Composer

On Fancies and Goodnights, Richard writes: ‘As a curious traveller will collect objects that catch his eye, these short pieces are among the many that have caught my ear with their beauty, strangeness, and unpredictability. I have borrowed the title “Fancies and Goodnights” from a book of bewitching tales by the English writer, John Collier.’

EPSG:4326

Richard Goode piano

Wigmore Hall

Manchester Chamber Concerts Society’s concert season returns to the Stoller Hall with six world-class chamber recitals between September 2026 and March 2027.

Rising Stars Charlotte Norton Concert – Isla String Quartet

Stoller Hall, Manchester

Solo piano concert featuring works from Viennese classicism to late Romanticism

Jakob Westh

KUMUS

As reverence for nature grew under the influence of Enlightenment philosophy, so too did poetic expressions of wonder in life on Earth. Joseph Middleton is joined by Grammy Award-winning Fleur Barron and the captivating Swiss tenor Mauro Peter in a programme filled with heart-melting reflections on humankind’s relationship with the natural world and spiced with surprises, a Britten boogie-woogie and George Crumb’s haunting Processional for solo piano among them.

Fleur Barron mezzo-soprano; Mauro Peter tenor; Joseph Middleton piano

KONTRAST - Black and White

The Royal Danish Academy of Music

Conductor Kwamé Ryan returns for a program of passion, virtuosity and expansive Romantic expression. Legendary violinist Gil Shaham showcases his expressive brilliance in Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, a perfect example of the interplay between soloists and orchestra — at times in opposition to each other but always in sync. While 200 years apart, Schubert’s Ninth Symphony and Carlos Simon’s Fate Now Conquers are influenced by Beethoven’s musical legacy (including some direct quotes!). Their individual statements attest to concepts of the Romantic — vast canvases of sound, sweeping melodies and heart-pounding climaxes. 

Gil Shaham Plays Tchaikovsky

Cincinnati Music Hall

Led by Chelsea Gallo, the orchestra stacks one iconic sound on top of another, from the city energy of A Salute to the Big Apple to the cinematic sweep of Hans Zimmer’s music from Gladiator. Then it all builds to the towering grandeur of Modest Mussorgsky’s “The Great Gate of Kiev,” alongside highlights from Pictures at an Exhibition — music that feels larger than life. Plus, TFO violinist Eugeniu Cheremoush steps into the spotlight for Franz Schubert’s Rondo in A Major, bringing a lighter, elegant contrast with plenty of charm and sparkle. It’s a morning of monumental sound that fills the hall and then some.

Monumental Sounds

Ruth Eckerd Hall

Duke Energy Center for the Arts

A night of symphonic contrasts. Both Schubert and Tchaikovsky have their own unique expressive voice. Both works have memorable melodies and exciting virtuosity.

Schubert No. 3 | Tchaikovsky No. 5 – Symphony Orchestra

University of Georgia Performing Arts Center

This recital is a rare opportunity to hear Bryn up close, performing music that means a lot to him – from traditional Welsh folk tunes that echo of home to hits from musical theatre and classical lieder. His extraordinary voice will fill the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, every facet of his extraordinary instrument shining bright.

The Voice of Bryn Terfel

Sydney Opera House

Franz Schubert - Symphony in B minor D. 759 "Unfinished"; Aaron Copland - Lincoln Portrait with Hon. Bruce Harrell, speaker; Edward Elgar - Variations on an Original Theme 'Enigma'

Enigma

Town Hall

Piano recital with the young Japanese pianist Takuma Onodera, 2nd prize winner at the Aarhus International Piano Competition 2025.

Takuma Onodera – Young Japanese Piano Lion

Odense Valgmenighed

A new season begins with two of Classical music’s most epic works. Music Director Xian Zhang introduced George Li to New Jersey audiences 10 years ago and he’s since become a true local favorite, returning now for Beethoven’s heroic “Emperor” Piano Concerto. 

Mavis Staples

New Jersey Performing Arts Center

The haunting atmosphere and enchanting melodies of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 — his “Unfinished” Symphony — always cast a hypnotic spell. Why didn’t he ever complete the work? Explore this puzzling mystery as you experience Schubert’s symphony of light and shadow.

