Composer

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

Witches, ghosts, and fantastical creatures are coming to the Opéra Comédie for a grand family event filled with thrills and festivities. From the incandescent passion of Khachaturian's Sabre Dance to the mysteries of Revueltas's Sensemayá , from the spirits of earth and fire invoked by Holst to the breathless chase in Bartók's The Miraculous Mandarin , each piece in this program opens a new door to the strange and the wondrous. Between frenetic dances, triumphant marches, and ghostly waltzes, the Orchestra summons the dark forces of the great repertoire… Come in costume!

Halloween Concert

Opéra Comédie

A program of music by Leó Weiner, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Bela Bartók, with faculty artist Pala Garcia, violin.

Hungarian Connections

Meany Hall

Garth Knox’s Satellites opens Voyager with a kaleidoscopic exploration of sound and texture that expands the sonic possibilities of the string quartet. Bartók’s arresting String Quartet No.4, a tour de force of rhythmic energy, then takes you to a playground of Hungarian folk influences and raw emotion.

Australian String Quartet: Voyager

Queensland Conservatorium

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

Experience the “bright, characterful playing” (Classical Source) of the Yale Philharmonia in the beauty of historic Woolsey Hall. Under the baton of Principal Conductor Peter Oundjian, and in collaboration with thrilling guest artists, the ensemble dazzles across wide-ranging repertoire.

EPSG:4326

Bartók, Dvořák, and Martin Bresnick

Yale University

James Ehnes’ 50th Birthday Recital

Halifax United Church

Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša, Chief Conductor of the Bamberg Symphony and Music Director of The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, conducts the Academy Symphony Orchestra for the first time.

Jakub Hrusa looks to camera. Academy Symphony Orchestra Jakub Hrůša conducts Janáček and Bartók

Royal Academy of Music

The French composer Paul Dukas opens the programme with a fanfare for a fallen angel in search of immortality.

Debussy: La Mer

Malmo Live Concert AB

The brilliant 17-year-old Canadian pianist Sophia Liu makes her Australasian debut with Beethoven’s concerto. It begins with the piano ruminating alone but soon broadens out into one of his most genial works.

Beethoven’s Piano No. 4

Auckland Town Hall

Béla Bartók described his Concerto for Orchestra as a gradual progression from the stern and stately to life-affirming enthusiasm. Former Principal Guest Conductor Susanna Mälkki has been widely celebrated for her ability to “make conspicuous magic” (Gramophone) of Bartók. She returns to deftly navigate the concerto’s shifting character that dances between a charming “game of pairs,” an eerie elegy, and humorous jab at Shostakovich with countless showcase opportunities for the musicians of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Mälkki Conducts Bartók

Walt Disney Concert Hall

A triptych of fire and dreams! For its first major symphonic concert of the season, the Orchestre national Montpellier Occitanie welcomes back its music director, Roderick Cox, whose conducting is precise and incandescent. His rapport with the musicians promises an exceptional evening.

Opening concert

Le Corum

Known for her dynamic presence on the podium and her “splendid and confident” (San Francisco Classical Voice) conducting, Laura Jackson leads the Royal Conservatory Orchestra in a powerful season-opening program.

Royal Conservatory Orchestra with conductor Laura Jackson

The Royal Conservatory of Music

The energy of Bertrand Chamayou’s chamber music partnership with Vilde Frang stems from their interaction as artists always ready to take creative risks in search of musical depth and meaning. Their programme includes Bartók’s fervent Violin Sonata No. 1, written in the closing months of 1921 for the Hungarian violinist Jelly d’Arányi and first performed by her and the composer in London the following year.

Bertrand Chamayou piano; Vilde Frang violin

Wigmore Hall

Here, the heroine is Leonore, who disguises herself as Fidelio in order to rescue her beloved husband.

