Composer

Bach’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 are at the heart of this concert of classics. The program also features a pair of captivating masterworks inspired by folk dances, by Hungarian composers Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály.

EPSG:4326

Bach and Mozart Piano Classics

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Alex Nam, Piano

The Juilliard School

Embark on an electrifying journey from the vibrant plains of Argentina to the heart of Eastern Europe and beyond with the energetic Four Dances from Estancia by Alberto Ginastera, Bela Bartók's brilliantly folk-infused Dance Suite, and Stravinsky's fiery favorite, Firebird Suite.

The Firebird

Orpheum Theater

Guest performance in Dortmund | Ruhr Piano Festival

Konzerthaus Dortmund

Following their Caramoor debut in the Fall, the Poiesis Quartet returns with another program that showcases their fresh take on chamber music. Formed at Oberlin in 2022 and now based in Cincinnati, this award-winning ensemble has quickly gained national attention, with honors including the 2023 Fischoff Grand Prize and joining the Concert Artists Guild roster in 2024. Known for their rich, cohesive sound and adventurous programming, the quartet breathes new life into classical masterworks while amplifying bold, contemporary voices. Don’t miss the chance to experience one of today’s most compelling young string quartets.

Poiesis Quartet

The Rosen House at Caramoor

Experience the light and lyrical side of the BSO as Principal Oboe Katherine Needleman delights with Martinü’s rarely performed Oboe Concerto. Mendelssohn’s "Scottish" Symphony captures the charm of Scotland, while Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances brings vibrant folk tunes to life.

Mendelssohn & Needleman

Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

The Music Center at Strathmore

Five: Made In America

Valdosta State University

The Miraculous Mandarin and Music of Bates

Shermerhorn Symphony Center

Conductor Anna-Maria Helsing presents an evening of music sparkling with love’s many facets. Relive one of the greatest love stories ever told through Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet suite inspired by Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Named as “simply one of the best classical pianists working today” by The Scotland Herald, Vadym Kholodenko presents Béla Bartók’s radiant Third Piano Concerto. The late Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho’s evocative Lumière et pesanteur (Light and Gravity) scintillates with celestial beauty. Embark on an enchanted quest for love in Prokofiev’s orchestral suite for his comic opera, The Love for Three Oranges.

Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet

Orpheum

Beloved by audiences worldwide for her playing that is “fearless…tonally rich and technically immaculate” (The Guardian), violinist Lisa Batiashvili returns to the Series after her acclaimed 2023 performance alongside pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet and cellist Gautier Capuçon. Don’t miss your chance to witness an artist who effortlessly blends delicacy with intensity and lyricism with precision in a rare duo recital with Giorgi Gigashvili.

Lisa Batiashvili, violin

New England Conservatory of Music

“With desire and passion,” Tchaikovsky writes on the score of his Fifth Symphony, and he’s as good as his word: It’s a work teeming with brilliant orchestral colors, stormy emotions and a fate motif that haunts each movement. Illinois native Conrad Tao is the soloist in Bartók’s Third Piano Concerto, the composer’s beguiling love letter to his wife and his native Hungary.

Canellakis, Tao & Tchaikovsky 5

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

This concert invites you to listen to the hidden thread: how music evolved from structured dance to soulful improvisation. From the dazzling forms of Bach, through the fiery folk dances of Bartók, into the lush and liberated world of Duke Ellington. This is a story of freedom: not by abandoning the past, but by building upon it.

Structure to Freedom

Jazz, TX

Lutosławski’s fiercely intense Concerto for Orchestra is a modern classic – and one of the most powerful musical experiences imaginable in a concert hall. In this work, the orchestra itself becomes the “soloist,” as different sections are brought to the fore and given their moment to shine. Like his Polish predecessors Chopin and Szymanowski, Lutosławski drew inspiration from traditional Polish folk music – but transformed it into something entirely his own.