Rachmaninoff & Schubert

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

Two intense chordal strikes summon the inescapability of fate underpinning Brahms’s Tragic Overture. Unearthed from a pile of old manuscripts, Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 9 was discovered by Robert Schumann from a trunk gathering dust years after the composer’s passing. Known as ‘The Great’, Schubert’s final symphony is inspired by his love of nature and the alps.

Schubert’s Great

MediaCityUK

Memory’s power to free the imagination stands behind countless works of art, with recollections of the four seasons occupying a special status among the most potent of creative catalysts. Louise Alder, acclaimed by The Times as ‘a terrific talent, combining a big lustrous voice with flawless intonation and a keen intelligence’, and Joseph Middleton take a voyage around the cosmos of songs inspired by ever-changing seasonal landscapes, moods and states of mind.

Louise Alder soprano; Joseph Middleton piano

In a program where music evolves from work to work, all roads lead to Mendelssohn, who assimilated and combined the best of his predecessors during the midst of the Romantic era. The wit of Haydn, the strength of Beethoven, and the lyricism of Schubert all found a home in Mendelssohn’s prolific pen. Join us for an exciting journey from the elegant Age of Reason into the turbulent 19th century. 

Mendelssohn's B-minor Piano Quartet

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

In a program where music evolves from work to work, all roads lead to Mendelssohn, who assimilated and combined the best of his predecessors during the midst of the Romantic era. The wit of Haydn, the strength of Beethoven, and the lyricism of Schubert all found a home in Mendelssohn’s prolific pen. Join us for an exciting journey from the elegant Age of Reason into the turbulent 19th century.

Madison, NJ

Drew University

Bertrand Chamayou – Piano recital

Rudolfinum

The title may sound playful, but Antonín Dvořák’s Scherzo capriccioso surprises audiences with its dramatic energy, dance-like vitality, and imaginative orchestral writing – and will receive its first performance by the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. It will be followed by a work of particular significance to Chief Conductor Sir Simon Rattle: Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, To the Memory of an Angel, composed after the death of the eighteen-year-old Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius. Soloist Isabelle Faust will bring to this profoundly moving work the balance of grief, consolation, and remembrance that makes it so extraordinary. Finally, Franz Schubert’s “Great” Symphony in C major, with its epic scope, points far into the future. It represents the pinnacle of the composer’s symphonic output – and serves as the concert’s monumental conclusion.

Sir Simon Rattle & Isabelle Faust

Munich Residence

Cleverly curated programs and a spirit of artistic discovery are the hallmarks that have established Andreas Grau and Götz Schumacher as one of the most internationally renowned piano duos. Their Blaibach recital culminates in Stravinsky's groundbreaking "The Rite of Spring" – condensed primal power for piano four-hands.

GrauSchumacher Piano Duo

Blaibach Concert Hall

Celebrate an evening of lively winds and brass inspired by the warmth and festivity of Gemütlichkeit. From Bach’s intricate brilliance to the joyful dances of Schubert and the Strauss family, this program blends classical masterworks with beloved European folk tunes. Featuring favorites like Beer Barrel Polka and Ein Prosit, this concert captures the spirit of the concert hall and the beer hall alike—spirited, communal, and full of energy.

Music at Hardywood 1

Hardywood Park Craft Brewery

Young Schubert was swept away by Johann Michael Vogl’s performance as Orestes in Gluck’s Iphigenia in Tauris at Vienna’s Hofoper in 1813. They met for the first time four years later, beginning a creative friendship that inspired Schubert to write some of his greatest songs, Erlkönig and Ganymed among them. James Newby recalls the composer’s debt to Vogl with a programme that reveals the profound depth and enduring legacy of their collaboration.

James Newby baritone; Joseph Middleton piano

Monday Lunchtimes 2026

Royal Northern College of Music

The extensive concert program presents itself with dazzling diversity and a variety of formats. The Zurich Opera Orchestra, in full force, will perform in seven Philharmonic Concerts, alternating between the Opera House and the Tonhalle. Internationally renowned soloists and guest conductors will dedicate themselves to major works from Beethoven to Strauss, as well as fascinating discoveries from the concert repertoire. A special highlight is the Prokofiev Cycle, created in collaboration with the Tonhalle Orchestra. 

