Composer

The Baltic Sea Festival’s grand finale invites you to an evening of drama and rich sonorities. Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra together with soprano Aphrodite Patoulidou, baritone Peter Mattei, and saxophonist Asya Fateyeva. The program opens with Erkki-Sven Tüür’s new saxophone concerto – a work that looks toward the future – before Sibelius’s monumental Kullervo draws us deep into the mythic world of the Finnish epic. A closing night where contemporary sound meets Nordic legend in a powerful musical encounter.

EPSG:4326

Fate & guilt

Berwaldhallen

The Orchestra of the FNO has enchanted audiences for more than 60 years. Since 2024, its concerts have also delighted listeners at Musiikkitalo.

Orchestra of the Finnish National Opera @ Musiikkitalo

Musiikkitalo Concert Hall

Vivid, programmatic works by Sibelius and Prokofiev fill this heart-rending program. Sibelius’s stirring love letter to his homeland is paired with a suite from Prokofiev’s ballet Romeo and Juliet, a musical retelling of Shakespeare’s tragic masterpiece. Making her Cleveland Orchestra debut, conductor Tabita Berglund pairs these works with Sibelius’s impassioned Violin Concerto, performed by Dutch violinist Simone Lamsma.

Prokofiev’s Romeo & Juliet

Blossom Music Center

Our annual visit to Mikkeli Music Festival in Finland is a highlight in the Philharmonia’s concert calendar.

Mikkeli Music Festival 2026

This summer, Orchestre de l’Agora presents a series of three open-air and regional concerts featuring the program Fiddlers and Northern Folklores, under the direction of Nicolas Ellis. Joined by guest fiddlers Alexis Chartrand and Nicolas Babineau, the ensemble revisits traditional Quebec dances through original orchestrations, juxtaposing them with works by Grieg, Sibelius, Marcus Goddard, and Danish tunes from the Danish String Quartet. By blending traditional music with orchestral writing, this initiative celebrates the vitality of Quebec’s musical heritage while giving it a fresh perspective. A unifying project, deeply rooted in our cultural identity!

Fiddlers and Northern Folklores

Église Notre-Dame-de-l’Immaculée-Conception

Parc Anjou-sur-le-Lac

Théâtre de Verdure

Musik für 3 Streicher, a product of the composer’s mid-20s, sets out to encompass the span of human emotions and experience. Ilya Gringolts, Lawrence Power and Nicolas Altstaedt begin their expedition through the string trio repertoire with two movements from Wolfgang Rihm’s monumental work. Their programme also includes the remarkable Ricercari by Roman Haubenatock-Ramati, who escaped Nazi and Stalinist persecution to join General Anders’s Polish Army and survived the Second World War to become editor of new music for Universal Edition in Vienna.

Ilya Gringolts violin; Lawrence Power viola; Nicolas Altstaedt cello

Wigmore Hall

‘Sensational’ 2025 Sibelius Competition-winner Sueye Park makes her Proms debut, joining John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra as soloist in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. All fire and ice, a love song for the composer’s own instrument, it’s the Romantic concerto par excellence: deeply personal and powerfully expressive. Sibelius’s Nordic lakes meet the choppy ocean waters of Betsy Jolas’s Tales of a Summer Sea, and later the dark forests and tectonic stirrings of Strauss’s Nietzsche-inspired tone-poem Also sprach Zarathustra, its blazing orchestral sunrise made famous by Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Also sprach Zarathustra

Royal Albert Hall

Conductor Laureate Carlos Kalmar returns for Sibelius’s majestic Symphony No. 2, an emblem of Finnish nationalism written at a time of cultural and linguistic suppression. Christopher Theofanidis’s Drum Circle makes its Chicago premiere, featuring the virtuosic musicians of Third Coast Percussion.

Sibelius Symphony No. 2

Millennium Park

The 30th Shibuya Afternoon Concert

Bunkamura

We begin with Brahms’ ‘Tragic Overture’, which confronts darkness head-on. Composed in 1880 as the sombre counterpart to his ‘Academic Festival Overture’, it whips up a storm of emotional energy, embodying what Brahms called “the serious side of life”. 