Concerto for Orchestra

Stockholm City Hall

Good things sometimes take time - but the wait is worth it! The last time Sir Simon Rattle was a guest at Pro Arte Frankfurt was in 2013. So it's all the better that he will be back with us in 2026. The exceptional musician will be bringing the Chamber Orchestra of Europe to his concert at the Alte Oper Frankfurt - a connection that has existed since 2021 and has thrilled audiences and the press in the past. And the renowned conductor also greatly appreciates working with this orchestra: ‘I've been fallen in love with this orchestra!’ What beautiful words! Together, they embark on a joyful journey of discovery into the soundscapes of a Romantic and modern repertoire: after works by Bartók and Busoni, this concert culminates in Johannes Brahms' Fourth Symphony, a composition that opened the door to the musical future at the time. A great human and compositional maturity speaks from these sounds and is therefore in the best of hands with Sir Simon Rattle and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. (Pro Arte Frankfurt)

Chamber Orchestra of Europe

Alte Oper

"May the day be lost to us on which there was not a single dance!" Friedrich Nietzsche already expressed this sentiment – ​​and so we gladly gather under the choreographic direction of Juraj Valčuha for several playful, melodious dances of joy on our instruments. The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók found much inspiration for this during his beloved "folk song collecting trips." His suite was composed in 1923 for the 50th anniversary of the unification of Buda, Óbuda, and Pest into the new capital, Budapest. This large-scale orchestral work, featuring plenty of percussion, celesta, and piano, contains a whole series of dances – sometimes elegiac, sometimes stamping, sometimes cheerful, and culminating in a triumphant celebration of joie de vivre. 

Juraj Valčuha, Frank Peter Zimmermann

Bamberger Symphoniker

One of the most accomplished violinists of her generation, Lisa Batiashvili performs works by Beethoven, Bartók, Franck, and fellow Georgian Ioseb Bardanashvili, with her compatriot, pianist Giorgi Gigashvili.

Described by The Times as “the complete musician,” Batiashvili commands her place among the world’s foremost artists with performances of great insight and expressive eloquence. The German-based violinist, named Musical America’s 2015 Instrumentalist of the Year, an accolade reserved for artists of the highest calibre, also stands among the winners of Italy’s prestigious International Accademia Musicale Chigiana Prize.

Lisa Batiashvili, violin, with Giorgi Gigashvili, piano

The Royal Conservatory of Music

Sir Simon Rattle and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe: Since their first collaboration in 2020, they have been a dream team – the international orchestra has now elevated the star conductor to honorary membership. Their second joint Elbphilharmonie concert puts the orchestra at the center of attention with a rhythmic fireworks performance by Bartók and the sonority of Brahms' Fourth Symphony.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe / Sir Simon Rattle

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Sir Simon Rattle, much honored!, is one of the truly brilliant musical personalities of our time. This conductor, who always inspires those around him, is characterized by verve, seriousness, and emphasis, as well as his refreshingly unbridled enthusiasm for music.

Chamber Orchestra of Europe | Sir Simon Rattle

Museum Ludwig

Carion Wind Quintet is an award-winning Danish-Latvian ensemble which brings a truly unique and innovative chamber music experience to audiences. Carion fascinates audiences with its carefully choreographed and dramatized performances of classical and modern works, making music on stage visible and adding a new dimension of traditional concert events.

Carion Wind Quintet

Presidio Theatre Performing Arts Center

War Memorial and Performing Arts Center

Lesher Center for the Arts

Composed during his final illness before death, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is considered his last masterwork, filled with brilliant, virtuosic writing that challenges each section of the orchestra. Debussy’s La mer is an impressionist masterpiece that captures the sea’s shifting moods–from calm to turbulent–with vivid, atmospheric sound. 

