Fabio Luisi’s winter/spring 2025: three world premieres and “Resurrection” Symphony with DSO in Dallas; European tours with Danish National Symphony and NHK Symphony
(December 2024) — Grammy- and ECHO Klassik Award-winning conductor Fabio Luisi continues his fruitful partnerships with three major orchestras this winter and spring, with highlights including world premieres by Raven Chacon, Sean Shepherd, and composer-in-residence Sophia Jani with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO), where he is in his fifth season as Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Director; and European tours with the two ensembles of which he is Principal Conductor: the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DNSO) and Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra. The former tour features Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili performing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto along with symphonies by Mahler and Nielsen, plus Bent Sørensen’s Evening Land (Jan 13–23), and the latter includes two dates at the Third International Mahler Festival in Amsterdam, where Luisi will lead the orchestra – the first from Asia to participate in the festival – in Mahler’s Third (May 11) and Fourth Symphonies (May 12).
Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO)
Known as “one of America’s best at commissioning new works” (D Magazine), the DSO continues its longstanding tradition of championing contemporary composers when Luisi conducts three DSO-commissioned world premieres next spring. First, they collaborate with Raven Chacon, a Diné composer, musician and artist who was born in Fort Defiance, Arizona within the Navajo Nation and became the first Native American to win a Pulitzer Prize for Music, for his Voiceless Mass, in 2022. Chacon’s new orchestral work will be performed on a program with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and Bruch’s Violin Concerto, featuring DSO concertmaster Alexander Kerr as soloist (Feb 6–9).
Next, Luisi conducts the world premiere of a new work by DSO composer-in-residence Sophia Jani – 2023 Musical Artist in Residence of the Arvo Pärt Centre and an Opus Klassik nominee – on a program that also features the Dallas premiere of Arlene Sierra’snew work, Kiskadee, which was commissioned by the League of American Orchestras with the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation. The program is rounded out by Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with Argentinian pianist Nelson Goerner – “one of those discreet artists whose career is immense” (Le Monde) – making his DSO debut, and Strauss’s Till Eulenspiegel (March 6–9).
Finally, Luisi leads the world premiere of Sean Shepherd’s Quadruple Concerto for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and orchestra, featuring DSO Principals David Buck (Principal Flute, Joy & Ronald Mankoff Chair), Erin Hannigan (Principal Oboe, Nancy P. & John G. Penson Chair), Gregory Raden (Principal Clarinet, Mr. & Mrs. C. Thomas May, Jr. Chair), and Ted Soluri (Principal Bassoon, Irene H. Wadel & Robert I. Atha, Jr. Chair). Also on that program is Mendelssohn’s “Scottish” Symphony (April 17–19).
Luisi concludes the DSO 2024–25 season conducting performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, “Resurrection,” joined by soprano Sofia Fomina, mezzo-soprano Catriona Morison, and the Dallas Symphony Chorus (May 30–June 1).
These performances cap a banner year for the DSO that began with an achievement marking a first for any U.S. orchestra in recent history: concert performances of Wagner’s complete Ring cycle. Musical America, anticipating the event, declared that “Fabio Luisi, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s music director and a veteran Wagnerian, is about to make the Texas city a destination for devotees of the German master’s four-opera saga.” Texas Classical Review called it “a truly remarkable event and one that one can hope bodes well for similar operatic undertakings in the future,” while Classical Voice North America found that “the Dallas Ring resembles an enormous, labyrinthine concerto for orchestra, with all the virtuosity and imaginative willpower that implies.” The enormous endeavor was the culmination of many years of planning by DSO artistic staff and leadership and featured a huge orchestra of over 100 players and a cast of more than 30 vocalists on stage at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center. The star-studded cast list included soprano Lise Lindstrom (Brünnhilde), soprano Sara Jakubiak (Sieglinde), mezzo-soprano Deniz Uzun (Fricka), tenor Daniel Johansson (Siegfried), bass-baritone Mark Delavan (Wotan), and baritone Tómas Tómasson(Alberich). The staging director for the production was Alberto Triola, who also produced the DSO’s opera-in-concert performances of Richard Strauss’ Salome in 2020 and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin in 2022.
Danish National Symphony Orchestra (DNSO)
Following their last Deutsche Grammophon release of the complete symphonies of Carl Nielsen, Luisi and the DNSO garnered Gramophone Awards for Orchestral and Recording of the Year for 2023 for their accounts of the composer’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. The Gramophone review elaborated:
“These are quite marvellous – and in the case of the Fourth Symphony, incendiary – performances. There’s something about the temperament of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra when they rejoice in the bracing and songful adventures of their favourite son and with an Italian at the helm there is further assurance that this music will sing.”
Gramophone also raved elsewhere about the Nielsen collection, declaring that it contained “accounts that rival the all-time finest” and that “the quality of playing and recording is stupendous.”
This winter, Luisi and the DNSO go on a European tour that features Nielsen’s Fourth Symphony played in repertory with Mahler’s First, on a program that also includes Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili performing Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto and Bent Sørensen’s Evening Land. Following a first set of performances in Copenhagen (Jan 9 & 10), the tour takes in select cities in Germany, Belgium, Austria, and Hungary (Jan 13–23).