2nd Chamber Concert

Opernhaus Zürich

This project is a meditation on sound and silence, solitude and communion, love and loss, explored through the intertwined narratives of Yasuna, one of the great kabuki plays dating back to 1818, and Schubert’s iconic Winterreise, conceived a decade later in 1827.

Fleur Barron mezzo-soprano; Suleiman Suleiman dancer; Jong Sun Woo piano; Hibiki Ichikawa shamisen

Two eloquent champions of their respective instruments, fearless in their pursuit of engaging repertoire and fresh artistic adventures, unite for a lunchtime programme that spans an oceanwide expanse of musical styles and moods. MILOŠ sets the scene with the debonair Prelude to Mexican composer Manuel Ponce’s homage to Bach’s near-contemporary, the lutenist Sylvius Leopold Weiss, with Ksenija Sidorova’s accordion virtuosity enhancing their recital’s energy quotient with her dazzling Piazzolla reflections.

MILOŠ guitar; Ksenija Sidorova accordion

With its seductive sound, miraculous blend and spellbinding collective artistry, the Leonkoro Quartet has more than fulfilled the promise that saw it win First Prize and capture nine specialist prizes at the 2022 Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition. Its latest programme at the Hall includes a new work by Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev, whose music has been described by the Wall Street Journal as ‘brisk, exciting and unpredictable’, and Schubert’s divine ‘Rosamunde’ Quartet.

Leonkoro Quartet

Mark Padmore’s duo partnership with Jonathan Biss, hailed by Opera Today for its ‘astonishing insight and artistry’, grows from a shared desire to penetrate beneath the surface sheen of whatever they perform to reveal deep undercurrents of emotions and expressive contrasts. Their creative daring and sensitivity to poetic texts are matched to this carefully curated selection of songs by Schubert and Robert Schumann.

Mark Padmore tenor; Jonathan Biss piano

Tenor Ian Bostridge CBE joins Leeds Song Director Joseph Middleton to open our 2026–27 season with a programme of rare intensity and insight.

Long‑established as one of the most compelling interpreters of Schubert and Britten, Bostridge brings his unmistakable intellectual depth and emotional immediacy to a recital that pairs selected Schubert songs with Britten’s searing The Holy Sonnets of John Donne.

Bostridge is one of the world’s leading tenors, with an international career that spans major concert halls, opera houses and festivals. His recital appearances have taken him to Salzburg, Edinburgh, Munich, Vienna, Aldeburgh and the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, as well as Carnegie Hall, the Bayerische Staatsoper, La Monnaie and Teatro alla Scala. On the operatic stage he has earned particular acclaim for roles such as Aschenbach (Death in Venice) at the Deutsche Oper and Peter Quint (The Turn of the Screw) at La Scala.

Leeds Song: Ian Bostridge and Joseph Middleton

Leeds Conservatoire

Tenor Ben Bliss and pianist Christopher Allen launch our season with a program of irresistible breadth and warmth, drawing on the very finest of German and French song. The first half of the evening moves through the Romantic landscape with an assured and generous hand, offering Lieder by Schumann, Liszt, and Strauss — music that encompasses the intimacy of the salon, the grand sweep of Romantic longing, and the opulent, golden-voiced lyricism for which Strauss’s songs in particular have made tenors rejoice for well over a century. Bliss brings to this repertoire a voice of exceptional beauty — bright, focused, and capable of extraordinary refinement — along with a musician’s instinct for text and phrase that elevates every song he touches.

Ben Bliss & Christopher Allen

Live! At 10th & G

This programme traces a journey from momentary spring light to one of the most vivid musical imaginations of the nineteenth century. Opening with Lilli Boulanger's D'un matin de printemps, which captures the energy of a spring morning: flickering colours, dancing rhythms, and an unmistakable sense of life in motion.  A moment of intimacy follows with Schubert's Allegretto in C major, performed by Steven Osborne. Poised and lyrical, the music speaks with characteristic Schubertian warmth, balancing simplicity with emotional depth.

