Midori and the Festival Strings Lucerne on joint Japan tour (March 2026)

March brings a joint Japan tour by Midori and the Festival Strings Lucerne under the direction of Daniel Dodds, including a total of eight concerts in Tokyo, Takamatsu, and Osaka among other cities. Midori will perform Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64.


Concert Overview

March 13  | 6:30 PM 
Takamatsu, Japan 

Rexxam Hall (Kagawa Prefectural Hall)

March 14  | 2 PM
Matsumoto, Japan
Kissei Bunka Hall 

March 25 | 3 PM
Nagoya, Japan
Aichi Prefectural Arts Theatre Concert Hall 

March 17 | 7 PM
Takasaki, Japan
Takasaki Art Theater

March 18 | 7 PM
Tokyo, Japan
Suntory Hall

March 20 | 2 PM
Osaka, Japan
Symphony Hall 

March 21 | 3 PM
Tokorozawa, Japan
Tokorozawa Muse 

March 23 | 7 PM
Sapporo, Japan
Sapporo Concert Hall

Max Volbers on tour in the USA with debut at Carnegie Hall (March 2026)

In March, Max Volbers will embark on a US tour with Concerto Köln and Shunske Sato. Concerts will take place on March 13 in San Diego, March 14 in San Francisco, and March 15 in Berkeley, before Max Volbers celebrates his debut at Carnegie Hall on March 18 as a special highlight. Further information about this concert can be found here.


Grand tour

Telemann Selections from Klingende Geographie

Mrs Philharmonica Sonata sesta in G Major (arr. for string orchestra)

J.S. Bach Violin Concerto in D Minor, BWV 1052R

Giuseppe Sammartini Recorder Concerto in F Major

Handel Concerto Grosso in F Major, Op. 6, No. 9

Vivaldi Concerto in A Minor for Two Violins, Strings, and Continuo, RV 522


The concert at Carnegie Hall will be broadcast live on the Carnegie Hall Live program, a collaboration between Carnegie Hall and WQXR.

Midori’s debut album with PENTATONE will be released on March 6 (March 2026)

Midori, Festival Strings Lucerne under the direction of Daniel Dodds and pianist Özgür Aydin present an album of Schumann: Violin Concerto & Works for Violin and Piano by Clara and Robert Schumann, highlighting two deeply connected artistic voices. The Album marks Midori’s debut with PENTATONE.


At the centre is Robert Schumann’s Violin Concerto in D Minor, composed in 1853 but withheld from publication for more than eighty years after Clara Schumann and Joseph Joachim questioned its place within his legacy. Long clouded by its troubled history and a problematic 1937 premiere, the concerto has only recently gained recognition as a powerful and distinctive late work, valued today for its emotional depth and expressive candour.

The programme also includes Robert Schumann’s 5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102, and 3 Romances, Op. 94–lyrical miniatures from his remarkably productive year of 1849, alongside Clara Schumann’s 5 Romances, Op. 22, dedicated to Joachim and now fully restored to the repertoire after decades of neglect. Together, these works reveal an artistic world shaped by intimacy, sincerity, and clarity of expression, echoing Robert Schumann’s belief that the artist’s task is “to send light into the darkness of men’s hearts”.

Further Information can be found here.

Omer Meir Wellber conducts two new productions at the Hamburg State Opera (March 2026)

In March, two new productions under the musical direction of Omer Meir Wellber will be staged at the Hamburg State Opera: On March 1, »Peter und der Wolf von St. Pauli« (Peter and the Wolf of St. Pauli) will premiere at Schmidts Tivoli. This will be followed on March 15 by »Die große Stille« (The Great Silence), a musical theater project that reinterprets Mozart’s music in a futuristic context.


Peter und der Wolf von St. Pauli (Peter and the Wolf of St. Pauli)

With Peter and the Wolf of St. Pauli, the Philharmonic State Orchestra and Schmidts Tivoli are jointly bringing one of the most spectacular criminal cases in the history of the Hanseatic city to the stage – the wolf here is the neighborhood killer Werner “Mucki” Pinzner, who terrorized Hamburg’s red-light district in the 1980s. General Music Director Omer Meir Wellber, journalist Axel Brüggemann and Martin Lingnau, composer and artistic director at Schmidt, reopen the case using original documents, witness statements, images and films, transforming it into a musical stage thriller set to Prokofiev’s world-famous music.
Peter and the Wolf of St. Pauli tells the adventurous story of the rise of a criminal in the changing, increasingly tough neighborhood, but also of the self-sacrificing, perhaps already sick love of his wife, who ultimately goes to her death with him, of a lawyer who smuggles a gun into the police headquarters for the murderer and of the naive and completely overtaxed police.
The performance marks the start of the Frack off! collaboration with the Schmidt theaters! Further dates will follow on March 2, 4, and 18.

Further Information can be found here.


Die große Stille (The Great Silence)

General Music Director Omer Meir Wellber and Director Christopher Rüping work together to give us the chance to experience Mozart’s music as if for the very first time. It’s a lofty ambition, for which they travel far away from planet Earth to a distant future. There, a small group of people maintain a last connection to the long-gone Earth thanks to Mozart. The music of the former star composer is their daily ritual, reminding them of what it means to be human and to remain so. Christopher Rüping creates a theatrical scenario in a distant world that seems very different from the one we live in today. What is a human being and how do they react when something unprecedented happens? It remains to be seen what humans are still capable of when nothing human surrounds them anymore. And then – at some point -it becomes quiet.
The production will be running until April.