Next is Sibelius’ haunting ‘Valse Triste’. Originally composed for a 1903 play, this melancholic waltz depicts a dying woman’s fevered dream, where she dances with memories and ghosts. At the end, four solo violins add a fragile, otherworldly coda. 

Shostakovich’s monumental Seventh Symphony completes the arc from despair to defiance. It was composed during the 1941 siege of Leningrad, a time of unimaginable suffering for citizens. This epic work transforms the nightmare of war – represented by the famous ‘invasion theme’ in the first movement – into ultimate victory. 

From Tragedy to Triumph

Smith Square Hall

In 2009, it landed at number 9 in the "ABC Classic 100 Symphony Countdown" – and rightly so: Jean Sibelius's Symphony No. 2 is one of the most popular works in the symphonic repertoire today. Its grand finale made it a symbol of the struggle for independence from Russia in Finland. Sibelius himself never expressed a clear political interpretation – and yet this music strikes a chord: Between the sounds of nature, awakening, expansiveness, and power, a symphony of timeless significance unfolds.

Youth concert for the  9th Symphony concert

Music and Congress Hall Lübeck

The final symphony concert of the season presents a Scandinavian program with discoverable works from Sweden and Denmark, as well as a Finnish classic that, surprisingly, originated in Italy. Elfrida Andrée, born in 1841 in Visby on Gotland, was the first female composer in Sweden to venture into the realm of symphonic music. In 1894, she composed her only opera, "Fritiofs Saga," based on a libretto by Selma Lagerlöf, but it was never performed during her lifetime. The trombone concerto by Danish composer Launy Grøndahl from 1924 combines elements of Romanticism, Impressionism, and Nordic folklore and is one of the most significant contributions to the genre. In Lübeck, the piece will be played by the Philharmonic Orchestra's principal trombonist, Stephan Gerblinger.

9th  Symphony Concert

Concert with Ensemble MidtVest and this year's star soloist Sebastian Klinger. Look forward to experiencing an absolutely world-class cellist.

Nørre Vosborg: EMV and soloist Sebastian Klinger

Nørre Vosborg

We join RNCM student conductors and International Artist Diploma musicians for an afternoon of extraordinary music making in the BBC Philharmonic Studio.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and RNCM: International Artist Diploma Performance 2

MediaCityUK

Music has long been a voice for resistance, remembrance and renewal.  In this striking and emotionally charged programme, the Sheffield Philharmonic Orchestra explores how composers have responded to injustice, conflict, and the call for change.

Protest Notes

In 2026, we can once again open the doors to the international Carl Nielsen Competition; the competition where we both pay tribute to our great, world-class composer from Funen and the talented stars of tomorrow. Since its inception, the Carl Nielsen Competition has put Odense on the musical map, attracted some of the biggest names from abroad as judges and coaches, and a long list of the winners have become big guns on the international music scene. Now you will once again have the opportunity to see what the classical music world has to offer – and in 2026 it is the flute that is the protagonist of the competition. The competition offers three elimination rounds for the 24 hopeful talents who have made it through the eye of the needle before we can reveal the absolute winner of the competition. It will all be spiced up with community singing events, talks about music and Carl Nielsen and much more.

Nielsen's 3.

Odense Concert Hall

Burning Bright

Congregation Beth Israel

Each year from January until June, about 60 young people meet at the Rudolfinum to create a beautiful joint concert under the guidance of players from the Czech Philharmonic (and with support from their teachers). This time, the project participants are from the regions of Hradec Králové, Moravian Silesia, Pilsen, Zlín, and Prague. The charismatic conductor Petr Altrichter will lead the concluding concert.

