The great works of musical history are two things in equal measure: the creations of an ingenious, musical mind, and products of their time, society and fashion. How notes refer to each other, how instruments interact, how the great composers worked with them, what they discovered and how they developed it—all of this is the focus of the Excursion Concerts. General musical director Roland Böer is taking the Staatstheater Nürnberg and the audience on an exciting and entertaining journey inside the masterpieces themselves. Newcomers to Classical will have their curiosity aroused, and long-time concertgoers will learn things they never knew before. After Roland Böer's tour, the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg will play the respective work in its entirety.

1. Ex­cur­si­on Con­cert

Nuremberg State Theater

Two deeply religious composers open up the concert season of the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg in the Meistersingerhalle. Olivier Messiaen hoped to use his first large, suggestive orchestral work Les Offrandes oubliées to turn the colours of church windows into sound. Anton Bruckner was no less spiritual in his own goals for his music. In his 7th Symphony, which marked his breakthrough as a great symphonic composer, he most clearly describes humanity's ascent from hardship and the joys of life toward divine light.

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Bruck­ner – Mes­sia­en

Meistersingerhalle

Europe's greenest concert hall in the Luitpoldhain is for many a highlight of the Nuremberg summer. The Nuremberg State Philharmonic Orchestra invites you to a (hopefully!) warm summer night with well-known melodies and discoveries from the opera and concert repertoire.

Classic Open Air

Luitpoldhain

The Young State Philharmonic was founded on the initiative of Joana Mallwitz and will continue to be led by GMD Roland Böer in the 2024/25 season. Young people in the metropolitan region who are interested in classical music can become members of the Young State Philharmonic. In several project phases over the course of a season, they gain deep insights into the world of the orchestra and theater. The young musicians are accompanied throughout the year by numerous orchestra sponsors and the music teacher Irina Roosz.

Friends for Life

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

In the concert series "Dreiklang", the Nuremberg State Philharmonic Orchestra leaves its usual concert halls and explores new venues in Nuremberg. This time, General Music Director Roland Böer invites you to the Congress Hall, the future destination of the State Theater. The program is dedicated to composers whose music was labeled "degenerate" and who subsequently had to emigrate externally or internally.

Triad in the Congress Hall

Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds

The great works of music history are both equally: creations of a brilliant musical mind and children of their time, their society and their fashion. How notes relate to each other, how instruments play together, how the great composers dealt with what they found and how they developed it further - all of this is the focus of the excursion concerts.

2nd Excursion Concert

In 1812, Beethoven wrote a love letter to an unknown lady that has occupied generations of researchers but also inspired musicians. In his violin concerto, which he wrote in 2019 for the violinist Midori, Detlev Glanert sees the words in Beethoven's famous letter as notes and the declaration of love as music. After the overture by Beethoven's student Ferdinand Ries, the master himself takes center stage in the 7th Philharmonic Concert: with the cheerful, thoughtful piano piece "Andante favori", which Roland Böer arranged for orchestra, and with his always surprising and not very triumphant 8th Symphony.

Immortally in love

Macbeth's guilty conscience prevents him from sleeping. In contrast to him, the large organ in the Meistersingerhalle spends most of its life sleeping - a situation that composer Stefan Johannes Hanke wants to remedy with a commissioned work for the Nuremberg State Philharmonic. The tone poem "Macbeth" by Richard Strauss and Verdi's ballet music, which is rarely played in operas, refer directly to Shakespeare's antiheroes. In his opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk", Dmitri Shostakovich placed the figure of Lady Macbeth in the present and turned the icon of unscrupulousness into a great, rebellious lover.

Sleep no more

1st Excursion Concert

For the New Year, the Nuremberg State Philharmonic Orchestra, under the direction of its General Music Director Roland Böer, invites you on a musical journey around the world. The first part of the concert will feature well-known overtures and rarities from the concert literature, while the second part will feature composers from the Strauss dynasty as travel companions.

For the whole world

Plagued by writer's block, Gustav Mahler traveled to Lake Wörthersee in 1905. It was only a trip on the water that released his creative tension: with the first stroke of the oar, he came up with the theme of the introduction to his new symphony - number seven. The work was given the nickname "Song of the Night" because of its very dark, turbulent beginning and the two middle movements, which Mahler called "night music". But following the motto "per aspera ad astra" - "through toil to the stars" - more and more rays of hope appear as the work progresses and the symphony ends in a furious, solemn apotheosis, the theme of which is vaguely reminiscent of Richard Wagner's "Meistersinger" overture.