Orchestral Masterworks with Joana Carneiro

Royal College of Music

The concert opens with one of Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’s symphonies from his youth, which still points back to the composer’s great role model – Mozart. And because our orchestra has extensive experience with them, we can expect a virtuoso experience. The counterpoint will be Bartók’s popular Romanian Folk Dances from Transylvania. The innovative dramaturgical treat of the evening will be the lesser-known works of our composers Antonín Dvořák and Leoš Janáček, which can be heard when next to one another.

Ludmila Pavlová

Prague Conservatory

Recognized as “a violinist in a class of his own,” (The Times) James Ehnes celebrates his 50th birthday with a special international tour. His Koerner Hall appearance with pianist Andrew Armstrong features works by Brahms and Bartók, along with a newly commissioned piece by acclaimed Canadian composer Carmen Braden.

James Ehnes 50th Canada Birthday Tour

Academy students perform a programme of 20th-century compositions for violin, clarinet and piano.

Elera Trio

MusEquality is an original Czech musical quintet founded at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, devoted to imaginative interpretations of classical music inspired by folk traditions. The ensemble performs in an unusual chamber formation.

MusEquality

Czech Radio

Admired for her exceptional maturity and supreme musicianship, Elisabeth Brauss made her mark in the UK as a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist from 2018 to 2020. The German pianist opens her Wigmore Hall Piano Festival programme with the charm of Mozart’s Piano Sonata in F. It prepares the way for a selection of pieces from Fourteen Bagatelles BB50 Op. 6, experimental miniatures in which Bartók departed from the solid tonal foundations of western harmony; Messiaen’s tender ‘kiss of the Infant Jesus’; and the romanticism of Chopin’s F minor Fantasy.

Elisabeth Brauss piano

All three works were premiered in the United States, a fitting nod as the nation marks its 250th anniversary and reflects on artistic ties across continents and generations.

Sibelius, Higdon, and Bartók

Lesher Center for the Arts

Thomas Adès launches a three-concert Residency with a carefully curated programme hallmarked by the noble beauty and inventive richness of its contents. The British composer, pianist and conductor, hailed by Prospect magazine for his ‘uncanny brilliance’, explores the art of variation and musical reflection, the latter infused in his Vesper, dedicated to the memory of Henry Purcell.

Thomas Adès piano

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

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

The night opens with Bela Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, a work of striking contrast and luminous beauty. This late masterpiece balances clarity and intensity, brought vividly to life by our guest artist, an acclaimed pianist, Charles Richard-Hamelin.

Titans Awaken

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Alessandro Carbonare, Francesca Dego and Alessandro Taverna

Teatro La Fenice

In this powerful double bill, two extraordinary works of the 20th century are brought together in a shared world of ritual, mystery and psychological intensity.

Bluebeard’s Castle + Oedipus Rex Bartok + Stravinsky

Venue Cymru

Wales Millennium Centre

New Theatre Oxford

Theatre Royal Plymouth

Mayflower Theatre

Join these first-class musicians led by the ‘powerful and dynamic’ (BBC Music Magazine) violinist Vilde Frang, celebrating music from Béla Bartók alongside various folk songs and dances. Her fellow performers include Benjamin and Salamon Eredics from award-winning Hungarian folk band Söndorgő – described by Songlines Magazine as ‘one of Europe’s most versatile and exciting bands’.

Vilde Frang & Friends

The Queen's Hall

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

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

Lensic Performing Arts Center

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

Kleio Quartet, Makoto Ozone & Sheku Kanneh-Mason

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

The exceptional National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America performs three vibrant 20th-century masterpieces. These talented young musicians are joined by Festival regular, American conductor Karina Canellakis, praised by Gramophone for her ‘finesse and fire’.

Gershwin & Bartók

Usher Hall

Piano recital by Vincent Ong, laureate of the 2025 International Chopin Piano Competition. Program: Bartók, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev.

6 p.m. Recital: Vincent Ong

Parc de Florans

Marco Ottaviani, Piano

Chiaramonte Steri Palace

At the Château de l'Empéri, the evening glides from Bolling and his hushed jazz to Golijov, Shostakovich and Bartók, and then culminates in Chausson's Concert, a melancholy gem.