Joint Orchestra of Music School Pupils and the Czech Philharmonic Musicians

Rudolfinum

Alexander Malofeev's debut was brilliant! The pianist stepped in for the ill Evgeny Kissin at a concert of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra - and the audience could hardly contain itself. The Frankfurt audience rewarded Malofeev's virtuoso playing with thunderous applause, not so much for its power as for its melody and transparency. It was high time for the 23-year-old to give a recital at the Alte Oper. Malofeev readily admits that he feels most at home alone on stage. He then gives an insight into his world of sound: "It's always my own space, even when hundreds of people are listening. I let them in. I like to create my own space. In the Mozart Hall, Malofeev creates a sound space that spans Scandinavia, France, Vienna and his Russian homeland: Characteristic pieces glowing in intense colours.

Alexander Malofeev, piano

Alte Oper

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is, so to speak, the artistic breeding ground for many of the world's top conductors: Greats such as Adrian Boult, Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, Andris Nelsons, and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla spent crucial years of their careers leading this ensemble. Since April 2023, Japanese conductor Kazuki Yamada has been at the helm of the English musicians—and that's promising!

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Frank Peter Zimmermann / Kazuki Yamada

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

The sixth and final part of Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Artist-in-Residence also concludes the 2025/2026 season at the Swedish Radio Concert Hall, Berwaldhallen. The Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki initially leads the Radio Symphony Orchestra in Sibelius’s tone poem The Oceanides, followed by Salonen’s own cello concerto with the acclaimed cellist Nicolas Altstaedt. Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5, one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century, which the composer himself described as a tribute to the strength and beauty of the human spirit, concludes the concert.

Mälkki & Altstaedt interprets Salonen

Northwestern University Symphony Orchestra

Northwestern University

Join us at the Southbank Centre for the launch of our latest Virtual Orchestra experience – an exciting, hands-on journey that invites you to pick up a virtual instrument and play alongside the full symphony orchestra. Designed with families in mind, this immersive experience welcomes curious kids, first-time concertgoers and seasoned music lovers alike.

Play along: Virtual Orchestra

Southbank Centre

Nicolò Umberto Foron - Emanuel Ax

Teatro Auditorium Manzoni

Sibelius Iron Works Vaughan Williams

Gasteig HP8

The Residentie Orkest will bring the season to a grand close at Amare with two impressive works. Jean Sibelius's Violin Concerto is infused with the spirit of Finnish nature - you can see the mist rising over dark lakes, hear the echoes of deep forests and feel the biting cold of the rugged landscape in every note of this chillingly beautiful work. Artist in residence Bomsori Kim will bring the slow rhythms of nature to life with her masterful violin playing, under the baton of chief conductor Jun Märkl.

Bruckner & Sibelius

Amare

Santtu-Matias Rouvali & Christoph Sietzen

After writing two light but entertaining violin concertos, Saint-Saëns upped his game in 1880. In his Violin Concerto No. 3, he delivered a deliciously scored masterpiece characterised by its brilliant solo part, building intensity, room-stilling slow movement and finale inspired by the music of the country it was written in: Spain. Alexandra Conunova plays perhaps the greatest French violin concerto in between music that finds hope from grief: Ravel’s etched memorials to fallen comrades and the symphony in which Sibelius wrestles the most inspiring optimism from music born of tragedy.

University of Oxford

Prepare to be dazzled and amazed! The stars come out early when our incredible Young Soloist winners take the stage to astound you with their mad skills. Always a fan favorite!

Embark on a journey from darkness to light with Sibelius’s 5th Symphony, as the breathtaking landscape of his homeland unfolds, culmimating in the soaring swan theme of the radiant finale. An uplifting “Finnish” to our season!

Sparkling Young Stars, A Shimmering Symphony

Beachwood High School

After his brilliant performance at the Cathedral Concert in June 2024, conductor Jan Söderblom returns to the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra. Together with pianist Alexander Melnikov, he promises fireworks in Rachmaninov’s First Piano Concerto. This youthful work, later revised by the composer, dazzles with grand Romantic gestures and virtuosic piano brilliance. Amy Beach’s Gaelic Symphony keeps us in the high-Romantic spirit but takes us across the Atlantic. Amy Beach sought a distinct musical voice for the United States, much like Dvořák. Drawing on her English, Irish, and Scottish heritage, her symphony overflows with warmth and inviting melodies. The Antwerp Symphony Orchestra is delighted to share these captivating sounds with you.

