Alan Gilbert returns to U.S. for La Jolla SummerFest residency crowned by Renée Fleming collaboration, punctuating full summer in Europe & beyond
(June 2025) — After Alan Gilbert’s appearance with the Boston Symphony this past February, the Boston Musical Intelligencer marveled: “The unfailing mastery and command of Gilbert’s orchestral leadership should not have surprised me. … I can’t think of a more gifted American-born-and-trained conductor.” Now the Grammy-winning American conductor returns to the States for a weeklong residency at La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest. Drawing on his additional skills as a string player, the California residency sees Gilbert perform chamber works by Mendelssohn, Mozart, Nielsen, and Messiaen, before conducting a chamber orchestral arrangement of Richard Strauss’s final masterpiece, the Four Last Songs, featuring Renée Fleming (July 30–Aug 5). Gilbert is also active in Europe and beyond this summer. As Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, he leads the ensemble on tour at festivals in Germany, Sweden, and Austria (Aug 23–30), as well as on a new recording of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony (July 4). After returning to Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony for a European premiere with Alisa Weilerstein (June 5 & 6) and giving a summer concert with the Royal Swedish Orchestra & Chorus (June 14), he makes his final appearances as Principal Guest Conductor of Japan’s Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony with a complete cycle of Brahms’s four symphonies (July 18–24).
Weeklong residency at La Jolla SummerFest
During Gilbert’s eight-year tenure as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, he appointed pianist Inon Barnatan as the orchestra’s inaugural Artist-in-Association. The two remain close musical associates and look forward to reuniting this summer when Gilbert returns to La Jolla Music Society’s SummerFest, where Barnatan is now in his seventh season as Music Director.
As a gifted violinist and dedicated chamber musician, Gilbert opens the residency on violin, joining a stellar artistic lineup for a series of chamber performances. After Mendelssohn’s Octet (July 30), Nielsen’s String Quintet (Aug 1), and Mozart’s G-minor Piano Quartet (Aug 2), the series culminates with Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps, featuring Barnatan on piano, as when Gilbert performed the piece at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. This prompted a five-star review from Bachtrack, which observed: “Gilbert has the capacity with some repertoire to ascend into ethereal realms. For him, this quartet supplied such an opportunity.”
At La Jolla, Messiaen’s quartet shares a program with another great masterwork of the 1940s. To conclude his residency, Gilbert leads the SummerFest Chamber Orchestra in James Ledger’s ensemble arrangement of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, with Renée Fleming as soloist (Aug 5). The conductor’s many previous collaborations with the superstar soprano include her Grammy-winning Decca release Poèmes, on which he “provides accompaniment as languorous and misty as her singing” (San Francisco Classical Voice).
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra: European tour & new recording on heels of Wozzeck success
The present season marks Gilbert’s sixth as Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (NDREO). This summer, he and the orchestra embark on a North European festival tour, with dates at Germany’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival (Aug 23), Sweden’s Stockholm Baltic Sea Festival (Aug 28), and Austria’s Grafenegg Festival (Aug 30), which was established to showcase “the leading conductors of our time.” Gilbert’s NDREO tour program opens with Restless Oceans by Grammy-nominated British composer Anna Clyne and Bruch’s First Violin Concerto, featuring Opus Klassik award-winning Spanish violinist María Dueñas. It closes with Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in the familiar Ravel orchestration, of which Gilbert’s interpretation has been called “majestic, crackling and full of character” (The New York Times).
Summer also sees the release on July 4 of Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony. The orchestra has a long and illustrious history with the Austrian composer’s music, and on its Sony Classical recording of his Seventh Symphony, Gilbert draws “playing of considerable eloquence” (Gramophone). Recorded live with the NDREO on October 14–17, 2021, the new title marks the most recent in Gilbert’s new series of digital recordings with the orchestra, available from OneGate Media on all major streaming platforms. Since its launch last fall, the series has yielded recordings of Brahms, Mahler, Ravel, and Unsuk Chin, making Gilbert’s celebrated readings of their music accessible to home audiences worldwide. Gilbert talks about the NDREO, and about recording Brahms’s Third Symphony with the orchestra, in a recent conversation with Gramophone’s James Jolly, now available as an April episode of the magazine’s podcast series. More information about the OneGate Media series is available here.
Meanwhile, Gilbert and the NDREO complete their spring season at home and on tour. In Istanbul, Turkey, they pair Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony with Brahms’s Violin Concerto, featuring German Record Critics’ Prize winner Frank Peter Zimmermann(June 19), followed by a coupling of Brahms’s First Symphony and Chopin’s First Piano Concerto, with Chopin Competition laureate Rafał Blechacz as soloist (June 20). Back in Hamburg, they celebrate the orchestra’s 80th anniversary with the world premiere of Venus in the Mirror, a new double concerto for cello and kamancheh by Iran’s Kayhan Kalhor. Featuring both the composer and superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma as soloists, this is the vehicle for the NDREO’s season-closing concerts (June 27–29), of which the third will stream live to home audiences worldwide.