7. Full Sentimental

Château de l'Empéri

From the raw percussion of Rebonds to the dances of West Side Story, via Bartók's Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion and Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances.

West Side Story

Salon de Provence

Veronika Eberle’s exquisite artistry, heartfelt, fearless and immaculate in execution, transcends the demands of virtuosity to reveal the core of the music in her broad repertoire. She and Dénes Várjon form an ideal partnership in three emotionally-diverse works, spanning the exuberance of Schubert’s youthful Sonatina, the Beethovenian gravity of Busoni’s Second Violin Sonata and the passionate, complex three movements of Bartók’s Violin Sonata No. 1.

Veronika Eberle violin; Dénes Várjon piano

From Bach's Chaconne to Paganini's Caprices, a little odyssey of the violin. Solo violin recital: Bartók, Paganini, Kurtág, Bach and Ysaÿe.

Emmanuel Coppey, violin

Église Saint-Pierre

Leonidas Kavakos and Kirill Gerstein present a compelling programme of violin sonatas by Mozart, Busoni and Bartók – an exploration of lyricism, intensity and modernist edge, performed by two of today’s most electrifying musical collaborators.

Leonidas Kavakos violin; Kirill Gerstein piano

Following our captivating performance at Halifax Minster in 2025, we are delighted to return to Halifax as part of our ongoing commitment to Culturedale and our work with UNESCO’s Seeds of Hope initiative.

As echoes of The Lark Ascending continue to resonate across the town, we look forward to bringing another vibrant programme of string repertoire to the Victoria Theatre, celebrating the very best of English music alongside inspiring works from around the world. The programme includes Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves, Piazzolla’s The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires, and Grieg’s much-loved Holberg Suite.

We are especially pleased to premiere a new arrangement of Malcolm Arnold’s English Dances and to share the stage with talented young musicians from the Calderdale Music Youth Ensemble. This special concert provides a wonderful opportunity to showcase our award-winning work with schools and community groups across the region before we return to Calderdale again in August.

Close Encounters: Beyond the Lark

Victoria Theatre Halifax

Walls dripping with blood, seven locked doors, darkness everywhere – Duke Bluebeard's castle is an eerie place! But Bluebeard's lover Judith is determined: she wants to follow him into his fortress, to bring light into the eerie darkness with her love. That's why she demands the keys to the seven locked doors. She penetrates ever deeper into the secrets of her lover and his castle, opening door after door – what will she find behind them? In 1911, Béla Bartók and his librettist Béla Balázs used the fairy tale "La barbe bleu" to create an expressionistic psychological drama in which the eponymous castle plays the main role as a symbol of the male psyche. The libretto uses cinematic lighting effects, which is why we are staging the work using film. An important component of this semi-staged "light opera" are video projections by Max Ophüls Prize winners Sascha Vredenburg and Cedric Klaus.

Duke Bluebeard's Castle

Theater Aachen

Folk roots and the joys of virtuosity belong to this delightful programme from Xuefei Yang and Ning Feng. They open with a Paganini rarity, the Sonata concertata, a scintillating showpiece packed with delightful melodies, and voyage into Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata, written originally for a bowed guitar. Xuefei Yang’s spellbinding arrangement of a beloved Chinese folk song prepares the way for the sparky rhythms of Bartók’s Romanian Folk Dances.

Xuefei Yang guitar; Ning Feng violin

Marie Jacquot is one of the leading conductors of her generation. According to one critic, her interpretations are »more inventive than innovation-driven, they float, they arise autonomously, without the gesture of emancipating oneself from anything.« In Dresde1, the French maestra will present two key works: Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D major, a piece of luminous clarity with a symphonic breadth and formal balance, complemented by Béla Bartók’s »Concerto for Orchestra«, which the composer wrote in 1943 while living as an émigré in America. This is a work of irrepressible energy and subtle irony, combining counterpoint, Hungarian folklore and late Romantic opulence.

