he looked back and led the audience of Carmina Burana into a world of medieval songs from the 11th to 13th centuries, in which people were not afraid to attack the church and society and to praise sensual and depraved life. The evocative power of the rhythm in the music, the extraordinary use of instruments, and the declamatory vocal style have lost none of their gripping urgency to this day.

Carmina burana

Gewandhaus

A Tsar, wanting to have his photograph taken has no idea he’s surrounded by conspirator’s planning his assassination. And a young woman, who can outsmart anybody – even a King.

The Tsar wants his Photograph taken / The Clever Woman

Oper Frankfurt

O Fortuna, you are changeable as the moon. Thus begins and ends Carl Orff's most famous work, in which he reflects on the fleeting nature of fortune and the inescapable cycle of human destiny. Carmina Burana, an anthology of medieval songs, celebrates the beauty of spring, pays homage to life, and extols the power of love. With his music for these texts, Orff provides the foundation for a sensual Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), deliberately placing the staging in the hands of directors and choreographers. Music, song, and dance are inextricably linked, and so the Spanish choreographer Alba Castillo and the dance company invite their colleagues from music theater, orchestra, and choir to a shared exploration of happiness, prosperity, love, and their transience.

Theater Osnabrück

Orff's "Carmina Burana" – 4th Subscription Concert of the Berlin Philharmonic Choir

Berliner Philharmonie

The season reaches a thrilling climax as Andreas Delfs leads the RPO, the Rochester Oratorio Society, Bach Children’s Chorus of Rochester, and powerhouse soloists in Carl Orff’s electrifying Carmina Burana—a choral spectacle of fate, fortune, and unrelenting rhythm. The program opens with Pacho Flores performing Roberto Sierra’s stunning trumpet concerto Salseando. Don’t miss this astonishing finale, where voices and orchestra unite in one of the most exhilarating masterpieces of all time!

RPO: Season Finale – Carmina Burana

Eastman Theatre

The season reaches a thrilling climax as Andreas Delfs leads the RPO, the Rochester Oratorio Society, a children’s choir, and powerhouse soloists in Carl Orff’s electrifying Carmina Burana—a choral spectacle of fate, fortune, and unrelenting rhythm. The program opens with Pacho Flores performing Roberto Sierra’s stunning trumpet concerto Salseando. Don’t miss this astonishing finale, where voices and orchestra unite in one of the most exhilarating masterpieces of all time!

Season Finale: Carmina Burana

As the first of a trilogy of cantatas, Orff’s irreverent Carmina Burana draws from a 13th century compilation of vagabond songs and poems detailing fate’s fickleness, pagan delights, and corruption, with hypnotic sensuality and powerful rhythms. Hindemith’s reworked Symphonic Dances emerged from a discarded ballet collaboration.

Kleinhans Music Hall

Our Forest Theater performances begin long before the concert, with a pre-show spectacle that is part carnival, part dream.

Think Hildegard von Bingen song circles, wandering minstrels, and a wheel of fortune turning among the trees.

And this year, a rare touch of magic: a blue moon rising above the Carmel performances.
Coincidence? No. Destiny.

Forest Theater

University of California, Santa Cruz

Music as if it came from ancient times, driven by earthly forces, ancestral rhythms, original chants with universal resonances: this is how Carl Orff imagined his Carmina Burana. He chose 24 secular poems from a 13th-century collection, discovered in a Bavarian abbey, to compose a monumental stage cantata. The work opens and closes with the famous O Fortuna, a bewitching, powerful, and simply unforgettable chorus. 

Grand Théâtre de Québec

Carmina Burana remains one of the most popular and dramatic masterpieces in orchestral repertoire. Conducted by Jean-Marie Zeitouni, this towering work based on a medieval collection of poems is a must-see. Ravel’s delicate orchestration in his Suite from Daphnis et Chloé, based on a Greek novel of the same name, is a lush musical adventure full of Impressionist colour. Finally, hear an exciting new ESO commission by leading Canadian composer Julien Bilodeau.

