With Samuel Lee at the helm, we are transported from Tanaka's life-affirming waters through the city's changing moods to Dvořák's beloved ninth. 


Young South Korean conductor Samuel Lee, winner of the prestigious Malko Competition 2024, is a guest at the MSO in a program that explores different aspects of our life on earth.

From the New World

Malmo Live Concert Hall

Join us as sweet sounds and stories are woven together with award-winning soloist Kathrin Lorenzen. 

Inspired by a rose perfume, Karen Tanaka created the ethereal veils of sound in Rose Absolute, which are followed by the pearly grace of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 with pianist Steven Osborne at the keyboard. In Symphony No. 4 , Gustav Mahler promises heavenly delights with bells and cheerful flutes and naive verses taken from Des Knaben Wunderhorn . Kathrin Lorenzen sings of dancing with angels and richly laid tables with delicacies from the heavenly garden.

Mozart & Mahler

Let yourself be captivated by the suggestive repetitions that shape this minimalist-inspired evening. Philip Glass borrowed three songs from the 50th anniversary album Low, David Bowie’s experiment with pop in classical forms, and further developed them into the powerfully minimalist Symphony No. 1. The concert also coincides with David Bowie’s 80th birthday.

Philip Glass & Bowie

Malmo Live Concert AB

Take a journey through the City of Angels with works by Arvo Pärt, Karen Tanaka, and Caroline Shaw. Jessica Cottis conducts MSO in a programme dedicated to Los Angeles

EPSG:4326

Arvo Pärt & Los Angeles

Malmö Concert Hall

Continuing Education Piano Recital

San Francisco Conservatory of Music

Pianist and composer Mikael Darmanie performs an eclectic program showcasing the musical perspectives that have most influenced his own, from Olivier Messiaen, Robert Schumann and Alexander Scriabin to Erykah Badu. Darmanie says, “At first glance it’s giving music-streaming-app-playlist-on-shuffle vibes, but at its core, it represents the intersection of two disparate systems: the eclecticism of today’s algorithmic based society and the indifference of nature.”

Mikael Darmanie, piano

Kaufman Music Center

Continuing Education: Piano Repertory and Exploring the Music of Karen Tanaka

Continuing Education: Piano Repertory Recital

Manhattan School of Music’s public programs are made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Lives of the Piano: The Piano and Rhythm

Manhattan School of Music

In Verse of Light, the trumpet stands up for human creativity in the struggle between the analog and the digital. The work was written for MSO’s honorary artist Håkan Hardenberger by the orchestra’s Composer in Association, Karen Tanaka.

Season Opening – Brabbins & Prokofiev

Prokofiev remained hopeful about the future even as the Second World War raged. In his Symphony No. 5, he celebrates the strength of the human spirit through vibrant playfulness and ethereal melodies. But when Chief Conductor Martyn Brabbins first takes the podium to open the season, he does so in the company of the legendary Don Juan — the elegant bon vivant at the heart of a surging tone poem that became the 24-year-old Richard Strauss’s breakthrough as a composer.

Brabbins & Prokofiev

A concert filled with brilliant virtuosity and symphonic splendor awaits as Emilia Hoving leads the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in a program that ranges from raw folk pulse to orchestral grandeur. Béla Bartók’s Dance Suite opens with its colourful cityscapes and rhythms from Central Europe, before trumpet master Håkan Hardenberger takes the stage in Karen Tanaka’s newly written Trumpet Concerto – a work filled with sparkling technical power. After the intermission, the evening culminates in Camille Saint-Saëns’ monumental Organ Symphony , where orchestra and organ together build a sound cathedral of majestic energy.

Hardenberger in Tanaka’s trumpet concerto

Berwaldhallen

With Finlandia, the young Sibelius inspired courage in the Finnish national spirit. Symphony No. 6 reflects the older composer’s more contemplative voice, unfolding in the Dorian mode, poised between minor and major.

Karen Tanaka

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 3, 2026

Season Opening – Brabbins & Prokofiev · Malmö Symphony Orchestra

Sep 5, 2026

Brabbins & Prokofiev · Malmö Symphony Orchestra

25 - 26 Sep, 2026

Hardenberger in Tanaka’s trumpet concerto · Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Apr 1, 2027

Sibelius & Tanaka · Malmö Symphony Orchestra

Past events

Apr 30, 2026

From the New World · Malmö Symphony Orchestra

Mar 12, 2026

Mozart & Mahler · Malmö Symphony Orchestra

About

Karen Tanaka hasn't added a bio