Symphony Concert N° 11

Semperoper Dresden

It is dark and cold in the castle to which Bluebeard takes his young wife Judith. With the power of her love, she wants to decipher her husband's mysterious past, bring light into the darkness, and build bridges over abysses. However, she is not allowed to ask any questions; seven locked doors harbor secrets. Judith begins to open them one by one... The depths of the human soul are also dark. Locked away within are urges, fears, dreams, and nightmares. In his only opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Béla Bartók penetrates the chambers of the human subconscious. 

Night

Cologne Philharmonie

The season closes with the irresistible fire and passion of music shaped by Romani traditions, which left an indelible mark on European composers. The romance, longing, and sense of freedom in these melodies found their way into some of the most beloved works of the repertoire. Haydn’s Piano Trio No. 39, with its famous “Gypsy” Rondo, dazzles in Hungarian style, while Brahms unleashes unbridled intensity in the torrential finale of his Piano Quartet No. 1. Ravel (Tzigane), Bartók (Romanian Dances), and Liszt (Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2) add their voices to this vibrant tradition. After the performance, join us for a festive reception—complete with a fortune teller to offer a lighthearted glimpse into your future. Our prediction: a brilliant season finale filled with inspired music and extraordinary performers.

Close Encounters With Music: Romance of the Romani!—Ravel, Bartók, Liszt, Haydn, and Brahms Piano Quartet

Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center

Violin Concerto No. 2 - Bartók / Symphony No. 4 - Brahms

Palace of Culture

Following the season finale in Frankfurt, the hr Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of chief conductor Alain Altinoglu, will perform at the Dresden Music Festival in June. The program at the Kulturpalast in the Saxon capital will include Brahms's Symphony No. 4 and Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2, featuring violinist Vilde Frang.

Dresden Music Festival

A timeless classic and yet a work that never fails to electrify: That is Bartók's 2nd Violin Concerto - especially when it is as energised as it is by Vilde Frang. A powerhouse of a completely different kind: the last symphony by the most classical of the Romantics. With the 4th Symphony, chief conductor Alain Altinoglu continues his Brahms series with the hr-Sinfonieorchester, in which he shows the composer from his transparent, tonally fresh side. The Fourth now: a work like a Rubik's cube, every moment brings new perspectives, everything is constantly changing. This is a clever symphony, and one in which every detail counts. How different Bartók's violin concerto comes across to the listener, especially the finale: intoxicating, wildly dance-like, with bucolic furore, yet so perfectly attuned to the possibilities of the instrument - it is not without reason that it is one of the most frequently performed and most popular violin concertos of the 20th century. (hr-Sinfonieorchester)

hr Symphony Orchestra

Old Opera Frankfurt

Alte Oper

A timeless classic, yet a work that electrifies anew each time: that's Bartók's Violin Concerto No. 2 – especially when it's performed with such dynamism as by Vilde Frang. A powerhouse of a completely different kind: the last symphony of the most classical of the Romantics. With the Symphony No. 4, chief conductor Alain Altinoglu continues his Brahms series with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, revealing the composer's transparent, sonically fresh side. The Fourth Symphony: a work like a Rubik's Cube, every moment bringing new perspectives, everything in constant flux. It's a clever symphony, and one where every detail matters. How different, then, is Bartók's Violin Concerto, especially the finale: intoxicating, dance-like and wild, with bucolic fury, yet so perfectly attuned to the instrument's capabilities – it's no wonder it's one of the most frequently performed and most popular violin concertos of the 20th century.

Brahms 4

Bartók / Kodaly / Cage

San Carlo Theatre

The new chief conductor of the MDR Radio Choir charts musical paths through European landscapes in this nocturnal performance. The journey takes us from the cold north to the warm south, through centuries of music history, and across genres and styles. An exciting and colorful concert, with echoes from Josep Vila i Casañas's Catalan homeland.

