This winter/spring, Alan Gilbert returns to Boston Symphony; completes sixth season with Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra; & conducts Die Walküre & new Figaro at Royal Swedish Opera
(January 2025) — Thanks to his “thoughtful musicianship and fresh approaches to programming,” Alan Gilbert’s collaborations with the Boston Symphony Orchestra(BSO) have been called “revelatory” (The Boston Globe). Following a weeklong residency with the BSO at last summer’s Tanglewood festival, the Grammy-winning conductor returns next month to lead the orchestra in a program juxtaposing two classical Haydn symphonies with Stravinsky’s neoclassical Violin Concerto, with Gramophone Award winner Isabelle Faust as soloist (Feb 20–22). Back in Hamburg, Gilbert completes his sixth season as Chief Conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (NDR) with a celebration of 21st-century music at the second “Elbphilharmonie Visions” festival, concert performances of Wozzeck at the Hamburg International Music Festival, a Kayhan Kalhor world premiere featuring Yo-Yo Ma, and collaborations with Leif Ove Andsnes and Emanuel Ax. To complete his winter and spring lineup, Gilbert makes a guest appearance with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, after leading both a new treatment of Le nozze di Figaro and an acclaimed production of Die Walküre as Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera.
Festivals, premieres, & more with NDR
The present season marks Gilbert’s sixth as Chief Conductor of Hamburg’s NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra (NDR). This spring, he and the orchestra return to the annual Hamburg International Music Festival, which brings together some of the world’s leading artists and orchestras. After performing Dutilleux’s Second Symphony and joining celebrated Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes for Franck’s Variations symphoniquesand Debussy’s seldom-programmed Fantaisie (May 8–11), they give two concert performances of Wozzeck, with a stellar cast headed by Matthias Goerne and Christine Goerke (May 23 & 25). Berg’s opera is one that Gilbert recently conducted in a fully staged production at the Royal Swedish Opera, and is in keeping with the theme of this year’s Hamburg festival, which takes a look into the future with especial focus on trendsetting works that were far ahead of their time.
The new year also brings the second edition of “Elbphilharmonie Visions,” Gilbert’s biennial ten-day celebration of 21st-century music with the NDR and Elbphilharmonie. He and the orchestra open the festival with two world premieres: a new work from young British composer Alex Paxton – “a magician of sound” (Financial Times) – followed by Urworte by Hindemith Prize winner Bernd Richard Deutsch (Feb 7). They return to close the festival with a similarly cutting-edge program of Responses by Guggenheim Fellow Dalit Warshaw, Tocar y Luchar by Ivor Novello Award winner Dai Fujikura, and the Viola Concerto by Magnus Lindberg, with Lawrence Power as soloist (Feb 16). Gilbert is a longtime champion of the Finnish composer’s music, and his all-Lindberg recording “could hardly be bettered … as an introduction to one of the most approachable and individual voices in contemporary music” (MusicWeb International).
No less dedicated to established staples of the orchestral repertoire, Gilbert conducts the NDR in a coupling of Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben with Mozart’s 20th Piano Concerto, featuring Grammy-winning American pianist Emanuel Ax (March 27–30). The conductor and orchestra round out their spring season with a chamber concert of Britten, Bruch, and Schulhoff, for which Gilbert plays viola (May 10), and the world premiere of Venus in the Mirror. A new double concerto for cello and kamancheh by Iran’s Kayhan Kalhor, this will showcase the composer and superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma in a season-closing concert that will stream live to home audiences worldwide (June 27).
A number of Gilbert’s performances with the NDR have already been issued on streaming platforms. Their celebrated interpretation of Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is available now, and their accounts of Unsuk Chin’s Frontispiece and Ravel’s La valse are due for release on January 25 and February 25 respectively. As Susan Hall reports for Slipped Disc: “Gilbert has always been daring. In Hamburg, he has come into his own. Here he is appreciated for his adventurous ways and his spot-on conducting.”
