Composer

Katherine Fisfis, soprano

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

On May 3, the Miami Symphony Orchestra concludes its 2025–2026 season with a spectacular Grand Season Finale at the Knight Concert Hall. The evening shines a special spotlight on Tatiana Guiribitey, whose narration will guide audiences through a captivating musical journey. Under the direction of Maestro Eduardo Marturet and featuring double bass soloist Luis Gomez-Imbert, this powerful closing concert blends beloved classics with bold new creations, bringing the season to an unforgettable close.

EPSG:4326

Grand Season Finale

Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts

On May 3, the Miami Symphony Orchestra concludes its 2025-26 season with a spectacular Grand Season Finale at the Knight Concert Hall. The evening shines a spotlight on Tatiana Guiribitey, whose narration will guide audiences through a captivating musical journey. Under the direction of Maestro Eduardo Marturet and featuring double bass soloist Luis Gómez-Imbert, this powerful closing concert blends beloved classics with bold new creations, bringing the season to an unforgettable close.

Miami Symphony Orchestra: Grand Season Finale

Scarcely any other work of world literature breathes music in the same manner as William Shakespeare's “A Midsummer Night's Dream”. Elves dance through the night in the summery enchanted forest and sing the fairy queen Titania to sleep. Music accompanies the wedding celebration of the royal couple Hippolyta and Theseus, as well as the young lovers Hermia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius – when they have finally found each other in the midsummer's night after an erotic cycle of desire and disappointment, of confusion and disarray. And music rings out in the crassly humourous game in the play “Pyramus and Thisbe”, performed by six "highly skilled" craftsmen.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Deutsche Oper Berlin

Emmeline Murphy, oboe

Magic and mischief intertwine in Benjamin Britten’s enchanting adaptation of William Shakespeare’s romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Critically acclaimed director Sarah Ina Meyers and dynamic international conductor Vinay Parameswaran lead a dazzling cast of young opera stars and members of Curtis Symphony Orchestra in this spellbinding production. Prepare to be transported to a twilight world where feuding fairies meddle with mortals, hearts are led astray, and the surreal world of dreams blurs the edges of reality.

Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts

Beatrice Rana is expecting a baby and has therefore cancelled her concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Antonio Pappano in spring 2026. We are delighted that Denis Kozhukhin will be taking over the piano part in her place.

London Symphony Orchestra

Alte Oper

Join Gothenburg’s most classic after work! Hear music by J.S. Bach and Britten in a breathtaking performance by tenor Andrew Staples, the Baroque Academy Gothenburg Symphony and choir. The evening continues in the foyer bars after the concert.

Classical AW with Bach

Göteborgs Symfoniker

Boston Civic Symphony season finale

New England Conservatory of Music

The violin soars melodiously above the rest of the quartet in the gorgeous arrangement of Vaughan Williams’ most popular work The Lark Ascending, which concludes this concert of English music.

The Lark Ascending

Cast

One of the most sought-after pianists of her generation, Michelle Cann joins your Colorado Symphony to deliver a double-header piano showcase of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue – a uniquely American standard occupying the intersection between classical music, jazz, and Broadway – and Florence Price’s Piano Concerto in One Movement. Price’s Late Romantic background and her deep understanding of African-American spiritual combine for stop-in-your-tracks-beautiful moments, which Cann brings to life in a work that was almost lost to time before being reconstructed from manuscripts just fifteen years ago.

Gershwin Rhapsody in Blue with Michelle Cann

Denver Performing Arts Complex

Jacks Pollard, Oboe

The Juilliard School

Having played together since the age of five, Russian-born identical twins Julia and Irina Elkina are praised for their “truly remarkable oneness” by critics who also recognize that “each is a formidable pianist in her own right.”

FREE Lunchtime Concert: Julia and Irina Elkina, piano duo

Westminster Presbyterian Church

This year’s Featured Artist, baritone Roderick Williams OBE, will perform a unique recital in the round with pianist Christopher Glynn at Westminster Hall. For his program, entitled An English Song Winterreise, Williams has chosen English songs which reflect each of the 24 individual songs that make up Franz Schubert’s Winterreise to craft a unique musical journey. This curated song cycle will include works by Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten, and Gerald Finzi, as well as more modern works by Judith Weir and Errollyn Wallen.

