Sun, Jan. 12, 2025, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall
Olivier Messiaen: “Couleurs de la Cité céleste” for piano, wind instruments and percussion
Gustav Mahler: “The Song of the Earth” - A symphony for a tenor and an alto voice and orchestra
Dirigent: Kent Nagano
Tenor: Stuart Skelton
Mezzosopran: Karen Cargill
Klavier: Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg
Kent Nagano is considered one of today’s outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. Since September 2015, he has been General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg. In addition, he is committed as Artistic Director of the Ring project “The Wagner Cycles” of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln, and as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival. He has been Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, Concerto Köln since 2019, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2021 and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester since 2023.
The 2024/25 season is Kent Nagano's last season as General Music Director in Hamburg and brings four new productions to the Staatsoper under Nagano's musical direction: Carl Orff's Trionfi, Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Unsuk Chin's The Dark Side of the Moon, and Rodolphe Bruneau-Boulmier's The Illusions of William Mallory. Furthermore, he conducts symphony concerts with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester in the Elbphilharmonie as he does every season, including the New Year's performance and the world premiere of Alex Nante's symphony Anahata, a work commissioned by the Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Highlights of recent seasons in Hamburg have included opera productions such as Boris Godunov, Salome, performances of Sciarrino's Venere e Adone and Britten's Peter Grimes, Les Troyens, Lulu, Lessons in Love and Violence and the world premiere of Stilles Meer as well as Les Contes d'Hoffmann in the new production by Daniele Finzi Pasca (released on DVD by EuroArts, February 2022), the “Philharmonic Academy” in St. Michaelis, open-air concerts at the Rathausmarkt and the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin's work Waves for organ and orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie. Orchestral tours with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg have taken Kent Nagano to Japan, Spain and South America.
In the 2024/25 season, Kent Nagano conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Passau, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal in Montréal and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, among others. He also conducts Dusapin's Il Vaggio, Dante in a production by Claus Guth at the Paris Opera and the revival of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre in a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
As a much sought-after guest conductor, Kent Nagano regularly works with leading international orchestras worldwide, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique Radio France, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de l'Opéra national in Paris, the Chicago and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest and the Wiener Symphoniker. A special project was the Bernstein opera A quiet place at the Paris Opera. Other opera productions include the world premiere of Dusapin's Il viaggio, dante at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Hindemith's Cardillac, Henze's Die Bassariden and the world premiere of Saariaho's L'amour de loin at the Salzburg Festival. Other world premieres conducted by Nagano include Bernstein's A White House Cantata and the operas Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin, Three Sisters by Peter Eötvös and The Death of Klinghoffer and El Niño by John Adams.
Under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano and the Intendant of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele Jan Vogler, Wagner's Ring Tetralogy will be performed in the artistic context of the period in which it was composed, based on the latest findings of research into Wagner and performance practice, and integrated into an extensive supporting program as part of the multi-year project The Wagner Cycles of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele from 2023 to 2026. The first performance in 2023 was Das Rheingold at the Dresden Music Festival and the tour to Cologne, Ravello and Lucerne under the musical direction of Kent Nagano. Die Walküre followed in 2024 as the second work in the epochal narrative in Prague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Dresden, Hamburg and Lucerne. In 2025, the project devotes itself to Richard Wagner's Siegfried and gives historically informed concert performances in international concert halls and opera houses.
Highlights of Kent Nagano's collaboration with the OSM as Music Director from 2006 to 2020 included the inauguration of the orchestra’s new concert hall La Maison Symphonique in September 2011, performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, concert versions of Wagner's Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde and Das Rheingold, Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au Bücher, and Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. Tours have taken Nagano and the orchestra to Canada including the Northern Territories, Japan, South Korea, Europe (latest 2019), Latin America and the USA. In July 2018, Kent Nagano conducted Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion with the OSM at the Salzburg Festival opening concert.
His recordings with the OSM on Sony Classical/Analekta include Mahler’s Orchestral Songs with Christian Gerhaher in 2013 and a complete recording of all of Beethoven’s symphonies in 2015. Decca released a recording of the North American premiere of L'Aiglon, a rarely performed opera by Honegger and Ibert in 2016, conducted by Nagano in 2015. Further releases by Decca are Danse Macabre with works by Dukas, Saint-Saens, Ives and others in 2016 as well as a recording of Bernstein's A quiet place in 2018 on the occasion of the composer's 100th birthday. John Adams' Common tones in simple time & harmony (Decca) was released in 2019, the Lukas Passion by Penderecki (BIS) and works by Ginastera, Bernstein and Moussa (Analekta) in 2020.
