Composer

Dvořák wrote his Eighth Symphony at his summer home in southern Bohemia, where he hiked, listened to the birds, and felt the sun and wind on his skin. This music revels in the pleasures and mysteries of the natural world, the cycle of life that sustains us. Cellist Pablo Ferrández joins conductor Xian Zhang and the San Francisco Symphony for Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations, a poignant evocation of Mozartian order and beauty—a lost world Tchaikovsky longed to inhabit. Composed in 1933, Dances of Galánta rearranges and reinvents the Roma folk music that Kodály first heard in Galánta, the tiny railway town where he spent seven happy years as a child.

EPSG:4326

Dvořák Symphony No. 8

Davies Symphony Hall

Kodaly, Brahms and Beethoven

Dorchester Abbey

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

Kodály’s Dances of Galánta launches the program with rhythmic bite and radiant color, followed by Strauss’ Horn Concerto No. 1. Elgar’s Enigma Variations concludes with sharply etched musical portraits and a commanding orchestral finish.

Strauss + Elgar

Morris Performing Arts Center

Terzetto

Casino Bern

Step into a world of dark tales, mystery and dancing rhythms as the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and viola soloist, also this season's P2 Classical Artist, Ami-Louise Johnsson are led by Taiwanese conductor Yi-Chen Lin. The music moves between deep lyricism and narrative drama – from Bohuslav Martinů's poignant Rhapsody-Concerto for Viola, where the solo part glows with feelings, to Antonín Dvořák's evocative The Noon Witch , a musical tale with both humor and horror. Finally, Zoltán Kodály's Dances of Galánta lift the Swedish Radio concert hall with its exuberance of energy, virtuosity and folk charm.

Dark tales and dances

Berwaldhallen

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

Lunch concert

Berliner Philharmoniker

Mendelssohn’s evocative Scottish Symphony caps this concert which also features brand new music inspired by Maggi Hambling’s art as she marks her eightieth year, alongside the exuberant Dances of Galánta by Kodály.

Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony

Snape Maltings

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

Capturing the frenetic spirit of the 1930s and ’40s, conductor Kevin John Edusei leads a vibrant program that highlights Rachmaninoff’s fiery Symphonic Dances, his last major composition, which The Cleveland Orchestra plays side-by-side with the Kent Blossom Chamber Orchestra. The swirling Hungarian rhythms of Kodály’s Dances of Galánta open the evening before giving way to Martinů’s energetic First Cello Concerto, performed by Principal Cello Mark Kosower.

Rachmaninoff’s Symphonic Dances

Blossom Music Center

Emotional conflict is at the heart of this moving program, although it’s tempered by the presence of Kodály’s lighthearted, late-Romantic Serenade. Bernstein’s Halil—which the composer said speaks to a sense of war-based or war-feared “struggle” and to “the consolations of art, love, and the hope for peace”—opens the program, while Dvořák’s tumultuous F-minor Piano Trio—a work that an influential critic at the time said demonstrated that the composer was “at the pinnacle of his career”—brings the evening to a dramatic close.

Dvořák & Bernstein

New Mexico Museum of Art

Delirium Musicum

Central Park

Notes at the Museum

Palazzo Abatellis

June 2026 Concert

Reading Concert Hall

The spirit of innovation and cultural fusion shines in this program of chamber music masterpieces. Mozart’s Quintet in C minor, originally composed as a wind octet, takes on new depth and intensity in the composer’s own reworking for strings, blending the Classical style with bold harmonic exploration. Kodály’s Serenade, a strikingly original piece for two violins and viola, pulses with Hungarian folk rhythms and an exhilarating sense of dialogue.

Brookville, NY

Krasnoff Theatre

Season Finale: Strauss’ Metamorphosen with Gábor Takács-Nagy

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

Haddon Kay, cello

Northwestern University

Gorgeous melodies, richly satisfying musical textures, and a solo part that leaves you open-mouthed with wonder – Brahms’ Violin Concerto stops you in your tracks and it’s no wonder that it’s been an audience favourite pretty much since its premiere. A selection of music with a strongly central-European character starts the night; punchy, bold, and at times, sweetly romantic.

