The Iceland Symphony Orchestra will celebrate its 70th anniversary year with its first UK tour.
Running from February 8-16, the ensemble will give eight concerts in nine days with its chief conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier and solo pianists Jean-Efflam Bavouzet and Yeol Eum Son.
The tour starts on Saturday, February 8, at the Royal Concert Hall in Nottingham and continues with performances at the Theatre Royal, Norwich (February 9), London’s Cadogan Hall (February 10), Symphony Hall, Birmingham (February 11), St David’s Hall, Cardiff (February 13), The Anvil, Basingstoke (February 14), Leeds Town Hall (February 15) and Edinburgh’s Usher Hall (February) 16.
The tour programme will open with a suite from Bizet’s incidental music for L’Arlésienne and explore Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand and Aeriality by the orchestra’s composer-in-residence Anna Thorvaldsdóttir. The concerts will also include either Sibelius’s Symphony No.1 or a selection of works from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet.
Mr Tortelier said: “We have built such a strong relationship since I became chief conductor in 2016. I think there’s a genuine freshness about the way we work together and they are naturally open to new ideas. It is a true privilege to lead them on this UK tour and I look forward to sharing our work with the Great British public.”