Roderick Williams OBE, baritone and Christopher Glynn, piano: Recital in the Round

One of the 20th century’s grandest and most moving calls for peace is taken up by The Cleveland Orchestra, two of TCO’s choruses, and three preeminent vocalists, all under the baton of Daniel Harding. Born from the horrors of two world wars, Britten’s searing War Requiem intersperses the Latin Requiem text with haunting antiwar poems by British poet and soldier Wilfred Owen. It’s a powerfully emotional experience that you will not soon forget.

Britten’s War Requiem

Severance Music Center

“Simply dazzling” is the way the American Record Guide has described the Elkina Piano Duo.

FREE Courtroom Concert: Julia and Irina Elkina, piano duo

Landmark Center

Monday at Last is the concert series where Cecilia Zilliacus and Kati Raitinen invite guest artists to join them in performing both new and older music. This time, the guest is Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson.

Monday at Last with Strings and Piano

Stockholm Concert Hall

Attending a concert by the Quatuor Ébène is a musical and sensual happening. For the past two decades the quartet has set standards by making familiar repertoire accessible in new ways, and by constantly seeking interaction with the audience.

 Quatuor Ébène

California Institute of Technology

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Hōkūleʻa's maiden voyage to Tahiti, the Hawaiʻi Symphony Orchestra joins forces with conductor Anthony Parnther, the Oʻahu Choral Society and the Polynesian Voyaging Society to present, for the first time, Michael-Thomas Foumai’s complete choral symphony, Raise Hawaiki. Inspired by the legendary voyages of Hōkūleʻa and the powerful words of Eddie Aikau and Nainoa Thompson, experience the trials and triumphs of Polynesian voyaging with captivating visual projections of historical photos alongside video from the current Moananuiākea voyage.  The performance opens with Britten’s seaworthy Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes.

HōkūleʻA 50

Blaisdell Concert Hall

This event marks the start of Toby Anderson, Amy Bryce and Jonathan Woolgar's journey as 2026 Magnum Opus composers. In this short concert we hear their new chamber works, written especially for this evening and performed by Britten Sinfonia musicians, alongside Benjamin Britten's Sinfonietta, written when he was just 18.

Magnum Opus 2026 Launch Concert

Milton Court Concert Hall

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

Bartók’s Bluebeard's Castle

Music Hall, Aberdeen

City Halls

Alec Fore, tenor

Concert Chorale & University Chorus

Music Building and Recital Hall

The Philharmonia welcomes outstanding pianist Bruce Liu back to London.  

Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G was inspired by the jazz he heard on a tour of the United States. Ravel frames a serenely beautiful Adagio with outer movements of carefree, effervescent energy. It’s the perfect showcase for the ‘magician’s fingers’ (Le Monde) of Bruce Liu, winner of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition.   

Tchaikovsky himself said that his Fifth Symphony represented ‘a complete resignation before Fate’, but that hasn’t stopped it becoming a firm audience favourite. It opens with the sound of funereal footsteps on the clarinet. A singing horn melody gives the second movement a more hopeful mood, but the fateful ‘footsteps’ theme returns in the third movement waltz, and triumphs in the stormy finale. 

Bruce Liu plays Ravel

Southbank Centre

Step into a world of calm and quiet beauty with an evening of music that soothes the soul and sparks the imagination. Britten’s Sinfonietta offers clarity and poise in a finely crafted chamber setting. Juan Pablo Contreras’s Ángel Mestizo blends Mexican folk spirit with lyrical serenity, creating a heartfelt tribute to cultural harmony. Finally, Copland’s Appalachian Spring Suite brings it all home with openhearted simplicity and peaceful Americana charm. This concert invites you to pause, breathe, and experience the power of music to bring stillness and grace.

Finding Tranquility

University of Redlands

The Philharmonia welcomes outstanding pianist Bruce Liu to Leicester.  

Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G was inspired by the jazz he heard on a tour of the United States. Ravel frames a serenly beautiful Adagio with outer movements of carefree, effervescent energy. It’s the perfect showcase for the “magician’s fingers” (Le Monde) of Bruce Liu, winner of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition.  

