Concertgebouw Orchestra to tour Switzerland by train
Four concerts in four cities, masterclasses, and a public performance with talented young musicians
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra will be touring Switzerland from 13 to 16 November, performing in Lugano, Berne, Zürich and Geneva under the baton of Daniel Harding. Thanks to the Swiss Federal Rainways, the orchestra will be travelling by train.
On 13 November, Mahler's Ninth Symphony will be performed in Lugano. On the following evenings, in Berne, Zürich and Geneva, the orchestra will be performing the Brahms Violin Concerto with Leonidas Kavakos as soloist, followed by Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 (‘Pastorale’). A special performance will take place in the hall of Zürich train station on 15 November at 4:00 p.m.: eight members of the orchestra will perform the Holberg Suite by Edvard Grieg alongside twelve young musicians from Swiss conservatories (Side by Side). Prior to this performance, orchestra members will be giving several masterclasses: first online and later also in a beautiful saloon carriage on the train journey from Bern to Zurich, as well as various other locations.
The Swiss Friends of the Concertgebouworkest, who have organised several events around the concerts to mark the occasion of their 15th anniversary, are closely involved with this tour.
Managing Director Dominik Winterling: ‘The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has a long tradition when it comes to training young top talents from around the world. This is reflected in the Academy of the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the international youth orchestra Young and the biennial Ammodo Conducting Masterclass. The fact that we are working with music students from Swiss conservatories on our current tour underscores our ambitions in the field of talent development and fills me, as a half-Swiss, with great pride.’
Dutch composition in Madrid, London and Abu Dhabi
Before travelling to Switzerland, the Concertgebouw Orchestra will perform with Daniel Harding in Alicante (on 31 October), Madrid (1 and 2 November), London (4 and 5 November) and Abu Dhabi (9 and 10 November). In those cities, Mahler’s Symphony No. 9 will be preceded by Dutch composer Rick van Veldhuizen’s mais le corps taché d’ombres, a companion piece to Mahler’s Ninth Symphony commissioned by the Concertgebouw Orchestra.
The Concertgebouw Orchestra in Switzerland
The Concertgebouw Orchestra frequently performs in Switzerland and has done so every season since 1988. The first ever concerts that the Concertgebouw Orchestra performed in Switzerland took place in May 1927 at Geneva’s Victoria Hall and the Tonhalle in Zürich. True to tradition, the orchestra performed during the Lucerne Festival last August.
In September, horn players from the Concertgebouw Orchestra recorded a video greeting for the Swiss public on top of the Jungfraujoch.