Virtuosic Soundscapes

Alice Pratt Brown Hall

Edward Lee, Viola

Lidiya Yankovskaya returns to conduct Beethoven’s iconic Symphony No. 5, before the orchestra and Opera Omaha take on a brand-new collaboration: Bartók’s haunting Bluebeard’s Castle. This psychologically intense one-act masterpiece will be performed with the Omaha Symphony on full display, telling the gripping story of Bluebeard and his wife Judith as they uncover dark secrets in his mysterious castle. Michelle DeYoung, renowned for her powerful voice, takes on the role of Judith, while baritone Ryan McKinny, whose voice “drips with gold” (Opera News), makes his Omaha Symphony debut as Bluebeard. This semi-staged concert experience, co-presented with Opera Omaha, offers a unique opportunity to dive into one of opera’s most compelling works.

Applied Underwriters Presents Beethoven’s Fifth & Bluebeard’s Castle

Omaha Performing Arts

Evening Recital N° 3

Semperoper Dresden

Repertory Singers & Treble Chorus 2026

University of Rochester

Dancing Home explores themes of heritage, belonging, displacement, and resilience through the lens of dance. At the heart of this program is ḥawwāsh by Kareem Roustom commissioned by Palaver Strings in 2024. Inspired by the ḥawwāsh, or lead dancer of a traditional dabke dance, this piece allows any musician to lead the ensemble at any given moment, sharing fluid leadership through physical and sonic cues. This program also features Palaver’s arrangement of Bartok’s Romanian Dances, original tunes by Maya French and Jamie Oshima, and Kinan Azmeh’s Syrian Dances, commissioned by Palaver in 2022. Dancing Home celebrates social dance as a meeting place for tradition and innovation, and a vehicle for building resilience, joy, and trust.

Dancing Home | Palaver Strings | Artistic Partner

Longy School of Music of Bard College

Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto is a virtuoso tour de force. Its scale, technical demands and emotional richness are perhaps the ultimate challenge for a pianist to master, but the challenge is worth the prize as the rippling melodies for the soloist are full of melancholy and heart-rending drama. And if Rachmaninoff’s focus is the soloist, then Bartók’s is the orchestra. His concerto ensures that every instrument gets its chance to shine in a piece that embraces vivid colours, gorgeous tunes and ends with a life-affirming, rabble-rousing burst of sheer joy.

A Lifetime for Music

Belfast

Ulster Orchestra: A Lifetime For Music

Ulster Hall

“In wars outside the blood runs red / Here is something far more deadly, ladies and gentlemen”. Duke Bluebeard’s castle has seven doors, and his new wife Judith is determined to open them all. But some questions are best left unanswered, and in Bartók’s gripping psychological thriller even the darkest secrets possess a terrible beauty.

Bartók’s Bluebeard's Castle

Music Hall, Aberdeen

City Halls

Three masterpieces – two centuries – one narrative. There is Schumann's song cycle "Frauenliebe und -leben ," in which the feelings of the nameless protagonist revolve around the needs of a man. There is Duke Bluebeard's Castle , in which two mysterious strangers are magically attracted to each other. And there is the bourgeois, liberal marriage construct of Oscar Wilde's Florentine Tragedy . These raise the question: Do people desire the same throughout all ages?

Women's Love and Death

Hamburg State Opera

Marin Symphony Concertmaster Ani Bukujian returns as soloist in two great pieces for violin, Bartok’s first Violin Concerto and Chausson’s lovely Poeme. The rest of the program is virtuoso orchestral writing at its finest, in works by Mason Bates, Ginastera, and de Falla.

Masterworks 3: Bartok & de Falla

College of Marin

5th Symphony Concert

Globe Coburg

Bard Conservatory Graduate Conductors, together with The Orchestra Now (TŌN) and the Bard Chamber Singers, present a program of old and new works exploring themes of internal and external transformation.

Reflections and Refractions: A Sonic Kaleidoscope

Fisher Center at Bard

6th Chamber Music Concert in the Vienna State Opera

Vienna State Opera

A first prize at the ARD Music Competition has launched many a career – including that of Quatuor Arod, which, after winning in 2016, took off internationally and debuted as a "Rising Star" at the Elbphilharmonie in 2019. Bayerischer Rundfunk writes: "This string quartet plays at a technically outstanding level – in a league with the very best." Could a penchant for Bach chorales contribute to this? The four French musicians have already released 36 videos featuring the short baroque pieces, sometimes as an encore and sometimes as a ritual at the start of rehearsals.

