Name: New Year's Concert With The Symphonics In Ansbach
Start: 2026-01-04T19:30:00
Location: Tagungszentrum Onoldia

Bryan Cheng

Jonathan Darlington

Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra

This year, exquisite music from the late Baroque and early Classical periods will conjure up a cozy, festive Advent and Christmas atmosphere in the town hall hall—warm orchestral sounds from the German cosmopolitan Telemann, a Christmas symphony from France, a Christmas concert from Italy, flute concertos from the brilliant Bach son Carl Philipp Emanuel, and from the Venetian "Maestro assoluto" Vivaldi. The virtuoso flute tones come from the young Fabian Egger, a competition prize winner, scholarship holder at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and flautist at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra. The conductor is Torsten Johann, harpsichordist and co-founder of the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.

Festive Advent Concerts In The Historic Town Hall

Old Town Hall Nuremberg

Things are about to get loud and colorful! Clown Jeanloup arrives at the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra concert and not only annoys the conductor Stephan Hodel, alias Etienne, but also causes considerable disruption within the orchestra. Besides his "musical" performances on all sorts of imaginable objects, Jeanloup is particularly notable for his excessive hunger, which he tries to satisfy at every opportunity with food he has brought with him. Such behavior is obviously uncalled for – Etienne agrees – which is why he summarily throws him out of the concert hall. But a clown wouldn't be a clown if he didn't come back and, ultimately, even find pleasure in making music together.

The Orchestra Clown

Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds

He is the absolute superstar of the oboe, cor anglais, and oboe d'amore: Albrecht Mayer from Bamberg, principal oboe of the Berlin Philharmonic since 1992 and also a celebrated soloist and conductor, touring the world. He will be returning to us during Advent 2025. He will be bringing with him two beloved classics that are inextricably linked to Christmas: Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite and music from Humperdinck's fairytale opera Hansel and Gretel . But it only becomes truly cozy and intimate when Albrecht Mayer plays his Bach arrangements—sometimes with choir participation: Christmas concerts couldn't be more beautiful, atmospheric, or festive!

Christmas With Albrecht Mayer

Meistersinger Hall

Titles like Oh Little Town of Bethlehem | Mary through a thorn forest went | La Virgen Se Esta Peinando | A rose has sprung up | Entre le Boeuf et l'Ane Gris and many other Christmas carols from around the world

CLASSICS AT 11 Christmas with Quadro Nuevo

CONCERT CHOIR LGV NUREMBERG Bernstein & Gershwin

New Year's Concert With The Symphonics In Ansbach

Tagungszentrum Onoldia

The New Year is entering in high spirits and in the best of spirits – a very special one for the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra: June 1, 2026, marks the 80th anniversary of their founding. Over the decades, they have opened up the entire cosmos of great music to their audiences. The New Year's Concert offers something for everyone: the folkloric, the exhilarating, the romantic, the virtuosic. In the overture to his successful operetta The Merry Widow, Franz Lehár ignites a sparkling firework display of immortal hits. Keywords: Da geh' ich ins Maxim, Vilja-Lied, Ja, das Studium der Weiber (Yes, the Study of Women)… A top-class symphonic concertante piece is also on the program: the dazzling and joyful A minor Cello Concerto by the all-round genius Camille Saint-Saëns. Also appearing with us for the first time is the versatile and virtuoso cellist Bryan Cheng from Canada, a recipient of top competition awards. He's also the soloist in a romantic mood piece by Tchaikovsky. But don't worry: it won't stay too quiet! Happy New Year!

New Year's Concert With The Symphonics

Dvořák is the favorite composer of many classical music fans and orchestras alike. His music plays well – and is pleasant to listen to. It is often lighthearted, comfortable, and full of life. The Czech national classic is represented twice in our concert – with two concert overtures, one of which poetically captures rural moods and views, the other sparklingly immerses itself in a turbulent carnival festivities. Brahms' profound A minor concerto, the so-called "Double Concerto," features two soloists – a work tailor-made for our brotherly soloist duo of Claudio and Oscar Bohórquez. The two also plays a role in Schubert's Symphony in B minor. It consists of two movements, not four like a conventional symphony, which is why it is nicknamed the Unfinished . Nevertheless, it is a complete masterpiece. It moves forward with double the force.

Schubert, Dvorak, Brahms

She was a fellow student of Debussy, admired by Saint-Saëns, and encouraged by the publisher Alphonse Leduc to create ever new works: Mélanie Bonis, a French composer who fell into obscurity after her death in 1937. Her impressionistic atmospheric picture Le Songe de Cléopâtre (The Dream of Cleopatra) from 1909 is beguilingly beautiful in its sophisticated orchestration and intoxicatingly sensual in its sound. A real discovery! The organ concerto by the contemporary Swiss composer Valentin Villard, written exactly one hundred years later, is also sonicly fascinating: it begins shimmering and undulating and ends with a rushing apotheosis. All of this is exactly the right thing for the dazzling star organist Anna Lapwood, who, to top it all off, also presents a French classic: the monumental organ symphony by Saint-Saëns. At her side: David Reiland from Belgium, head of the Orchestre National de Lorraine and the Sinfonietta Lausanne.

Organ Symphony With Anna Lapwood

The Black Pirate (USA 1926) – eight decades before Captain Jack Sparrow sailed through southern climes, Douglas Fairbanks portrayed an adventurous and daring privateer in The Black Pirate (German: Der Seeräuber ) – already familiar to some from the Robin Hood film, which the Symphony Orchestra presented in January 2022. This time, Fairbanks invites you to a true gem of early cinema – with buried treasure, exploding sailing ships, a romance with a beautiful girl, extraordinary stunts, and the capture of greedy treasure robbers! What more could you want? The Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra will celebrate the centenary of The Black Pirate with the European premiere of both the restored film version (Museum of Modern Art, 2023) and the new film score by Robert Israel (2023), who wrote a melodic swashbuckler score à la Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Max Steiner and John Williams especially for this film, which is in no way inferior to Fairbanks' artistic triumph on screen.

THE BLACK PIRATE Silent film with live orchestra

Music to dream of faraway places! Our program takes you into the vibrant, richly colored, and unfathomable world of the Orient, as great composers of the past have timelessly captured it musically – as a magical, exotic realm full of beauty and irresistible temptations. Right in the overture to his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio, Mozart trumps it with a blaring "Alla Turca." Abduction? Seduction! Rimsky-Korsakov's Symphonic Suite Scheherazade , named after the beautiful princess and seductive narrator of the oriental tales from One Thousand and One Nights , is enchantingly magical . And the Orient also resonates in Rachmaninoff's hit Piano Concerto in C minor – in a theme that evidently fascinated Miklos Rózsa while he was working on his film score for Ben-Hur . The soloist is Russian pianist Dmitry Masleev, who thrilled the symphony audience in October 2023. Eduard Topchyan, conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra, will conduct.

Rachmaninov And Scheherazade

No Rhythm, No Music, No Fun! is a truly cool show lasting roughly an hour! On various percussion instruments—marimba, vibraphone, drum set, pipe drum, cajon, cowbells, surdo, castanets, and many more—the Drum Twins play well-known melodies from classical, pop, and film. They explain the importance of rhythm in music, how to recognize time signatures, the role of tempo and instrument choice in composers, and how to clap along properly! And the audience gets involved, introducing the individual pieces, learning simple rhythms as body percussion, and (hopefully) laughing along a lot. The Drum Twins are both professional orchestral percussionists and regularly perform on the world's major stages. With this concert, they want to share their enthusiasm for music and, above all, for rhythm.