At the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he was General Music Director from 2006 to 2013, Kent Nagano commissioned new operas such as Babylon by Jörg Widmann, Das Gehege by Wolfgang Rihm and Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin. New productions included Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites, Messiaen’s Saint François d'Assise, Berg’s Wozzeck, George Benjamin's Written on skin and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Tours took Nagano and the Bavarian State Orchestra through Europe and Japan. In addition to Bruckner's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7 (Sony), Kent Nagano has released several opera performances with the Bavarian State Orchestra on DVD: Unsuk Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland (2008) and Mussorgsky's Chowanschtschina (2009) with unitel classica/medici arts, Dialogue des Carmélites with Bel Air Classiques (2011) and Lohengrin (2010) with Decca.
Another very important period in Nagano’s career was his time as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000-2006. He performed Schönberg’s Moses und Aron with the orchestra (in collaboration with Los Angeles Opera) and took them to the Salzburg Festival to perform both Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules and Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten, as well as to the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with Parsifal and Lohengrin in productions by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Recordings with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for Harmonia Mundi include repertoire as diverse as Bernstein’s Mass, Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6, Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge, Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Schönberg’s Die Jakobsleiter and Friede auf Erden, as well as Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Schönberg’s Variationen für Orchester Op. 31. In June 2006, at the end of his tenure with the orchestra, Kent Nagano was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra – only the second recipient of this honour in their 60-year history. To this day he maintains a close friendship with the orchestra.
In October 2019, Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama expanded their joint recordings of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 0 E-flat Major WoO 4, a nearly unknown work from the composer’s youth, and his Rondo for Piano and Orchestra WoO 6 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. The complete edition of Beethoven’s piano concerti was released on the Berlin Classics label.
Nagano was awarded Grammys for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with Opéra National de Lyon, Prokofjew’s Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra and Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin with the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin. He has worked with labels such as BIS, Decca, Sony Classical, FARAO Classics and Analekta for many years, and has also recorded CDs with Berlin Classics, Erato, Teldec, Pentatone, Deutsche Grammophon and Harmonia Mundi.
To celebrate Kent Nagano's 70th birthday in 2021, a 3-CD box set of works by Olivier Messiaen was released in October on the BR Klassik label. The release includes live recordings of the works Poèmes pour Mi, Chronochromie and La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ from his concerts with the Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, demonstrating Nagano's close familiarity with Messiaen's musical language in a special way.
In September 2021, Kent Nagano published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In "10 Lessons of my Life", he recalls ten deeply personal encounters from which he learned important lessons, not only for his career but for his life more broadly. Among those experiences are encounters with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and the Nobel Prize winner in physics Donald Glaser.
In 2015 Kent Nagano published "Erwarten Sie Wunder!" also in Berlin Verlag, a passionate appeal for the relevance of classical music in today's world. In 2019 the book was released in English by the Canadian McGill-Queen's University Press under the title ″Classical Music - Expect the Unexpected" and in 2015 under "Sonnez, merveilles!" in French by Éditions du Boréal.
Born in California, Nagano maintains close connections with his home state and was Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra from 1978-2009. His first major successes came with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1984, when Messiaen appointed him assistant to conductor Seiji Ozawa for the premiere of his opera Saint François d'Assise. Nagano’s success in America led to European appointments: Music Director of Opéra National de Lyon (1988-1998) and Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra (1991-2000). Kent Nagano became the first Music Director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003 having already held the position of Principal Conductor for two years.
Kent Nagano was awarded an honorary doctorate from McGill University in Montréal in 2005, an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal in 2006, and an honorary doctorate from San Francisco State University in 2018. Since 2017, Kent Nagano has been a "Compagnon" of the "Ordre des arts et des lettres" of Québec and in the fall of 2023, Kent Nagano was also awarded the title of "Chevalier" in the "Ordre des art et des lettres" of France. In February 2024, Kent Nagano was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal President and in June 2024 he was awarded the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor. Kent Nagano is the recipient of the 2024 Brahms Prize of the Brahms Society of Schleswig-Holstein.
Stuart Skelton is one of the finest heldentenors on the stage today, critically acclaimed for his outstanding musicianship, tonal beauty, and intensely dramatic portrayals.