Quatuor Arod

This program’s four stars of Hungarian music, from the ultra-Romantic Franz Liszt to the ground-breaking György Ligeti, reveal the breadth, color, and infectious energy of their country’s music and folk culture. Closing the performance is Ernő Dohnányi’s first published work, composed around age 17, of which Brahms said that he “could not have done it better” himself.

Liszt and Bartók

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

In the dark heart of a continent on the brink of war, a violin catches fire. Three robed priests vent their pain and rage, in molten, tactile paint. And a hut on hen’s legs flies through a fairytale forest. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but music can paint pictures that haven’t even been imagined. Tonight, Edward Gardner is the curator of a sonic picture gallery: presenting powerful 20th-century masterpieces by Mark-Anthony Turnage and Bartók alongside Mussorgsky’s multicoloured, hugely popular Pictures at an Exhibition. Let your ears be your eyes, and hear them come to life.

Pictures at an Exhibition

Southbank Centre

MSM Artists in Residence American String Quartet

Manhattan School of Music

In our season finale, experience the bold brilliance of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra in a dynamic program that also features Sibelius’s stirring Finlandia and Bruch’s lyrical Violin Concerto No. 1.

Brilliant Bartók

California State University, Chico

Cascade Theatre

British violinist Callum Smart returns by popular demand to Lexington Symphony to perform Shostakovich’s evocative Violin Concerto No. 1. Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned by Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Serge Koussevitsky in 1943. This popular piece is filled with opportunities for each section of the orchestra to shine as the piece builds to an exuberant conclusion.

Pushing the Limits

Isaac Harris Cary Memorial Building

Bring it with youEnsemble Midweston a musical journey on the iconic train, the Orient Express. We board in Paris and travel through Bavaria, Austria, Hungary and Romania – before arriving in the vibrant world of Istanbul.

Ensemble Midwest: Orient Express

Unitarisk Kirkesamfund

No less a luminary than the legendary violinist Jascha Heifetz and Rózsa’s Violin Concerto, which premiered with the DSO in 1956. This concerto will be heard for the first time in 70 years, performed by a recently discovered young violin sensation! Our tribute to the vitality and rhythms of the folk music of Eastern Europe permeates this evening’s repertoire; Brahms’ Dances, especially, capture the lively soul of Hungary. You’ve probably heard Dance No. 5 — a delightfully popular encore that will send you home dancing the Csárdás.

Bartók, Rózsa & Brahms

Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center

Known for their bold artistry and international reach, the Erinys Quartet makes their MSU debut with a compelling program featuring Bartók’s dramatic String Quartet No. 3, Gabriella Smith’s vibrant Carrot Revolution, and Beethoven’s profound String Quartet No. 12 in E-flat Major, Op. 127. Based at the Curtis Institute of Music as Quartet-in-Residence, the ensemble includes Elizabeth Stewart, violin; Joosep Reimaa, violin; Marija Räisänen, viola; and Stergios Theodoridis, cello.

Eriyns Quartet

Michigan State University

Robert Jindra, principal guest conductor of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, will present Béla Bartók's one-act opera Bluebeard's Castle from 1911. German bass Günther Groissböck will play the role of Bluebeard, while Judith will be performed by Hungarian mezzo-soprano Szilvia Vörös.

Bluebeard's Castle

Rudolfinum

According to legend, Giuseppe Tartini received the inspiration for his highly virtuosic Devil's Trill Sonata in a dream – from none other than the devil himself. It goes without saying, then, that it is literally devilishly difficult. Fortunately, however, in star violinist Ray Chen, an artist whose breathtaking technique is more than equal to the work is on stage. And he is in excellent company: the Amsterdam Sinfonietta certainly needs no introduction. In Béla Bartók's sparkling Divertimento for String Orchestra, the top Dutch ensemble lets the mischievous humor of the Hungarian grandmaster sparkle. And after the interval, the audience can expect not only Pietro Locatelli's Concerto Grosso, but also Ray Chen again, who is sure to rock the hall with the tango impressions of Astor Piazzolla's "Cuatro estaciones porteñas."