Brahms' Violin Concerto

The Glasshouse International Centre for Music

In this interactive performance, students will discover how composers use rhythm, texture, instrumentation and movement to create vivid musical worlds.

For Schools: The Sydney Symphony Performs Music That Moves You

Lazenby Hall

Glasshouse Arts, conference and Entertainment Centre

Hear the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in your city on our 2026 Regional Tour, as we travel to Port Macquarie, Armidale, Nowra and Canberra with a concert of music for – and inspired by – dance.

The Sydney Symphony Performs Music That Moves You

Canberra Grammar School

Shoalhaven Entertainment Centre

Conductor in Residence Benjamin Northey leads the Orchestra in this program featuring captivating works by Debussy, Stravinsky, Kodály and Sydney’s own Holly Harrison.

Maestro JoAnn Falletta concludes the Symphony Joslyn series with Concertmaster Susanna Perry Gilmore and a sweeping program of new and old favorites.

Falletta & Perry Gilmore

Joslyn Art Museum

Written in 1933 for the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic and based on Hungarian traditional music, Dances Of Galánta is by far the most popular of Kodály’s purely orchestral works. We finish the season honoring Erin Aldridge with her performance of the Bruch G Minor Violin Concert—one of the most popular pieces in all of violin repertoire. Rhenish, the last symphony written by Schumann, pays homage to the great Cologne Cathedral and to the Rhineland in all its glory.

Rhine Journey

Duluth Entertainment Convention Center

Michael Bochmann – ‘ … treated us to an endless flow of golden melody.’ Daily Telegraph
Carol Hubel-Allen – ‘ … her playing is always a delight.’ The Sanctuary Studio and Gallery, Newnham on Severn
Nicola Tait Baxter – ‘… performed in an intoxicating and beautiful way.’ The Bremervorde Regional Art and Music Festival, Lower Saxony, Germany

The Bochmann String Trio, favourites at the Lion Ballroom, open their programme with an early work by Beethoven, one of great youthful energy in which there are glimpses of what was to come from this great genius. Kodály’s compositions are infused with the folk music of his homeland of Hungary and this is reflected in his serenade-like Intermezzo which follows. In the second half there is just one work: Mozart’s expansive six-movement Divertimento K563, a work of ever-changing beauty.

Mozart and Beethoven in Leominster at Lion Ballroom

The Lion Ballroom

ERSO closes its 99th season with a particularly thrilling guest: cimbalom virtuoso, who will perform a suite from Zoltán Kodály’s comic opera Háry János. The work tells of villagers gathered in a Hungarian tavern to hear the fantastical tales of the old soldier Háry János—most famously, how he single-handedly defeated Napoleon in Milan, yet refused to marry the Empress out of loyalty to his village sweetheart, Örzse. The program also includes Johannes Brahms’ spirited Hungarian Dances and his Third Symphony, conducted by Olari Elts.

Season Finale Concert. Hungarian Dances

Estonia Concert Hall

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

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.

Bach and Mozart Piano Classics

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

The legendary Martha Graham Dance Company, the oldest American modern dance company, takes to the stage of La Fenice – fifty-one years after its last appearance in the lagoon city – to celebrate the centenary of its foundation. Acclaimed for their exceptional technique and expressive depth, the dancers present three of Graham’s creations, all of which have gone down in the history of modern ballet, offering the rare opportunity to enter the visionary world of the great choreographer, whose legacy continues to fascinate audiences around the world. Diversion of Angels (1948), to the music of Norman Dello Joio, investigates – through three pairs of dancers – three different modes of love: romantic, mature and adolescent. Lamentation (1930), to the gloomy notes of Zoltán Kodály, is a choreographed solo, during which, with stylised movements, the dancer’s body expresses the very essence of pain. Chronicle (1936), to music by Wallingford Riegger, depicts the reaction to the threat of fascism in Europe by Martha Graham, who had previously refused to participate in the Olympics in Nazi Germany. In addition to these historic choreographies is Imagine, a new production by the American choreographer Hope Boykin, with music by Leonard Bernstein, proposed in an arrangement by Christopher Rountree.