BBC NOW - Fantastique

Brangwyn Hall

Can Çakmur, winner of the Hamamatsu and Scottish International Piano Competitions, has harvested a heavy crop of plaudits for his revelatory Schubert+ series for BIS Records. Schubert’s 4 Impromptus D899, composed in 1827, stands at the heart of the Turkish pianist’s recital, paired with Helmut Lachenmann’s Variations on a Theme of Schubert (1956) and Liszt’s impassioned ‘Vallée d’Obermann’, among the most intense expressions of yearning ever composed.

Can Çakmur piano

RBC is proud to welcome internationally-acclaimed duo, Mark Padmore and Jonathan Biss ahead of their Wigmore Hall concert later in October.

Mark Padmore and Jonathan Biss

Royal Birmingham Conservatoire

The multi-talented Iván López Reynoso – a graduate in violin, piano, choral direction and conducting as well as an accomplished countertenor, and currently Principal Conductor at the Atlanta Opera – is equally at home with orchestras in Europe and his native Mexico.

Prokofiev. Schubert

Argentine pianist Nelson Goerner’s artistry has beguiled audiences at Wigmore Hall and other global centres of musical excellence since the early 1990s. His latest programme embraces the improvisatory freedom of JS Bach’s Toccata in C minor BWV911, with its surprising inventive twists and turns, the emotional switchback ride of Robert Schumann’s Fantasie and the passionate drama of Schubert’s Piano Sonata in C minor D958, composed in the last year of his life.

Nelson Goerner piano

Hailed for his “sweeping yet refined sentimentality and pyrotechnical prowess” (The Classical Music Journal), Michael Davidman is one of the most compelling pianists of his generation. The winner of the 2025 American Piano Awards and many other prizes, he has appeared as soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de la Garde Républicaine, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Freixenet Encuentro Symphony Orchestra, Reina Sofía Orchestra, Monterey Symphony, and other ensembles across the United States and abroad.

Michael Davidman, piano

Kaufman Music Center

The chamber concerts are a unique opportunity to experience the most intimate moments of classical music and get closer to the members of the symphony orchestra. The concerts are composed for the occasion by the musicians themselves according to personal taste and according to which works they find challenge and highlight their interplay.

Chamber Concert: String Quartet

Aarhus Music Hall

Following a sell-out performance last year, Paul Lewis returns with the next instalment of his Mozart+ series. Shining a spotlight on Mozart’s often-overlooked piano sonatas, Paul will also explore the contrasts and connections between them and the works of other composers. We’ll dive into the vocally inspired world of Chopin and Schubert, tracing threads between these pieces and Mozart’s remarkable piano music.

Mozart+ Series No.2

Yoko Ono Lennon Centre

The chamber concerts offer a unique opportunity to experience the most intimate moments of classical music and to get closer to the members of the symphony orchestra. The programs are put together for each occasion by the musicians themselves, according to personal taste and to the works they feel challenge and showcase their ensemble playing.

String Quartet

Musikhuset Aarhus

Whether collaborating with others or holding the stage as soloist, Katya Apekisheva’s pianism radiates from the kaleidoscopic range of timbres and expressive nuances she’s able to draw from her instrument. The Russian-born, UK-based pianist, praised by Gramophone as having ‘already achieved artistic greatness’, returns to Wigmore Hall with two works from Vienna, separated in time by 80 years yet both deeply infused with the spirit of Romanticism.

Katya Apekisheva piano

Music Director David Hayes opens the 2026–27 season with Mozart’s
Symphony No. 40 in G minor, a work of uncommon intensity and one of
the defining symphonies of the Classical era. Its expressive depth reveals
Mozart in a darker and more searching voice. The program continues with
J.C. Bach’s Symphony in G minor, Op. 6 No. 6, whose poise and vitality reflect
the style that so influenced the young Mozart. Closing the program is
Schubert’s Symphony No. 5 in B-flat major, a tribute to the Classical
tradition and especially to Mozart. Light in texture and rich in melody, it
shows the young Schubert writing with clarity, elegance, and unmistakable
lyricism

Mozart Symphony No. 40

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Philadelphia Film Society Center

Julia Hamos’s debut album, including Bartók’s Hungarian Peasant Songs together with works by Ligeti and Schubert, prompted Gramophone’s reviewer to praise the ‘sheer finesse, innate musicality and total commitment informing every note she plays.’ The Hungarian American artist, Sir András Schiff’s assistant at the Kronberg Academy in Germany, offers an equally satisfying lunchtime repertoire menu with her vibrant programme.