Rachmaninov with Alexander Melnikov

Queen Elisabeth Hall

TivoliVredenburg

In this striking exploration of Nordic soundscapes, Chief Conductor John Storgårds will flex every Finnish musical muscle as he leads the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra from the icy beauty of the Arctic to a Danish climax that revels in the raw power of human resilience.

BBC Philharmonic - Northern Lights

The Bridgewater Hall

Northern Lights

When Claudio Flückiger lifts his horn, a world of sonic beauty and virtuosity opens up. As solo hornist in the Royal Danish Orchestra, he masters the instrument's warm, singable tone and its powerful expression – qualities that are indispensable in the music of Richard Strauss.


Flückiger, educated in Zurich and with a career that has taken him through the Opernhaus Zurich and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, has a particular love for Strauss's works. In fact, the composer's incidental music was one of the reasons he chose to become an opera hornist. Tonight he will appear as a soloist in Strauss's Horn Concerto No. 1, a work written with love and deep understanding of the instrument. Strauss dedicated the concerto to his father, Franz Strauss, one of the most famous horn players of the time, and chose to call the orchestral version the “Waldhornkonzert” – a reference to the French horn his father preferred to play.

The solo hornist of the Royal Chapel plays Strauss

Alsion Concert Hall

Who better to channel the gleaming, frosty beauty of Finland's most cherished composer, Jean Sibelius, than conductor Hannu Lintu, a celebrated fellow Finn? Swiss pianist Francesco Piemontesi, who has dazzled audiences across the globe, brings warmth to this program with Beethoven's Fourth Piano Concerto.

Lintu Conducts Sibelius

Joseph Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

The Music Center at Strathmore

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

Cijing Zuo, violin

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

We are convinced that humans need music like they need air to breathe. In the 7th symphony concert, Moritz Gnann returns to the podium of the State Orchestra after his successful Kassel opera debut last season. This time he dedicates himself to works that explore the forces of nature – from storms and thunderstorms to the atmospheric lightness of the air.

7th Symphony Concert - Air

Congress Palace Kassel City Hall

Khatia Buniatishvili is famous for her highly emotional playing and for fully illuminating the inner dramas of the works she interprets. The program of her concert with the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields provides the perfect setting for this. Even the opening works by Jean Sibelius, his famous "Valse triste" and the ethereal "Scene with Cranes," are taken from incidental music. Joseph Haydn's Farewell Symphony tells its own unique drama: the resourceful composer supposedly conceived the work specifically to subtly hint to his employer that the orchestra musicians would like to finally take a vacation. And there's no doubt that the solo concerts of the brilliant opera composer Mozart also contain a fair amount of drama.

Khatia Buniatishvili / Academy of St. Martin in the Fields

5th Academic Concert 2025/26

Gewandhaus

Pianist Khatia Buniatishvili will join forces once again with Academy of St Martin in the Fields for a concert in Hamburg’s stunning Elbphilharmonie directed by Tomo Keller. The concert will feature Khatia performing Mozart’s dark and stormy Piano Concerto no. 20 contrasting with his bright and spirited Piano Concerto no. 23, which were both released as a recording with ASMF in 2024.

ASMF & Khatia Buniatishvili GERMANY

In its 40 year history, Berkshire Music Trust has proudly supported children and young people to develop their passion for music. The Berkshire Youth Symphony Orchestra is formed of some of the most talented and dedicated young musicians in Berkshire.

Berkshire Youth Symphony Orchestra

St Nicolas Church

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.

Joyce Yang plays Tchaikovsky

The Forum Auditorium

Celebrate the extraordinary legacy of Maestro Nobuyoshi Yasuda in his final concert with CVSO. The program reflects his journey, from Sibelius’ Finlandia, the first piece he ever conducted, to selections from Mahler’s Symphony No. 9, known as his “Farewell Symphony”. The evening also features Rhapsody for Orchestra by Japanese composer Yuzo Toyama, honoring Nobu’s roots as he prepares to return to his native Japan. Experience a one-in-a-lifetime tribute to a maestro whose 33 years of transformative leadership have shaped CVSO into the outstanding ensemble it is today.

