Composer

With the world premiere of Pelléas et Mélisande in 1902, Claude Debussy challenged his contemporaries to listen to music in a new way. His instrumentation was without precedent. He transposed the Wagnerian leitmotif technique into a subtle tone painting and described atmospheres and dispositions of the soul that elude description and that even music is often only able to gesture towards.

Pelléas et Mélisande

Bebelplatz

It is dark and cold in the castle to which Bluebeard takes his young wife Judith. With the power of her love, she wants to decipher her husband's mysterious past, bring light into the darkness, and build bridges over abysses. However, she is not allowed to ask any questions; seven locked doors harbor secrets. Judith begins to open them one by one... The depths of the human soul are also dark. Locked away within are urges, fears, dreams, and nightmares. In his only opera, Duke Bluebeard's Castle, Béla Bartók penetrates the chambers of the human subconscious. 

EPSG:4326

Night

Cologne Philharmonie

This is a chance to hear her rarely performed Harp Concertino.  This is followed by Mahler’s wonderful Symphony no.4 with part for soprano in the last movement. The conductor is Rebecca Miller, well known for her electrifying and inspired performances.

Spotlight on the Harp

Smith Square Hall

A mysterious princess. A remote castle. A love triangle. Debussy’s breathtaking opera is a dark fairytale caught in a dream.

“No time, no place. No big scene.” So Debussy wrote to his teacher Ernest Guiraud in 1890. It was a kind of mission statement for his ideal style of opera: in a world of increasingly “big scenes” – courtesy of Wagner and Verdi – Debussy wanted something radically different.

After several false starts, he finally found what he was looking for in an enigmatic play by Maurice Maeterlinck called Pelléas et Mélisande, full of symbols, ambiguous meanings and shadowy characters. It was the perfect home for Debussy’s innovative approach to opera, and for his startlingly new musical language. He finished Pelléas et Mélisande, his only completed opera, in 1902. The critics were perplexed, but in more recent years it has become one of the most admired works in the repertoire, beguiling audiences time and again with its elusive, shimmering beauty.

Rory Kinnear directs a semi-staging of the opera, while Ryan Wigglesworth conducts the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and a dream of a cast, including Sophie Bevan and Jacques Imbrailo as the two lovers.

Aldeburgh Festival 2026: Pelléas et Mélisande

Snape Maltings

Qixuan Fan, piano

Northwestern Bienen School of Music

In his 2023 CSO subscription debut, Conrad Tao gave a “dazzling, staggering” performance of Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F, wrote the Chicago Tribune, in which Tao “carried his melodies masterfully.” As part of the CSO’s monthlong focus on American music, the Illinois native returns with a selection of Gershwin song arrangements interspersed with works by Debussy, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Schoenberg and Robert Schumann.

Conrad Tao

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

‘A narrative of the soul’ was how one critic described a recent Glasgow performance by Ethan Loch, and there’s no question that this young Scottish pianist (who has become a nationwide star since his triumph in BBC Young Musician in 2022) has something very special to say. Today, he lavishes all his artistry on Debussy’s shimmering musical pictures and premieres a new creation of his own: a ‘dance drama’ inspired by the sea and brought to life by ballet dancer Antonia Cramb. 

Ethan Loch: Earth, Water, Wind & Fire

Glasgow Royal Concert Hall

V21 Season Ticket - Dima Slobodeniouk

Opera House, A Coruña

"Camille Saint-Saëns' Cello Concerto is fantastic: very dramatic, in a way truly theatrical," enthuses star cellist Gautier Capuçon. And with his globally acclaimed, sonorous voice, the Frenchman is the perfect soloist for this Romantic masterpiece. It's no surprise that it's so dramatic: after all, Saint-Saëns wrote eleven operas, just two fewer than operatic giant Richard Wagner. And so it's fitting that the two composers perform side by side here—especially since the Staatskapelle Dresden is an orchestra whose DNA is, so to speak, written into its DNA. But the top-class ensemble also manages to illuminate the lucid brilliance of Claude Debussy's impressionistic soundscape "La mer" with "effortless excellence" and "overwhelming beauty" (Hamburger Abendblatt). An evening not to be missed! (And just as an aside: Debussy was also, of course, an opera composer.)

