Sun, Jun. 29, 2025, 11.00 am | Elbphilharmonie, Grand Hall
currently no tickets available 
10th Philharmonic Concert
Kent Nagano
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 4 in E minor op. 98
Alex Nante: Symphony “Anahata” for soprano, baritone, choir and orchestra (premiere) - A work commissioned by the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra
Kent Nagano
Soprano: Mojca Erdmann
Baritone: Evan Hughes
Audi Jugendchorakademie
Choir rehearsal: Martin Steidler
Choir rehearsal: Sonja Lachenmayr
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg
Kent Nagano
DirigentKent Nagano is considered one of today’s outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. Since September 2015, he has been General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg. He will be the next Chief conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (OCNE) in Madrid starting in September 2026. In addition he is, together with Jan Vogler, committed as Artistic Director of the Ring project “The Wagner Cycles” of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln, and as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival. He has been Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, Concerto Köln since 2019, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2021 and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester since 2023.
The 2024/25 season is Kent Nagano's last season as General Music Director in Hamburg and brings four new productions to the Staatsoper under Nagano's musical direction: Carl Orff's Trionfi, Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos, Unsuk Chin's The Dark Side of the Moon, and Rodolphe Bruneau-Boulmier's The Illusions of William Mallory. Furthermore, he conducts symphony concerts with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester in the Elbphilharmonie as he does every season, including the New Year's performance and the world premiere of Alex Nante's symphony Anahata, a work commissioned by the Philharmonic State Orchestra.
Highlights of recent seasons in Hamburg have included opera productions such as Boris Godunov, Salome, performances of Sciarrino's Venere e Adone and Britten's Peter Grimes, Les Troyens, Lulu, Lessons in Love and Violence and the world premiere of Stilles Meer as well as Les Contes d'Hoffmann in the new production by Daniele Finzi Pasca (released on DVD by EuroArts, February 2022), the “Philharmonic Academy” in St. Michaelis, open-air concerts at the Rathausmarkt and the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin's work Waves for organ and orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie. Orchestral tours with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg have taken Kent Nagano to Japan, Spain and South America.
In the 2024/25 season, Kent Nagano conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in Passau, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal in Montréal and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, among others. He also conducts Dusapin's Il Vaggio, Dante in a production by Claus Guth at the Paris Opera and the revival of Ligeti's Le Grand Macabre in a production by Krzysztof Warlikowski at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich.
As a much sought-after guest conductor, Kent Nagano regularly works with leading international orchestras worldwide, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique Radio France, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris, the Chicago and Detroit Symphony Orchestras, the Radio Filharmonisch Orkest and the Wiener Symphoniker. A special project was the Bernstein opera A quiet place at the Paris Opera. Other opera productions include the world premiere of Dusapin's Il viaggio, dante at the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence, Hindemith's Cardillac, Henze's Die Bassariden and the world premiere of Saariaho's L'amour de loin at the Salzburg Festival. Other world premieres conducted by Nagano include Bernstein's A White House Cantata and the operas Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin, Three Sisters by Peter Eötvös and The Death of Klinghoffer and El Niño by John Adams.
Under the artistic direction of Kent Nagano and the Intendant of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele Jan Vogler, Wagner's Ring Tetralogy will be performed in the artistic context of the period in which it was composed, based on the latest findings of research into Wagner and performance practice, and integrated into an extensive supporting program as part of the multi-year project The Wagner Cycles of the Dresdner Musikfestspiele from 2023 to 2026. The first performance in 2023 was Das Rheingold at the Dresden Music Festival and the tour to Cologne, Ravello and Lucerne under the musical direction of Kent Nagano. Die Walküre followed in 2024 as the second work in the epochal narrative in Prague, Amsterdam, Cologne, Dresden, Hamburg and Lucerne.
Highlights of Kent Nagano's collaboration with the OSM as Music Director from 2006 to 2020 included the inauguration of the orchestra’s new concert hall La Maison Symphonique in September 2011, performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, concert versions of Wagner's Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde and Das Rheingold, Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au Bücher, and Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. Tours have taken Nagano and the orchestra to Canada including the Northern Territories, Japan, South Korea, Europe (latest 2019), Latin America and the USA. In July 2018, Kent Nagano conducted Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion with the OSM at the Salzburg Festival opening concert.