Reise durch Europa

St. Peter's Church

Concert of the Romanian Chamber Orchestra

Teatro Massimo di Palermo

Two exceptional musicians come together here: Delyana Lazarova, a violinist and a true rising star as a conductor, and Marc-André Hamelin, a world-class pianist who feels a close connection to the Bremen Philharmonic. This is a perfect combination for Beethoven's groundbreaking Fourth Piano Concerto. Soloist and orchestra are more closely interwoven here than ever before. Beethoven proves himself once again to be a bold innovator, ahead of his time – and still relevant today. Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra also turns some conventions on their head: Here, the entire orchestra is the soloist. A challenge? Certainly. But the Bremen Philharmonic are ready for it, each and every one of them. Bartók cedes the stage to them – in a work that takes virtuosity and inventiveness to the extreme.

Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4 | Marc-André Hamelin

The Bell, Bremen

Small ensembles of Minnesota Orchestra musicians perform chamber music on the Orchestra Hall stage.

Poulenc, Bartók and Ravel

Orchestra Hall Minneapolis

In "Elements," Nina Šenk explores the balance between our everyday lives and elemental nature, each embodied by different groups of instruments. Benjamin Britten began work on his Violin Concerto in 1938, bringing the unfinished score with him when he emigrated to New York by ship with his partner, Peter Pears. The shock of two wars, the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War, found its way into the work, as did the American popular music that Britten encountered during his stay in the USA. Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra was also written in exile, commissioned by the conductor Sergei Koussevitzky and his Boston Symphony Orchestra. Dietmar Holland described this last major orchestral work by Bartók, who, while seriously ill and almost penniless, had to wrest it from himself as a response to the horrors of the Second World War, as a "utopia of brotherhood between nations."

7th Symphony Concert

Eurogress Aachen

Laura Tillack, violin

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

Osborne brings his love of both genres to the fore, performing Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (for piano and trumpet soloists) alongside his favourite jazz standards, arranged specially for this programme. 

We’re also joined by the brilliant trumpeter Aaron Azunda Akugbo, whose playing moves effortlessly from the mellow charm of Gershwin to the raw intensity of Shostakovich. 

Fantasia Orchestra with Steven Osborne

Smith Square Hall

Béla Bartók left his homeland of Hungary and emigrated to the United States in 1940. The war and the political situation in his homeland meant that he could not bring himself to stay in Europe. Nevertheless, he never felt at home in New York, where he settled. In the Third Piano Concerto, one can perhaps also trace a strong homesickness. Bartók's music is in many ways rooted in traditional Hungarian music, even though it has its own very personal musical language. This is also evident in the Third Piano Concerto, which, despite being written when the composer was ill with leukemia, has a bright and dance-like character. The concerto was the last work Bartók wrote, and he never got to experience the premiere in 1946.

Bartok & Bruckner

Louis de Geer konsert & kongress

A clarinet soars upwards – and immediately, you can picture the skyscrapers of jazz-age Manhattan. There’s nothing quite like Rhapsody in Blue, and few living pianists play Gershwin with more flair than our soloist today, Japanese jazz legend Makoto Ozone. And with RPO Conductor-in-Residence Kevin John Edusei conducting, there are endless pictures to be painted and stories to be told. High in the mountains of Transylvania, György Ligeti hears a shepherd blow his horn, and gypsy fiddles flash around the campfire. And far from his Hungarian homeland, composed in the USA, Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra sets out to put a great orchestra through its paces and ends up by punching the air with glee. This is music that loves life – and believe us, you can feel it.

Makoto Ozone plays Gershwin

Cadogan Hall 

A clarinet soars upwards – and immediately, you can picture the skyscrapers of jazz-age Manhattan. There’s nothing quite like Rhapsody in Blue, and few living pianists play Gershwin with more flair than our soloist today, Japanese jazz legend Makoto Ozone. And with RPO Conductor-in-Residence Kevin John Edusei is conducting, there are endless pictures to be painted and stories to be told.

High in the mountains of Transylvania, György Ligeti hears a shepherd blow his horn, and gypsy fiddles flash around the campfire.