Winspear Centre

As part of the 18th edition of Yacht&Garden, the Children’s Choir will perform a concert featuring a mix of classical, film, and musical repertoire—a series of lively and evocative pieces that blend playfulness, emotion, and imagination

Over the Rainbow

Marina Genova

The York Symphony Orchestra and Chorus concludes the season with Carl Orff’s Carmina burana. Inspired by medieval poems and codex, Carmina burana combines bold percussion with recurring vocals and vivacious harmonies. Strauss’ Wine, Women and Song captures a Viennese Waltz structure with sassy arrangements and fanfare.

Appell Center for the Performing Arts

With its shimmering orchestration and primal rhythms, Carl Orff’s “scenic cantata” Carmina burana is already a mainstay in the canon of contemporary music for choir and orchestra. Its lyrics are based on 24 Medieval poems addressing issues as familiar to us today as they were when they were first written in the 13th century — the fickleness of fortune and wealth, the ephemeral nature of life, the joy of spring’s return, and the pleasures and perils of drinking, gluttony, gambling and, of course, love.

carmina burana

Lensic Performing Arts Center

The season finale opens with a piece by Gabriela Ortiz exploring the Kauyamari, or “blue deer,” from Mexican folklore, a spiritual guide transformed through an extended pilgrimage. The concert follows with the epic Carmina Burana, a thrilling cantata by Carl Orff based on medieval poems celebrating the joys of life, love, and fortune. With its famous opening, O Fortuna, this dynamic work combines chorus, soloists, and full orchestra in a dramatic journey from fate’s cruelty to the pleasures of spring, tavern revelry, and courtly romance. Whether grand and ominous or tender and playful, Carmina Burana is an unforgettable musical spectacle—visceral, vivid, and emotionally charged. This performance promises an electrifying experience that showcases the full force of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in one of the most iconic and beloved works of the 20th century.

VSO at the Flynn: O Fortuna!

The Flynn

Based on ancestral Huichol folklore from Mexico, Grammy Award-winning composer Gabriela Ortiz’ piece explores the Kauyamari, or “blue deer”, a spiritual guide transformed through an extended pilgrimage. The concert follows with the epic Carmina Burana, a thrilling cantata by Carl Orff, based on medieval poems celebrating the joys of life, love, and fortune. With its famous opening, O Fortuna, this dynamic work combines chorus, soloists, and full orchestra in a dramatic journey from fate’s cruelty to the pleasures of spring, tavern revelry, and courtly romance. Its driving rhythms, bold harmonies, and theatrical energy have captivated audiences since its 1937 premiere. Whether grand and ominous or tender and playful, Carmina Burana is an unforgettable musical spectacle—visceral, vivid, and emotionally charged. This performance promises an electrifying experience that showcases the full force of the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in one of the most iconic and beloved works of the 20th century.

VSO: O Fortuna!

You’ve heard O Fortuna — in movies, commercials, sports stadiums. But have you felt it live, surround-sound, with over 100 voices roaring through the hall like thunder? Carmina Burana is the season finale to end all finales. It’s primal, poetic, and impossible to forget. With Ravel’s mesmerizing Bolero and Brouwer’s powerhouse Rhapsody Concerto, this is a wall-to-wall thrill ride. You’ll leave breathless, and that’s not just talk… that’s a finale ten years in the making!

The University of Akron

The MSO’s final Classics concert of the season will have us all celebrating! This program will celebrate the MSO’s 95th season, the Modesto Symphony Youth Orchestra’s 45th season, and the Modesto Symphony Orchestra Chorus’s 25th season. This finale showcases one of the most well-known pieces of the 20th century, Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. This bombastic epic combines powerful brass, rich harmonies, and the full force of the MSO Chorus.

Gallo Center for the Arts

Modesto Symphony Orchestra - Carmina Burana

Combined Bienen School choirs and the Symphonic Wind Ensemble join forces for a unique collaboration exploring music of awe, reverence, and fate. The program opens with Randall Thompson’s stirring The Last Words of David and Anton Bruckner’s monumental Mass No. 2 in E Minor. Brahms’s noble Begräbnisgesang (Burial Song) offers a moment of reflective solemnity, setting the stage for the raw energy of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana in its thrilling arrangement for chorus and wind ensemble. This unforgettable night showcases the full expressive spectrum of voices and winds from the sacred to the elemental.