His recordings with the OSM on Sony Classical/Analekta include Mahler’s Orchestral Songs with Christian Gerhaher in 2013 and a complete recording of all of Beethoven’s symphonies in 2015. Decca released a recording of the North American premiere of L'Aiglon, a rarely performed opera by Honegger and Ibert in 2016, conducted by Nagano in 2015. Further releases by Decca are Danse Macabre with works by Dukas, Saint-Saens, Ives and others in 2016 as well as a recording of Bernstein's A quiet place in 2018 on the occasion of the composer's 100th birthday. John Adams' Common tones in simple time & harmony (Decca) was released in 2019, the Lukas Passion by Penderecki (BIS) and works by Ginastera, Bernstein and Moussa (Analekta) in 2020.
At the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he was General Music Director from 2006 to 2013, Kent Nagano commissioned new operas such as Babylon by Jörg Widmann, Das Gehege by Wolfgang Rihm and Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin. New productions included Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites, Messiaen’s Saint François d'Assise, Berg’s Wozzeck, George Benjamin's Written on skin and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Tours took Nagano and the Bavarian State Orchestra through Europe and Japan. In addition to Bruckner's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7 (Sony), Kent Nagano has released several opera performances with the Bavarian State Orchestra on DVD: Unsuk Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland (2008) and Mussorgsky's Chowanschtschina (2009) with unitel classica/medici arts, Dialogue des Carmélites with Bel Air Classiques (2011) and Lohengrin (2010) with Decca.
Another very important period in Nagano’s career was his time as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000-2006. He performed Schönberg’s Moses und Aron with the orchestra (in collaboration with Los Angeles Opera) and took them to the Salzburg Festival to perform both Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules and Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten, as well as to the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with Parsifal and Lohengrin in productions by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Recordings with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for Harmonia Mundi include repertoire as diverse as Bernstein’s Mass, Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6, Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge, Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Schönberg’s Die Jakobsleiter and Friede auf Erden, as well as Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Schönberg’s Variationen für Orchester Op. 31. In June 2006, at the end of his tenure with the orchestra, Kent Nagano was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra – only the second recipient of this honour in their 60-year history. To this day he maintains a close friendship with the orchestra.
In October 2019, Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama expanded their joint recordings of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 0 E-flat Major WoO 4, a nearly unknown work from the composer’s youth, and his Rondo for Piano and Orchestra WoO 6 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. The complete edition of Beethoven’s piano concerti was released on the Berlin Classics label.
Nagano was awarded Grammys for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with Opéra National de Lyon, Prokofjew’s Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra and Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin with the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin. He has worked with labels such as BIS, Decca, Sony Classical, FARAO Classics and Analekta for many years, and has also recorded CDs with Berlin Classics, Erato, Teldec, Pentatone, Deutsche Grammophon and Harmonia Mundi.
To celebrate Kent Nagano's 70th birthday in 2021, a 3-CD box set of works by Olivier Messiaen was released in October on the BR Klassik label. The release includes live recordings of the works Poèmes pour Mi, Chronochromie and La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ from his concerts with the Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, demonstrating Nagano's close familiarity with Messiaen's musical language in a special way.
In September 2021, Kent Nagano published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In "10 Lessons of my Life", he recalls ten deeply personal encounters from which he learned important lessons, not only for his career but for his life more broadly. Among those experiences are encounters with the Icelandic pop artist Björk, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and the Nobel Prize winner in physics Donald Glaser.
In 2015 Kent Nagano published "Erwarten Sie Wunder!" also in Berlin Verlag, a passionate appeal for the relevance of classical music in today's world. In 2019 the book was released in English by the Canadian McGill-Queen's University Press under the title ″Classical Music - Expect the Unexpected" and in 2015 under "Sonnez, merveilles!" in French by Éditions du Boréal.
Born in California, Nagano maintains close connections with his home state and was Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra from 1978-2009. His first major successes came with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1984, when Messiaen appointed him assistant to conductor Seiji Ozawa for the premiere of his opera Saint François d'Assise. Nagano’s success in America led to European appointments: Music Director of Opéra National de Lyon (1988-1998) and Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra (1991-2000). Kent Nagano became the first Music Director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003 having already held the position of Principal Conductor for two years.