Tchaikovsky himself said that his Fifth Symphoy represented “a complete resignation before Fate”, but that hasn’t stopped it becoming a firm audience favourite. It opens with the sound of footsteps on the clarinet. A singing horn melody gives the second movement a more hopeful mood, but the fateful ‘footsteps’ theme returns in the third movement waltz, and triumphs in the stormy finale.  

Leicester: Bruce Liu plays Ravel

De Montfort Hall

A young woman is given a job as a governess at a country house, Bly, where she will be looking after two orphan children, Flora and Miles. She has been hired by the children’s uncle and guardian, who doesn’t want to be bothered by anything and who makes the young woman swear to absolute secrecy about the goings-on at his estate. Mysterious things do indeed start to happen at the house, including strange behaviour by the children. She also finds something inscrutable about the housekeeper Mrs Grose, who has apparently spent half her life at Bly. Later, the governess believes she sees hazy apparitions of a man and a woman gliding through the rooms of the house, and she identifies them as the spirits of former employees Peter Quint and Miss Jessel. Demonic forces appear to be running rampant and plaguing the characters. At the end, one thing is certain: one of the characters lies dead. Everything else remains unanswered …

The Turn of the Screw

Bebelplatz

The Philharmonia welcomes outstanding pianist Bruce Liu to Bedford.  

Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G was inspired by the jazz he heard on a tour of the United States. Ravel frames a serenely beautiful Adagio with outer movements of carefree, effervescent energy. It’s the perfect showcase for the “magician’s fingers” (Le Monde) of Bruce Liu, winner of the 2021 International Chopin Piano Competition.  

Tchaikovsky himself said that his Fifth Symphony represented “a complete resignation before Fate”, but that hasn’t stopped it becoming a firm audience favourite. It opens with the sound of funereal footsteps on the clarinet. A singing horn melody gives the second movement a more hopeful mood, but the fateful ‘footsteps’ theme returns in the third movement waltz, and triumphs in the stormy finale.  

Bedford: Bruce Liu plays Ravel

Bedford Corn Exchange

New York-based Harlem Quartet has been praised for its “panache” by The New York Times and hailed in the Cincinnati Enquirer for “bringing a new attitude to classical music, one that is fresh, bracing and intelligent.” Harlem Quartet advances diversity in classical music while engaging new audiences with varied repertoire that includes works by minority composers. Their mission to share their passion with a wider audience has taken them around the world, including a 2009 performance at The White House and a successful tour of South Africa.

Guest Artists: Harlem Quartet, Visiting Quartet, 'Folk Inspirations'

Arizona State University Tempe Campus

When Benjamin Britten presented his official Opus 1, he was just eighteen years old – and already a seasoned composer. Before he was ten, he had already written several sonatas and a full-fledged symphony. With the Sinfonietta, he was now introducing himself to the public for the first time – a masterpiece that is far too rarely heard. In complete contrast to Wagner's popular Siegfried Idyll, a musical gift to his wife on the birth of their first child.

Siegfried-Idyll

The Baden-Baden Casino

Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem is based on Latin texts and poems by the English poet Wilfred Owen, who died in the war in 1918. At the work’s premiere in 1962 in the rebuilt Coventry Cathedral, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau sang alongside British artists: a statement of reconciliation by the composer. The oratorio features a mixed choir, a boys' choir, a symphony orchestra, a chamber orchestra, and vocal soloists. These large forces underline the composer's desire to mobilize all efforts towards overcoming war and violence.

War Requiem

Festspielhaus Baden-Baden

“Perpetual motion” in musical terms is just that: the relentless rapidity of the notes builds enormous excitement, and in the crystal-clear timbre of chamber ensembles, every note can be easily heard. This one-of-a-kind concert is united by musical finales that hit the ground running and just can’t seem to stop.

Beethoven and Britten

Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts

Chamber music visionaries, ambassadors, impresarios, and virtuosos—as co-directors of both Music@Menlo and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han are a ubiquitous presence on both coasts. The energy they bring to their leadership in the arts is matched only by the powerful synergy of their duo performances.

