Klaus Mäkelä to conduct Concertgebouw Orchestra's next Annual Gala

On Friday 12 January the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will present the new edition of its Annual Gala, a very special concert evening at The Concertgebouw for its loyal audience, friends, relations, donors and sponsors. For the first time the Annual Gala concert will be conducted by the orchestra's artistic partner, Klaus Mäkelä. The evening will start with a reception at 7:30 p.m., followed by the concert, then the afterparty, so attendees can continue to celebrate until midnight. 

 

The concert will begin at 8:30 p.m. Klaus Mäkelä will conduct a colourful programme of three works that directly or indirectly refer to the visual arts. Mäkelä, who is fond of likening a well thought-out concert programme to a well-curated art exhibition, is taking the comparison more literally than ever with this concert.   

 

concert programme  

The concert will open with M.C. Escher's Imagination by Dutch composer Hawar Tawfiq, commissioned by the Concertgebouw Orchestra. The Spanish pianist Javier Perianes will be the soloist in his compatriot Manuel de Falla’s three-movement piano concerto Noches en los jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain), which the conductor Klaus Mäkelä has called 'a set of musical watercolours’. To close, the orchestra will play Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition in Maurice Ravel’s colourful orchestration; the work describes an exhibition of paintings by Mussorgsky’s friend Viktor Hartmann. 

 

afterparty 

During the afterparty, the members of the audience will have the opportunity to mingle and to meet the musicians in the foyers of The Concertgebouw. A variety of programmes at the Recital Hall, the Choir Hall, the Mirror Hall and the Conductors' Foyer featuring orchestra members and other musicians in unexpected styles and genres will last until midnight. 

 

Start welcome reception: 7.30 p.m. 

Dresscode: back tie