Performances of the 2024-25 season include the title role of Tristan und Isolde with Marek Janowski and the Dresdner Philharmonie and in a Philadelphia Orchestra debut under the baton of Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the title role of Parsifal and Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Marek Janowski leading the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Die Walküre with the Sydney Symphony under the baton of Simone Young, and the First Act of Die Walküre at Teatro Comunale Bologna with Oksana Lyniv on the podium. Additional highlights of the season include the Second Act of Tristan und Isolde with Sir Simon Rattle and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Fabio Luisi and the NHK Symphony Orchestra, and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Kent Nagano and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg, with Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider and the Orchestre National de Lyon, and with Marin Alsop and the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra.
During the last season Stuart Skelton made his debuts in the title role of Tristan und Isolde at both Teatro de la Maestranza led by Henrik Nánási and at Glyndebourne in performances conducted by Robin Ticciati. Concert appearances included the First Act of Die Walküre with Jaap van Zweden and the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Tristan und Isolde in concert performances with Marek Janowski and the NHK Symphony Orchestra, and an extensive tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra offering his native country the Schoenberg arrangement of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde.
Recent operatic highlights include a debut at Teatro San Carlo in a new production of Tristan und Isolde under the baton of Constantin Trinks as well as performances as the tortured nobleman at the Bayerische Staatsoper in two distinct series of performances led by Juraj Valčuha and by Lothar Koenigs. A varied international concert schedule included Act Two of Tristan und Isolde with Susanna Mälkki leading the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Act One of Die Walküre with Jaap van Zweden and the Concertbegouworkest, and the title role in concert performances of Parsifal with Edward Gardner leading the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.
Recent seasons have encompassed multiple engagements at the Bayerische Staatsoper including Parsifal in a production by Pierre Audi led by Marek Janowski and Peter Grimes directed by Stefan Herheim and conducted by Edward Gardner. With the Wiener Staatsoper, Stuart Skelton joined Philippe Jordan for a Wagner Gala under the auspices of the Musikverein für Steiermark, Graz and bowed on the main stage as Siegmund in Die Walküre conducted by Axel Kober. He has sung the title role of Tristan und Isolde at the Festival d’Aix en Provence and Laca Klemen in a new production of Jenůfa at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden, both conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
Stuart Skelton has sung Florestan in Beethoven’s Fidelio at Teatro alla Scala conducted by Myung-Whun Chung in a production directed by Deborah Warner, the title role of Otello at the Metropolitan Opera conducted by Gustavo Dudamel and at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in a new production by Robert Wilson with Zubin Mehta conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker, Lohengrin at the Opéra national de Paris led by Philippe Jordan, Die Walküre at the Deutsche Oper Berlin under the baton of Donald Runnicles and at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with Valery Gergiev leading the Mariinsky Orchestra, Jenůfa with the Bayerische Staatsoper conducted by Tomáš Hanus, Parsifal at the Opernhaus Zürich conducted by Daniele Gatti, Samson et Dalila at the Ópera National de Bordeaux, and Wozzeck for a Metropolitan Opera debut conducted by James Levine. Internationally renowned for his performances of Peter Grimes, he has sung the title role at English National Opera, Opera Australia, Opera de Oviedo, Tokyo’s New National Theatre, and in concert with the London Philharmonic under Vladimir Jurowski, with David Robertson and the Sydney Symphony, with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, and with Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic at the BBC Proms and Edinburgh Festival.
The tenor made a much-anticipated debut at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden as Siegmund under the baton of Sir Antonio Pappano, and additional staged performances of Die Walküre were given at the Metropolitan Opera conducted by Philippe Jordan, in Budapest conducted by Ádám Fischer, and in Madrid conducted by Pablo Heras-Casado. Concert performances of Act One of Die Walküre have featured the tenor with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Karina Canellakis, with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra led by Jaap van Zweden, San Francisco Symphony conducted by Simone Young, London Philharmonic Orchestra with Vladimir Jurowski, and with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle, among many others.
Stuart Skelton had the honor of opening the 2016-17 Metropolitan Opera season in the company’s new production of Tristan und Isolde conducted by Sir Simon Rattle; he first reached the zenith of the tenor repertoire – as Tristan – at the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden in a new production by Mariusz Treliński, and he later assayed English language performances in a new production designed by Sir Anish Kapoor at the English National Opera directed by Daniel Kramer and conducted by Edward Gardner.