Julia Hamos piano

Zee Zee’s Piano Festival programme combines coruscating examples of the art of transcription and original compositions by Schubert and Liszt. Schubert’s C minor Piano Sonata combines the composer’s lyricism with the energy and dramatic contrasts he absorbed from the music of Beethoven. The Chinese American pianist ends with Liszt’s near-mystical vision of the Villa d’este fountains and fiendishly difficult Tarantella.

Zee Zee piano

The Danish String Quartet, known for its adventurous programming and heartfelt artistry, is joined by Johannes Rostamo in an engrossing programme. Schubert’s String Quintet in C, completed just weeks before his death in 1828, is a magical work suffused with inventive brilliance and an astonishing breadth of moods. Thomas Adès’s Wreath – for Franz Schubert, a single-movement composition commissioned by the Danish String Quartet, echoes elements of Schubert’s Quintet as it explores the complexities of existence.

Danish String Quartet; Johannes Rostamo cello

Schubert’s great song cycle, a setting of poetry by Wilhelm Müller, takes us on a winter journey that reaches deep into the soul of the lonely wanderer. Expect a compelling and moving interpretation from celebrated tenor James Gilchrist.

James Gilchrist (tenor) - Winterreise

Elisabeth Leonskaja’s recording of the complete works of Schubert stands among the finest in the catalogue. ‘No question about it,’ notes Gramophone, ‘Leonskaja’s Schubert … should provide you with a lifetime’s worth of musical nourishment.’ The esteemed Austrian pianist opens her recital with the 20-year-old composer’s Piano Sonata in B, a delightful companion to the poetic nuances of his four late Impromptus D935. Post-interval, she turns to the radiant charm and playfulness of the sonata Schubert composed during a summer visit to the spa town of Bad Gastein.

Elisabeth Leonskaja piano

Mairi McGillivray (pictured) recently completed her Master of Music in Vocal Performance at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire under the tutelage of Louise Crane, having previously gained a Bachelor of Music from University of Glasgow (one semester at State University of New York).

Lunchtime Music

The Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra’s own music director, Robert Spano, is also an accomplished pianist and composer. In this first chamber concert of the season, another star pianist, Peter Takács, joins Spano in a duet by Schubert, the Fantasie in F minor. This captivating program bridges the classical elegance of Haydn’s Variations in F minor and Capriccio with the profound depth of late Beethoven, featuring his sublime Bagatelles and the monumental final Piano Sonata No. 32 in C minor. A special highlight of the performance includes a rare, collaborative four-hands piano rendition of Spano’s own moving composition, Benedictus.

 Haydn, Schubert, and Beethoven

Kimbell Art Museum

Some of the most searching music is of the diminutive kind. Tonight's program follows one such thread: Bach's intimate concerto for nine strings and continuo, Ravel's orchestral arrangement of his piano hommage, Christina Courtin, who's giant-proof, and our dear Schubert, another songwriter, who shows that our need for grand finales may be well overstated.

Giant-Proof

Ithaca College

From supernatural imagery and unsettling feelings of desire to the hope in darkness of Blondel zu Marien and the deathbed scene of Abschied von der Erde, Ema Nikolovska’s recital probes a nocturnal world of shadows and complex emotions. The mezzo-soprano, an alumna of Deutsche Oper Berlin’s renowned Opera Studio, is joined by Jonathan Biss, ‘a natural musical poet’, according to Gramophone.

Ema Nikolovska mezzo-soprano; Jonathan Biss piano

Bach, Schubert, Liszt

Chiaramonte Steri Palace

The light and shade between Schubert’s Moments Musicaux, his gently lilting A major sonata and emotionally intense late C minor sonata, are expertly revealed by one of the foremost pianists of our time.

