Season 2024/25 Forthcoming Concerts

VÍKINGUR ÓLAFSSON, piano

Bach

Prelude in E, BWV 854 (1722)

Beethoven

Sonata in E, Op. 14 No. 1 (1798)

Bach

Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830 (1726)

Beethoven

Sonata in E minor, Op. 90 (1814)

Schubert

Sonata in E minor, D. 566 (1817)

Beethoven

Sonata in E, Op. 109 (1820)

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Hailed by The Economist in 2020 as the pianistic superstar who 'is revitalising Classical music', Icelandic pianist Víkingur Ólafsson has made a profound impact with his remarkable combination of musicianship at the highest level and visionary programmes. His recordings for Deutsche Grammophon – Philip Glass Piano Works (2017), Johann Sebastian Bach (2018), Debussy Rameau (2020), Mozart & Contemporaries (2021) From Afar (2022), and J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations (2023) – captured the public and critical imagination and have led to streams of over 600 million.

Ólafsson dedicated his entire 2023-24 season to a Goldberg Variations world tour, performing the work across six continents throughout the year, and bringing Bach’s masterpiece to major concert halls including London’s Southbank Centre, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, Philharmonie de Paris, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Harpa Concert Hall, Sydney Opera House, Walt Disney Hall, Sala São Paulo, Shanghai Symphony Hall, Tonhalle Zurich, Philharmonie Berlin, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and the Alte Oper Frankfurt, to name but a few.

Now one of the most sought-after artists of today, Ólafsson’s multiple awards include CoScan’s International Nordic Person of the Year (2023), the Rolf Schock Prize for Music (2022), Gramophone magazine’s Artist of the Year (2019), Opus Klassik Solo Recording Instrumental (twice), Album of the Year at the BBC Music Magazine Awards (2019), and most recently, Ólafsson was presented with the Opus Klassik Instrumentalist of the Year award at the annual ceremony in Berlin. A captivating communicator both on and off stage, Ólafsson’s significant talent extends to broadcast, having presented several of his own series for television and radio. He was Artist in Residence for three months on BBC Radio 4’s flagship arts programme, Front Row, and broadcast live during lockdown from an empty Harpa Concert Hall in Reykjavík, reaching millions of listeners around the world.

CHRISTIAN GERHAHER, baritone • GEROLD HUBER, piano

Schumann

Liederkreis [Song Cycle], Op. 24

Schumann

Aus dem Liederbuch eines Malers [From the Songbook of a Painter], Op. 36

INTERVAL

Schumann

Romanzen und Balladen [Romances and Ballads] Book II, Op. 49

Schumann

Dichterliebe [A Poet's Love], Op. 48

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German-born baritone Christian Gerhaher is widely acknowledged as among the finest singers performing today. His exemplary song interpretations with Gerold Huber have set new standards for the German Lied and their recordings have repeatedly won prizes — among them The Gramophone Classical Music Award 2015, and one of Germany's most prestigious awards, the Opus Klassik Award for 2019 as 'Male Singer of the Year'. He can be heard on the stages of major international recital centres, among them Carnegie Halle New York, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and the Cologne and Berlin Philharmonie. He is a frequent guest in the Konzerthaus and the Musikverein in Vienna as well as in the Wigmore Hall in London; and a regular guest at the Edinburgh and Lucerne Festivals as well as the Salzburg Festival.

Besides his principal activity giving concerts and recitals, Christian Gerhaher is also a highly sought-after performer on the opera stage and has received numerous prizes for his work in music drama, among the Laurence Olivier Award and the theatre prize Der Faust. Under Riccardo Muti, he sang Papageno in a production of The Magic Flute at the Salzburg Festival, and his roles range from Don Giovanni to Alban Berg’s Wozzeck (for the Zurich Opera House). In June and July 2019, he will appear in the Royal Opera House's production of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. His partnerships with conductors include some of the most distinguished names of the last thirty years, among them Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Simon Rattle, Herbert Blomstedt, Mariss Jansons, Bernard Haitink and Christian Thielemann. He records exclusively for Sony Music.

Munich-born pianist Gerold Huber studied with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and has worked with Christian Gerhaher since their schooldays together. In the role of Lied pianist he regularly appears at festivals such as Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Schwetzingen Festival and Rheingau Music Festival and major venues including Philharmonie Cologne, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall London, Großes Festspielhaus Salzburg, Lincoln Center and Armory or Carnegie hall in New York and Musée d'Orsay in Paris.

Gerold Huber’s activities as a soloist focus on the works of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert, and in recent years he has given a series of highly acclaimed master classes, at Yale University, the Aldeburgh and Schwetzingen Festivals. Gerold Huber is also artistic director of the music festival, Pollinger Tage: Alter und Neuer Musik.

EMANUEL AX, piano

Beethoven

Sonata quasi una fantasia in E-flat, Op. 27 No. 1

Corigliano

Fantasia on an ostinato (1985)

Beethoven

Sonata quasi una fantasia in C-sharp minor, Op. 27 No. 2, ‘Moonlight Sonata’

INTERVAL

Schumann

Arabesque in C, Op. 18

Schumann

Fantasie in C, Op. 17

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Born to Polish parents in what is today Lviv, Ukraine, Emanuel Ax is one of the most revered of all pianists performing internationally today. He moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy and was early recognized as an artist of prodigious musical gifts. He made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. The following year he won the Michaels Award for Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.

Recent performances have included concerts with the Colorado, Pacific, Cincinnati and Houston Symphony Orchestras, as well as the Minnesota, Los Angeles, New York Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras. His 2022/23 season included a tour with violinist Itzhak Perlman ‘and Friends’ and a continuation of the ‘Beethoven for Three’ touring and recording project he has with partners violinist Leonidas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

Emanuel Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and following the success of the Brahms Trios he recorded with Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio, of which the first two discs have recently been released. He has received Grammy® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano Sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano.

Emanuel Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University.