CVSO: Maestro's Finale: Conductor Nobuyoshi Yasuda's Farewell Concert

Pablo Center at the Confluence

Start your weekend with our must-see Friday night concert series and social experience, Symphonic Piazza. Prepare to escape, mingle, and be entertained as you enjoy the perfect combination of a shorter format concert with enjoyable and engaging lobby activities to share with family, friends, and our musicians. It’s your new go-to date night! The fun continues in the lobby after the concert, as we’ll have even more memorable things for you to experience.

Grieg's Piano Concerto

Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts

Sol Gabetta returns to Antwerp, following her stunning performance of Lalo’s concerto last season, this time captivating audiences with Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Heralded by Gramophone as ‘one of the best around’, Gabetta’s performance is a masterclass in balancing stillness and glorification, imbuing the piece with profound emotion. Maestro Mikko Franck, renowned for his mastery of orchestral timbres, leads the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra through this poignant journey, culminating in Strauss’s majestic Tod und Verklärung. A concert not to be missed by lovers of deep musical expression.

Sol Gabetta shines with Elgar

Music Center De Bijloke

Keitaku Iwata, violin

Does climate affect the way music is composed? Come find out for yourself in this unusual program juxtaposing works composed near earth’s 45th and 60th parallels, where temperatures and daylight hours differ dramatically. The Escher Quartet offers its signature performances of Verdi and Sibelius, while the indomitable duo of Alexander Sitkovetsky and Wu Qian provide bracing cold and soothing warmth.

Verdi and Sibelius Quartets

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Fabulous "Finnish" - Symphony Orchestra

ISU Center for the Performing Arts

First United Methodist Church, Springfield

Osmo Vänskä & Renaud Capuçon

Sunday Matinee 04: Constantinos Carydis & Karen Gomyo

Great Festival House

James Ross’ Finale – Bruch & Sibelius

Northern Virginia Community College - Alexandria Campus

The George Washington Masonic National Memorial

Alitalia was the name of Italy’s premier airline for 75 years. We borrow it here because all three composers on this program owed a creative debt to the culture and vibrancy of that wonderful country.

In a letter written to Sibelius in 1901, Baron Carpelan strongly encourages his fellow Finn to go abroad:  "You have been sitting at home for quite a while, Mr. Sibelius, it is high time for you to travel. You will spend the winter in Italy, a country where one learns cantabile, balance and harmony. You remember what Italy meant for Tchaikovsky’s development and for Richard Strauss."

The lure of Italy to those who live in cold Northern Europe cannot be understated. Composer after composer went south and brought back their musical memories of that country of sunshine and warmth, of folksong and dance, and of landscapes from seaside to mountain.

For Strauss it was about finding external inspiration like the story of Till Eulenspiegel; for Tchaikovsky, it was exposure to folk tunes he heard on the streets of Florence; and for Sibelius, it was where he jotted down the first ideas that would become his Second Symphony. All thanks to Italy…

Alitalia

Mount Saint Mary College

The finale for Season 76 features an incredible Side-by-Side performance with the IFS Youth Orchestra, under the direction of our beloved Dr. Thomas Heuser in his last season concert during his tenure as IFS Music Director & Conductor. This truly historic event will feature a huge group of adult and student musicians performing together as one ensemble. The music for the combined groups includes the beloved symphonic poem Finlandia by Jean Sibelius, plus the comic Overture to Die Fledermaus by Johann Strauss Jr., whose 200th birthday in 2025 will be celebrated worldwide. After intermission, the intrepid adult Symphony musicians will round out the program with the awe inspiring First Symphony of Johannes Brahms.