Saxon State Orchestra Dresden / Gautier Capuçon / Daniele Gatti

Elbphilharmonie Hamburg

It is a young, but all the more beautiful tradition: shortly before the end of the season, great orchestral sound prepares a feast for the ears. The Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden is the orchestra of honour. In the 1840s, Richard Wagner referred to the orchestra, which he himself led as court conductor, with sincere affection as a 'wonderful harp'. Since then, the art-loving metropolis on the River Elbe has been a constant source of Wagnerian music. For the orchestra festival at the Alte Oper, the Dresdeners will continue to focus on Wagner, placing him in a surprising field of tension: Camille Saint-Saëns and Claude Debussy were among the German Romantic composer's greatest admirers and harshest critics. The Sächsische Staatskapelle, its principal conductor Daniele Gatti and Gautier Capuçon will devote themselves to these three magicians of sound par excellence.

Orchestra Festival: Saxon State Orchestra Dresden

Alte Oper

Elegant for three

Bochumer Symphoniker

Ensemble Caplet consists of harp, flute and strings. Together with singers from the Gothenburg Symphony Vocal Ensemble, they fill the summer evening with achingly beautiful notes of love and the season.

Music for a summer evening

Göteborgs Symfoniker

Luigi Cherubini Conservatory of Music, Florence

Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Theatre

Callan Shanahan, soprano

Friday Concert No. 6 ( 2026)

Volkshaus Jena

Our season finale features music guaranteed to lift your spirits. The concert opens with Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of Claude Debussy’s lighthearted “Danse” (“Tarantella Styrienne”) and continues with the world premiere of the Music Guild’s latest commissioned work – “Raíces” (“Roots”) by Los Angeles-based composer, María Eugenia León. Highlighting the musical traditions of both her native Canary Islands as well as Spain, “Raíces” features the timple, a five-string guitar described as “the pinnacle of Canarian music.” The evening concludes with Dvořák’s virtuosic Violin Concerto in A minor, featuring YuEun Gemma Kim.

Season Finale – YuEun Gemma Kim plays Dvořák

St. Matthew's Music Guild

Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune, heard here in Judy Loman’s delicate transcription, opens with its famous languid flute solo, dissolving boundaries between dream and waking. Jean-Michel Damase’s Sonata for Flute and Harp continues in this refined tradition, its four movements blending classical clarity with supple lyricism: graceful lines, a gentle but restless Andante, a spirited scherzo-like third movement, and a Finale that shifts from introspective calm to dazzling brilliance. 

Lucy Driver and Mared Emyr Pugh-Evans

Immerse yourself in a concert of vivid color, rhythmic vitality, and sweeping sonic landscapes. The evening begins with Pierre Mercure’s Kaleidoscope, a dazzling orchestral showpiece that lives up to its name with ever-shifting textures and vibrant energy. Next, experience the bold and expressive voice of Adolphus Hailstork in his powerful and lyrical Symphony No. 1, a compelling work that bridges American musical traditions with classical form. The program concludes with a fresh take on a timeless masterpiece: Claude Debussy’s La mer, arranged by Marlijn Helder, offering a new perspective on this impressionist masterpiece that captures the ever-changing moods of the sea. This program promises a captivating journey through imagination, expression, and the elemental power of music.

Prismatic

Mount Baker Community Club

Town Hall Seattle

In this program, our orchestral toy shop is a whirlwind of activity: Under the direction of Kazuki Yamada, we joyfully immerse ourselves in the colorful and magical realm of childhood fantasy – with a work by Debussy, inspired in 1913 by the illustrator André Hellé. He once remarked: "Toy boxes are actually cities where toys live like real people." And he added ironically: "Or perhaps cities are nothing but toy boxes where people live like toys." For the delightful composition "La boîte à joujoux," we pull a pretty doll, a tin soldier, and a quarrelsome jumping jack from the musical box and bring this wonderful bedtime story to life on stage. The poetic world of children was also a fertile source of inspiration for Bizet: in 1871, with his piano cycle "Jeux d'enfants," he created a charming collection of short, concise genre pieces – and thanks to his skillful orchestration, we will set a whirring top in motion on the stage in the small suite. 

Kazuki Yamada, Leif Ove Andsnes

Bamberger Symphoniker

Debussy’s Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun opens this program, followed by a violin concerto to be performed by the winner of the Dallas International Violin Competition 2025. After intermission, the orchestra will perform the Brahms Symphony No. 4; Richard McKay conducts.

Brahms: Symphony Nº 4

Moody Performance Hall

Fazıl Say received minutes of standing ovation after his captivating recital at the Mozart Week 2025 in the sold-out Great Hall of the Mozarteum Foundation. The celebrated pianist and composer from Turkey likes to describe himself as a bridge-builder between East and West, between early and contemporary music, between classical and jazz. His role models are the virtuosos of the 18th and 19th centuries who captivated audiences at their concerts, including with their own works. Thus, in his masterpiece, he draws a fascinating arc from Mozart's piano sonata with the famous "Alla turca" to the Impressionists Debussy and Ravel, and finally to an impressive selection of his own compositions.

Master Concert: Fazıl Say

Mozarteum Foundation

Adrian Nicolas Ong, violin

Since 2010, chamber music ensembles of the Staatskapelle have been performing at the Bode Museum, a jewel of Berlin's museum landscape. Matinee concerts lasting just over an hour in the Gobelin Hall, with diverse programs that include music from the Baroque and Classical periods as well as works from the Romantic and Modern periods, can easily lead into further hours in the museum—for example, with a guided tour of the exhibition and the "Artwork of the Day," a private tour, or a culinary finale in the stylish museum café.

Museum Concert VIII

UNESCO Weltkulturerbe Museumsinsel

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

Claude Debussy’s jaunty tarantelle frolics at the confluence of two Austrian rivers. A world premiere by Niloufar Nourbakhsh paints a musical autobiography of the earth, as told through the rocks upon which we dance. Louis Ballard’s ballet celebrates four legendary Oklahoma ballerinas of Indigenous North American descent.

Rivers & Moons

St. Catherine University

Lucas Amory, Piano

The Juilliard School

Since the 2023/2024 season, Frenchman Pierre Bleuse has been chief conductor of the Paris-based Ensemble Intercontemporain. As the successor to great musicians such as Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös, he is thus the full-time guardian of modernism. NDR audiences have already experienced the trained violinist at the "Elbphilharmonie Visions" festival in 2025, among others. Now, as part of the Hamburg International Music Festival, Bleuse has compiled a program of 20th-century works whose common denominator is its complexity.

NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra / Pierre Bleuse

Haozhou Wang, Piano

Kyungmin Yang, piano

Blending sonic mysticism with maritime contemplation, this concert unites German and French Romanticism in a way that is both rich in contrasts and affinities. Richard Wagner’s music from »Parsifal« and »Tristan und Isolde« transports us into worlds of redemption and Liebestod (love death), metaphysical silence and burning ecstasy. Between these works come two French masterpieces that create their own unique sensuality: Camille Saint-Saëns’ First Cello Concerto is a virtuoso and dramatic concert piece without symphonic pretensions, while Claude Debussy’s »La Mer« is an impressionistic naturalistic panorama, full of movement and refracting sunlight. The Cello Concerto is interpreted by our »Artist in Residence« Gautier Capuçon, a master of the warm, cantabile tone.

Symphony Concert N° 10

Semperoper Dresden

We welcome back to the Festival Septura, the internationally renowned brass septet after their triumph in Newbury last year.

Septura

St Mary's Church

This program highlights the viola’s deep, expressive voice in Canadian composer Cassandra Miller’s Concerto, a poignant reflection on separation premiered in 2023 by Lawrence Power. Meanwhile, Debussy paints a vivid portrait of the sea with impressionistic colours, immersing listeners in a nostalgic and dreamlike soundscape. Enjoy a musical journey that is both powerful and poetic.

Wagner and Debussy: From Love to the Sea

Place des Arts

Spring takes centre stage in this concert, as French conductor Lucie Leguay makes her debut at Konserthuset Stockholm with an all-French programme. The concert opens with Lili Boulanger’s bright and playful D’un matin de printemps – one of her very last works before her untimely death from Crohn’s disease at just 24 years old.

The Organ Symphony

Stockholm City Hall

Sammi Li, piano

On this musical journey to the city of love, the program includes works by Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, as well as the rarely heard Quintet in A major by Jean Cras, who during his lifetime not only pursued a career as a composer but also as an admiral in the French Navy. Unfortunately, this concert had to be cancelled in October. We are all the more pleased to be able to present this program to you now.

Salon Paris

Casino Bern

Dance!

MassBay Community College

The Royal Danish Orchestra’s chamber concerts present celebrated masterpieces alongside rare gems of the chamber music repertoire. Throughout the season, the orchestra’s musicians perform in the historic theatre setting of the Old Stage. Audiences also enjoy the opportunity to experience them up close at chamber concerts in the Takkelloftet Foyer, with its stunning view of Copenhagen Harbour, as well as in the beautiful balcony foyer of the Old Stage.

Exhilarating Finnish and French Chamber Works

The Royal Playhouse and The Old Stage

In this family friendly free concert, CMSCVA explores the elements of air and water, and the creatures that live there, all through the evocative medium of chamber music.

Free Concert – SEA AND SKY

First Unitarian Universalist Church of Richmond

Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra – Pictures at an Exhibition Conducted by Matthew Wood

Queensland Conservatorium

From a daring maritime adventure to a captivating showcase for the soulful cello – in the company of vibrant Principal Conductor Maxim Emelyanychev and exceptional SCO Principal Cello Philip Higham.

Schumann Cello Concerto

Aberdeen Music Hall

The Queen's Hall

City Halls

Xinyi Liu, soprano

A concert exploring the little-known world of percussion: rhythms, textures, and sound experimentation spanning contemporary music, arrangements of classic repertoire, and new technologies

Percussive Alchemy

Carlo Felice Theater

Arim Fremont, born in St. Louis, Missouri, began taking piano lessons at the age of six. She is currently a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, where she is majoring in Philosophy–Neuroscience–Psychology on the cognitive neuroscience track and minoring in music.

Arim Fremont, Senior Minor Recital, piano

560 Music Center

Debussy, Haydn, & Dvořák

Robinson Center

The opera that Claude Debussy created from Maurice Maeterlinck’s symbolist drama stands as one of the greatest achievements in the history of musical theatre. The stage of La Scala recalls productions of exceptional significance: from Victor de Sabata’s conducting in 1948 and 1953, to Herbert von Karajan’s in 1962, and the legendary staging by Antoine Vitez with Claudio Abbado on the podium in 1986, while Georges Prêtre conducted the productions in 1973, 1977, and 2005. In such a prestigious interpretative history, we find the return of Maxime Pascal’s fresh and insightful artistry – one of today’s most compelling French conductors, who has led major contemporary works at La Scala – and the La Scala debut of Romeo Castellucci, a renowned Italian stage director. As one of Italy’s most influential directors—regularly invited to major European theatres and festivals—Castellucci brings a vision of theatre that is both sacred and visionary, deeply rooted in art history, and promises a profound encounter with the symbolism of Debussy’s work.

Teatro alla Scala

This will be a great joy, as we'll be igniting four sonic fireworks. Our energy will be further fueled by two Spaniards – the conductor Roberto González-Monjas and the pianist Javier Perianes. We'll begin with a humorous role-playing exercise: Manuel de Falla's ballet "El sombrero de tres picos" ("The Three-Cornered Hat") from 1919 is set in a small Andalusian town – and for this turbulent comedy of errors, we can create witty onomatopoeia and lively dances. Equally atmospheric is his piece "Nights in Spanish Gardens," completed in 1916: enchanting impressions for piano and orchestra with which the composer wanted to "evoke places, moods, and feelings." This also resonates with Debussy, who preferred to listen to the wind for his music, "which tells us the story of this world" – and who even initially wanted to become a sailor. 

Roberto González-Monjas, Javier Perianes

Johann Sebastian Bach, Claude Debussy, Francis Poulenc

3. Chamber Concert / Extreme

Rostock Art Gallery

Driven by a mission to broaden classical music’s reach and armed with the technical means and communicative powers necessary to do so, Randall Goosby has won audience ovations worldwide with the profound personal authenticity of his artistry. The American violinist and his regular duo partner Zhu Wang, gold medallist at the 2024 New Orleans International Piano Competition, explore evocative works from the Old and New Worlds including Harry Thacker Burleigh’s folk-inspired Southland Sketches.

Randall Goosby | Wigmore Hall

Wigmore Hall

Enjoy the gentle beauty of Clair de lune —French for “moonlight”— one of the most recognizable pieces in Debussy’s repertoire. This work will immerse you in a dreamlike atmosphere, using open harmonies, unconventional scales, and fluid melodic lines. Just as Impressionist painters captured the fleeting play of light rather than rigid details, the music evokes shifting moods and delicate soundscapes.

Lyrical Landscapes: Mahler, Walton, & Clair de lune

Willson Auditorium

Set sail with ASO as we close the season with a musical voyage that captures the mystery, majesty, and mischief of the sea! Featuring Debussy’s “La Mer,” Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Scheherazade,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean!”

Pirates and Other Songs of the Sea

Lewis and Clark Community College

Composed during his final illness before death, Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra is considered his last masterwork, filled with brilliant, virtuosic writing that challenges each section of the orchestra. Debussy’s La mer is an impressionist masterpiece that captures the sea’s shifting moods–from calm to turbulent–with vivid, atmospheric sound. 

Virtuosic Soundscapes

Alice Pratt Brown Hall

Concertini

La Monnaie - De Munt

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

Gubaidulina, Prokofiev and Mozart

Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

Cynthia Hu, soprano

Veronica Leahy, Jazz Alto Saxophone

An engaging journey between the Old and New Worlds, with a program entirely dedicated to music written for violin and piano: from the luminous classicism of Beethoven to the new, evocative, twentieth-century classicism of Debussy, passing through the Bohemian lyricism of Dvořák and the surprising American sounds of Amy Beach and Harry Burleigh. Leading us on this journey through different styles and eras will be virtuoso violinist Randall Goosby—already recognized for his interpretative depth and commitment to the rediscovery of African-American composers—and pianist Zhu Wang.

Randall Goosby | Accademia Filarmonica Romana

Teatro Argentina

He’s chairing the jury for the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2025, then will make his Cliburn Concerts debut the following spring! Paul Lewis was awarded CBE in 2016 for his services to music, and the sincerity and depth of his musical approach have won him fans around the world. This global popularity is reflected in world-class concert engagements, like Royal Festival Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall, Musikverein, Konzerthaus, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Concertgebouw, Berlin Philharmonie, and Berlin Konzerthaus, as well as Tanglewood, Ravinia, Schubertiade, Edinburgh, Salzburg, and Lucerne Festivals.

Paul Lewis, piano

Kimbell Art Museum

Internationally acclaimed pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, praised by the Los Angeles Times as “a master colorist” whose “every note he plays is a pearl,” brings his unparalleled artistry to Debussy’s complete Préludes, Books I & II. Across 24 luminous miniatures. Each bears a special, evocative title (“The Girl with the Flaxen Hair,” “Footsteps in the snow,” through which Thibaudet conjures wind and water, myth and memory, in a rare full performance of this impressionistic masterwork—an unforgettable journey through Debussy’s sound world.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

The Music Center at Strathmore

Dénes Várjon and Nicolas Altstaedt compete in Kurtág’s commanding Double Concerto, as Thomas Adès conducts. ‘One of the most unusual pieces written for cello’ (Bachtrack), Kurtág’s brilliant Double Concerto engages both soloists and an orchestra divided into two sparring sections, physically separated within the performance space, in an intense dialogue. What results is an extraordinary listening experience: surrounded by music from several directions at once. Ives’ The Unanswered Question also immerses the listener in sound, with druid-like strings beneath the questioning trumpet and increasingly chaotic woodwind. In contrast, Thomas Adès’ peaceful Lieux retrouvés (Rediscovered Places) explores natural and man-made landscapes whilst Debussy’s revolutionary Images, three orchestral montages combining harmony, texture and colour, creates musical paintings that changed orchestral writing forever.

The Hallé – The Unanswered Question

The Bridgewater Hall

‘One of the most unusual pieces written for cello’ (Bachtrack), Kurtág’s brilliant Double Concerto engages both soloists and an orchestra divided into two sparring sections, physically separated within the performance space, in an intense dialogue. What results is an extraordinary listening experience: surrounded by music from several directions at once.

The Unanswered Question

Step into a world of shadows and silences with Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande—a hauntingly beautiful dream of an opera where nothing is said outright, but everything is felt. When the mysterious Mélisande marries Prince Golaud and quietly falls for his half-brother Pelléas, love blooms in secret under the surface. But in this misty medieval castle, jealousy festers, words are weapons, and desire leads quietly—inevitably—to ruin.

Garrett Jacobs Mansion

Debussy opened up a new universe of sound in his two books of exquisitely conceived, ravishingly colored musical cameos, and few pianists inhabit that revolutionary universe more fully than Thibaudet. Each of these brief works is painted in subtle shades, hazy harmonies, and daring textures, with inspiration ranging from paintings and travel to Dickens and Peter Pan.

University of Michigan

"It'll be a really fun show with some of the most insanely talented musicians playing some of the best music ever written... All you have to know is - do you like a good tune? Because we're going to be playing a ton of those." - Chris Addison

Chris Addison’s Incomplete Guide to Chamber Music

Cast

Górecki’s Three Pieces in Old Style opens this program, followed by harpist Yumiko Schlaffer performing Debussy’s Danse sacrée et danse profane. After intermission the orchestra performs Metamorphosen by Richard Struass; Richard McKay conducts.

Strauss: Metamorphosen

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

Since the flute of the 'Faun', music has breathed differently , said Pierre Boulez, referring to the new and beguilingly floating world of sound that made musical history in France at the end of the 19th century with the premiere of Debussy's Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune . Decades later, his compatriot Albert Roussel composed the ballet Bacchus et Ariane and shaped the plot according to the old Ariadne myth with music full of unbridled energy and an overwhelming rush of sound.

8th Philharmonic Concert / New Tracks

Volkstheater Rostock

Superstar violinist Nicola Benedetti joins the Philharmonia in Elgar’s tempestuous and tender Violin Concerto.  

Nicola Benedetti is one of the best-loved violin soloists of our time, and a regular and popular collaborator with the Philharmonia. Her chart-topping recording of this formidable work was praised for ‘a sure sense of direction and lots of heart’ (The Guardian) – an accurate description of Benedetti’s approach to everything she does. 

Nicola Benedetti plays Elgar

Southbank Centre

Mother of the Sea
A captivating and climate-relevant story in music and images about the ocean – and about our shared connection to life below the surface.
The myth of Sassuma Arnaa (Mother of the Sea) is a story about the Greenlandic Inuit people's relationship with nature, the sea and the animals they hunt: When the catch failed due to people's greed and lack of gratitude, the village's Angakok (spiritual healer) had to make the dangerous journey down to Sassuma Arnaa to untangle her tangled hair, where seals, whales, grouse, polar bears and fish were trapped. Only in this way could the people survive.

Mother of the Sea

Aarhus Music Hall

Elgar thought his Violin Concerto among the best of all his works. It highlights the lyrical and expressive powers of the instrument across all three movements, with an unexpected twist in the finale leading to a breathtaking cadenza accompanied by softly plucked strings in the orchestra.