David Finckel, cello Wu Han, piano

University of California, Berkeley

Britten's timeless plea for peace and humanity is a requiem, an indictment, and a warning. Yet it offers hope and comfort, and is an occasion for reflection on our shared civilizing values, which must be defended.

Theater Bremen

With the United States nearing its 250th anniversary, Summit, Myths & Music honors the landscapes and myths that have defined the country’s spirit. Carl Nielsen’s Helios Overture traces the sun’s grand ascent over the Aegean, filling the orchestra with brilliance. Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes follows—an evocative seascape of shimmering blues, stark silences, and surging waves. The mystery of Mount Rainier unfolds in Stephen Lias’s It Stands Alone, a powerful multimedia tribute commissioned in partnership with the National Park Service to honor Mount Rainier National Park’s 125th anniversary. The evening concludes with Dvořák’s American Suite, where dance-like melodies and rustic harmonies celebrate the composer’s love for the New World.

Summit, Myths & Music

Federal Way PAEC

Guest performance in Arnstadt »Do you speak English?«

Theater in the castle garden

The great composer Benjamin Britten introduces us to the different instruments of the orchestra in his brilliant and virtuosic variations for orchestra. Fun for the whole family!

Family Concert: Joy of the Symphony

Lesher Center for the Arts

Come and experience some of the greatest music from the world of opera. Overtures, dance suites, and entr'actes - from beloved classics to exciting new favorites - offer a glimpse into the rich musical worlds of some of opera's most iconic works. Conductor Bruce Kiesling will introduce each piece with his signature charm, wit, and humor before leading the orchestra in performance of this colorful and compelling music.

Overtures & Interludes

Visalia Fox Theatre

Soprano and Court Singer Elin Rombo is one of Sweden’s brightest stars on the international opera scene. A cherished guest at Konserthuset Stockholm, she now returns to the main stage – this time together with the visiting Västerås Sinfonietta under the baton of Chief Conductor Simon Crawford-Phillips.

Britten, Börtz and Poulenc

Konserthuset Stockholm

HCO 2025-26 Season Concert 4

St. Paul’s Church

Pictures at the Symphony

Robinson Center

Join us for a celebration of the musical legacy of the Holst family – both Gustav and his exceptionally talented and influential daughter, Imogen.

Imogen worked with Benjamin Britten to establish the longstanding Aldeburgh Festival in Suffolk alongside her distinguished composing career. Tonight’s highlights are the folk and baroque–inspired Variations on Loth to Depart and the spectacular but rarely heard Festival Anthem, performed with the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir.

From Gustav we have his St Paul’s Suite. Like Imogen’s Variations on Loth to Depart it’s based on English folk music, but it’s much more boisterous and dense – like the musical equivalent of eating a chocolate cake.

The Holsts: Father & Daughter

Derby Cathedral

A London Landscape

Alys Robinson Stephens Performing Arts Center

A Farewell to London

Experience the talent and creativity of Colburn’s distinguished faculty artists as they perform their own curated programs with friends and students. This concert features works by Britten, Thomas Adès, Stephen Hough, Rebecca Clarke, and Brahms.

Faculty Recital: Ben Ullery, Viola; Clive Greensmith, Cello; and Dominic Cheli, Piano

Colburn School

It is no exaggeration to say that you have not heard the extraordinary power of the viola until you have heard Tabea Zimmermann play it. Regularly cited as the world’s greatest living violist, her revelatory performances have been sold-out triumphs on our past seasons. In a rare U.S. recital appearance featuring the long-awaited debut of Spanish pianist Javier Perianes, the duo brings a deeply retrospective program spanning the poetic lyricism of Schumann’s Fantasy Pieces and Brahms’ late second viola sonata, Britten’s melancholic tribute to Renaissance composer John Dowland in its seldom-performed original arrangement, and Shostakovich’s final composition, written weeks before the composer’s death. This is music at its most profound—played by instrumentalists at their most transcendent.

