Andris Nelsons

Multiple Grammy Winner Andris Nelsons and his “superb” (The Guardian) Leipzig orchestra continue their acclaimed couplings of Bruckner and Wagner with Symphony No. 6, which Bruckner himself described as his “boldest” and “most brazen”, and Symphony No. 9, which Bruckner struggled with for a total of nine years until his death. The Symphonies are accompanied by the Wagner’s Prelude to his last complete opera, Parsifal, and the lovely Siegfried Idyll.

Conducting the Wiener Philharmoniker, Andris Nelsons presents a concert night which concentrates every conceivable passion: Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s Trumpet Concerto “Nobody knows de trouble I see” performed with “technical perfection” (Kronenzeitung) by “the fantastic Håkan Hardenberger” (Salzburger Nachrichten) and Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor “Resurrection”. “Nelsons proved to be delicate but hearty when interpreting Mahler.” (Wiener Zeitung) The conductor led the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to “enticingly beautiful sounds” (Die Presse). “High praise goes to the vocal soloists Ekaterina Gubanova, Lucy Crowe and the Bavarian Broadcasting choir.” (Salzburger Nachrichten) “Standing ovation”! (Kurier)

The 2020 Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert takes place on January 1, 2020, under the baton of Andris Nelsons in the Musikverein in Vienna. Andris Nelsons, Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, has since 2010 been a musical partner of the Vienna Philharmonic. In 2020, Nelsons conducts for the first time this prestigious international concert event.

Nelsons is the guiding spirit in what is surely, listened to in order, one of the most remarkable musical and spiritual journeys ever conceived.

After the "scandalously successful" (Sunday Times) Symphony No. 10 in 2015, "the sheer expressive beauty" (Gramophone Magazine) of Symphonies Nos. 5, 8, 9 from 2016, and the "overbearing vividness" (The Guardian) of the most recent Symphonies Nos. 4 & 11, Nelsons and the BSO continue the Grammy-winning cycle with Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7. The symphonies are complemented by two other works by Shostakovich, the Suite from the Incidental Music to King Lear, Op. 58a and the Festive Overture, Op. 96.

Andris Nelsons is one of the most sought-after young conductors on the international scene today and once again served notice of his extraordinary talent in Summer 2011 when he conducted two concerts with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam at the prestigious Lucerne Festival. This concert, available on DVD and Blu-ray features, amongst a programme of Rimsky-Korsakov, Beethoven and Dvořák, the Grammy Award-winning pianist Yefim Bronfman performing Beethoven’s majestic Fifth Piano Concerto and Chopin’s Etude in F major.

For his inaugural concert as the new Gewandhauskapellmeister, Andris Nelsons chose three pieces, each with symbolic power. At its center is the “Scottish” Symphony by Felix Mendelssohn, his most prominent predecessor, which was premiered by the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig under the baton of the composer himself in 1842. The symphony is framed by a commissioned work by the Leipzig composer Steffen Schleiermacher and Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto, a key work of classical modernism. There is no question about it: this program defines his agenda. It professes Leipzig‘s rich musical tradition, spanning the period from the 19th to the 20th century, and to the music of our time.