Stuart Skelton’s robust concert calendar has included performances of Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen and The MET Orchestra, and with Sir Simon Rattle and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks and the London Symphony Orchestra; Liszt’s “Faust Symphony” with Vladimir Jurowski and the RundfunkSinfonieorchester Berlin; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with Gianandrea Noseda and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra as well as with David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra; and his Ninth Symphony with Sir Antonio Pappano and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia as well as with Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra. He has performed Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and with Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
Stuart Skelton’s first solo album, Shining Knight, presents a program of Wagner, Griffes, and Barber accompanied by Asher Fisch and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, and seamlessly showcases both heroic vocalism and musical sensitivity. His expansive recording catalogue also includes Tristan und Isolde with Asher Fisch and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, Britten’s Peter Grimes, Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder and a Grammy Award-nominated Janáček Glagolitic Mass with Edward Gardner and the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, a Gramophone Magazine awardwinning recording of Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with Sir Andrew Davis and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, Die Walküre with Sir Simon Rattle and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex with Sir John Eliot Gardiner conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with Sir Charles Mackerras and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, with Sir Simon Rattle and the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, with Ádám Fischer and the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, and with Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
Additionally, he has contributed to four recordings of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen: with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra led by Jaap van Zweden, with the Philharmoniker Hamburg and Simone Young, and with Seattle Opera and the State Opera of South Australia both under the baton of Asher Fisch.
Named Male Singer of the Year at the 2014 International Opera Awards, Mr. Skelton has been twice honored with the Sir Robert Helpmann Award: once for his performances of Siegmund in the State Opera of South Australia’s 2004 production of the Ring Cycle, and again in 2010 for Best Male Performer in a Lead Role for his portrayal of Peter Grimes for Opera Australia. He received a 2010 Green Room Award for A Streetcar Named Desire and was nominated for an Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera for his performances of Peter Grimes with the English National Opera.
Scottish mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill is one of the most renowned singers of her generation. Winner of the 2002 Kathleen Ferrier Award, Karen has gone on to be nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Operatic Recording as part of the Metropolitan Opera’s recording of Dialogues des Carmélites. In July 2018 Karen was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Karen’s operatic roles include Geneviève Pelléas et Mélisande, Judith Bluebeard’s Castle, Mère Marie Dialogues des Carmélites, Dryade Ariade auf Naxos, Dido Dido and Aeneas & Anna Les Troyens. Famed for her interpretation of Wagner, Karen regularly sings Erda Das Rheingold and Siegfried, Fricka Das Rheingold, Brangäne Tristan und Isolde, Waltraute Götterdämmerung and Magdalena Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Last season Karen made her role debut as Zia Principessa Il trittico for Scottish Opera directed by Sir David McVicar and returned to Glyndebourne for a new Barrie Kosky production of Dialogues des Carmélites as Mère Marie.
In opera, the 23/24 season sees Karen return to Glyndebourne as Brangäne Tristan und Isolde cond. Robin Ticciati, Judith in concert performances of Bluebeard’s Castle with the Boston Symphony Orchestra cond. Karina Cannellakis, and Fricka Die Walküre in a concert tour with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra cond. Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Further ahead, Karen returns to the Metropolitan Opera and makes her house debut with the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin.
Enjoying longstanding relationships with several conductors, Karen’s 23/24 plans include collaborations with Yannick Nézet-Séguin in her return to the Metropolitan Opera for the Verdi Requiem, Alma Mahler Lieder with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Lili Boulanger’s Psalm 130 with the Orchestre Métropolitain and Fricka Die Walküre in a concert tour with the Rotterdam Philharmonic. With Robin Ticciati and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin Karen sings Beethoven Symphony No. 9, Act II Tristan und Isolde & Das Lied von der Erde, as well as for the Wiener Symphoniker. Elsewhere, Karen sings Mahler Symphony No. 2 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra cond. Esa-Pekka Salonen and with Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal cond. Patrick Hahn, Das Lied von der Erde with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra cond. Alpesh Chauhan and with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra cond. Matthias Pintscher, the Verdi Requiem with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra cond. Kazuki Yamada and with the Philharmonia Orchestra cond. Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and La Mort de Cleopatre with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
With her recital partner Simon Lepper Karen has performed at Wigmore Hall London; Concertgebouw Amsterdam; Kennedy Centre Washington and Carnegie Hall New York, and regularly gives recitals for BBC Radio 3. With Simon, Karen also recently recorded a critically acclaimed recital of Lieder by Alma and Gustav Mahler for Linn Records, for whom she has previously recorded Berlioz Les nuits d’été and La mort de Cléopâtre with Robin Ticciati and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Karen is Patron of the National Girls’ Choir of Scotland and sang in the National Service of Thanksgiving and Dedication for King Charles III following his Coronation in 2023.
“A brilliant musician and an extraordinary visionary” (Wall Street Journal), Pierre-Laurent Aimard is widely acclaimed as an authority in music of our time while recognised also for shedding fresh light on music of the past. His international schedule of creatively conceived concerts, broadcasts and recordings is complemented by a career-long commitment to teaching, giving concert lectures and workshops worldwide.
