Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra (OPO) has announced its 2019-20 season, which will see the orchestra head overseas to debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall.
Led by music director Marios Papadopoulos, OPO will undertake a comprehensive year-long Beethoven celebration to mark the composers 250th birthday. Complete symphonies, concertos and orchestral and chamber works will be performed with guest appearances from Maxim Vengerov, Mischa Maisky and Sergei Babayan. A number of soloists, conductors and academics will appear throughout the season, including Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Marcus du Sautoy, Bryn Terfel and Lisa Batiashvili.
Evgeny Kissin will join the orchestra for the first time to open the season, performing Liszt’s virtuosic Piano Concerto No 2. Rising star, 20-year-old Kanneh-Mason, will perform Saint-Saëns’s first cello concerto in Cheltenham Town Hall 31 October 2019. Antonio Pappano will also make his OPO debut with Glazunov’s Violin Concerto alongside concertmaster Carmine Lauri as soloist to close 2019 in an all-Russian programme that includes Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No 4.
OPO begins its year-long celebration of Beethoven in January 2020, presenting the composer’s complete symphonies and concertos alongside a chamber programme of all-Beethoven recitals held across the city. He will direct three of Beethoven’s piano concertos from the keyboard, complementing them with symphony Nos. 1, 3, 5, and 7, a feat he first performed in 2008.
A special performance for United Nations World Environment Day will see OPO join a worldwide initiative to create a ‘Pastoral for the Planet’ by performing Beethoven’s Symphony No. 6 and highlighting the need for a global effort to meet the challenges of climate change and ensure sustainable development for all.