Martha Graham Dance Company

Teatro La Fenice

Alpesh Chauhan conducts Smetana, Kodály and Sibelius

Childhood memories of the music of the Sinti and Roma in his homeland inspired Zoltán Kodály's "Dances from Galánta," while Melanie Bonis's Suite en forme de valses exudes French lightness and elegance. This dance-like quality contrasts with the suspenseful music of Paul Dukas, who set Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's ballad of the same name to music in his "The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

Magic & Dancing

Berliner Philharmonie

Benjamin Faden is a violist from Iowa City, Iowa, and a senior at WashU. Ben began his musical career at five years old at the Preucil School of Music, playing the violin. In eighth grade, seeking more excitement in his classical journey, he chose to switch to an objectively richer and more beautiful instrument: the viola. He has loved it ever since. After learning from a violin teacher throughout high school, it was not until college that he first began playing proper viola repertoire. This recital is the culmination of all that he has learned.

Benjamin Faden, Senior Minor Recital, viola

560 Music Center

International piano phenomenon Lang Lang returns to your TSO! Since he burst onto the stage in 1999, Lang Lang has been astonishing audiences around the world with his dazzling performances. He has performed with all of the major orchestras and is one of the greatest pianists of his generation. His performance of Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto is not to be missed.

Lang Lang

Linda Ronstadt Music Hall

A Journey | Frost Symphony Orchestra

University of Miami

Don’t miss this concert featuring a vocal quartet alongside the Symphony for Mozart’s final piece, the unfinished Requiem.

Unfinished Business

Miller Theater

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.

Pictures at an Exhibition

The Woodruff Arts Center

Kevin John Edusei returns to conduct a program celebrating the flamboyance and wit of two great Hungarian composers, Liszt and Kodály, beginning with Liszt’s symphonic poem, Les Préludes. Liszt wrote this dramatic piece based on poems depicting the heavens, stormy winds and pastoral scenes. Guest soloist Haochen Zhang performs Liszt’s high-spirited First Piano Concerto, which was criticized by his contemporaries for pushing the bounds of taste, but was later embraced by composers like Béla Bartók. Kodály’s Suite from the opera Háry János draws on his deep knowledge of Hungarian folk melodies to depict the tall tales of an imaginative veteran. The orchestra also presents Richard Strauss’ tone poem, Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, and breathes life into the roguish German folk hero for which it's named.

Liszt & Kodály

Benaroya Hall

Tarmo Peltokoski, the Finnish "talent of the century" (Tagesspiegel) on the baton, has been a close collaborator with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen since his phenomenally successful debut in June 2021. This season, Hamburg audiences will once again experience how Peltokoski's energetic presence spurs the Kammerphilharmonie's musicians to crackling peak performances. The evening's soloist is another exceptional young talent, Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich.

The German Chamber Philharmonic Bremen

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Mendelssohn's "Scottish" Symphony is not just a masterpiece of Romanticism, but also an early example of the "Nordic style" – a sound ideal that also permeated the music of Sibelius, Grieg, and Brahms. In keeping with this, artists from the north will be presenting today’s concert: Swedish violinist Daniel Lozakovich, who began his university training in Karlsruhe at the age of eleven, Finnish conductor Tarmo Peltokoski, and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

Romantic Scotland

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

LSO’s chamber orchestra returns to the magnificent Saint Paul United Methodist Church. After opening with Zoltán Kodály’s Dances of Galánta, LSO is joined by principal harpist Katie Wychulis and harpist Julie Smith to perform Marjan Mozetich’s double harp concerto, The Passion of Angels. The program closes with Franz Joseph Haydn’s stately London Symphony.

The Space Between

Saint Paul United Methodist Church

DSO March 2026 Concert

First Baptist Church of Decatur

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

The spirit of innovation and cultural fusion shines in this program of chamber music masterpieces. Mozart’s Quintet in C minor, originally composed as a wind octet, takes on new depth and intensity in the composer’s own reworking for strings, blending the Classical style with bold harmonic exploration.

Mozart and Dvořák Quintets

Drew University

Trinity Episcopal Church of Vero Beach

A Thursday concert with MSO that begins in Kodály’s Hungary with elegantly arranged folk music and leads us into Beethoven’s world, balancing between fateful tragedy and life-affirming light.