Kent Nagano was awarded an honorary doctorate from McGill University in Montréal in 2005, an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal in 2006, and an honorary doctorate from San Francisco State University in 2018. Since 2017, Kent Nagano has been a "Compagnon" of the "Ordre des arts et des lettres" of Québec and in the fall of 2023, Kent Nagano was also awarded the title of "Chevalier" in the "Ordre des art et des lettres" of France. In February 2024, Kent Nagano was awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the Federal President and in June 2024 he was awarded the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honor. Kent Nagano is the recipient of the 2024 Brahms Prize of the Brahms Society of
Schleswig-Holstein.
Mojca Erdmann
SopranoBirthplace:
Hamburg, Germany
Studies:
Violin and singing at Musikhochschule Köln
Prizes:
NDR-Musikpreis of the Schleswig-Holstein-Musikfestival (2005), Luitpold-Preis of the Kissinger Sommer (2005), 1st prize and special prize for Zeitgenössische Musik at the Bundeswettbewerb Gesang (2002)
Important parts:
Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Lulu (Lulu), Marzelline (Fidelio), Sophie (Rosenkavalier), Waldvogel (Siegfried), Seele (Babylon), Despina (Cosí fan tutte)
Stages:
Metropolitan Opera, Gran Teatro del Liceu, Teatro alla Scala, Bayerische Staatsoper, Nederlandse Opera, Staatsoper Berlin, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Salzburger Festspiele, Mozartwoche Salzburg, Ultraschall Festival Berlin, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Köln, Philharmonie Berlin, Musikverein Wien, Konzerthaus Wien, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Konzerthaus Berlin, Konzerthaus Freiburg, Tonhalle Zürich, Herkulessaal München, KKL Luzern, Ankara
Cooperations with directors:
William Kentridge, et al.
Cooperations with conductors:
Mariss Jansons, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Zubin Mehta, Ivor Bolton, Paavo Järvi, Manfred Honeck, Kent Nagano, Fabio Luisi, Daniel Harding, et al.
Evan Hughes
BaritoneBirthplace:
Santa Barbara, California / USA
Studies:
Bachelor of Arts in Music (University of California) and Master Degree in Music (Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia)
Scholarships:
Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Metropolitan Opera (2010 to 2013)
Prizes:
HSBC Laureate Prize (2016), Fourth Prize at the Loren L. Zachary Competition (2014), First Prize at the Gerda Lissner Foundation Competition (2013), National semi-finalist and regional winner of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions (2010), Winner of the Marilyn Horne Foundation Vocal Competition (2006), et al.
Important parts:
The Protector (Written on Skin), Figaro (Le nozze di Figaro), Bass solo (Messias), Leporello and Masetto (Don Giovanni), Guglielmo and Don Alfonso (Così fan tutte), Zoroastro (Orlando), Achilla (Giulio Cesare), Schaunard (La Bohème), Angelotti (Tosca), Emma Becker (Nachtausgabe), Narbal (Les Troyens), et al.
Stages:
Semperoper Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Opera, the Hollywood Bowl, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, De Nationale Opera, Berliner Philharmonie, Elbphilharmonie, et al.
Festivals:
Tanglewood Festival, Ravinia Festival, Internationale Meistersinger Akademie, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Marlboro Music Festival, Ascending Dragon Music Festival, Music Academy of the West, et al.
Zusammenarbeit mit Regisseuren:
Stephen Wadsworth, Andreas Kriegenburg, Rosetta Cucchi, Lydia Steier, Barrie Kosky, et al.
Zusammenarbeit mit Dirigenten:
James Levine, Kent Nagano, Alan Gilbert, Omer Meir Wellber, David Angus, John Fiore, Konrad Junghänel, et al.
Audi Jugendchorakademie
ChoirThe Audi Youth Choir Academy is a select ensemble of 70 enthusiastic young singers under the artistic direction of Prof Martin Steidler. During joint rehearsals and intensive individual lessons, the teenagers and young adults learn to make music together and receive individualised vocal training. In rehearsal phases lasting several days, the 16 to 27-year-olds are prepared for the respective concerts under professional guidance. Once a year, auditions are held at various locations in Germany, where those interested can qualify to join the choir. The members of the choir currently come from all over Germany and Austria.
The ensemble was founded in 2007 by AUDI AG. Since the beginning of 2017, the non-profit organisation Jugendchorakademie e.V. has been the sponsor of the Audi Youth Choir Academy.