Symphonic Wind Ensemble and Combined Choirs

Northwestern University

Our season concludes with this vibrant finale featuring the Columbus Symphony musicians and Chorus, and dancers from BalletMet. Dvořák’s The American Flag is a spirited blend of nationalism and folk elements that celebrates the composer’s expressions of American patriotism and freedom. Orff’s Trionfo di Afroditi is the final installment of a musical trilogy that opens with the well-known Carmina Burana. This spectacular work showcases the full power of the chorus and orchestra, explores love and beauty, and embraces the listener in its powerful climaxes.

Orff: Triumph of Aphrodite

Ohio Theatre

Carl Orff's Carmina Burana

Cape Fear Community College

Carmina!

Plaza Theatre

In the post-factual age, there are so many truths that sometimes it's no longer possible to see what is real. Was it a human who wrote this text, is it a human who is reading it now? Or is artificial intelligence at play? The simple reality check goes like this: Try a pull-up. You'll become a burden to yourself and feel your own weight. No chance? Congratulations, you are very likely a real living being. If you can invest a little more time, reflect on human passions in all their facets with Carl Orff's songs: the fickleness of happiness and prosperity, the transience of life, the joy of the return of spring. They also deal with important things like the pleasures and dangers of drinking, gluttony, gambling, and lust.

Pull-ups

Mannheimer Rosengarten

Richard Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung opens the concert with a powerful meditation on life, death, and transcendence. Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana erupts with driving rhythm, unforgettable melodies, and the combined force of Saint Mary’s College Belles Voix, South Bend Chamber Singers (with Dr. Nancy Menk directing), the Notre Dame Glee Club, Notre Dame Chorale, and the Notre Dame Children’s Choir.

Morris Performing Arts Center

The Classix Series comes to a triumphant close in the pursuit of happiness, where the program echoes with freedom, resilience, and unrelenting joy. The evening begins with Bernstein’s electrifying On the Waterfront Symphonic Suite, pulsing with cinematic drama and raw intensity. The Reno Phil will proudly unveil a newly commissioned work by Michelle Isaac, written to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The work is inspired by the story of Mary Katherine Goddard, the only woman to sign the historic document—a testament to courage, conviction, and the power of a single voice to shape history. The season reaches its grand finale with Orff’s Carmina Burana, an exhilarating choral tour de force featuring the Reno Phil Chorus and a powerhouse trio of soloists, its thunderous rhythms and ecstatic melodies transform the concert hall into a whirlwind of fate, fortune, and unrestrained joy.

Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts

Guest Concert

The Worms Theatre

Celebrate the grand finale of the season with an unforgettable evening of music! Featuring the extraordinary Krisztina Fejes, a leading artist of the Hungarian contemporary music scene, this concert will showcase her brilliant performance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor. Fejes, an award-winning pianist who has made numerous live recordings for Hungarian Radio, was honored with the Artisjus Prize for her work as a performing artist, along with prestigious accolades such as the Annie Fischer Scholarship. With roots in Transylvania, she nurtures Hungarian talent from across the border and is deeply committed to promoting Hungarian musical culture both in Hungary and around the world.

Grand Finale: Carmina Burana

The rhythmic power of Orff’s Carmina Burana is unstoppable. With its massive orchestral forces and exhilarating chorus, this cantata celebrates the wheel of fortune in all its glorious ups and downs. “O Fortuna”? You know it. And it’s going to blow you away.

Salt Palace Convention Center

After its great success in 2025, the production returns to Bonn for the second consecutive year! Who doesn't know Carl Orff 's Carmina Burana ? In this multidisciplinary production from Ukraine, all artistic disciplines merge: a large orchestra plays for the dancers and the adult and children's choirs, while video installations are played in the background. Over 135 people are involved in this evening.