Great Night Music

If your holiday in Italy was once again far too short, you like to bring a souvenir home with you. In his concert overture “In the South”, Edward Elgar processed the impressions of his winter stay in Alassio in Liguria in 1903/04. Shortly before his famous “Carmen”, Georges Bizet completed his second symphony based on motifs that he had collected during his stay in Rome several years earlier. On the advice of Johannes Brahms, the 22-year-old Richard Strauss went on an educational trip to Rome and Naples in 1886. During the trip he sketched out the work that was to become his first symphonic poem and brought sunny greetings from Italy to his home in Munich.

From Italy

The Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg invites you to start the New Year in the musical city of Vienna with general music director Roland Böer. Musical New Year's wishes come from the waltzing representatives of the Strauss dynasty and its predecessors in Viennese Classical and Early Romantic music.

Wiener Me­lan­ge

2. Ex­cur­si­on Con­cert

At the peak of his prolificacy, Richard Strauss composed his Alpine symphony. This tone poem, which explores the individual stages of a hike, is based on memories from his childhood in Munich's nearby mountains. Using a huge orchestra, Strauss depicts both the forces of nature and the human experience of this nature. The progression from sunrise to sunset is also a metaphor for a human life. In his early work Verklärte Nacht, based on a poem by Richard Dehmel, Arnold Schönberg tells the story of a woman who confesses to her lover that she expects such a human life.

Strauss – Schön­berg

In the concert series "Dreiklang" ("Triad"), the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg is leaving its usual concert halls to discover exciting venues in Nuremberg. Music from various centuries, programmes based on the location, and space-consuming sonic concepts lead to new (aural) impressions and promise an intense musical examination of the venues. General musical director Roland Böer and the conductors of the Staatsphilharmonie invite you to take a fresh look at the familiar and get curious.

Triad in the Historic Town Hall

Historic Town Hall

A composer of our time, Detlev Glanert, meets an icon of Classical music, Johannes Brahms. Glanert answers Brahms’ highly complex, dense, headstrong last symphony with a piece that he casually titles “Music with Brahms.” In this wildly dynamic orchestral piece, he reveals himself to be the successor to the great Romantic composer. The contradictions between gods and people are the theme of the poems Nänie by Friedrich Schiller and Schicksalslied by Friedrich Hölderlin, which Brahms put to choir and orchestra. His Romantic musical language proves to be the keeper of Classical-humanist tradition.

Brahms - Gla­nert

Antonín Dvořák's "Stabat Mater" – these are ten movements full of passion and devotion, full of adoration and supplication. And at the end, a light of hope shines. So much of the famous Bohemian composer's personal experience has flowed into this music. We are celebrating 75 years of the ION Music Festival in Nuremberg with this masterpiece in the unique atmosphere of St. Sebald's Church.

Roland Böer

Events

Upcoming events

Nov 29, 2025 - Feb 24, 2026

1. Ex­cur­si­on Con­cert · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

3 - 6 Jan, 2026

Wiener Me­lan­ge · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

9 - 10 Feb, 2026

2. Ex­cur­si­on Con­cert · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Feb 13, 2026

Strauss – Schön­berg · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Mar 21, 2026

Triad in the Historic Town Hall · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Past events

Nov 29, 2025 - Feb 24, 2026

1. Ex­cur­si­on Con­cert · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Oct 10, 2025

Bruck­ner – Mes­sia­en · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Future and recently performed repertoire

Conductor in Symphony No. 4 by Brahms

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Symphony No. 8 by Beethoven

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Festive Overture by Shostakovich

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in William Tell by Rossini

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Nänie by Brahms

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Verklärte Nacht by Schönberg

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Macbeth by Verdi

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in The Abduction from the Seraglio by Mozart

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Samson and Delilah by Saint-Saëns

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Eine Alpensinfonie by Strauss

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Symphony No. 7 by Bruckner

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shostakovich

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Les Offrandes oubliées by Messiaen

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Tannhäuser by Wagner

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Symphony No. 5 by Tchaikovsky

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Symphony No. 41 by Mozart

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Weites Land by Glanert

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in From Italy by Strauss

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Violin Concerto No. 2 by Glanert

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in In the South by Elgar

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Symphony No. 2 by Bizet

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Sleep no more by Hanke

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in L'Apparition by Ries

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Conductor in Andante favori by Beethoven

Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

About

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1. Excursion Concert · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Wiener Melange · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

2. Excursion Concert · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Strauss – Schönberg · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

1. Excursion Concert · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg

Bruckner – Messiaen · Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg