Name: Chamber Music Evening N° 6
Start: 2026-03-23T20:00:00
Location: Semperoper Dresden

Sebastian Fritsch

Marcello Enna

Teresa Beldi

Dorit Essaadi

Jan Seifert

Hannes Schirlitz

Marie-Luise Kahle

Catarina Koppitz

Henning Stangl

Lukas Stepp

Johanne Klein

Uta Wylezol

Christian Langer

Simon Etzold

Yuna Toki

Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden

One of the leading composers of our time, Unsuk Chin now graces the Staatskapelle stage as Capell-Compositrice. »Subito con forza« from 2020 is her homage to Beethoven. A former student of György Ligeti, Chin’s music combines analytical acuity with evocative imagery. This work provides a stimulating contrast to Mahler’s Sixth while also provoking a conversation on structural clarity and existential expressiveness. The symphony conjures up a world of tragedy. Offering no comfort and no conciliatory finale, the »Tragic« is uncompromising in its severity. Part of the ongoing Mahler cycle, Daniele Gatti will conduct this jewel of the composer’s middle creative phase, celebrated not least for its powerful hammer blows.

Symphony Concert N° 4

Semperoper Dresden

Federico Kasík began his musical career at the age of 7. After being taught by Tibor Varga in Sion (Switzerland) from 1992, he took lessons with Igor Pylatyuk and Bogodar Kotorovych at the National Academy of Music in Lviv and Kiev from 1994. Due to this long-standing connection, Federico Kasík is a direct successor to the artistic and didactic lineage of Avram Jampolski and Yuri Yankelevich, two of the most successful teachers of the Russian violin school.

Chamber Music Evening N° 3

Andrés Orozco-Estrada has been Music Director of the Houston Symphony since the 2014-15 season, and after eight years, the 2021-22 season will be his last as Music Director. Andrés Orozco-Estrada was principal conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony from September 2014 to July 2021.

New Year's Eve Concert of the Staatskapelle Dresden

When Herbert Blomstedt ascends the conductor’s rostrum, music truly becomes a way of life. The 98-year-old Conductor Laureate of the Staatskapelle embodies a humility and clarity that are deeply rooted in his art. His performances of Bruckner have long been regarded as benchmark interpretations. They are free of pathos and imbued with intellectual rigour, tonal transparency and inner calm. Bruckner’s exploration of musical form culminated in the Fifth Symphony, which premiered in 1876. The composer himself described it as his »most contrapuntally daring symphony«. Placing the highest demands on musicians and listeners alike, the work has an understated grandeur. The finale brings a brilliant fugato, truly an aural apotheosis that abjures vanity.

Symphony Concert N° 5

An evening that invokes the spirit of Romanticism: the overture to »Der Freischütz« introduces a key work from the era, whose magic spell was cast early in the Dresden career of Carl Maria von Weber. Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor combines poetic expression with formal clarity. First performed in Dresden in December 1845, the work sees the piano and orchestra enter into a lively dialogue. The programme concludes with Mendelssohn’s »Scottish« symphony, an atmospheric piece permeated by a sense of vastness, melancholy and hymn-like power. Drawing inspiration from a visit to Edinburgh’s Holyrood Palace in 1829, the young composer did not complete the symphony until twelve years later.

Special concert with Myung-Whun Chung

Palace of Culture

Chamber Music Evening N° 4

This year’s Remembrance Concert commemorating the destruction of Dresden on 13 February 1945 features Igor Stravinsky’s »Mass«, a deliberately sober, liturgically reduced Mass setting. The composer did not produce a bombastic celebration of Christ’s sacrifice but rather a piece of quiet contemplation. Anton Bruckner’s Ninth feels rather like a testimonial. The composer dedicated the symphony to »our dear Lord« as an act of the deepest devotion. The three completed movements take us on an emotional journey from loss and devastation to hope before the unfinished work fades into silence. Daniele Gatti unites these two compositions to create a poignant tapestry of mourning, remembrance and contemporary spirituality.

Symphony Concert N° 6

Chamber Music Concert of the Giuseppe-Sinopoli-Academy

Semper Zwei

Gustav Mahler’s »Kindertotenlieder« were written, as he said, »in one breath«. This is music of harrowing intimacy, in which the focus is not on pain but rather the depiction of suffering through images of quiet consolation. Composed between 1901 and 1904, the cycle explores a theme that, tragically, would affect Mahler only a few years later. In his Seventh Symphony, however, the composer strikes a very different tone: enigmatic, fragmented, often unearthly. Two so-called Nachtmusiken (Night Musics) frame a ghostly scherzo that oscillates between darkness and demonic mockery. But then comes the turning point: the Finale shocks with the glaring light of day, almost as if from another world – triumphant yet at the same time ambiguous.

Symphony Concert N° 7

Robert Lis, born in Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland, began playing the violin at the age of 6. He is one of the most talented Polish violinists of his generation and has won numerous national and international violin competitions. In 2011, he graduated with honours from the Ignacy Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznan as a student of Prof. Dr Marcin Baranowski. In 2012 he obtained his second master's degree at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam as a student of Ilya Grubert.

Chamber Music Evening N° 5

Semper Opera Dresden

Lukas Stepp has been concertmaster of the 2nd violins of the Staatskapelle Dresden since the beginning of 2019.

Chamber Music Evening N° 6

Through his thrilling concerts and highly acclaimed recordings, Gautier Capuçon has already established a solid reputation as one of the leading cellists of his generation. Born in the French city of Chambéry in 1981, Capuçon first took cello lessons at age five. He went on to study at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris under Philippe Muller and Annie Cochet-Zakine, later attending a masterclass of Heinrich Schiff in Vienna. A prize-winner at numerous international competitions, Capuçon was named »Young Artist of the Year« at the Victoires de la Musique ceremony in 2001. In 2004 he was awarded the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award and has also received several ECHO Classical Music Awards. In addition to his work as a soloist, Gautier Capuçon is an enthusiastic chamber musician, performing with Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim and, naturally, his brother, Renaud.