Theater Bonn Opera House

Fate, Fortune, and Farrenc

Clay Center

One of the most beloved scores of the twentieth century, with soloists, orchestra, choir, and children’s choir of the Teatro Carlo Felice conducted by Tito Ceccherini

Carlo Felice Theater

"Carmina Burana" will be a breathtaking fusion of dance and circus arts, transforming the iconic 20th-century musical masterpiece into a fully captivating experience. Audiences will witness Carl Orff’s "Carmina Burana" brought to life through poetic, electrifying scenes of passion and emotional transcendence.

 Carmina Burana

Dale F. Halton Theater

Experience music that captures the full range of human emotions and celebrates the 50th anniversary of the Boise Phil Master Chorale. The program begins with Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral, an evocative and meditative journey to find healing from grief, and closes with one of the most epic orchestral and choral pieces ever written; Carmina Burana.

Morrison Center for the Performing Arts

This program captures the full range of human emotions and experiences. We celebrate the Boise Phil Master Chorale’s 50th anniversary with Carl Orff’s epic masterpiece, Carmina Burana. The program opens with Jennifer Higdon’s ethereal blue cathedral, a beautiful and meditative tribute to the human spirit, composed in the wake of her brother’s passing.

Boise State University

Robinson Center

Now things are getting exciting! Maurice Ravel characterized his orchestral work "La Valse," originally intended as a ballet and composed between 1906 and 1920, as "a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, which conjures up the impression of a fantastic and fatal whirlwind." The virtuosity of Sergei Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 3 is also almost dizzying. The composer himself played the piano part at the premiere in Chicago in 1921—and prescribed himself three hours of daily practice in preparation for this pianistic rollercoaster ride. The unpredictable wheel of Fortuna, the goddess of fate,is celebrated at the beginning and end of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana." Orff used texts from a song codex from around 1300, kept in the Benediktbeuren monastery, as the basis for a monumental series of solo and choral songs, whose archaic style, with its particular emphasis on rhythm, continues to fascinate to this day.

4th Symphony Concert

Eurogress Aachen

Carl Orff - Carmina Burana

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre

Ever wondered what it feels like to sing live at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall with Scotland’s National Orchestra? Now’s your chance to find out, in this scratch performance of Orff’s outrageously tuneful Carmina Burana – 60 minutes of life, lust and monks behaving badly!

Come & Sing Carmina Burana Participation Ticket

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

Passion, drink and roasted swans – choral music isn’t meant to be this much fun! But the medieval monks who wrote the words to Carmina Burana didn’t seem to have been that bothered. Expect great tunes, unstoppable rhythms and some thoroughly bad behaviour as the RSNO,  Chorus, and a team of local music-lovers who’ve been specially coached by RSNO Chorus Director Stephen Doughty, come together to perform Orff’s outrageous piece.

Come & Sing Carmina Burana Audience Ticket

In 2020, the National Opera in Warsaw celebrated the 55th anniversary of the reconstruction of its historic home on Teatralny Square. The ambitious project of raising the theatre from ruins was completed 20 years after the war, with the grand opening of the modernized Grand Theatre on November 19, 1965. Shortly thereafter, the Warsaw Opera ensemble, including its distinguished choir, moved in from its temporary home on Nowogrodzka Street.

Chorus Opera

Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera

Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts

Musical and choreographic event presented by Franceconcert. Orchestra, choirs and ballet. Numbered seating. Duration 1h50 with a 20-minute intermission. Recommended for ages 6 and up.

Les Arènes de Metz

Leonard Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms is a sacred work that has all the verve and rhythms of his West Side Story. Combining this with Carl Orff’s dramatic profane cantata Carmina Burana will make for a night of high octane choral singing and outstanding orchestral playing.

Perth Choral Society presents Sacred and Profane

Sold out in 2024 and seen by over 60,000 people. Experience the thunderous power of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana like never before, as 400 voices unite in majestic harmony at the Royal Albert Hall.