Beethoven & Kodály

Malmö Concert Hall

At the February concert the Prague Philharmonia’s Chamber Music Series will host the Ševčík Quartet for the very first time. Among other things, they will play Leoš Janáček’s String Quartet No. 1, which he composed upon a suggestion of the Czech Quartet. It is a masterpiece by a composer who in his early seventies realized the importance of the string quartet as a musical form and brought his inspiration from Leo Tolstoy’s novella The Kreutzer Sonata into the work.

Janáček. Kodály. Shostakovich

The Professed House, Prague

February 2026 Concert

St. Paul & St. Andrew United Methodist Church

A highly distinguished pianist and the first classical performer to be granted a MacArthur Fellowship, Sir Stephen Hough’s magic is best experienced live — in these concerts, he performs Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 21, which begins cautiously but soon dives into its true warmth and urgency. Guest conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni guides this rollicking dance across central and eastern Europe: hear the spirit of Ligeti’s Romania, Kodály’s love for his native Hungary, and Mozart’s musical postcard from Prague.

Zeitouni Conducts Mozart

Warner Grand Theater

In the centenary year of his death, the orchestra begins with Charlestonian Rhapsody by Edmund Thornton Jenkins, an American composer who emigrated to London and found success as both a performer and composer.

Chineke! Orchestra: An American in Paris

Southbank Centre

An American in Paris

Seven doors, and behind each one, a crucial piece of a gruesome puzzle…
Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók sits somewhere between a gothic tale of horror and a psychological dissection of a twisted relationship. Alone in a castle, Judith follows a trail of ever more compelling and grisly clues to unlock the truth about her new husband, horror by horror, door by door.

BBC Philharmonic - Bluebeard’s Castle

The Bridgewater Hall

Bluebeard’s Castle by Béla Bartók sits somewhere between a gothic tale of horror and a psychological dissection of a twisted relationship. Alone in a castle, Judith follows a trail of ever more compelling and grisly clues to unlock the truth about her new husband, horror by horror, door by door.

Bluebeard’s Castle

This special performance by the BBC Philharmonic is a rare opportunity to hear Bartók’s gripping one-act opera, Bluebeard’s Castle, in an atmospheric concert hall staging with theatrical lighting. An impulsive young bride has turned her back on her family, only to uncover the gruesome truth about her new husband lurking behind every locked door of his imposing citadel. With sinister strings, strident winds and commanding brass, it’s both a compelling psychological drama and a masterpiece of orchestral scene painting. The spectacular opening of the fifth door, revealing both the vast expanse of Bluebeard’s realm and his overbearing power, remains one of the most spine-tingling moments in all music.

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: Bluebeard's Castle

Royal Concert Hall Nottingham

A rhapsody on Gypsy tunes, an American masterwork played by an American soloist, and Beethoven at his sunniest. Rising star William Hagen brings Samuel Barber’s violin concerto, on a program with Zoltán Kodály’s whirling Dances of Galánta and Beethoven’s beloved bucolic romp, his Pastoral symphony.

Beethoven and Barber

The Forum Auditorium

The New Year is entering in high spirits and in the best of spirits – a very special one for the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra: June 1, 2026, marks the 80th anniversary of their founding. Over the decades, they have opened up the entire cosmos of great music to their audiences. The New Year's Concert offers something for everyone: the folkloric, the exhilarating, the romantic, the virtuosic. In the overture to his successful operetta The Merry Widow, Franz Lehár ignites a sparkling firework display of immortal hits. Keywords: Da geh' ich ins Maxim, Vilja-Lied, Ja, das Studium der Weiber (Yes, the Study of Women)… A top-class symphonic concertante piece is also on the program: the dazzling and joyful A minor Cello Concerto by the all-round genius Camille Saint-Saëns. Also appearing with us for the first time is the versatile and virtuoso cellist Bryan Cheng from Canada, a recipient of top competition awards. He's also the soloist in a romantic mood piece by Tchaikovsky. But don't worry: it won't stay too quiet! Happy New Year!