Tabea Zimmermann, Viola Javier Perianes, Piano

Richardson Auditorium

The international career of the Spanish cellist phenom Pablo Ferrández has exploded in recent years, with concert tours and festival appearances in the United States, Europe, Russia, and the Middle East. A top prizewinner at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition, Ferrández has been hailed as a “new cello genius” (Le Figaro) while the LA Times raved: “Pop-idol magnetism, superb technique and exhilarating musicality reveal a sure star!…Pablo Ferrández has turned into a cello phenomenon and one of the most in-demand instrumentalists of his generation.”

Pablo Ferrández, cello

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

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

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

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

Britten. Bartók. Beethoven

Dvořák Hall Rudolfinum

Experience a double feature of family fun! Dean Burry's captivating operatic adaptation of Jacob Two-Two and the Hooded Fang brings Mordecai Richler's beloved character to life with thrilling music and adventure. Witness Jacob's journey to outwit the notorious Hooded Fang in a tale of courage and imagination.

Complementing this, immerse yourselves in the orchestral wonders of Britten's Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, a brilliant exploration of instruments and their unique voices.

Before or after the performance, get hands-on at our Instrument Petting Zoo! Discover, touch, and play various orchestral instruments, fostering a love for music in all ages. A perfect blend of storytelling and musical discovery awaits!

Kids & Family

Eglinton St. George's United Church

Commissioned for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Gloriana attracted controversy in exploring the hidden romantic life of the monarch’s namesake and predecessor. Britten’s music, though, brilliantly captures the spirit of Elizabethan dances and lute songs, whilst giving them an ironic 20th-century distance. The seven Courtly Dances that open this concert are an immediately appealing example.

The Hallé

Royal Concert Hall Nottingham

A feminist, survivor-forward production of Benjamin Britten’s powerful chamber opera.

The Rape of Lucretia

Harbourfront Centre

Following the lively ‘Courtly Dances’ from Britten’s opera Gloriana, Alpesh Chauhan is joined on the platform by Norwegian trumpeter, Tine Thing Helseth who performs the UK premiere a new, exciting work, written especially for her. Musically illustrating the biblical role of the trumpet and celebrating its vast expressive possibilities, Nico Muhly’s Doom Painting leads us on a dramatic journey through this historic instrument’s various iterations: ceremonial object for rituals and celebrations alike; harbinger of Doomsday; and jubilant instrument of the psalms. Walton’s Symphony No.1 is widely considered among the greatest twentieth-century symphonies. Sometimes triumphant, sometimes hostile – the second movement, for example, is subtitled ‘Presto con malizia’ (‘quickly with malice’) – expect emotional intensity from start to finish.

The Hallé – Walton’s First Symphony

The Bridgewater Hall

Following the lively ‘Courtly Dances’ from Britten’s opera Gloriana, Norwegian trumpeter, Tine Thing Helseth takes to the platform to perform this new, exciting work, written especially for her. Musically illustrating the biblical role of the trumpet and celebrating its vast expressive possibilities, Nico Muhly’s Doom Painting leads us on a dramatic journey through this historic instrument’s various iterations: ceremonial object for rituals and celebrations alike; harbinger of Doomsday; and jubilant instrument of the psalms.

Walton’s First Symphony

Commissioned in 1945 by the Ministry of Education for a children’s film titled “Instruments of the Orchestra”, Britten’s cheery tour de force is the perfect excuse to show off the considerable talents of the BBC SSO’s individual players. You’ll also be stunned by the “consummate artistry” (The Guardian) of Alban Gerhardt as he performs Britten’s deeply expressive Cello Symphony, originally written for the great Russian virtuoso Mstislav Rostropovich.

Afternoon Performance: Alban Gerhardt Plays Britten's Cello Symphony

The National Opera Studio Young Artists present an extraordinary evening celebrating the Studio’s collaboration with two of its partner companies: English National Opera and Scottish Opera. In this special showcase performance, immerse yourself in captivating operatic scenes spanning the 19th and 20th centuries.

