Leif Ove Andsnes: 2025-26 highlights include U.S. solo recital tour, capped by return to Carnegie Hall; Beethoven with Chicago & Atlanta Symphonies; concerto premiere with Oslo Philharmonic; more
(August 2025) — Over the coming season, Leif Ove Andsnes returns to New York’s Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Celebrity Series, and three more U.S. destinations for solo recitals of Schumann, Janáček, and Kurtág, before performing Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with both the Chicago and Atlanta Symphonies. Beyond the States, the celebrated Norwegian pianist opens Montreal’s Bourgie Hall season with a solo program that also takes him to Brazil, Taiwan, and Japan. In concert, he joins the Oslo Philharmonic for the world premiere of a new concerto by his compatriot Ørjan Matre, plays Beethoven’s Third with the London Symphony Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony, Danish National Symphony, and others; and undertakes Brahms’s Second with ensembles including the Spanish National Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, and Tokyo’s NHK Symphony. To complete the season, he embarks on two chamber recital tours, joining violinist Christian Tetzlaff for sonata programs in London, Berlin, Copenhagen, and Bucharest, and collaborating with fellow pianist Bertrand Chamayou in Berlin, Brussels, Dijon, Madrid, Oslo, and Amsterdam. Andsnes’s Schubert four-hands recording with Chamayou is due for release on Warner Records this November 28, followed by a solo album on the Simax label, featuring music by Norway’s Geirr Tveitt, next spring.
Solo recital tours: USA, Asia, & South America
Andsnes returns to the States for a five-city solo recital tour next January. His program combines two East European works with two by Robert Schumann, whose 4 Klavierstücke and Carnaval flank the first book of Janáček’s On an Overgrown Path and selections from Játékok (“Games”), György Kurtág’s ongoing collection of miniatures. After kicking off in Athens, GA (Jan 21), the tour takes him to Seattle (Jan 23), Stanford (Jan 25), New York’s Carnegie Hall (Jan 27), and the Boston Celebrity Series(Jan 30). Anticipating the pianist’s return to Carnegie Hall, The New York Timesconfides: “You go to a recital by the pianist Leif Ove Andsnes to be as surprised as you are awed. His dignified virtuosity is a given.”
Schumann’s Carnaval also features in Andsnes’s fall recital program, bookended by Grieg’s sole piano sonata and the poetic miniatures of Chopin’s 24 Preludes, of which his interpretation previously prompted the Minnesota Star Tribune to marvel: “Andsnes made them a fascinating odyssey, an expertly articulated compendium of myriad emotions and moods delivered with technical precision and heartfelt expressiveness.” Besides performing it to launch the 15th season of Montreal’s Bourgie Hall (Oct 2), Andsnes tours this program to Brazil, with dates in Rio de Janeiro (Sep 23) and São Paulo (Sep 28 & 29), and then to Asia, with appearances in Taipei, Taiwan (Oct 26) and in Tokyo (Oct 30), Yokohama (Nov 1), and Hyogo (Nov 3) in Japan.
Concertos: Matre premiere, Beethoven in Chicago & Atlanta, & Brahms
Next spring, Andsnes revisits Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto with orchestras on both sides of the Atlantic. In the States, he joins the Atlanta Symphony and Music Director Nathalie Stutzmann for three performances (March 5–7), of which the second will stream live to home audiences in the orchestra’s “Behind the Curtain” series (March 6), before reprising the concerto with the Chicago Symphony under Jakub Hrůša (March 12–14). Bookending these high-profile U.S. engagements are performances of the same piece with five European orchestras: Sweden’s Gothenburg Symphony (Jan 9 & 10), the Danish National Symphony (April 30 & May 1), Portugal’s Gulbenian Orchestra (May 7 & 8), Germany’s Bamberg Symphony (May 22 & 23), and the London Symphony Orchestra, where Andsnes reunites with Stutzmann (May 14).