Passing the Baton: Side-by-Side with IFS Youth Symphony

Idaho Falls High School

The most famous motif of the Fifth Symphony of Sibelius comes in the final movement. Often drawing inspiration from nature, Sibelius’s connection with the Finnish landscape was integral to his identity. “Today at ten to eleven I saw sixteen swans,” he wrote in his diary in 1915. “One of my greatest experiences! Lord God, what beauty! They circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the solar haze like a gleaming silver ribbon.” This moment was the inspiration for what he would call the “Swan Hymn,” the swinging horn motif that evokes the graceful beating of the swans’ wings as the woodwinds’ countermelody suggests their call.

Gleaming Glow

Southern Oregon University

Grants Pass High School

Collier Center for the Performing Arts

Royal Northern Sinfonia is reunited with old friend Thomas Zehetmair, the orchestra’s former Music Director.

Sibelius' Second Symphony

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music

Alpesh Chauhan conducts Smetana, Kodály and Sibelius

Teatro La Fenice

It was England's first major violin concerto. It quickly became clear that it was by no means banal or purely artistic – after all, in his Opus 61, performed here by the British composer Anthony Marwood, Edward Elgar had laid bare nothing less than his innermost being. Even the Finn Jean Sibelius, whose value has long since been fully recognized after initial public skepticism, famously didn't create a single banal bar. His last symphony, premiered in the 1920s, is, like its predecessors, dark and profoundly serious, emotionally gripping, and, with just one movement, formally revolutionary. The second half of the concert, conducted by Anna Rakitina, opens with a cheerful work by the early Haydn: his Symphony
"Morning" features a beautiful sunrise.

Change

Stadthalle Göttingen

Juilliard Orchestra Conducted by David Robertson

Lincoln Center

Since 2010, Anneleen Lenaerts has been the principal harpist of the Vienna Philharmonic, and in 2024 she visited the Musikkens Kammerklub in a concert with the Swiss flutist Emmanuel Pahud. Now she is the soloist in Glière's rarely performed but very beautiful harp concerto. Here the composer truly shows the full potential of the harp in a work that is both technically demanding and delightfully catchy.

Sibelius & Gliére's Harp Concerto

Aalborg Central Waterfront

Julie Rossland | Scandinavian evening

The Bell, Bremen

Sibelius and de Sarasate

Curtis Institute of Music

Bard College Community Orchestra

Fisher Center at Bard

‘Tremendous’ declared one critic when Nadine Benjamin made her Glyndebourne debut, and this dazzling British soprano has a voice that has to be heard to be believed. Today she joins the London Philharmonic Orchestra to bring all her radiance, her insight and her effortless dramatic flair to Eastbourne. How to follow that? Rising star (and LPO Fellow Conductor) Nefeli Chadouli explores the epic vistas and northern forests of Sibelius’s First Symphony: a young genius in a new nation, pouring all his imagination into music as wild as a winter storm and as wonderful as the Northern Lights.

Sibelius’s First

Congress Theatre

In celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, The Syracuse Orchestra performs music from around the world that celebrates freedom and our richly diverse local community.

Let Freedom Ring

St. Paul's Syracuse, the Downtown Episcopal Church

Join music director candidate Ian Passmore and the Great Falls Symphonic Choir for an evening of powerful and evocative music.

The Search Ian Passmore

Mansfield Theater

This afternoon's concert begins with music by one of the most original and exciting composers of our time, Danish Matias Vestergård. As  Artist in Residence  at the dynamic and hip chamber music festival  Festival & Friends  in Copenhagen, he composed the chamber work  Die Welt ohne Schwere in 2024. It has now become a full-fledged orchestral work. The music is inspired by a comic medieval motif, where knights carry flowers, cakes and fragrant oils as weapons.

Gladsaxe Music Prize 2026

Grønnemose Skole

The Campus String Ensemble is comprised of non-music major students, faculty members, staff, and alumni of the University of Michigan.