Peter Donohoe (piano)

Allan Clayton and Paul Lewis marked Schubert’s birthday last season at Wigmore Hall with a performance of Winterreise deeply rooted in the work’s penetrating study of the human psyche. They turn to another great landmark of Lieder in the form of the composer’s Die schöne Müllerin, 20 songs that chart a lover’s journey from boundless hope to crushing despair.

Allan Clayton tenor; Paul Lewis piano

Four-hand recital

Johann Sebastian Bach’s timeless art, Beethoven’s readiness to demolish the boundaries of convention and the young Schubert’s debt to Beethoven provide the threads that bind Víkingur Ólafsson’s compelling programme. The superstar Icelandic pianist follows his spellbinding performances of Bach’s Goldberg Variations at Wigmore Hall in 2025, acclaimed by The Times as ‘breathtaking’ in its five-star review, with works charged with the power to beguile and, in the case of Bach’s Partita and Beethoven’s Op. 109, shock with their sheer audacity and inventive brilliance.

Víkingur Ólafsson piano

Seabourne | Glinka | Tchaikovsky | Schmidt

Imperial Baths

Pittsfield, MA

South Mountain Concerts

In recognition of its fiftieth anniversary, the world-renowned Takács Quartet was recently profiled by the New York Times and featured on the cover of Strad magazine. The Takács released two anniversary-season albums in 2025 for Hyperion Records to glowing reviews. In August 2025, for Musica Viva in Australia, the ensemble performed a new work, Sonnet of an Emigrant, for quartet and narrator by Cathy Milliken with texts by Bertolt Brecht.

Takács Quartet

Tippet Rise Art Center

Called “the most dynamic duo of this generation” (San Francisco Classical Voice) and “rock stars of the classical music world" (Miami Herald), Greg Anderson and Elizabeth Joy Roe work in sync to unearth the essence of each piece they play from their genre-transcending repertoire, testing the boundaries of their instrument. That special alchemy immediately captivates audiences all over the world.

Anderson & Roe

You can simply go to a concert at the Philharmonie, spontaneously, during your lunch break – and with free admission: every Wednesday at 13:00 between September and June. The programme lasts 40 to 50 minutes: chamber music, piano works or a percussion duo – everything from Tchaikovsky to tango. Members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Karajan-Akademie regularly perform, as well as guests from the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Berlin music conservatories. As can be expected at a lunch concert, catering is available from 12 noon until shortly before the concert begins.

Lunch concert

Berliner Philharmoniker

The jury was unanimous: the 2025 Music Prize of the German Economy goes to the young baritone Jonas Müller! Born in Lower Bavaria in 1999, Müller could celebrate not only the € 15,000 award but also his debut concert at Lucerne Festival. He impressed with an intelligent program that, as the jury noted, was “marked by authenticity and seriousness.” He follows the same principle in his Lucerne recital. Under the theme “Somewhere in the World,” he sings of longing for faraway places and for home, of dreams of love and of solitude — with settings by Franz Schubert and Robert Schumann, Gustav Mahler and Hanns Eisler. From Eisler, he performs six songs from the Hollywood Songbook: his contribution to this summer’s theme, “American Dreams.” Jonas Müller has already won numerous prizes, including as a duo with his piano partner Anna Gebhardt. Since the fall of 2025, the student of Christian Gerhaher has been a member of the Opera Studio of Oper Frankfurt, where he made his debut as Guglielmo in Mozart’s Così fan tutte. The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung praised him for “vocal elegance and a fine touch of comedy.”

Jonas Müller | Anna Gebhardt

Lukaskirche Lucerne

It’s not often you get to hear music written for two pianos – or rarer still, four hands playing the same piano. You need two musicians totally in synch, so deeply connected that they know each other’s every thought and gesture.

Lucas & Arthur Jussen in Recital

The Edinburgh Festival Chorus performs with a team of first-rate soloists and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of their former Chief Conductor Donald Runnicles, who is credited as making the orchestra sound ‘explosively alert’ (The Scotsman).

Mahler’s Das klagende Lied

Usher Hall

Acclaimed for their ‘beautifully integrated sound’ (The Herald), the musicians of the Gringolts Quartet create a lively dialogue between compositions from different eras. Their Festival recital celebrates György Kurtág’s centenary by interweaving three of his exquisitely crafted compositions with the final quartet of one of his heroes, Franz Schubert.