Co-operations
The vocal ensemble collaborates with top artists and orchestras such as Kent Nagano, the London Symphony Orchestra and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. The choir is also a regular guest at renowned music festivals and in major concert halls worldwide. In January 2017, the Audi Youth Choir Academy performed at the newly opened Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. International concert tours have already taken the young musicians to Taiwan, Singapore and the Vatican.
Martin Steidler
Choir rehearsalBirthplace:
Olching, Germany
Studies:
Piano and choral conducting at Hochschulen Wien and Regensburg
Teaching position:
Professor of choral conducting at Hochschule für Musik und Theater München (since 2008), Lecturer for choral conducting at Hochschule für Katholische Kirchenmusik und Musikpädagogik Regensburg (2006–2008)
Prizes:
With the Madrigalchor of Musikhochschule München: first prize in category “adult choirs” at “Let the Peoples Sing”, winner German choir competition (2014)
With the Heinrich-Schütz-Ensemble Vornbach: third prize at 9. Deutscher Chorwettbewerb in Weimar (2014), first prize at the internationaler Chorwettbewerben von Spittal an der Drau/Österreich 2007 and at the Cork International Choral Festival in Irland 2010, Bayerischer Chorwettbewerb category “Gemischte Kammerchöre” (2013), E.ON-Bayern-Kulturpreis (2008), prize of the Stiftung Europäisches Konzerthaus (2005)
Career stages:
Artistic director Audi Jugendchorakademie in Ingolstadt (since 2008), direction Madrigalchor (since 2008), artistic director Vokalensemble LauschWerk (since2018), choirmaster Tiroler Festspiele Erl (2007–2008), direction Chor der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Passau as well as artistic director “Passauer Konzertwinter“ (2002–2008), music teacher at the Auersperg-Gymnasium Passau Freudenhain in Passau (1997–2007), foundation Dreiländerchor (Ge/Au/CZ) (1995), foundation (1993) and artisticdirection of the Heinrich-Schütz-Ensemble Vornbach
Cooperation with choruses:
Audi Jugendchorakademie, LauschWerk, Madrigalchor der Musikhochschule München, Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Chorwerk Ruhr, Heinrich-Schütz-Ensemble Vornbach, University of Akron Chamber Choir, Jugendchor Balsis Lettland, Coro Vocacional Argentinien, et al.
Sonja Lachenmayr
Choir rehearsalSonja Lachenmayr studied the bachelor's degree in jazz singing at the Nuremberg University of Music, teaching music at high schools and the bachelor's and master's degree in choral conducting at the Munich University of Music and Theater. She began her musical career at the age of five with the instruments harp, piano, flute and later trombone. Internships, concert and performance experiences with and with various ensembles, orchestras and choirs, as well as concert tours within Europe, to the USA, Oman, Egypt and Tanzania, shaped her into a multi-faceted musician.
Since 2016 she has led the renowned concert choir Gospels at Heaven. In 2021 Lachenmayr founded the sustainable orchestra New World Orchestra. In the same year she was accepted into the Conducting Forum. At the beginning of 2022, Lachenmayr completed his master's degree in orchestral conducting. In fall 2020, Lachenmayr became an assistant at the Audi Youth Choir Academy.
Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg
OrchesterThe Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.
During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Adam Fischer and Sir Roger Norrington.
Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera and since June 2023 also its honorary conductor. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016, Nagano and the Philharmonic toured South America, followed by concert tours to Spain and Japan in 2019, and in the spring of 2023, the Philharmonic State Orchestra made its debut at New York's Carnegie Hall under his direction, which was acclaimed by audiences and the press. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released by ECM, for which Widmann received the OPUS KLASSIK as Composer of the Year 2019, and ARCHE was performed again in 2023 to great acclaim.
The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.
In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.
The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.
Introduction 60 minutes before the start of the event
In this concert, which concludes Kent Nagano's ten-year term as general music director, two essential strands of his concert dramaturgy for Hamburg come together: the reference to tradition, namely the Hanseatic Johannes Brahms, whose four symphonies have accompanied the Philharmonic in its Hamburg concerts and on tours in recent years have - and the sound of our present in innovative premieres. A look back makes us think of Widmann's ARCHE, Dusapin's "Waves", Shepherd's "On a Clear Day" and many other outstanding new creations. In this concert - as a crowning finale and farewell at the same time - a new symphony by the young Argentinian Alex Nante will be heard in his unmistakably dreamlike, spiritual sound language.