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Makoto Ozone plays Gershwin

Season ticket S09 - Delyana Lazarova

Opera House, A Coruña

Abono S09 - Delyana Lazarova

Our season ends with two of the most spectacular and orchestrally overwhelming scores from the late romantic period: Richard Strauss’s epic tone-poem Also sprach Zarathustra, inspired by Nietzsche’s account of the deep meditations of the half- mythical Persian hermit-philosopher Zoroaster; and Bartók’s dramatic fantasy Bluebeard’s Castle, based on the ancient fairy-tale about a young woman who marries a mysterious aristocrat and discovers that he has terrible secrets kept behind locked doors.

Also sprach Zarathustra & Bluebeard's Castle

Jacobs Music Center

Ensemble Renard, 2025 CMF Artists, devote themselves to showcasing the breadth of colour the wind quintet is capable of. Their dedication to the genre has taken them to prestigious venues and festivals across the UK and abroad, including return appearances at the Aldeburgh Festival, Folkestone New Music, and BBC Radio 3’s In Tune.

Ensemble Renard

Corn Exchange Newbury

Clarinetist Lauri Sallinen is known for breaking down barriers between the arts. The concert, conducted by Izabele Jankauzkaiten, will feature no fewer than six works, including Lotta Wennäkoski's Ele.

Gestures

Espoo Cultural Centre

Tchaikovsky, Bartok

Imperial Baths

As valuable as this treasure is, sometimes the focus on the individual geniuses of Central European music obscures the view of the incredible diversity surrounding it. How many melodies from village and peasant wedding musicians are still to be discovered! In this chamber concert, Angelina Nalbantova from Bulgaria and Nico Gutu from Moldova show us what Eastern Europe, including Romania, as well as Argentina, France, and Spain, have to offer in this broad field. The proximity to improvised jazz is almost always palpable – the focus is on Chick Corea's masterpiece "Spain." Violin and accordion are the flexible instruments, a perfect fit here, as they stand in stark contrast to the large symphony orchestra. Have a good trip out into the wide world!

Worldwide treasures

GDA Göttingen

Reformed Church of Göttingen

Two clarinet works by Bartók, imbued with the richness of Hungarian and Romanian folk music, encounter the exuberant early piano quartet by his Hungarian friend Brahms. Construction, contrast, and surprising hints of jazz meet youthful energy, romantic ambition, and the spirit of the "Hungarian Dances." Bartók's "Contrasts" was the first work with which the Hungarian exile presented himself to the American public in 1940. Commissioned by the legendary Benny Goodman, it was Goodman's jazz background that inspired Bartók to compose the piece. When Brahms once sent his Hungarian friend Joseph Joachim the score of his piano quartet with the "Rondo alla Zingarese," Joachim readily admitted that the Hanseatic composer had surpassed him on his own turf.

Bartók Contrasts

Hessischer Rundfunk

Masterworks 9 opens with a new commission from longtime Symphony friend Sydney Guillaume. Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini is a virtuosic masterpiece that fuses Russian heritage with American influences. After intermission, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra showcases the orchestra in vivid colors and textures, capturing the resilience and adaptability of a composer who embraced his new world.

Masterworks 9: To America

Martin Woldson Theater

Perhaps the most recognizable piano concerto in the repertoire, Tchaikovsky’s first will come to life in the able hands of the brilliant young pianist, Joyce Yang.  Jean Sibelius’ haunting tone poem about a mythical swan and Bartók’s thrilling Concerto for Orchestra spotlight the virtuoso players of our Harrisburg Symphony.

Composer

Béla Bartók

Events

Upcoming events

Sep 20 - Nov 28, 2026

Bluebeard’s Castle + Oedipus Rex Bartok + Stravinsky · Welsh National Opera

4 - 5 Nov, 2026

Myth and Mystery with Barbara Hannigan · Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Nov 7, 2026

Jerusalem Quartet · Wigmore Hall

Nov 8, 2026

Marguerite Lynn Williams, harp · Northwestern Bienen School of Music

Nov 10, 2026

Inmo Yang plays Bartok’s First Violin Concerto · Barbican Centre

Past events

Nov 2, 2026

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

Oct 31, 2026

Halloween Concert · Opéra Orchestre National Montpellier

About

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