PROGRAM

Concert per a piano i orquestra n. 1 en re menor, op. 15

Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)

Maestoso
Adagio
Rondo. Allegro non troppo

*** pausa ***

Simfonia n. 8 en sol major, op. 88

Antonín Dvorák (1841 – 1904)

Allegro con brio
Adagio
Allegretto grazioso – Molto vivace
Allegro ma non troppo

DANIIL TRIFONOV

Grammy Award-winning pianist Daniil Trifonov is a solo artist, concert repertoire advocate, chamber and vocal performer, and composer. Combining impeccable technique with exceptional sensitivity and depth, his performances are an experience that consistently surprises audiences and critics alike. He won the 2018 Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Solo Album for Transcendental, the Liszt collection that was his third album as a Deutsche Grammophon exclusive artist.

Trifonov’s 2025/26 season features three programmes at Carnegie Hall. First, he performs Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin (The Fair Maid of the Mill) alongside German baritone Matthias Goerne, on a transatlantic tour of the composer’s renowned song cycles, taking the duo from Toronto, Boston, and Washington, D.C., to Paris, Leipzig, and Vienna. Next, on the same stage, Trifonov joins Cristian Măcelaru and the Orchestre National de France for two major French concertos: Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Ravel’s jazz-influenced Piano Concerto in G. Finally, he returns to Carnegie Hall for a solo recital on the Main Stage, featuring works by Schumann, Myaskovsky, Taneyev, and Prokofiev—a programme that will tour Europe and the United States throughout the season.

Other highlights include a European tour with Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider; Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Cleveland Orchestra and the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Trifonov also explores Tchaikovsky’s more intimate side on a new double album titled ‘Tchaikovsky’, released by Deutsche Grammophon in October 2025.

His discography with Deutsche Grammophon includes My American Story: North (2024), which received the UK’s Presto Music Award; the Grammy-nominated live recording of his Carnegie Hall debut; Chopin Evocations; Silver Age, for which he received Opus Klassik’s Instrumentalist of the Year (Piano) award, and the best-selling, Grammy-nominated double album, Bach: The Art of Life. Additionally, he has three volumes of Rachmaninoff’s works with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, two of which were Grammy-nominated and the third won the BBC Music Award for Best Concert Recording of the Year 2019.

Named Artist of the Year 2016 by Gramophone and Artist of the Year 2019 by Musical America, Trifonov was honoured with the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 2021.

During the 2010/11 season, Trifonov achieved medals in three of the world’s most esteemed concert competitions. Music: third prize at the Chopin Competition in Warsaw, first prize at the Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv, and first prize, along with the grand prize, at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow. He studied with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

MAHLER CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Since its founding in 1997, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra (MCO) has established itself as one of the world’s most renowned chamber orchestras. Operating as a global collective, the MCO is led by its own musicians in collaboration with its Berlin-based headquarters. The orchestra members, originating from about 25 countries, gather for each tour or project. The dialogue of chamber music and attentive, unanimous listening are central to the group’s sound; a philosophy inspired by the orchestra’s founding mentor, Claudio Abbado, which the MCO refers to as The Sound of Listening.

During the 2024/2025 season, the MCO performed alongside conductors and soloists such as Antonello Manacorda, Riccardo Chailly, Leif Ove Andsnes, and many more. The MCO is also renowned for its conductorless performances: its Associate Artists Yuja Wang and Mitsuko Uchida, with whom the orchestra has toured extensively, often conduct the MCO from the piano. In the 2025/2026 season, the MCO will share the stage with Maxim Emelyanychev, Gianandrea Noseda, Augustin Hadelich, Kian Soltani, Adam Fischer, Igor Levit, Yuja Wang, Joana Mallwitz, Piotr Beczala, Hélène Grimaud, Víkingur Ólafsson, Thomas Adès, Daniel Harding and Daniil Trifonov, among many others.

The orchestra holds residencies in Berlin and Lucerne. From March 2026 to 2028, it will succeed the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra at the Baden-Baden Easter Festival. In 2024, the MCO took on the artistic direction of the Musikwoche Hitzacker, where it presents a diverse repertoire focused on chamber music each year. In March 2026, violist Antoine Tamestit, a longstanding friend and collaborator of the MCO, will serve as the festival’s artist-in-residence.