Ray Chen / Amsterdam Sinfonietta

La Mirada Symphony presents Music of Eastern Europe: Old Worlds, New Worlds, a program that bridges tradition and innovation in one unforgettable afternoon. Audiences will experience Béla Bartók’s Hungarian Pictures, Alexander Arutunian’s brilliant Trumpet Concerto, and Antonín Dvořák’s beloved Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”

The program also spotlights trumpet soloist David Pittell, whose performance of Arutunian’s concerto promises to be a highlight of the afternoon.

Music of Eastern Europe: Old Worlds, New Worlds

La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts

Chan Conducts Bartók

Severance Music Center

Join Ensemble MidtVest on a musical journey on the iconic train, the Orient Express. We board in Paris and travel through Bavaria, Austria, Hungary and Romania – before arriving in the vibrant world of Istanbul.

The Orient Express

Sund church

Højhuset Kulturhotel

Gimsing Take Away

Beethoven “Emperor” Concerto

Martin Marietta Center for the Performing Arts

Friday Favorites: Beethoven “Emperor” Concerto

The exceptionally versatile violinist Viktoria Mullova teams up with Kahchun Wong for a performance of Brahms’ Violin Concerto. Intended to be a test of both the soloist’s technical ability and their musicianship, the work overflows with cadenzas – short, often improvised passages of notes – which give the soloist ample opportunity for real virtuosic display. Viktoria Mullova, whose playing has been praised by critics and audiences alike for its immense agility and richness of tone, is sure to bring us an unforgettable performance. Where concertos are usually a work comprised of a solo instrument accompanied by an orchestra, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra treats each instrumental family as if they were soloists in their own right. Let’s get ready to shine a spotlight on all sections of the orchestra.

The Hallé – Mullova plays Brahms

The Bridgewater Hall

Intended to be a test of both the soloist’s technical ability and their musicianship, the work overflows with cadenzas – short, often improvised passages of notes – which give the soloist ample opportunity for real virtuosic display. Viktoria Mullova, whose playing has been praised by critics and audiences alike for its immense agility and richness of tone, is sure to bring us an unforgettable performance.

Mullova Plays Brahms

A grieving composer captured an artist's work in a suite of piano pieces. Later, that music lit a fire in the genius orchestrator Maurice Ravel to create one of the best-loved works in the concert hall. Experience Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition through the dynamic power of a world-class orchestra. Guest conductor Kevin John Edusei leads the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra in the heel-kicking Hungarian folk suite Dances of Galanta. In between, the ASO welcomes violin soloist Isabelle Faust for the elegiac Violin Concerto No. 2 by Bela Bartók.

The Woodruff Arts Center

March Chamber Concert

Praxis Fiber Workshop

The three “Bs” of classical music – this is the designation given by the conductor Hans von Bülow to the great masters Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

Our sixth subscription concert will feature works by composers whose names also begin with the letter “B”, although this is a slightly less usual selection.

We begin with Benjamin Britten. As one of Britain’s most significant composers and a major figure of the 20th century in general, Britten attained fame largely through his operas. It is worth noting that he composed at a very early age – and unlike most composers, he explicitly used this fact in his more “serious” work. At the age of 20 he wrote a chamber piece for string orchestra, Simple Symphony, and in each of its movements he quoted a motif that had occurred to him as a child.