New Figaro & Die Walküre at Royal Swedish Opera
Since 2021, Gilbert has also been Music Director of the Royal Swedish Opera, where he led Wozzeck in the Swedish premiere of a new Opéra de Lyon co-production last November. He returns to the Stockholm house later this month for a pair of back-to-back presentations. The first of these is a new production of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figarofrom Swedish director Linus Fellbom, whose credits include Deutsche Oper Berlin, English National Ballet, and Welsh National Opera. Bowing under Gilbert’s leadership on January 25, Fellbom’s new staging stars bass Erik Rosenius in the title role, with baritone Jens Persson Hertzman as Count Almaviva, soprano Camilla Tilling as the Countess, soprano Johanna Wallroth as Susanna, and, at all but two of Gilbert’s eight performances, mezzo-soprano Bethany Horak-Hallett as Cherubino (Jan 25–March 20).
Gilbert remains at the Royal Swedish Opera to conduct all eight performances of Die Walküre, the second and best loved of the four operas that make up Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. Boasting a strong cast headed by dramatic baritone John Lundgren as Wotan, tenor Michael Weinius as Siegmund, soprano Ingela Brimberg as Brünnhilde, and contralto Katarina Leoson as Fricka, this will be presented in a production by Danish director Staffan Valdemar Holm, Artistic Director of the Royal Swedish Theater, that previously drew a five-star review from BachTrack (March 22–April 21). Die Walküremarks Gilbert’s second Wagner production at the Stockholm house, where he led Parsifallast spring. Opera magazine reports:
“Musically, the performance was outstanding. This was Gilbert’s first Parsifal, but he guided the orchestra, soloists and chorus through the work as if he’s been doing it for years, superbly, balanced throughout.”
Return to Bavarian Radio Symphony
Later this spring, Gilbert returns to the podium of Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony, where he leads a program combining Sibelius’s Night Ride and Sunrise and stirring Fifth Symphony with the European premiere of a new cello concerto by Diapason d’Or–winning Austrian composer Thomas Larcher. A Bavarian Symphony, New York Philharmonic, and Vienna Philharmonic co-commission, this will feature MacArthur fellow Alisa Weilerstein, to whom it is dedicated (June 5 & 6).
Alan Gilbert: upcoming engagements
Jan 24
Stockholm, Sweden
Chamber Concert in the Golden Foyer (TBD)
Jan 25, 28, 31; March 4, 11, 14, 17, & 20
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera
MOZART: Le nozze di Figaro (new production)
Feb 7 & 16
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
“Elbphilharmonie Visions” festival
Feb 7:
Alex PAXTON: new work
Bernd Richard DEUTSCH: Urworte after Goethe
Feb 16:
Dalit WARSHAW: Responses for orchestra
Magnus LINDBERG: Viola Concerto (with Lawrence Power, viola)
Dai FUJIKURA: Tocar y Luchar for orchestra
Feb 20–22
Boston, MA
Boston Symphony Orchestra
HAYDN: Symphony No. 48, “Marie Therese”
STRAVINSKY: Violin Concerto (with Isabelle Faust, violin)
HAYDN: Symphony No. 99
March 22, 26, 29; April 5, 9, 12, 18, & 21
Stockholm, Sweden
Royal Swedish Opera
WAGNER: Die Walküre
March 27, 28, & 30
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
MOZART: Piano Concerto No. 20 (with Emanuel Ax, piano)
R. STRAUSS: Ein Heldenleben
May 8, 9, & 11
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
2025 Hamburg international Music Festival
DEBUSSY: Fantaisie (with Leif Ove Andsnes, piano)
FRANCK: Symphonic Variations
DUTILLEUX: Symphony No. 2, “Le Double”
May 10
Hamburg, Germany
Chamber concert (on viola, with Elphier Quartet)
BRITTEN: Phantasy in F minor
BRUCH: String Quintet in A minor
SCHULHOFF: String Sextet
May 23 & 25
Hamburg, Germany
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
2025 Hamburg international Music Festival
BERG: Wozzeck in concert
June 5 & 6
Munich, Germany
Bavarian Radio Symphony
SIBELIUS: Night Ride and Sunrise
Thomas LARCHER: Cello Concerto (European premiere of Bavarian Radio Symphony, New York Philharmonic & Vienna Philharmonic co-commission; with Alisa Weilerstein, cello)
SIBELIUS: Symphony No. 5
June 27 & 29
NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra
June 27: Hamburg, Germany (with livestream)
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