These engagements follow Gilbert’s NDREO success with Berg’s Wozzeck at the Hamburg International Music Festival. Featuring a stellar cast headed by Matthias Goerne and Christine Goerke, their semi-staged concert performances of the opera inspired rapturous praise. “Gilbert confidently navigates the rapids and cliffs of the horrendously demanding score,” declared the Hamburger Abendblatt, in a review that continued:
“The boss proves himself to be the shrewd opera conductor he is … . He lets the orchestra sometimes blossom in sound, sometimes vanish into nothingness, and then explode again at a volume for which even the term ‘forte-fortissimo’ is far too weak. Above all, however, he gives the solo voices the space they need.”
“Hamburg hasn’t heard such a brilliant Wozzeck for a long time,” affirmed Germany’s Klassik Begeistert, which went on to explain:
“The singers were also in top form, sweeping through Berg’s score with enthusiasm. … By far the biggest applause, however, went to the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra under the brilliant direction of Alan Gilbert. And rightly so. His conducting literally swept through the score, effortlessly deciphering the demanding yet gripping work for both musicians and audience, and allowing Berg’s powerful musical language to confidently waft through the audience. … Mr. Gilbert’s moving conducting visibly immersed himself in the music’s unique world and spurred the orchestra to musical excellence.”
BRSO, Royal Swedish Opera, & Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony concerts
Gilbert appears with three more major international orchestras over the summer months. He returns to Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) for a program showcasing the European premiere of returning into darkness, a cello concerto co-commissioned by the BRSO from Diapason d’Or–winning Austrian composer Thomas Larcher. Featuring its dedicatee, MacArthur fellow Alisa Weilerstein, this will be heard between two works by Sibelius: his tone poem Night Ride and Sunrise and his stirring Fifth Symphony (June 5 & 6). Gilbert says of Sibelius that “his music says something very true about all humanity,” and his interpretations of the Finnish composer’s music have been said to evince “deep, clear thinking” that lets “Sibelius’ complex emotions speak for themselves” (New York Classical Review).
As Music Director and Royal Court Kapellmeister of the Royal Swedish Opera, Gilbert returns to the Stockholm house for an early summer concert with the Royal Swedish Orchestra & Chorus. Their program opens with D’un matin de printemps, the final orchestral composition by Lili Boulanger, before celebrating the music of Brahms with performances of the choral Schicksalslied and tragic Fourth Symphony (June 14).
To complete his summer lineup, Gilbert returns to Japan’s Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, where he has served Principal Guest Conductor since 2018, to conclude his tenure with a complete Brahms symphonic cycle (July 18–24). He previously impressed The New York Times with his “supple, texturally transparent, contrast-rich reading” of Brahms’s Third, and when he led the NDREO in the composer’s First, their “spacious and sonorous performance” drew a five-star review from Classical Source, which found their account “glorious in the home stretch.”
Alan Gilbert: upcoming engagements
June 5 & 6
Munich, Germany
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
SIBELIUS: Night Ride and Sunrise
Thomas LARCHER: returning into darkness (European premiere of BRSO co-commission; with Alisa Weilerstein, cello)
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 5
June 14
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera
Early Summer Concert
L. BOULANGER: D’un matin de printemps
BRAHMS: Schicksalslied for chorus and orchestra
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 4 in E minor, op. 98
June 19 & 20
Istanbul, Turkey
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
June 19
BRAHMS: Violin Concerto (with Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin)
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 4
June 20
CHOPIN: Piano Concerto No. 1 (with Rafał Blechacz, piano)
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 1
June 27–29
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
June 27: Hamburg, Germany (with livestream)
June 28: Hamburg, Germany (open air)
June 29: Osnabrück, Germany
Kayhan KALHOR: Venus in the Mirror (double concerto for cello and kamancheh (with Kayhan Kalhor, kamancheh; Yo-Yo Ma, cello; world premiere)
BERLIOZ: Symphonie fantastique
July 18–24
Tokyo, Japan
Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra
July 18 & 19: Suntory Hall
BRAHMS: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2
July 23 & 24: Bunka Kaikan
BRAHMS: Symphonies Nos. 3 & 4
July 30–Aug 5
La Jolla, CA
La Jolla Music Society SummerFest
July 30
MENDELSSOHN: Octet (violin III)
(with Stefan Jackiw, Blake Pouliot, & Nathan Meltzer, violin; Jonathan Vinocour & Matthew Lipman, viola; Jonathan Swensen & Ivan Karizna, cello)
Aug 1
NIELSEN: String Quintet in G (violin II)
(with Blake Pouliot, violin; Kyle Armbrust & Sohui Yun, viola; Kajsa William-Olsson, cello)
Aug 2
MOZART: Piano Quartet in G minor, K.478 (violin)
(with Inon Barnatan, piano; Jonathan Vinocour, viola; Clive Greensmith, cello)
Aug 5
MESSIAEN: Quatuor pour la fin du temps (violin)
(with Inon Barnatan, piano; Nicolas Altstaedt, cello; Ricardo Morales, clarinet)
SummerFest Chamber Orchestra
STRAUSS (arr. James LEDGER): Four Last Songs (with Renée Fleming, soprano)
Aug 17
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera
Open Air Concert
Aug 23–30
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
Aug 23: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany
Aug 28: Stockholm Baltic Sea Fest, Stockholm, Sweden
Aug 30: Grafenegg Festival, Grafenegg, Austria
Anna CLYNE: Restless Oceans
BRUCH: Violin Concerto No. 1 (with María Dueñas, violin)
MUSSORGSKY (arr. RAVEL): Pictures at an Exhibition