Campus Orchestra String Ensemble

Earl V. Moore Building

Shostakovich’s immersive Second Cello Concerto weaves a wide-ranging rhapsody that is brooding and spooky with moments of levity from the least likely of sources: a bagel. Inspiration is nothing if unpredictable, and Shostakovich’s muse was the Ukrainian street vendor’s song “Who will buy my bagel?”, which he transformed into a challenging cello tour de force. On stage and in her celebrated 2016 album featuring the concerto, Alisa Weilerstein has been praised for her deft interpretation of the work, leading The Guardian to write, “Her playing ranged from tranquil passages of sensual beauty to rough, demotic outbursts performed with the furious expression of one who has been rudely awoken from a beautiful dream.”

Shostakovich & Sibelius

Walt Disney Concert Hall

The German-American Augustin Hadelich is considered one of the world's most outstanding violinists. He has enjoyed a special friendship with the WDR Symphony Orchestra for a long time. Now, together, they will perform Dmitri Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto – a work full of gripping emotion, ranging from deep pain to grotesque humor and feverish energy. Dima Slobodeniouk will conduct from his adopted home of Finland, performing two magnificent orchestral works by Jean Sibelius: the enchanting tone poem "Pohjola's Daughter" opens the concert, before the Second Symphony concludes with a radiant finale.

Resonances - Hadelich & Shostakovich

Museum Ludwig

Elgar's legendary cello concerto requires a virtuoso – and such a virtuoso is Denmark's new cello star, Jonathan Swensen! Not yet 30 and recipient of both the Léonie Sonning talent prize and a host of international cello prizes. Matias Vestergård is among the most original composers of our time. And Sibelius' Symphony No. 2 is simply among the most magnificent symphonies ever. At the head of the whole glory is chief conductor Christoph Gedschold.

Sibelius and Elgar

The Conservatory Concert Hall

Experience the passion and intensity of two Romantic masterworks as the Montgomery Symphony Orchestra presents Sibelius’s Violin Concerto in D minor, featuring MSO Violin Fellow Haeun Honney Kim. The evening concludes with the sweeping emotional power of Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 in F minor—a dramatic and unforgettable musical journey.

Masterworks IV: Tchaikovsky Season Finale

Troy University

Jean Sibelius called one of his many symphonic poems "The Bard." We're never told what the piece is about. Only that it centers on a wandering poet and singer, like those found in many legends, including Norse mythology. And this bard, of course, is given his own instrument: the harp, which plays an important role in Sibelius's score. Sibelius was probably simply interested in a timeless portrait of the artist—after all, aren't he and his performers essentially all "bards"?

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Johan Dalene / Jukka-Pekka Saraste

“To be or not to be?” This timeless question, which tormented Hamlet, continues to captivate minds. Ophelia, too, sought an answer, though hers ended tragically, culminating in one of literature’s most haunting scenes of madness. Shakespeare’s play—and Ophelia’s florid drowning—have inspired countless works of art, but it is the ambiguity of her mental state, coupled with her astonishing transition from speech to song, that has particularly intrigued composers.

Ophelia's Madness

Grand Théâtre de Québec

Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 brilliantly balances simmering drama with the rhythms of Bohemian folk music. Karen Gomyo is the soloist in Sibelius’s Violin Concerto, a work of supreme virtuosity and eloquent musical storytelling. In his NY Phil debut, Domingo Hindoyan conducts this program, which starts with Allison Loggins-Hull’s reflection on the US national anthem.

Composer

Jean Sibelius

Events

Upcoming events

Aug 20, 2026 - Mar 9, 2027

Orchestra of the Finnish National Opera @ Musiikkitalo · Finnish National Opera and Ballet

17 - 18 Sep, 2026

Lessons in love · Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Sep 19, 2026

Sibelius Symphony No. 5 · BBC Philharmonic

24 - 26 Sep, 2026

Samuel Lee & the Firebird · Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Sep 25, 2026

Pekka Kuusisto: Vivaldi’s Four Seasons & Sibelius · Aurora Orchestra

Past events

Aug 29, 2026

Fate & guilt · Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra

Aug 20, 2026 - Mar 9, 2027

Orchestra of the Finnish National Opera @ Musiikkitalo · Finnish National Opera and Ballet

About

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