Britten. Bartók. Beethoven

Dvořák Hall Rudolfinum

Prince Bluebeard's Castle, a one-act opera to a libretto by Béla Balàzs was composed by Bartók in 1911 but not performed until seven years later, on 24 May 1918 at the Budapest Opera House. The libretto proposed by Balàzs retrieves the figure from the fairytale tradition of the ruthless Bluebeard to cast it in a symbolist frame in the wake of Debussy-Maeterlinck's Pelléas et Melisande. The opera, divided into nine scenes, has only two protagonists: Bluebeard and his wife Judith, who express themselves with a song, mainly recitative, based on pentatonic scales of Hungarian folk tradition. The action takes place in the prince's castle in medieval times. A prologue recited by a bard introduces the first scene describing Judith's resolve to follow her husband into his gloomy and mysterious castle. However, the woman wants to know Bluebeard's past and starts to open the castle's seven secret doors one after the other. With dismay she discovers sinister rooms and places stained with blood, a pivotal element of the opera associated by Bartók with the minor second chord, the most dissonant of all. On opening the seventh and final door, Judith fears to find the corpses of her previous murdered wives, but instead she sees three richly dressed, living women parading before her eyes. They are the women of morning, noon and evening who now belong only to the world of Bluebeard's memories. Judith, as the woman of the night, after being crowned and covered in jewels by her husband, will follow them forever into the seventh room, whose door closes, plunging the castle back into darkness.

Bluebeard's castle / La voix humaine

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre

A monsoon downpour and a cascade of flame: elemental forces are in play as Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra continue their season with music inspired by the environment in all its fragility and power. But Stravinsky’s dazzling Firebird suite and Judith Weir’s magical rain-spell aren’t even the half of this gloriously colourful concert.

Yeol Eum Son plays Bartók's Third Piano Concerto

Barbican Centre

The Karajan-Akademie of the Berliner Philharmoniker offers some of the world’s most gifted young musicians the opportunity to perfect their skills while studying, rehearsing, and regularly performing with the orchestra. Founded in 1972 by conductor Herbert von Karajan, the Akademie serves as the training ground for the next generation of musicians in the Berliner Philharmoniker and other orchestras around the world.

Karajan-Akademie of the Berliner Philharmoniker

University of Michigan

Stravinsky's Firebird

Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra

New Jersey Performing Arts Center

State Theatre New Jersey

Princeton University

Count Basie Center for the Arts

In this edition of the Concerts éclatés series, discover the acclaimed clarinetist Kinan Azmeh, widely praised by critics for his instrumental mastery and versatility across musical genres. With remarkable expressive freedom, the program showcases dances by Kodály and Bartók and Azmeh’s suite, where the clarinet takes centre stage in a dynamic musical dialogue that blends improvisation with traditional melodies.

Clarinet, Improvisation, and Traditions

Place des Arts

Nothing is as it seems in Bartók's only opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle . The story is known from fairy tales by, among others, the Brothers Grimm, but in Bartók's work, the story of the murderous duke also becomes an inner drama. Because when the doors are opened and the secrets are revealed, we may see ourselves stepping onto the stage.

Saraste & Duke Bluebeard's Castle

DR Koncerthuset

Clarinetist Kinan Azmeh captivates audiences with his fluid, nuanced playing and remarkable improvisational talent. Joined by the OSM, he will showcase a program that blends creative freedom, Bartók’s folk-inspired motifs, and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s innovative sensitivity. The evening concludes with Mozart’s graceful and elegant Symphony No. 39.

From Bartók to Mozart: Flute, Improvisation, and Symphony

Concert in West Palm Beach

Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts

Vienna Philharmonic

Artis–Naples

Concert in Naples

Artis—Naples

Winners of a 2023 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the 14th Banff International String Quartet Competition, the New York City-based Isidore String Quartet has been praised for “focus and command beyond their years” (Violinist.com). Their PCMS debut program features works by Haydn and Dvořák and the Philadelphia premiere of GRAMMY Award-winning composer Billy Childs’s Quartet No. 4.

Isidore Quartet

The legendary Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra returns to Boston—its first visit since 2003—under the baton of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Andris Nelsons for a program of sumptuous late Romantic and 20th-century masterpieces.