Gringolts Quartet

The Queen's Hall

Trio Azura has quickly emerged as one of today’s most promising young ensembles, praised by Gramophone for its “intelligence and imagination” and “profound emotion.” Formed in 2022 at the Colburn School, where they are ensemble in residence, the trio studies with Jonathan Brown, Martin Beaver, Clive Greensmith, and Fabio Bidini. The members of Trio Azura were named winners of the 2025 Young Concert Artists Susan Wadsworth International Auditions and appointed YCA Jacobs Fellows, becoming YCA’s first ensemble in residence.

Trio Azura

Warm, early works by Schubert and Brahms open and close this season’s penultimate program, providing a rich setting for the centerpiece of the evening: the world premiere—by pianist Juho Pohjonen, violinist John Storgårds, and cellist Anssi Karttunen—of a Festival-commissioned piano trio by Magnus Lindberg, hailed as “one of the major voices of 21st-century composition” by The Times.

Schubert & Brahms

Lensic Performing Arts Center

Grammy Award-winning pianist Víkingur Ólafsson performs Bach keyboard pieces and Beethoven sonatas.

Víkingur Ólafsson plays Bach & Beethoven

Béla Bartók’s The Miraculous Mandarin captures the raw, gritty pulse of the modern metropolis. The action unfolds in a seedy den where a young woman lures passersby inside. But instead of finding the pleasure they came for, they are quickly overpowered and robbed by her accomplices — until a mysterious stranger, the Mandarin, falls into the trap . . . The world premiere in 1926 caused such an uproar in Catholic Cologne that the mayor — none other than the future German chancellor Konrad Adenauer — banned the work outright. Bartók then prepared a concert version, though he was never happy with it. “This work is a pantomime with music; both elements should be performed together,” he wrote in the score.

Budapest Festival Orchestra | Eva Duda Dance Company | Iván Fischer | Elisabeth Leonskaja

KKL Luzern Concert Hall

A true legend will take the stage with the Budapest Festival Orchestra. The grande dame of the piano, the “priestess of art,” Elisabeth Leonskaja, who won the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) in 2020, used to perform in duo with Sviatoslav Richter while conquering the world’s most prestigious concert halls. This time, she will perform one of Mozart’s most popular and grandiose piano concertos, and the only one concluding in a minor key. This piece will be framed in a special manner. The concert will open with music by Schubert, who, in addition to inventing the genre of German songs – writing more than 600 of them –, after six symphonies arrived at an entirely new orchestral language, even if the piece ultimately remained unfinished. Relationships between men and women will take center stage after the intermission. The music of Bartók’s pantomime, The Miraculous Mandarin, will come to life through a storyline that explores questions of body and soul.

Tour: Lucerne Festival Leonskaja, Eva Duda Dance Company, Fischer

KKL Lucerne

Alfred Brendel was a much-loved performer at the Edinburgh International Festival for 40 years. His former student, Paul Lewis, reflects Brendel’s influence through his ‘unshowy, deeply considered interpretations,’ (The Times). Now a leading pianist of his generation, Lewis has described Brendel as an ‘endless source of inspiration’.

Paul Lewis

Cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason and pianist Makoto Ozone join the Kleio Quartet for this unusual programme.

Kleio Quartet, Makoto Ozone & Sheku Kanneh-Mason

Following their performances of Schubert’s song cycles Die schöne Müllerin on August 16 and Schwanengesang on August 17, baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist Simon Lepper mark their final appearance of the season with perhaps the pinnacle of the art-song repertoire: Schubert’s mournful and achingly beautiful Winterreise, which the composer said he liked “more than any of my other songs.”

Benjamin Appl & Simon Lepper Recital

New Mexico Museum of Art

This thrilling program centers on piano duets by Schubert, Rachmaninoff, and György Kurtág, which are performed here by award-winning pianists Kirill Gerstein and Katia Skanavi. The duo is joined by New York Philharmonic Associate Principal Percussionist Daniel Druckman and Mike Truesdell for Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, a work that was wonderfully innovative (for its unusual instrumentation and wide range of influences) when Bartók premiered it alongside his pianist wife in 1938.