Royal Albert Hall

Starting and ending with the mighty hymn to the capricious Goddess Fortuna and her relentlessly turning wheel, the bold tunes and primal rhythms of Carmina Burana celebrate nature, the tavern, and the pleasures of love. It’s earthy and risqué, but sometimes also breathtakingly beautiful—like the soprano’s heaven-reaching solo—or raucous and rowdy, as the lusty drinking song, “In taberna.”

Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall

With his grand and multifaceted cantata Carmina Burana, Carl Orff created a unique gateway to classical music that has captivated new audiences since its premiere in 1937. Santtu-Matias Rouvali conducts the Oslo Philharmonic alongside soloists and choir.

Santtu-Matias Rouvali Oslo Philharmonic Choir

Oslo Concert Hall

For three performances only, Enrique Mazzola leads the celebrated Lyric Opera Orchestra and Chorus in Carmina Burana, the sweeping cantata based on 24 medieval poems. Lyric’s talented musicians bring this masterpiece to life in all its visceral dimension, from sotto voce choral staccatos to bombastic crashes of brass.

As the music envelops you, contemplate the whims of fickle fortune — or simply enjoy an extended spooky season with its lush, melancholy, and oh-so-familiar strains.

Lyric Opera House

Soundtracks from film and television like you’ve never heard them before! The constantly innovative organist Gunnar Idenstam gathers themes from Battlefield, Minecraft and Harry Potter, allowing the organ to present adventures beyond this world.

Gunnar Idenstam: Soundtrack Suites

Göteborgs Symfoniker

Carl Orff’s enormous work for orchestra, soloists, and choir sings of worldly pleasures and the ups and downs of fortune. The program begins with two contemporary classics by Michael Abels: Global Warming, which combines the music of a variety of cultures (originally written to celebrate warming international relations in 1990), and More Seasons, described by Abels as “Vivaldi in a Mixmaster.”

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

A musical and choreographic event presented by Franceconcert, one of the most celebrated masterpieces of the 20th century, composed by Carl Orff between 1935 and 1936 on a collection of lyric poems.

Antarès

Under the baton of Music Director Rolf Bertsch, this concert unites over 200 musicians for a monumental performance of Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Arts Commons

Experience the exhilarating power and passion of Carmina Burana, Carl Orff’s monumental choral masterpiece, live at the McCoy! From the thunderous “O Fortuna” to the playful and sensual movements, this work is a feast for the senses. Join the New Albany Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and guest soloists; Chelsea Hart Melcher, Robert Kerr and Daniel Stein and we spin the Wheel of Fortune!

Jeanne B. McCoy Community Center for the Arts

Carmina Burana is a musical feast for the senses. New Philharmonic is joined with the 80-voice Northwest Indiana Symphony Chorus and soloists to perform this powerful cantata of 24 poems written by medieval monks, celebrating dancing, drinking, spring, gambling and other worldly pleasures. Orff’s score is at times powerful, mysterious, hypnotic, and exotic; especially the famous chorus “O Fortuna”, widely used on film and TV, reminds us that fate will always have her say. Borodin’s captivating melodies and energetic rhythms in Polovtsian Dances, blends Russian folk elements to capture the grandeur and drama inherent in the music. * For All-in price, add $3/ticket. Add’l fees apply online.

Carmina Burana | Polovtsian Dances

McAninch Arts Center

"The extraordinary power inherent in Carl Orff's Carmina Burana , perhaps one of the world's most recognizable works of classical music, from its very first sound touches the imagination of listeners and viewers in a very direct and open way. The phrases and lyrics, set in a medieval context, yet framed by almost contemporary music, create a universal message about the laws of this world to which we are equally subject, great or small, at the dawn of life or at its end. Orff thought in music, thought in words, thought in theater. He inscribed the meaning of his work in intersecting dimensions," writes Waldemar Dąbrowski, general director of the Teatr Wielki - Polish National Opera in Warsaw, about Carl Orff's work.

Carmina Burana (The Blink of an Eye)

O Fortuna! A new season takes flight with the electrifying force of Orff’s Carmina Burana, as chorus, soloists, and orchestra come together to deliver an unforgettable surge of drama and energy. Also featuring Wynton Marsalis’s jazz-infused Concerto for Orchestra, this season-opening concert offers a thrilling fusion of classical tradition and modern innovation that will leave audiences in awe.