Act Three

Blackheath Halls

Enrico Bronzi

Teatro La Fenice

You should always be prepared for surprises with this young man. Asked what he would do if he had a whole day off, Sterling Elliott replied: "Work on my car. At the moment I'm trying to get the gearbox back into my car, a two-man job that I'm stubbornly trying to teach myself. It is not only in the garage that he is ambitious, otherwise the young man from Virginia would not have catapulted himself to where he now stands artistically: in the premier league of cellists of his generation. Elliott has long been a sought-after performer in the USA, but now he is also making a name for himself on this side of the Atlantic. Sterling Elliott presents himself in the Debut series and has another ambassador of the US classical music scene on board with the highly romantic Cello Sonata by Samuel Barber.

Sterling Elliott, Violoncello

March Concert

Dexter High School

Italian-born Lorenza Borrani is fast becoming one of the SCO’s closest friends and collaborators. She returns for her second concert this Season with an evening of wit, humour and magical evocations.

Borrani & Beethoven

The Queen's Hall

A guiding principle for Yo-Yo Ma is to make the listener feel like the most important person in the room. The fact that he’s done that for more than 60 years is a testament to his commitment. Ma’s performance of Elgar’s soulful Cello Concerto is part of an all-English program that is tailor-made for Thomas Søndergård and the Minnesota Orchestra.

Yo-Yo Ma with the Minnesota Orchestra

Orchestra Hall

What happens when the three composers York Bowen, Benjamin Britten, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor are all featured in one concert? That’s right: a distinctly British program extending from late Romanticism to Modernism. Bowen, who often composed for the horn, creates a rather unusual combination in his Quintet, in which the horn, with its elegiac tone, is supported by four string instruments. In Coleridge-Taylor’s work, the clarinet engages in a subtle, witty dialogue with the string instruments. And Britten made arguably the most significant British contributions to the string quartet genre; nevertheless, his First String Quartet is rarely heard nowadays – making it a notable work on this evening’s programme.

Chamber Concert “The golden age of English music”

Evangelische Akademie Tutzing

Munich Residence

Join us for an engaging, family-friendly concert filled with color, character, and creativity! Narrator Annie Jackson leads a captivating journey through the orchestra with Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf and Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. Plus, enjoy an appearance by CVSO’s Young Artist Competition winner and student artwork in the Music Moves Me exhibit.

CVSO: Peter and the Wolf - Traditional Concert

Pablo Center at the Confluence

Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra is a timeless introduction to the magic of orchestral music. Musicians from each section of the orchestra—woodwinds, brass, strings, and percussion—get a chance to shine in a lively theme and variations. Before the hour-long family-friendly performance, join us in the Grand Foyer for instrument demonstrations and a chance to meet the Shepherd School musicians!

Family Concert: Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra

Alice Pratt Brown Hall

Celebrated British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor returns after a 12-year absence to perform Benjamin Britten’s energetic Piano Concerto, written when the composer was 24 and known for its rhythmic drive and inventive orchestration. At its premiere, a critic wrote cryptically of Brahms’ final symphony, “It is like a dark well; the longer we look into it, the more brightly the stars shine back." Malcolm Forsyth wrote his celebratory Jubilee Overture in 1964 when he was 28, four years before he moved to Edmonton and became a member of the ESO. Don’t miss this intriguing concert juxtaposing music of youthful exuberance and wise experience.

Benjamin Grosvenor Plays Britten

Winspear Centre

Passion defined Tchaikovsky’s life, and the tempests of his emotional life inspired some of the most beautiful music ever written. His Fourth Symphony took shape during a troubled time and encompasses heartbreaking swings between despair and exuberant hope. It is led here by an audience favorite, the “expressive and imaginative” Xian Zhang. The concert opens with Britten's Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell, perhaps more well-known as The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, but heard here in its version without narration.

Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4

Since 2016, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra has hosted an ”Orchestra Academy”. The international RSPO Orchestra Academy is a one-year, advanced academic programme for young musicians. Under the guidance of the section leaders from the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and the Piteå School of Music, the musicians receive intensive training individually, in chamber music, and orchestral playing.

Concert with the RSPO Orchestra Academy

Benjamin Britten’s haunting opera Owen Wingrave returns to the stage in a powerful new Guildhall School production. Based on a ghost story by Henry James, it follows a young pacifist who defies his family’s military heritage, with tragic consequences.

