Hayato Sumino‘s historic sold-out performance at the K-Arena Yokohama on November 29, 2025, which earned a Guinness World Record for the most tickets sold for an indoor piano recital (18,564 tickets), featured a diverse, curated program bridging classical, original compositions, and experimental arrangements by Bach, Beethoven, Saint-Saëns, Cage and Kapustin.
Renaud Capuçon, Lahav Shani & Martha Argerich — A chamber music recital
Renaud Capuçon joins the Argerich-Shani duo for an evening of diverse chamber music that also includes a few musicians from the Munich Philharmonic. Capuçon will be joined by each pianist for two sonatas for violin and piano, Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 18 with Lahav Shani followed by Debussy’s whimsical yet melancholic Sonata, written at the very end of his life, accompanied by Martha Argerich. This will be followed by a piece by Schumann, a composer who is a particular favourite of Capuçon and Argerich. They will perform the generous and magnificent Piano Quintet, op. 44, followed by Andante and variations for two pianos, op. 46, a rare and profoundly poetic piece.
Martha Argerich & Lahav Shani at Aix-en-Provence Spring Festival
Martha Argerich and Lahav Shani have shared the stage many times in recent years, as Shani often invites the Argentinian piano legend to play with the various ensembles he directs. Shani is indeed a multitalented artist as he began performing as a double bass player and soon became a piano soloist before eventually becoming a conductor with support from Daniel Barenboim, one of Martha Argerich’s closest friends. Shani leads his “new” orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, this year’s resident orchestra. After performing Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 last year, Martha Argerich turns her attentions to his Piano Concerto No. 2, a piece she loves just as much.
Elim Chan, Augustin Hadelich & Münchner Philharmoniker
With acclaimed debuts at the Vienna Musikverein, the Salzburg Festival and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Elim Chan is one of the most sought-after artists of her generation. For her debut with the Munich Philharmonic, the young rising star is joined by Augustin Hadelich, an artist who has long been counted amongst the most successful in his field. Alongside Tchaikovsky’s famous Violin Concerto and the finely nuanced music of Noriko Koide, the programme features Edward Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’.
The Wiener Symphoniker’s Spring Concert in Trieste
Vissi d’arte – ‘I lived for art, I offered song to the stars and the heavens,’ sings Floria Tosca in the second act of Puccini’s opera, before she attempts to extract the release of her lover Cavaradossi from the despot Scarpia by any means necessary. The famous aria will be performed by soprano Krassimira Stoyanova as the highlight of a gala concert featuring arias, duets and orchestral works by Giacomo Puccini and Franz Lehár, also known as the ‘Puccini of operetta’. The audience in Trieste will also hear other earthly and heavenly songs from the opera stars – alongside Stoyanova, tenor Francesco Meli. These include the popular Vilja song from the operetta The Merry Widow, from which the symphony orchestra will also play the waltz Ball-Sirenen, along with other instrumental delicacies such as Puccini’s precocious, sumptuous Preludio Sinfonico.
Hélène Grimaud at Ruhr Piano Festival
With Hélène Grimaud at the piano, the audience is always in for more than just a concert. They get to experience an artist who never stands still, who never simply reproduces but always creates something new. Those who get to hear her will immediately sense they are in the presence of someone who does not regard music as mere decoration but rather as an existential adventure. She is a sound seeker, a cross-over artist, which is what makes every evening with her so thrilling. PROGRAM: BEETHOVEN (1770–1827) Sonata No. 30 in E major, op. 109 (1820); BRAHMS (1833–1897) Three Intermezzi, op. 117 (1892), Fantasies, op. 116 (1892); BACH (1685–1750) Chaconne from the Partita for Violin No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004 (arr. Ferruccio Busoni)
Christmas Concert from Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral
Experience a musical highlight of the pre-christmas season in the heart of Vienna: the advent concert of the Wiener Symphoniker with chief conductor Petr Popelka in the beautiful St. Stephen’s Cathedral. In 2025, the focus will be on a “Bohemian Christmas” – with touching works by Antonín Dvorák, Bedrich Smetana, Josef Suk and others. You can look forward to special moments such as the enchanting “lullaby” from the opera Hubicka (“the kiss”), masterfully interpreted by Katerina Knežíková. Other top-class soloists of the evening: Stepánka Pucálková, Pavel Cernoch and Adam Plachetka. The crowning finale: the joint “O du fröhliche” – the unforgettable end to an evening full of magic and anticipation of christmas.
Salzburg Opening Concert
Salzburg Festival, for many regarded as the world’s most renowned music festival, is by tradition a high-profile event. The 2009 Salzburg Festival opening concert with the Wiener Philharmoniker under Nikolaus Harnoncourt honors the conductor on his 80th birthday and it’s an homage to the Viennese dance.
Schubert’s Great C Major Symphony is a “stirring war painting” Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
“There is a special philharmonic sound under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and the Wiener Philharmoniker sound as they should in the best-possible case: velvety smooth and incredibly compelling” Salzburger Nachrichten
Messa da Requiem
TUTTO VERDI – this edition to mark the Verdi bicentenary sets standards by which all similar projects will be judged. It includes all twenty-six operas by the greatest Italian stage composer, together with his immortal Requiem, all of them in definitive performances. “This is how Verdi should be played” – Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on TUTTO VERDI
Verdi wrote his Messa da Requiem in 1873-74 for Alessandro Manzoni. a poet whom he much admired. Like Brahms’s German Requiem, Verdi’s Mass for the Dead is not intended for liturgical use but for the concert hall. ln addition to its profound spirituality, this masterpiece brings together the finest qualities from Verdi’s operas: endless melodic lines and captivating musico-dramatic effects.
Salzburg Festival 2026: Lea Desandre & Ensemble Jupiter perform Vivaldi
Mezzo-soprano Lea Desandre and Ensemble Jupiter under the direction of lutenist Thomas Dunford present an all-Vivaldi programme of ravishing contrasts — fiery operatic arias, tender sacred pages, and brilliant concertos. Desandre brings her luminous agility to some of Vivaldi’s most dramatic vocal writing, from the vengeful fury of ‘Armatae face’ to the hushed intimacy of ‘Cum dederit’, while cellists Nicolas Altstaedt and Bruno Philippe add their own voices in concertos that sing with equal eloquence. Dunford’s lute shimmers at the centre of the ensemble, threading together a portrait of Vivaldi at his most vivid and inventive. PROGRAM: Vivaldi: ‘Vedrò con mio diletto’ from the opera Il Giustino RV 717; ‘Armatae face et anguibus’ from the oratorio Juditha triumphans devicta Holofernes barbarie RV 644; Cello Concerto in A minor RV 419; ‘Cum dederit’ from Nisi Dominus for alto, viola d’amore and strings RV 608 and more