Further Information can be found here.

World Premiere of David Philip Hefti’s Aus Licht gewoben at the Elbphilharmonie (February 2026)

On March 2, 2026, the new composition »Aus Licht gewoben – reflections for violin and cello« by David Philip Hefti will receive its world premiere at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. The work for violin and violoncello was written especially for the distinguished musicians Hellen Weiß (violin) and Gabriel Schwabe (cello), who will bring it to life for the first time on this occasion. Further information can be found here.


about the composition:

»Aus Licht gewoben« unfolds as a multi-layered dialogue between the two string instruments. Through finely nuanced timbres, shimmering textures, and densely interwoven motifs, a musical fabric emerges that is marked by both transparency and intensity. Light is not merely a metaphor here, but a compositional principle: radiant overtone spectra, fragile lines, and energetic condensations permeate the work, shaping an arc of tension and poetic depth.

The close artistic collaboration with Hellen Weiß and Gabriel Schwabe served as both the starting point and inspiration for the composition. Both musicians rank among the most distinguished interpreters of their generation and are renowned for interpretative precision, expressive depth, and tonal refinement—qualities that find a particularly vivid expression in »Aus Licht gewoben«.

With its premiere at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, the work enters its first public resonance space in one of Europe’s leading concert halls. The performance marks another significant milestone in David Philip Hefti’s contemporary chamber music oeuvre.

Further information about the work can be found here. You can also find an article about the history of the work’s creation in »The Strad« magazine here.

Max Volbers at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn and at the Moritzburg Festival (February 2026)

On March 1, Max Volbers and his duo partner Alexander von Heißen (harpsichord) will perform their joint program “Foreign Masters” in the “Young Stars” concert series at the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn. The duo will perform the same program two days later, on March 3, as part of the master concerts of the Moritzburg Festival at Albrechtsburg Castle in Dresden.


FOREIGN MASTERS

The program presents 18th-century London as an international music metropolis. It tells the story of ten composers who shaped the cultural scene and invites listeners to rediscover well-known and forgotten works from this period.

The program includes works by George Frideric Handel, Arcangelo Corelli, Giuseppe Sammartini, James Paisible, Johann Pepusch, Giuseppe Alberti, and others.

 

Kent Nagano at the Opera de Paris (February 2026)

On February 24, Kent Nagano will conduct the premiere of “Nixon in China” at the Opera de Paris. Further performances are scheduled for March and April.


About:

In 1972, Richard Nixon visited Mao Zedong in China, marking the beginning of a rapprochement between the United States and China against the backdrop of the Cold War. Fifteen years later, American composer John Adams chose this episode as the subject of his first opera, a score marked by its rhythmic pulse, shimmering colours and intense lyricism. You can find further information here.


Cast:

Thomas Hampson, Richard Nixon
Renée Fleming, Pat Nixon
John Matthew Myers, Mao Zedong
Caroline Wettergreen, Chiang Ch’ing
Joshua Bloom, Henry Kissinger

Omer Meir Wellber guest conducts the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (February 2026)

In February, Omer Meir Wellber will guest conduct the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in the “ZEITSPIEL” version whereby the pianist and composer Stephen Hough “re-writes” Beethoven’s second movement. This ZEITSPIEL, Hamburg’s special seasonal motto of the Philharmonic Orchestra, can be heard here. In the second half of the program in Birmingham is Haydn’s Nelson Mass. Further Information can be found here.

Kent Nagano conducts the Filarmonica Toscanini (February 2026)

A musical journey between life, death, and resurrection: Kent Nagano conducts the Filarmonica Toscanini as the principal artistic partner with Mahler’s monumental Second Symphony.

Kent Nagano Conductor
Jane Archibald Soprano
Christina Bock Mezzo-soprano
Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini
Coro del Teatro Regio di Parma

GUSTAV MAHLER Symphony No. 2

05/02/2026 20:30 | Auditorium Paganini, further information here.
07/02/2026 21:00 | Duomo di Modena, further information here.

New CD: Midori presents Schumann Violin Concerto & other works (January 2026)

Violinist Midori, Festival Strings Lucerne under the direction of Daniel Dodds, and pianist Özgür Aydin present an album of Schumann: Violin Concerto & Works for Violin and Piano by Clara and Robert Schumann, highlighting two deeply connected artistic voices.

The recording is releases on PENTATONE and marks the PENTATONE debut of Midori and Özgür Aydin. Please find more information here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)
Violin Concerto in D Minor WoO. 23

1 I. In kräftigem, nicht zu schnellem Tempo
2 II. Langsam
3 III. Lebhaft, doch nicht schnell

Midori, violin
Festival Strings Lucerne Daniel Dodds, director

5 Pieces in Folk Style, Op. 102
4 I. Mit Humor
5 II. Langsam
6 III. Nicht schnell, mit viel Ton zu spielen
7 IV. Nicht zu rasch
8 V. Stark und markiert

3 Romances, Op. 94
9 I. Nicht schnell
10 II. Einfach innig
11 III. Nicht schnell

Clara Schumann (1819-1896)
3 Romances, Op. 22
12 I. Andante molto
13 II. Allegretto: Mit zartem Vortrage
14 III. Leidenschaftlich schnell

Midori, violin
Özgür Aydin, piano

 

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