Owen Wingrave

Guildhall School of Music and Drama - Milton Court

Scholarship holders of the German Foundation for Music Life, who won a valuable instrument at the 32nd German Musical Instrument Fund Competition in 2025, will perform as soloists and present solo concertos by Antonín Dvořák and Benjamin Britten with the Philharmonic Orchestra. Played on the Fund's exquisite instruments and by exceptional young talents, these two works promise to be a truly special listening experience.

Rising Stars

Theater Lübeck

The Apollo Orchestra with principal Conductor David Chan welcomes Romain-Olivier Gray, cello, as our featured soloist in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat Major.

London Symphony

The Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church

A former Horizons Young Artist, Elliott has soloed with the Boston Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra and New York Philharmonic, among other leading orchestras. A dynamic and engaging musician, his program features works by 20th-century masters.

Sterling Elliott, cello Janice Carissa, piano Union College

Union College

Three of the best-loved pieces in the symphonic repertoire come together in this concert which sweeps forward from the thrilling theatre of Benjamin Britten’s "Sea Interludes" from his opera Peter Grimes, depicting the changing colors, the play of light and the terrifying storms of the North Sea between the UK and Germany, to Ravel’s beloved G Major Piano Concerto, with its glittering echoes of American jazz in the outer movements, and a haunting tribute to Bach and Mozart in the lyrical central movement. This concert ends with one of the best known of all symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth, nicknamed by his brother “Pathétique”, in response to the music’s terrifying mixture of drama and heartfelt melodies.

Storms and Fireworks: Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique"

Jacobs Music Center

With his masterfully composed Vespers Liturgy for choir a cappella, Rachmaninov transports the listener into a musical world of admirable depth and inwardness. Inspired by old modes, he created one of his most beautiful works. The »All-Night Vigil«, composed in 1915 for a benefit concert in Moscow in aid of war victims, takes up the fascinating tradition of Orthodox chants and reflects it profoundly. At the same time, Rachmaninov created a musical monument to his childhood memories and the religious soul of his homeland – a homeland he would soon leave. Rachmaninov himself described listening to his vesper liturgy as »an hour of the happiest satisfaction«.

Bavarian Radio Chorus / Peter Dijkstra

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

Old and new, ancient and modern: Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev returns with an annual highlight of the SCO Season, rediscovering the musical splendours of the Baroque alongside more recent composers who have drawn inspiration from it.

Baroque Inspirations

Trio Orelon

Coffee Concert № 3 “Do you speak English?”

Volkshaus Jena

A program that begins in silence, almost in white noise. And that ends in the ecstasy of sound. In Scriabin's mystery music, everything dissolves in a visionary orchestral explosion of color – it was "like an ice bath, cocaine, and rainbows." It was the writer Henry Miller who once raved about "Le poème de l'extase" with this comparison. Premiered in New York in 1908, the music world had never experienced anything like it, and even today this music catapults the audience into a parallel universe. In his concert with the hr-Sinfonieorchester, conductor Oscar Jockel builds the effect layer by layer: After his own meticulously composed nothingness, the simplicity of Schubert's four-hand Fantasy in F minor seems like an intimate secret, the contrasts intensifying with Britten's "Scottish Ballad." Then Debussy's "Jeux" sheds new light – as the conductor says – on the ecstasy of the love dance, with its lively melodies and dissonant harmonies soaring upwards in triple meter. Finally, the "absolute sublimation" is achieved with Scriabin, who, as a trained philosopher, explored not only musical realms of the barely comprehensible.

Composer

Benjamin Britten

Events

Upcoming events

May 2 - Jun 6, 2026

A Midsummer Night’s Dream · Deutsche Oper Berlin

May 5, 2026

Dramaturgy · Østerbro Koncertforening

May 9, 2026

MacMillan and Choir · Dresdner Philharmonie

16 - 20 May, 2026

Britten In America With Elizabeth Watts And Oleg Shebeta-dragan · Britten Sinfonia

May 24, 2026

Anna Lapwood: Music of the Stars · Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra

Past events

May 3, 2026

Katherine Fisfis, soprano · Northwestern Bienen School of Music

May 3, 2026

Grand Season Finale · The Miami Symphony Orchestra

About

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