Bartók & Rachmaninoff

An afternoon concert at Oscarshall on Bygdøy presented in two parts, one in the Salon and one in the Dining Room, with the audience switching halls after the intermission. Programme includes works by Purcell, Dowland, Lawes, Mertz, Schubert, Sor, Falla, Barroso and Mozart.

Oscarshall

Our Rising Stars programme invites outstanding up-and-coming performers to The Queen’s Hall stage. They perform alongside their internationally acclaimed mentors, soprano Louise Alder and pianist James Baillieu. The new recruits for 2026 curate and perform the repertoire for the first half of the concert.

Rising Stars of Voice with Louise Alder

Steven Osborne has described Alfred Brendel’s recordings as ‘one of the formative influences of my childhood’. In this tribute to the great pianist, Osborne – acclaimed for his ‘musical intelligence and reflective grace’ (The Herald) – pairs late works by Brendel’s beloved Franz Schubert with short contemporary compositions.

Steven Osborne

Join us on a musical journey along the river of all rivers, the Danube! On 17 August, we're back at Gamle Logen for a colourful evening. Well-known and beloved works such as Schubert's Piano Quintet in A major, known by the nickname 'The Trout', and Bartók's Romanian Folk Dances are among the pieces you can expect to hear this evening. Chamber music at its very best, in other words!

Reise langs Donau

Gamle Logen

For the second of their three appearances this season, baritone Benjamin Appl and pianist Simon Lepper perform Schubert’s profoundly moving, posthumously assembled and published song cycle Schwanengesang (Swan Song). To open the program, pianist Kirill Gerstein, violinist William Hagen, and cellist Peter Stumpf play one of Beethoven’s most extraordinary works: the groundbreaking Archduke Trio, written toward the end of the composer’s famous “heroic” era.

Beethoven & Schubert

In the first of their three appearances this season, baritone Benjamin Appl—who was one of legendary German baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau’s final students and who's been called “the most promising of today’s up-and-coming song recitalists” by the Financial Times—and acclaimed pianist Simon Lepper perform a crown jewel of the piano-vocal repertoire: Schubert’s landmark song cycle Die schöne Müllerin. The program also includes Schubert’s final chamber work, the monumental Cello Quintet, which was completed two months before the composer died at age 31 but wasn’t publicly performed until more than two decades later.

All Schubert

Hailed by New York Classical Review for her “enchanting” performances, the Swiss-French clarinetist Yasmina Spiegelberg is the laureate of several international and national competitions, including the Rotary International Competition Madrid Velazquez, the Frances Walton Seattle Competition, and the USC Concerto Competition. She is an alum of Ensemble Connect, the resident ensemble of Carnegie Hall, and has appeared at Avaloch Farm Music Institute, the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Caramoor, Chelsea Music Festival, GatherNYC, Madison Square Garden, North Country Chamber Players, Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Rocket City New Music, Tanglewood, TIME:SPANS Festival, and Yellowbarn.

Yasmina Spiegelberg, clarinet; Eleni Katz, bassoon; David Byrd-Marrow, horn; Alexi Kenney, violin; Yura Lee, violin; Natalie Loughran, viola; Oliver Herbert, cello; Nina Bernat, bass

Composer

Franz Schubert

Events

Upcoming events

Oct 12 - Dec 14, 2026

Monday Lunchtimes 2026 · Royal Northern College of Music

Oct 17 - Dec 12, 2026

Madison, NJ · Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center

3 - 6 Nov, 2026

School Concert: In Search of Sunshine · Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Nov 6, 2026

Leeds Song: Mary Bevan and Joseph Middleton · Leeds Conservatoire

Nov 6, 2026

Jean-Guihen Queyras, cello, with Alexandre Tharaud, piano · The Royal Conservatory of Music

Past events

Nov 2, 2026

Richard Goode piano · Wigmore Hall

Nov 2, 2026

Rising Stars Charlotte Norton Concert – Isla String Quartet · The Stoller Hall

Future and recently performed repertoire

Violin in Duo for Violin and Cello (1925) by Schulhoff

Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden

About

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