Thomas Adès to conduct the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
Kirill Gerstein is the soloist in the Dutch premiere of Adès’s Piano Concerto and in a special new version of Liszt’s Totentanz.
The leading British composer and conductor, Thomas Adès, will conduct the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra on Thursday 8 and Friday 9 December, 2022. The two concerts will feature a number of Dutch premieres. Notably, Adès’s highly praised Piano Concerto from 2018 will be performed in the Netherlands for the first time, with Krill Gerstein as soloist.
Both concerts will start with the Dutch premiere of Veronika Krausas’s Caryatids, and conclude with Igor Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements.
In addition, on Thursday, 8 December Franz Liszt’s Totentanz will be performed, with pianist Kirill Gerstein incorporating an extensive slow movement which Liszt had originally intended to include in the work. On Friday, 9 December Thomas Adés will conduct the first Dutch performance of The Exterminating Angel Symphony, which he based on movements from his most recent opera.
Introduction and Meet the Artists on 9 December
Prior to the concert on Friday 9 December, Klaas Coulembier will give an introduction at 7.15 p.m. in The Concertgebouw’s Choir Hall. Tickets may be booked free of charge, while supplies last, through www.concertgebouworkest.nl or +31 20 671 83 45.
After the concert on Friday, there will be an opportunity to meet the musicians in the Mirror Hall. The orchestra’s artistic director, Ulrike Niehoff, will speak with Thomas Adès and two orchestra members, percussionist Mark Braafhart and bass clarinettist Davide Lattuada.
Thomas Adès and the Concertgebouw Orchestra
Since his sensational breakthrough in 1995 with his first opera, Powder her Face, Thomas Adès is widely considered one of the leading composers of his generation. Since as early as 1995, the Concertgebouw Orchestra has performed his compositions. Thomas Adès conducted the orchestra in June 2011, in April 2016 (when he premiered his own Totentanz, commissioned by the Concertgebouw Orchestra) and in October 2019. A residency in the 2019-20 season, which would have included a premiere performance of Adès’s Piano Concerto with Kirill Gerstein, was cut short by covid-19.