Beethoven’s music has been a central focus of Andsnes’s career for many years, and The Beethoven Journey, his recording of the composer’s complete music for piano and orchestra, was recognized with BBC Music Magazine’s “2015 Recording of the Year Award” and chosen as one of The New York Times’s “Best of 2014.” Similarly, his live performances of complete Beethoven concerto cycles at New York’s Carnegie Hall and London’s BBC Proms were chosen among the “Best of 2015” by The New York Times and Guardian respectively. As Gramophone magazine wrote, about his accounts of Beethoven’s First and Third Piano Concertos:
“These performances are not simply about élan and energy: they have a sense of gravitas, too, of rightness, that you find in the greatest Beethoven interpreters… . This isn’t something that is achieved by big, ballsy playing but rather by a sense of balance, of musicality, of understanding not only the notes themselves but the wider context – where these pieces stand within Beethoven’s output and a broader historical perspective, too.”
Early next year, Andsnes joins the Oslo Philharmonic and Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård for the world premiere of a new Piano Concerto, composed for the pianist by his compatriot Ørjan Matre (Feb 26 & 27). This marks Andsnes’s second collaboration with the Edvard Prize-winning composer, who previously created a special arrangement of his orchestral work Lyric Pieces, a nominee for the Nordic Council Music Prize, for Andsnes to perform with the Bergen Philharmonic on Grieg’s birthday in 2020. Committed to expanding the piano repertoire, Andsnes is already the dedicatee of Marc-André Dalbavie’s Piano Concerto, which he premiered at London’s BBC Proms, and Bent Sørensen’s The Shadows of Silence, which he premiered at Carnegie Hall. His world premiere recordings of both works were recently re-released as part of the acclaimed 36-CD retrospective Leif Ove Andsnes: The Complete Warner Classics Edition (1990-2010).
To complete his orchestral lineup, Andsnes revisits Brahms’s Second Piano Concerto, a formidable work of which his “memorable” interpretation “blends intimacy and bravura” (Chicago Classical Review). This is the vehicle for fall returns to Madrid’s Spanish National Orchestra (Oct 17–19), Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra withHerbert Blomstedt (Oct 24 & 25), Sweden’s Norrköping Symphony (Dec 11), and the Vienna Symphony under the baton of Karina Canellakis (Dec 17 & 19).
Duo recital tours with Christian Tetzlaff & Bertrand Chamayou
An avid chamber musician, Andsnes embarks on European duo recital tours with two of his most trusted collaborators this fall. Following their recent world premiere performance of Winter Sonata by Abbado Prize-winning South Korean composer Donghoon Shin, the pianist reunites with Christian Tetzlaff to perform the work alongside duo sonatas by Mozart, Ravel, and Brahms at Bucharest’s Enescu Festival(Sep 13), Copenhagen’s Royal Danish Library (Sep 14), Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal (Sep 16), and London’s Wigmore Hall (Sep 17). He and the German violinist are musical partners of long standing. After one of their previous performances, The Scotsmancharacterized them as “simply in a class of their own,” adding: “Their truly collaborative musical language was one which spoke with direct humanity to connect with the audience on a seldom experienced, deep, emotional level.”
Andsnes returns to the Boulez Saal as the final stop of a tour with fellow pianist Bertrand Chamayou. At duo recitals in Dijon, France (Nov 18), Madrid (Nov 23), Oslo(Nov 30), Brussels (Dec 1), Amsterdam (Dec 3), and Berlin (Dec 5), they juxtapose the great works that Schubert composed for piano, four hands, during his final year, with solo and four-hands selections from Kurtág’s Játékok. It was after a similar program in Edinburgh that The Guardian pronounced the two pianists “equal partners, supreme musicians.”
New recordings: Schubert with Chamayou & solo collection
Andsnes and Chamayou have recorded their interpretations of Schubert’s four-hands piano works for release on Warner Records this November 21. A second title follows next spring, when Simax issues Andsnes’s new solo album, featuring music by his prolific but long-neglected compatriot Geirr Tveitt. Over the past two seasons, Andsnes has regularly showcased Tveitt’s music, giving many live performances of the “Sonata Etere,” the composer’s sole surviving piano sonata. The Guardian found the pianist “an insightful champion” (The Guardian) of Tveitt’s sonata at London’s Wigmore Hall, where his “high musical intelligence and unerring communicative power made this journey of discovery, and rediscovery, both a tonic and a treat” (The Arts Desk, UK).
