Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra
Music Centre Concert Hall, Helsinki, Finland, 8 September
helsinginkaupunginorkesteri.fi
Thanks to a two-week opening festival, the September launch opens with a bang: conductor Pekka Kuusisto premieres Anna Clyne’s new violin concerto Time and Tides, the first of six featured works by the orchestra’s incoming composer-in-residence.
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich
Tonhalle, Zurich, Switzerland, 13-15 September
Brahms conducted the orchestra’s first concert in the new Tonhalle in 1895 – he shares an October lunch date with music director Paavo Järvi, who opens the season with Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. Chamber highlights include Ligeti and Kurtág from pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich.
Gulbenkian Orchestra
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon, Portugal, 14, 15 September
The Gulbenkian’s former principal conductor Lorenzo Viotti returns for that most enigmatic of Mahler’s symphonies: the Seventh. Pianist Maria João Pires and friends supply contrasting intimacy with four is followed in December by Jordi Savall and his Istanbul 1700 project.