Pierre-Laurent Aimard has had close collaborations with many leading composers including Helmut Lachenmann, Elliott Carter, Harrison Birtwistle, György Kurtág, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Marco Stroppa, Pierre Boulez, and Olivier Messiaen. During the 2023/24 season he celebrates the music of György Ligeti with projects throughout Europe, North America, Japan and China. Guest Concerto appearances include Czech Philharmonic, Staatskapelle Dresden, Teatro alla Scala Milan, Orchestre
National de France, Danish National Symphony Orchestra and New York Philharmonic. Aimard’s
extensive recital touring takes in Southbank Centre London, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Musikverein Wien, Philharmonie Luxembourg and Concertgebouw as well as Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco. At Paris’ Theatre des Champs Elysees he collaborates with French actor Denis Podalydès for an exploration of Fateless with music by Ligeti, Kurtag, Schoenberg and Cage. Aimard also continues his association with long-standing chamber music partners, most notably Tamara Stefanovich at the Tonhalle Zürich and Madrid’s Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical, and jazz pianist Michael Wollny at Frankfurt Alte Oper.
Upcoming world premieres include Clara Iannotta’s Piano Concerto for the Acht Brucken Festival in Cologne and the Portuguese premiere of Klaus Ospald’s Se da contra las piedras la libertad, a work co-commissioned by Casa da Musica, Porto and Cologne’s WDR Symphony Orchestra. Past premieres by Aimard include Carter’s last piece Epigrams; Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s works Responses; Sweet disorder and the carefully careless and Keyboard Engine for two pianos.
The season begins with the September release of a new recording of the complete Bartók piano
concertos with Esa-Pekka Salonen and San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. This record is the latest in a series of critically acclaimed collaborations with Pentatone, following Visions de l’Amen (2022) recorded with Tamara Stefanovich; Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021), and Messiaen’s magnum opus Catalogue d’oiseaux (2018) which garnered multiple awards including the prestigious German music critic’s award “Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.”
An innovative curator and uniquely significant interpreter of piano repertoire from every age, Aimard has been invited to direct and perform in numerous residencies including recently for Musikkollegium Winterthur where over the season he celebrated different composers and opened with the complete cycle of Beethoven Piano Concertos. Elsewhere, he has performed ground-breaking projects at Porto’s Casa da Musica, New York's Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Konzerthaus Vienna, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Lucerne Festival, Mozarteum Salzburg, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Tanglewood Festival, the
Edinburgh Festival, and as Artistic Director of the Aldeburgh Festival from 2009 to 2016.
Aimard is the recipient of many prizes, receiving the prestigious International Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2017 in recognition of a life devoted to the service of music and the Leonie Sonning Music Prize, Denmark’s most prominent music award in 2022.
A member of the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste, Aimard has held professorships at the
Hochschule Köln and was previously an Associate Professor at the College de France, Paris. In
spring 2020, he re-launched a major online resource Explore the Score in collaboration with the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, which centres on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.
During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Adam Fischer and Sir Roger Norrington.
Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera and since June 2023 also its honorary conductor. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016, Nagano and the Philharmonic toured South America, followed by concert tours to Spain and Japan in 2019, and in the spring of 2023, the Philharmonic State Orchestra made its debut at New York's Carnegie Hall under his direction, which was acclaimed by audiences and the press. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released by ECM, for which Widmann received the OPUS KLASSIK as Composer of the Year 2019, and ARCHE was performed again in 2023 to great acclaim.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.
In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.
The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.
Bringing Gustav Mahler's “The Song of the Earth” to the stage always leads into the depths of late romantic turn-of-the-century aesthetics. Of course, the basis of the work is poetry - although of a very dubious nature due to the various back and forth translations from Old Chinese. And so the six songs, of which the last is by far the most important, are actually primarily derived from music To a certain extent, it can be understood as Mahler's unofficial ninth symphony. At least he himself suggested this count - and also emphasized that “The Song of the Earth” was “probably the most personal thing I have done to date.” Stuart Skelton and Karen Cargill sing the version for tenor and alto here.
This major work begins with Olivier Messiaen's “Colors of the Heavenly City,” which premiered in 1964 and invokes the principle of synaesthetics: individual chords evoke the ideas of colors. And so images of the rainbow, the light of the holy city, seven angels and the star with the key to the well of the abyss are cast in sound. None other than Pierre-Laurent Aimard takes on the solo piano part.
Venue: Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall, Platz der Deutschen Einheit 4, 20457 Hamburg
