She is just 21 years old and has already created a stir on the international stage: born in Sapporo, Japan, Yuki Hirano won the 2024 Vienna Classical Violin Competition at the Classical Violin Olympus and emerged in the spring of 2025 as the winner of the International Jascha Heifetz Competition in Vilnius, where she also received numerous special prizes. The secret to her success? “If the audience can enjoy the music, I’m happy,” says the student of Pavel Vernikov at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna. 

Yuki Hirano | Chizu Miyamoto

Reformierte Lukaskirche

Richard Strauss spent the first half of his career producing a string of opulent, proto-cinematic tone poems that redefined orchestral virtuosity. The most epic of them is also the consummate musical autobiography. Ein Heldenleben is a picture of ambition, bravery and resilience which combines music of unprecedented richness, excitement and tenderness. Strauss’s bold orchestration might scatter its adversaries with panache but it concludes with a humbling glimpse of life’s spiritual journey. Before it, Giuseppe Gibboni is the soloist for the spirited momentum and tender repose of OPO Composer-in-Residence Alexey Shor’s Violin Concerto No. 7.

Ein Heldenleben

Oxford Town Hall

Nikita Mndoyants | 8th “Armenia” International Music Festival

Aram Khachaturian Concert Hall

Stephen Waarts, Luis Andrade | 8th “Armenia” International Music Festival

“Armenia” International Music Festival | Gabriel Schwabe, Ricardo Casero

Maximilian Hornung, Nabil Shehata | 8th “Armenia” International Music Festival

8th “Armenia” International Music Festival

“Armenia” International Music Festival I Marc Bouchkov, Roeland Henkens

“Armenia” International Music Festival | Yekwon Sunwoo, John Warner

“Armenia” International Music Festival I Zee Zee, Daniel Boico

Antonín Dvořák was expecting to miss home when he moved from Prague to New York to run America’s first conservatory. What he wasn’t expecting was to be so taken with the spirituals and plantation songs of America that he would fuse them with European traditions to form his symphonic masterpiece. In the end, any residue of sadness in Dvořák’s Symphony ‘from the New World’ is banished by its warmth, drama and spontaneity. Marios Papadopoulos conducts Dvořák’s letter from America here, preceded by Maximilian Hornung performing Alexey Shor’s Cello Concerto No. 3. *This composition was selected to be performed following the OPO’s Composers’ Workshop 2026.

Dvořák Nine

University of Oxford

Young rising talent once again takes to the stage, as prize-winning violinist Jinzhu Li joins the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director Marios Papadopoulos in a performance of our composer-in-residence Alexey Shor's Violin Concerto No. 5. The second half follows with Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4. The composer described the opening fanfare as a metaphor for 'fate', and its exuberant introduction begins this masterpiece from the romantic composer embroiled in the depths of lament and the highs of euphoric triumph. The finale sees the Russian folk tune 'In the Field Stood a Birch Tree' integrated into this joyous climax.

Tchaikovsky Four

The internationally-renowned British cellist Steven Isserlis’s vast, award-winning repertoire includes Bach, Beethoven & Brahms. The soloist, chamber musician, author, educator, and broadcaster joins the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra to perform composer-in-residence Alexey Shor’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Shostakovich’s Concerto No. 1. The performance will undoubtedly showcase his technical mastery and bring his emotive, lyrical and enchanting abilities to the fore as a musician who is equally comfortable playing contemporary works as he is in the arms of Baroque music.

Alexey Shor

Events

Upcoming events

Dec 2, 2026

Dvořák Nine · Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra

Mar 4, 2027

Tchaikovsky Four · Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra

Jun 3, 2027

Steven Isserlis · Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra

Past events

Aug 25, 2026

Yuki Hirano | Chizu Miyamoto · Lucerne Festival

Jan 29, 2026

Ein Heldenleben · Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra

About

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