Leif Ove Andsnes: upcoming engagements
Sep 13–17: European duo recital tour with Christian Tetzlaff, violin
Sep 13: Bucharest, Romania (Enescu Festival)
Sep 14: Copenhagen, Denmark (Royal Danish Library)
Sep 16: Berlin, Germany (Pierre Boulez Saal)
Sep 17: London, UK (Wigmore Hall)
MOZART: Sonata for Violin and Piano in A, K. 526
RAVEL: Violin Sonata No. 2
BRAHMS: Violin Sonata No. 3
Donghoon SHIN: Winter Sonata for Violin and Piano
Sep 23–29: Brazilian recital tour
Sep 23: Rio de Janeiro (Teatro Municipal)
Sep 28 & 29: São Paulo (Sociedade de Cultura Artística)
GRIEG: Piano Sonata
CHOPIN: 24 Preludes, Op. 28
R. SCHUMANN: Carnaval
Oct 2
Montreal, Canada
Bourgie Hall
Opening Night recital
GRIEG: Piano Sonata
CHOPIN: 24 Preludes, Op. 28
R. SCHUMANN: Carnaval
Oct 17–19
Madrid, Spain
Spanish National Orchestra / Anja Bihlmaier
BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2
Oct 24 & 25
Tokyo, Japan
NHK Symphony Orchestra / Herbert Blomstedt
BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2
Oct 26–Nov 3: Asian recital tour
Oct 26: Taipei, Taiwan (Taipei National Concert Hall)
Oct 30: Tokyo, Japan (Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall)
Nov 1: Yokohama, Japan (Philia Hall)
Nov 3: Hyogo, Japan (Hyogo Performing Arts Center)
GRIEG: Piano Sonata
CHOPIN: 24 Preludes, Op. 28
R. SCHUMANN: Carnaval
Nov 18–Dec 5: European duo recital tour with Bertrand Chamayou, piano
Nov 18: Dijon, France
Nov 23: Madrid, Spain
Nov 30: Oslo, Norway
Dec 1: Brussels, Belgium
Dec 3: Amsterdam, Netherlands (Muziekgebouw aan ’t IJ)
Dec 5: Berlin, Germany (Pierre Boulez Saal)
SCHUBERT: Rondo in A, D. 951
György KURTÁG: Játékok (selections)
SCHUBERT: Allegro in A minor, D. 947 “Lebensstürme”
SCHUBERT: Fugue in E minor, D. 952
György KURTÁG: Játékok (further selections)
SCHUBERT: Fantasy in F minor for four hands, D. 940
Dec 11
Norrköping, Sweden
Norrköping Symphony Orchestra / Magnus Fryklund
BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2
Dec 17 & 19
Vienna, Austria
Vienna Symphony Orchestra / Karina Canellakis
BRAHMS: Piano Concerto No. 2
Jan 9 & 10
Gothenburg, Sweden
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra / Magnus Fryklund
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3
Jan 21–30: U.S. recital tour
Jan 21: Athens, GA
Jan 23: Seattle, WA
Jan 25: Stanford, CA (Bing Concert Hall)
Jan 27: New York, NY (Carnegie Hall)
Jan 30: Boston, MA (New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall)
R. SCHUMANN: 4 Klavierstücke
György KURTÁG: Játékok (selections)
JANÁČEK: On an Overgrown Path
R. SCHUMANN: Carnaval
Feb 26 & 27
Oslo, Norway
Oslo Philharmonic / Thomas Søndergård
Ørjan MATRE: Piano Concerto (world premiere)
March 5–7
Atlanta, GA
Atlanta Symphony Orchestra / Nathalie Stutzmann
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3
(March 6: “Behind The Curtain” live performance video capture)
March 12–14
Chicago, IL
Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Jakub Hrůša
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3
April 30 & May 1
Copenhagen, Denmark
Danish National Symphony / Antonello Manacorda
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3
May 7 & 8
Libson, Portugal
Gulbenkian Orchestra / Hannu Lintu
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3
May 14
London, UK
London Symphony Orchestra / Nathalie Stutzmann
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3
May 22 & 23
Bamberg, Germany
Bamberg Symphony / Kazuki Yamada
BEETHOVEN: Piano Concerto No. 3