Philharmonia Orchestra

The Anvil

Superstar violinist Nicola Benedetti joins the Philharmonia in Elgar’s tempestuous and tender Violin Concerto.  

Nicola Benedetti is one of the best-loved violin soloists of our time, and a regular and popular collaborator with the Philharmonia. Her chart-topping recording of this formidable work was praised for “a sure sense of direction and lots of heart” (The Guardian) – an accurate description of Benedetti’s approach to everything she does. 

Basingstoke: Nicola Benedetti plays Elgar

Grammy and Academy Award-winning composer and conductor Tan Dun makes his fourth appearance with TŌN. The program comprises Debussy’s dreamy Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun and Ravel’s second suite of music from his pastoral ballet Daphnis and Chloé, as well as two works by the conductor: the world premiere of his expressive 2014 piece Ten Thousand Galloping Horses and the Concerto for 12 Cellos and Orchestra, which the composer has called “a soulful search of cultural harmonies.”

Tan Dun Conducts

Fisher Center at Bard

The always superlative Takács Quartet performs works by Franz Joseph Haydn and Claude Debussy, as well as a UMS co-commission by U-M alumna Clarice Assad, who is working on her second piece for the Quartet.

Takács Quartet

Join Jun Märkl and four of ISO’s newest principals for a concert of French elegance with Debussy’s Sacred and Profane Dances and selections from Images and Ravel’s virtuosic Tzigane. This concert is a feast for the senses, celebrating French music’s nuanced textures and colors.

French Images: Debussy, Ravel & Fauré

Hilbert Circle Theatre

Join the ISO for Into the Music, a free series featuring a lively discussion followed by a performance—with full orchestra—of the highlighted classical work. Maestro Jun Märkl will co-host an on-stage discussion joined by Ryan Ahlwardt, who serves as co-host of Indy Now on FOX59.

Into the Music: Debussy

“Every year, a string quartet comes to the Bay Area and wows me. In 2024, that group was the Quatuor Ébène” (San Francisco Classical Voice). Energy and exhilaration are words that are often used to describe their performances, with critics like Bachtrack’s proclaiming it “hard to imagine string quartet playing at once more diverse and more brilliant than this…the possibilities of a string quartet were shown to be boundless.”

Ébène Quartet

War Memorial and Performing Arts Center

Up-and-coming Colburn School artists Martha Chan, Andrea Caputo, and Chi-Jo Lee come together for a stunning evening of flute, clarinet, and piano. Featuring Debussy’s Première rhapsodie, Weber’s Grand duo in Concertant, Shostakovich’s Four Waltzes, and more!

Colburn Concerts: Trio Aeris

Boston Court Pasadena

The premiere of Opera Atelier’s distinctive production of Debussy’s dreamlike masterpiece, Pelléas et Mélisande. The production will take place fully staged in Koerner Hall TELUS Centre for Performance and Learning, which will be transformed into a unique performance space with major architectural additions thanks to the Jerry and Joan Lozinski Opera Atelier Reimagined Project at Koerner Hall.

Telus Centre For Performance And Learning

The concert is centered on Beethoven's Piano Trio "The Archduke". It is surrounded by the sparkling, grand Bach E major sonata for harpsichord and violin, which is a trio sonata where the piano has two voices and is thus a worthy portal to Beethoven's great manifesto of a trio.

Composer

Claude Debussy

Events

Upcoming events

Jan 11 - Nov 15, 2026

Members of the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra · Teatro alla Scala

Feb 22 - Jul 7, 2026

6th Philharmonic Concert · Staatsoper Hamburg

Jun 21 - Jul 9, 2026

Pelléas et Mélisande · Staatsoper Berlin

Jun 24, 2026

3. Seat Cushion Concert: The Toy Box · Dortmunder Philharmoniker

Jul 1, 2026

Royal College of Music Strings Showcase · Wigmore Hall

Past events

Jun 21 - Jul 9, 2026

Pelléas et Mélisande · Staatsoper Berlin

14 - 15 Jun, 2026

Night · Gürzenich-Orchester Köln

About

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