The MCO is committed to enriching lives through music, enabling encounters both on and off stage that bring music, learning, and creativity within communities around the world. Its Feel the Music programme enables deaf and hard-of-hearing individuals to experience music. Meanwhile, the MCO Academy allows the orchestra members to share their expertise with the next generation of musicians. In addition, the MCO’s school concerts invite students on a multicultural journey that fosters reflection on the concept of belonging.

MCO performances are often recorded and broadcast by major international media outlets and by ARTE. Their latest recording, George Benjamin’s opera Picture a Day Like This, was released by the Nimbus label in September 2024. In collaboration with their Associate Artist for Immersive Experiences, Henrik Oppermann / Schallgeber, the MCO has developed a series of extended reality (XR) concerts, which they have presented at venues including Princeton University and the Mozart Wohnhaus in Salzburg.

Since July 2024, some of these chamber music works in XR have been available on the Mahler Chamber Orchestra app for Apple Vision Pro. The orchestra will continue recording new repertoire and developing this concept throughout the 2025/2026 season.

DANIEL HARDING

Daniel Harding is the Musical and Artistic Director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was Principal Conductor of the Orchestre de Paris from 2016 to 2019 and Principal Guest Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra from 2007 to 2017. He holds the honorary lifetime title of Conductor Laureate of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble with which he has collaborated for over twenty years. In 2024, he undertook the position of Music Director of Youth Music Culture, The Greater Bay Area (YMCG), for a five-year term, and in the 2024/25 season, he began his tenure as Music Director of the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

He is a regular guest conductor with some of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala. In the United States, he has performed with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony.

In 2005, he opened the season at Teatro alla Scala in Milan, conducting a new production of Idomeneo. He subsequently returned to conduct Salome, Il Prigioniero, Cavalleria Rusticana, and Pagliacci, for which he received the prestigious Abbiati Prize. He also conducted Falstaff and The Marriage of Figaro. Furthermore, he has conducted Ariadne auf Naxos, Don Giovanni, and The Marriage of Figaro at the Salzburg Festival with the Vienna Philharmonic; The Turn of the Screw and Wozzeck at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; The Abduction from the Seraglio at the Munich Opera; The Flying Dutchman at Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin; and The Magic Flute at Wiener Festwochen. Pelléas et Mélisande, Cavalleria Rusticana, and Pagliacci at Wiener Staatsoper, and Wozzeck at Theater an der Wien. He maintains a close relationship with the Aix-en-Provence Festival, where he has conducted new productions of Così fan tutte, Don Giovanni, The Turn of the Screw, La Traviata, Eugene Onegin, and The Marriage of Figaro.

Highlights among his recordings for Deutsche Grammophon include Mahler’s Symphony No. 10 with the Vienna Philharmonic and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, both highly praised by critics. For the Virgin/EMI label, he has recorded Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Brahms’ Symphonies Nos. 3 and 4 with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Billy Budd with the London Symphony Orchestra (winner of a Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording), as well as Don Giovanni and The Turn of the Screw (winners of the 2002 Choc de l’Année, the Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros, and a Gramophone Award) with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. He has also recorded pieces by Lutosławski with Solveig Kringelborn and the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, and pieces by Britten with Ian Bostridge and the Britten Sinfonia (both winners of the 1998 Choc de l’Année). For BR Klassik, he has released critically acclaimed recordings such as Schumann’s Scenes from Goethe’s Faust, Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, and Holst’s The Planets. His performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 and Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, with Frank Peter Zimmermann, are available on the Berlin Philharmonic’s label. A regular collaborator with Harmonia Mundi, his most recent recordings with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra include The Wagner Project with Matthias Goerne, Mahler’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 9, Brahms’s German Requiem, and a recent album dedicated to Britten.

This season, Daniel Harding begins his first season as Music Director of the Orchestra and Chorus of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia with concert versions of Verdi’s Tosca and Requiem, both set for recording on Deutsche Grammophon. He also returns to conduct the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Furthermore, he will undertake major European tours with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

In 2002, he was recognised as a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government, and in 2017, he was appointed an Officer of the same order. In 2012, he was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. In 2021, he received the title of CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in the New Year Honours. He is also a qualified pilot.