Boston Symphony Hall

Boston Symphony Orchestra

For the second of three orchestras we're proud to host at Symphony Hall this season, the legendary Vienna Philharmonic returns to Boston for its first concert here since 2003, under the baton of the BSO's own Andris Nelsons. International piano sensation Lang Lang, in the first of two appearances this year, brings his signature virtuosity and power to the stage for a concert of glorious late Romantic and twentieth-century masterpieces.

Concert in Boston

The BRSO has sponsored the Bavarian State Youth Orchestra for about 20 years. BRSO members serve as instructors and mentors to the young musicians, providing inspiration for their further musical development. For most of the young musicians – many of whom dream of turning their passion into a profession – working continuously with professionals opens up a whole new world: they discover how diverse the professional life of an orchestra musician can be. Sir Simon Rattle took over this mentorship programme, which had been shaped by Mariss Jansons and various BRSO guest conductors, in the 2023/2024 season. After Iván Fischer’s planned collaboration had to be cancelled in 2022 due to the pandemic, he will now take over the BLJO’s working and concert activities for this season.

Iván Fischer and the BYO

Munich Residence

Enjoy an afternoon of folk music-inspired pieces from Eastern European composers. Ligetti’s Concert Romanesc evoked memories of his childhood in Romania, and you’ll hear traditional Czech, Romanian, and Hungarian folk dances throughout the rest of the program.

Folk Music Inspired

St. Paul's Syracuse, the Downtown Episcopal Church

A beloved star of French piano, Hélène Grimaud also maintains a deep connection with the United States and American music, through emblematic works such as Gershwin's Concerto (1925), imbued with the spirit of jazz, of which she has delivered a fascinating recording. Also composed in the United States in 1943, Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra offers each family of instruments the opportunity to shine through solos of breathtaking virtuosity. A similar virtuosity is found in Salonen's Helix (2005), a study in acceleration where musical motifs unfold in spirals, like a helix.

Gershwin, Piano Concerto

Philharmonic Hall of Liege

Concert in New York

Carnegie Hall

Hungarian maestro Iván Fischer has been a lifelong advocate for Hungarian music. His fascination with Béla Bartók’s connection to both tradition as well as modernity is a heartfelt conviction that can now be fully savoured in his interpretation of Bartók’s Three Village Scenes, which will be performed for the first time by the BRSO. The same applies to Bartók’s Second Violin Concerto, featuring Vilde Frang as soloist. Listening to the Norwegian violinist is a wonderful experience, because she plays every nuance – from the most delicate whisper to the most powerful bow stroke – with absolute conviction. A work that has not been performed by the BRSO for some time is Mendelssohn’s Third Symphony, known as the Scottish: it is the composer’s epic, sublime, and distinctly lyrical declaration of love to the land of the legendary Highlands.

Iván Fischer & Vilde Frang

BroadStage presents a spectacular collaboration of musical excellence as Avi Avital, considered by many to be the world’s greatest mandolinist, takes the stage with the renowned Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra! Hailed by The New York Times as “explosively charismatic” in live performance, Avital is the first mandolin soloist to be nominated for a classical GRAMMY® Award. He is known for reinvigorating the mandolin and shaping its history and future, while playing it in the most prestigious halls all over the world. 

Avital is joined by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, praised by The New York Times as “America’s leading historically informed ensemble.” Among the most recorded orchestras in the world, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra performs on period-specific instruments, presenting repertoire ranging from early Baroque to late Romantic, along with new contemporary works and major operatic productions.

Composer

Béla Bartók

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 16, 2025 - Jun 16, 2026

NDR Chamber Concert · Elbphilharmonie

Apr 12 - May 22, 2026

Women's Love and Death · Staatsoper Hamburg

7 - 9 May, 2026

Bach and Mozart Piano Classics · Philadelphia Orchestra

May 8, 2026

Coco Lu Mi, Violin · The Juilliard School

8 - 9 May, 2026

Søndergård Conducts Wagner and Bartók · Minnesota Orchestra

Past events

7 - 9 May, 2026

Bach and Mozart Piano Classics · Philadelphia Orchestra

May 7, 2026

Alex Nam, Piano · The Juilliard School

About

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