New Year's Concert With The Symphonics

Meistersinger Hall

New Year's Concert With The Symphonics In Ansbach

Tagungszentrum Onoldia

Ryan Rowe – Master’s Recital

Hamel Music Center

Concert in the Wiener Konzerthaus

Wiener Konzerthaus

Concert of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna

Musikverein Wien

The Bard College Community Orchestra is a diverse group of players, including Bard College students, faculty and staff, local high school players, and community members of level 5 NYSSMA standard and higher. The orchestra is a full symphony orchestra and plays a variety of repertoire.

Bard College Community Orchestra

Fisher Center at Bard

American composer Jessie Montgomery (born 1981) draws inspiration from jazz, hip hop and rock – all natural parts of life growing up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. She wrote Duo for Violin and Cello for one of her close friends. The piece is intended as a tribute to friendship, with the various movements portraying the bonds that connect people: laughter, compassion, adventure – and sometimes a bit of silliness.

Soup with Violin and Cello

Stockholm Concert Hall

Joseph Haydn shows his entertaining side in the best sense of the word in his famous Trio in G major, which he composed in London in 1795. Haydn had been Kapellmeister at the court of the Esterházy family for almost thirty years. There he also became acquainted with original Hungarian dance music, which he presented to the delighted London audience in the last movement of the trio, the Rondo all’Ongarese. Zoltán Kodály had a completely different view of Hungarian folk music. He did not look for the temperamental element in it, but rather - like his colleague Béla Bartók - discovered a “Hungarian style“ on his research trips, “free of any sentimentality” and “superfluous ornamentation”. This is exactly what Kodály adopted in his second string quartet, which he composed between 1916 and 1918: a work of great seriousness and almost archaic power. In his Piano Quartet No. 1, on the other hand, Johannes Brahms indulges in Hungarian folklore, which the Hamburg-born composer also revived in his Hungarian Dances. In the final Rondo alla Zingarese of his quartet, Brahms sets sparks flying.

2. Chamber Music Concert

Liederhalle Cultural and Congress Center

Before becoming Head of Music at Westminster Cathedral in London in 2021, Simon Johnson was organist at St. Paul's Cathedral, where he performed at a variety of royal events, including the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II and the celebrations for her 90th birthday. The Eule organ in the Philharmonie Mercatorhalle, with its four manuals and 72 stops, is also very British and majestic. Its four manuals and 72 stops are modeled on the late-Romantic English town hall organs—in the first Toccata of the season, the Duisburg Philharmonic Choir will provide powerful support. Choir director Marcus Strümpe has included Anton Bruckner, among others, on the program, as the late-Romantic composer, as a virtuoso organist and composer of sacred music, was well versed in the combination of choir and organ. In Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's "Hear My Prayer," a soprano joins the organ and choir: the frequent alternations between solo voice and choir are reminiscent of the "anthem" tradition of the Anglican liturgy. William Harris and Herbert Howells, two prominent representatives of Anglican church music, are also on the program, while Louis Vierne, long-time chief organist at Notre-Dame de Paris, represents the rich organ scene in France. An exuberant romantic richness of sound characterizes his organ symphonies, a genre he himself invented.

Organ & Choir

CityPalais

It’s an evening with classical dance themes. We begin with Kodaly’s Dances of Galanta. Listen for the sounds of Russian folk tunes and castanets when violinist Stefan Jackiw performs Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto. The program finishes with Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7, which Beethoven himself spoke of fondly as “one of my best works”.

Prokofiev & Beethoven

The Oncenter Civic Center Theaters

Zoltán Kodály’s colourful Variations on a Hungarian Folksong sets the tone for this folk-inspired program. WASO’s own Principal Viola, Daniel Schmitt, takes centre stage for Bartók’s Viola Concerto, his final, elegiac work, full of the folk-music influences which so fascinated him. The sheer number of unforgettable melodies that fill Dvořák’s New World Symphony has ensured its timeless popularity.

Asher Fisch Conducts Dvořák 9

The University of Western Australia

Dvořák expertly weaves the heartbeat of Czech folk dances into his soulful Violin Concerto. It’s a perfect vehicle for Augustin Hadelich, who “conveys the music’s rousing energy, while somehow maintaining a breezy lilt” (The New York Times). Framing the program are Kodály’s whirlwind portrait of Hungarian village life and the rustic warmth of Brahms’ Second Symphony.