NHK Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo
Luisi likewise tours Europe in the spring with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, of which he is also Principal Conductor, stopping in Antwerp, Amsterdam, Prague, Vienna, Dresden and Innsbruck (May 9–20), after performances at home in Japan (April 26 & 27, May 1 & 2). The varying repertoire includes Grieg’s Piano Concerto – with soloist Rudolf Buchbinder – and Mahler’s Third and Fourth Symphonies. Included in the tour are two concerts at the Third International Mahler Festival in Amsterdam (May 11 & 12) – the first two iterations of which were in 1920 and 1995 – where Luisi will conduct both Mahler symphonies and songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, with featured soloists soprano Ying Fang, mezzo-soprano Olesya Petrova, and baritone Matthias Goerne. Pioneers of Mahler performance in Japan, where, in 1930, the orchestra made the first full-length electrical recording of a Mahler symphony with their rendition of the Fourth, the NHK Symphony is the first Asian orchestra to participate in a Mahler Festival.
Guest conducting engagements
Luisi also finds time for two high-profile guest conducting engagements in the U.S. this winter. First, he leads The Cleveland Orchestra in the U.S. premiere of Silvia Colasanti’s Time’s Cruel Hand – inspired by three of Shakespeare’s sonnets – along with Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7 (Feb 13 & 15). Later that same month, Luisi guest conducts The Philadelphia Orchestra in a program of Bent Sørensen’s Evening Land, Brahms’s Symphony No. 4, and Korngold’s Violin Concerto featuring soloist Leonidas Kavakos (Feb 21–23).
Fabio Luisi: winter/spring 2025 engagements
Jan 9 & 10
Copenhagen, Denmark
Khatia Buniatishvili, piano
Bent SØRENSEN: Evening Land
RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 in D, “Titan”
Jan 13–23
European tour with Danish National Symphony Orchestra
Khatia Buniatishvili, piano
Repertoire selected from:
RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18 (all dates)
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 in D, “Titan” (Jan 13, 17, 21, 22)
Bent SØRENSEN: Evening Land (Jan 15, 17, 18, 19, 22, 23)
NIELSEN: Symphony No. 4, Op. 29, “The Indelible” (Jan 15, 18, 23)
Jan 13: Berlin, Germany
Jan 15: Stuttgart, Germany
Jan 17: Antwerp, Belgium
Jan 18: Essen, Germany (Philharmonie Essen)
Jan 19: Hamburg, Germany (Elbphilharmonie Großer Saal)
Jan 21: Munich, Germany (Isarphilharmonie at Gasteig HP8 – Complex)
Jan 22: Linz, Austria (Brucknerhaus Linz)
Jan 23: Budapest, Hungary
Jan 30–Feb 2
Dallas, TX
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
Augustin Hadelich, violin
BRAHMS: Violin Concerto in D
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 7 in E
Feb 6–9
Dallas, TX
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
Alexander Kerr, violin
Raven CHACON: Orchestra work (world premiere)
BRUCH: Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor
BEETHOVEN: Symphony No. 5 in C minor
Feb 13 & 15
Cleveland, OH
The Cleveland Orchestra
Tim Mead, countertenor
Silvia COLASANTI: Time’s Cruel Hand (U.S. premiere)
BRUCKNER: Symphony No. 7
Feb 21–23
Philadelphia, PA
The Philadelphia Orchestra
Leonidas Kavakos, violin
Bent SØRENSEN: Evening Land
KORNGOLD: Violin Concerto
BRAHMS: Symphony No. 4
March 6–9
Dallas, TX
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
Nelson Goerner, piano
Sophia JANI: Orchestral work (world premiere)
RACHMANINOFF: Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30
Arlene SIERRA: Kiskadee (DSO co-commission)
R. STRAUSS: Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, Op. 28
April 17–19
Dallas, TX
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
David Buck, flute
Erin Hannigan, oboe
Gregory Raden, clarinet
Ted Soluri, bassoon
Sean SHEPHERD: Quadruple Concerto for Flute, Oboe, Clarinet and Bassoon and Orchestra (world premiere)
MENDELSSOHN: Symphony No. 3 in A minor, “Scottish”
April 26 & 27
Tokyo, Japan
Olesya Petrova, mezzo-soprano
Tokyo Opera Singers, female chorus
NHK Tokyo Children’s Chorus
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3 in D minor
May 1 & 2
Tokyo, Japan
Suntory Hall
Akiko Suwanai, violin
Maki Mori, soprano
BERG: Violin Concerto
MAHLER: Symphony No. 4 in G
May 9–20
European tour with NHK Symphony Orchestra
May 9
Antwerp, Belgium
Queen Elisabeth Hall
Rudolf Buchbinder, piano
Ying Fang, soprano
NHK Symphony Orchestra
GRIEG: Concerto for Piano in A minor, Op. 16
MAHLER: Symphony No. 4 in G
May 11
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Mahler Festival
Olesya Petrova, mezzo-soprano
Women of the National Radio Choir
National Children’s Choir
NHK Symphony Orchestra
MAHLER: Symphony No. 3 in D minor
May 12
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Mahler Festival
Ying Fang, soprano
Matthias Goerne, baritone
NHK Symphony Orchestra
MAHLER: Songs from Des Knaben Wunderhorn
MAHLER: Symphony No. 4 in G
May 14
Vienna, Austria
NHK Symphony Orchestra
May 15
Prague, Czech Republic
NHK Symphony Orchestra
May 17 & 18
Dresden, Germany
NHK Symphony Orchestra
May 20
Innsbruck, Austria
NHK Symphony Orchestra
May 30–June 1
Dallas, TX
Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center
Sofia Fomina, soprano
Catriona Morison, mezzo-soprano
Dallas Symphony Chorus
Anthony Blake Clark, chorus director
MAHLER: Symphony No. 2 in C minor, “Resurrection”
June 27, 30, July 4, 8, 11, 14, 17
Milan, Italy
Teatro alla Scala
Norma