David Pecaut Square

Sometimes it turns faster, sometimes slower, sometimes it even stops, but then it starts moving again - the wheel of fortune knows no set tempo, the goddess Fortuna does what she wants. There is nothing that can be done about it, man must submit. This is precisely why Carl Orff once described his greatest work, Carmina Burana , as his "darkest piece". In this monumental setting of 1000-year-old texts from the library of Benediktbeuren Abbey, he laments the fleeting nature of life with an unparalleled sense of effect, but also celebrates its joys with almost uninhibited abandon: love and laughter, dancing and playing, intoxication and excess.

Cologne Philharmonie

"Everything I've written so far, and which you've unfortunately printed, you can now pulp! My collected works begin with Carmina Burana!" Carl Orff was proud of the choral work he presented to his publisher and the music world in 1937 – there's no doubt about that. He also created a magnificent opus magnum: his settings of the medieval "Songs from Benediktbeuern" soar across time yet draw on life itself. With both tender colors and ecstatic sounds, the famous work, which will be presented to audiences this year by the Gürzenich Orchestra and the Cologne Citizens' Choir under the direction of our featured artist Andrés Orozco-Estrada, tells of fate, nature throughout the year, and love and desire.

Carl Orff: “Carmina Burana”

Eberbach Abbey

“O Fortuna!” Carmina Burana’s towering first movement rolls in like thunder, announcing a celebration of spring, the delightful debauchery of nights at a tavern, and the joys and sorrows of love. Although the words were written by medieval monks, this outrageous cantata is an unstoppable force brimming with bawdy, irreverent satire on the ever-changing fate of man. The National Symphony Orchestra, two choruses, and stars of the Wolf Trap Opera come together for Carl Orff’s epic choral masterwork. The evening ends with selections of the best loved melodies from the famous opera, Carmen. Come hear Wolf Trap Opera perform the entire show on August 15th.

Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts

Join Interlochen Arts Camp's premiere wind ensemble for their weekly concert. Under the direction of Steve Davis, the ensemble will present a program of wind band classics, contemporary compositions, and orchestral transcriptions

Jerry F. Junkin conducts Carmina Burana

Interlochen Center for the Arts

Variously bombastic, playful, and heart-wrenching, Carmina Burana is a sonic tour-de-force based on a collection of medieval poems about love, life, and nature. Osmo Vänksä leads The Cleveland Orchestra in this colossal work alongside the Blossom Festival Chorus, The Cleveland Orchestra Children’s Chorus, and a roster of internationally celebrated soloists. The evening opens with a smaller, though no less epic, work — Sibelius’s En Saga, which evokes ancient folklore.

Blossom Music Center

Miller & Munich Symphony Orchestra

Brucknerhaus

2024/2025 May concert

Southwell Minster

Join CSO and Maestro Intriligator on May 10th at 7:30pm for our 70th season finale Fortune & Glory! We continue our exploration of Richard Strauss with Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks. We end the season with the grand finale, Carmina Burana by Carl Orff, featuring soprano Anna McMahon, tenor Javier Abreu, baritone Andrew Garland, and huge local choir. Presented by Cheyenne Skin Clinic.  Guest Artist Underwritten by ANB Bank, Pete & Chloe Illoway, Charla & Bob Nelson, and Bill Runyan and The Kenneth & Myra Monfort Charitable Foundation.

Fortune & Glory

Cheyenne Civic Center

Carmina Burana - songs from Beuren - is German composer Carl Orff's setting of forbidden folk poems from the 12th and 13th centuries. The almost iconic work is interpreted here by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Choir, the soprano Karolina Bengtsson, the tenor Tobias Westman and the baritone David Risberg under the direction of the Taiwanese conductor Yi-Chen Lin. In addition, Emmy Lindström's Rösaring - concerto for orchestra inspired by a wonderfully situated ancient relic from the Viking Age - will be premiered.