CSO at Wheaton: Hadelich, Dvořák & Brahms 2

Wheaton College

Hadelich, Dvořák & Brahms 2

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Guest performance in Hamelin

Theater Hameln

Guest performance Northeim

Stadthalle Northeim

Dance! It's starting again! To kick off the season, Chief Conductor Nicholas Milton presents a refreshing, dance-based program. First – how fitting – childhood memories: Zoltán Kodály spent his early years in Galánta and later incorporated melodies from there into his dances named after the Hungarian town. Then the curtain rises for Anna Clyne , the GSO's new "Composer in Focus," born in England and living in the USA! In her wonderfully elegiac piece "Dance," composed a few years ago, the Belgian Deutsche Grammophon cellist Camille Thomas plays the solo part. Even Johannes Brahms's First Symphony, after much hesitation, was a beginning – and moved Clara Schumann to exclaim, "wonderfully magnificent, quite overwhelming."

Dance!

Stadthalle Göttingen

Osterode am Harz town hall

Rising star conductor Christian Blex leads MSO through dramatic tragedy, lyrical melancholy, and a lifelong love for Hungarian folk music.

Kodaly & Tchaikovsky

Creative sparks fly from the energy of dance and the experience of great art. Music Director Xian Zhang conducts Pictures at an Exhibition, Mussorgsky’s compelling imaginary walk through a startling art gallery — orchestrated by Ravel to become one of the cornerstones of symphonic music. The energy continues as we link the folk-infused rhythms of the town of Galánta (Kodály’s childhood home) with the delights of Michael Abels’ showpiece for orchestra and string quartet — first graceful, then bluesy, then raucous. It’s the perfect way to introduce the Sphinx Soloists, four outstanding young string players recognized by the Sphinx Organization in its mission to broaden access to classical music and celebrate its diverse, emerging virtuosos.

Xian Conducts Pictures at an Exhibition

This program explores emotional depth and contrasts in chamber music, balancing drama with lyrical beauty. It opens with Kodály’s Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, a delicate work that showcases the warmth of string trio textures by the Hungarian composer known for blending folk influences with classical traditions. Next is Shostakovich’s Trio No. 2 in E minor for Piano, Violin, and Cello, a powerful piece that moves from somber to fiercely energetic. Shostakovich’s Two Pieces for String Quartet blend haunting lyricism with gripping rhythms, characteristic of his emotionally charged style. The program concludes with Dohnányi’s Quintet No. 1 in C minor for Piano, Two Violins, Viola, and Cello, a dramatic work by the Hungarian composer, whose passionate intensity and lyrical moments reflect both late-Romanticism and early 20th-century innovation.

Shostakovich and Dohnányi

Saratoga Performing Arts Center

This program explores emotional depth and contrasts in chamber music, balancing drama with lyrical beauty. It opens with Kodály’s Serenade for Two Violins and Viola, Op. 12, a delicate work that showcases the warmth of string trio textures by the Hungarian composer known for blending folk influences with classical traditions.

If you are booking tickets on the day of the concert, online ticket sales may have already closed, but tickets will be available on the door. The box office opens 30 mins before the performance.

Nsso July Concert 2025

Shore School

This anniversary year, the now traditional theme weekend at Ulrichshusen Castle is dedicated to the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival itself: the musicians who have shaped and continue to shape it, the adventures that the artists, team, and audience experience together, and, of course, the music itself. We look forward to two fantastic days with many award winners. They'll be saying "Happy Birthday" in chamber and orchestral music, in talk shows, and in late-night shows.

Composer

Zoltán Kodály

Events

Upcoming events

Nov 22, 2026

Brahms 4 · San Francisco Symphony

4 - 6 Dec, 2026

Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 & Gil Shaham · Houston Symphony

Dec 4, 2026 - Jan 2, 2027

Pulsations · Opéra national de Paris

Dec 20, 2026

Alina Ibragimova violin; Cédric Tiberghien piano · Wigmore Hall

Jan 8, 2027

New Year's Concert with the Oslo Philharmonic · Maihaugsalen

Past events

16 - 18 Oct, 2026

Dvořák Symphony No. 8 · San Francisco Symphony

Oct 3, 2026

Kodaly, Brahms and Beethoven · Orchestra of St John’s

About

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