Carmina Burana & Emmy Lindström's Rösaring

SR Berwaldhallen

Carmina Burana - songs from Beuren - is German composer Carl Orff's setting of forbidden folk poems from the 12th and 13th centuries. The almost iconic work is interpreted here by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Choir, the soprano Karolina Bengtsson, the tenor Tobias Westman and the baritone David Risberg under the direction of the Taiwanese conductor Yi-Chen Lin.

Carmina Burana: Orchestral Series

River Center Theatre

Merrill Auditorium

Join “opening Notes” with Nathan Black, 6:30pm Philanthropy Theatre prior to the concerts for insights on the evening’s program.

Anson Mills

Experience the power and drama of Carl Orff's choral masterpiece, "Carmina Burana," brought to life by the Grand Rapids Symphony under the baton of the innovative conductor David Robertson. This captivating performance will also feature the talents of soprano Meechot Marrero, tenor Ben Gulley, baritone Blake Denson, and the Grand Rapids Symphony Chorus directed by Pearl Shangkuan. The concert will open with Revueltas's "La noche de los mayas," setting the stage for the main event, "Carmina Burana," a work celebrated for its raw energy, powerful rhythms, and vivid storytelling through medieval texts. The iconic opening chorus, "O Fortuna," is known worldwide, promising an exhilarating journey through the joys and sorrows of life.

**What to Expect:**
Prepare for an unforgettable evening as our chorus shines in one of the most famous choral works ever written. "O Fortuna" has captivated audiences across the globe, featured in TV, movies, and commercials, showcasing the universal appeal of this dramatic piece. David Robertson, renowned for his innovative approach, promises to deliver a performance that highlights the lush harmonies and contrasting moods of Orff's celebrated composition.

**Performance Dates and Times:**
- Friday, April 25, 2025, at 7:30 PM
- Saturday, April 26, 2025, at 7:30 PM

**Location:**
DeVos Performance Hall

**Tickets:**
Tickets for this must-see event are available for purchase. Don't miss your chance to be part of this musical journey that explores the essence of fate, fortune, and the human experience.

**Special Thanks to Our Sponsors:**
This concert series is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors, including the Richard and Helen DeVos Series Sponsor, the Edith I. Blodgett Guest Artist Fund, and Pearl Shangkuan, who occupies the Covenant Chair.

Join us for a night of unforgettable music and storytelling with the Grand Rapids Symphony's presentation of "Carmina Burana."

DeVos Performance Hall

Northeast Pennsylvania Philharmonic takes you a thrilling journey through the primal rhythms and epic choruses of Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana!” The power of human desire and destiny collide in a breathtaking symphonic explosion that will leave your heart pounding.

NEPA Philharmonic presents: Carmina Burana

Northeastern Pa Philharmonic

Buddy Holly Hall of Performing Arts and Sciences

Choir of the Halle Opera, Extra Choir of the Halle Opera, Singakademie Rostock, Youth Choir of the Halle Opera, Soloists, Leipzig Philharmonic Orchestra, Michael Koehler Conductor

Carmina Burana by Carl Orff

Experience the raw intensity of Carmina Burana, an exhilarating ode to fate and fortune harnessing the forces of operatic vocalists, two choirs, and a full symphony orchestra. WVSO joins forces with the Columbia Chorale, soprano Allison Pohl, tenor Jason Wickson, and baritone José Rubio for two performances of this timeless classic. 

Carl Orff

Events

Upcoming events

Jan 30, 2027

Carmina Burana with Immersive Projection Art · Asheville Symphony

18 - 20 Feb, 2027

NY Philharmonic - Rouvali Conducts Carmina burana · Brooklyn Youth Chorus

Feb 19, 2027

Kazuki conducts a Night at the Opera · City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra

Feb 27, 2027

Great Opera Choruses · Gasteig HP8

Mar 12, 2027

RSNO Season 26-27: Carmina Burana · Usher Hall

Past events

30 - 31 Oct, 2026

Concert conducted by Alfonso Caiani · Teatro La Fenice

Oct 24, 2026

Carmina Burana · Springville Center for the Arts

About

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