CONCERTS
2025/26 Season
The International Series
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE'S (NY)
ALREADY IT IS DUSK
Friday, March 6 2026 – 7:30 p.m.
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, NYC
Hanzhi Wang, bayan
Orchestra of St. Luke’s (NY)
Zvonimir Hačko, conductor
Henryk Górecki: Old Polish Music, Op. 24 (1967-69)
for brass and strings
Sofia Gubaidulina: Fachwerk (2009) East Coast premiere
for bayan solo, percussion and string orchestra
Witold Lutosławski: Symphony No. 3 (1984)
for orchestra
Górecki’s opening piece serves as the foundation of this evening’s programming. Simplicity, elevation of thought, sprituality, and compositional mastery mark all three pieces. Their spiritual transcendence and stillness capture us, regardless of our belief.
CONCERTS AT
BEETHOVEN SUMMIT LONDON '26
Mavericks & Iconoclasts
Beethoven Summit London ’26 is a four-day festival and international conference devoted to exploring Beethoven’s music through performance alongside the latest research in historical practice. The Summit brings together performers, scholars, and music lovers to celebrate and enrich our understanding of Beethoven’s work through historically informed performances, open dialogue, and shared insights from recent scholarship. Our goal is to move closer to the sound world Beethoven himself imagined, deepening both our appreciation and enjoyment of his creative genius.
The Summit will feature performances on period instruments, conversations between world-leading scholars and performers, and interactive panels that bridge research and performance. By connecting current research with live performance, the Summit explores how evolving scholarship continues to influence interpretation and inspire fresh approaches to Beethoven’s music. Beethoven’s uncompromising spirit, especially his willingness to reimagine musical form, expression, and sound, embodies the very idea of artistic maverick that the Summit Series seeks to celebrate. Each year, the Summit will continue this exploration, tracing how bold innovation and informed performance together reveal new ways of hearing the music we thought we knew.
The Summit Series
The Summit Series is an annual, performance-focused /scholarly event, dedicated to composers whose visionary ideas transformed the course of music history. These are the mavericks and iconoclasts who challenged convention and redefined the very parameters of musical thought and expression. Beethoven Summit ’26 marks the first event in this new series devoted to exploring the legacy of musical trailblazers, past and present, by combining the latest research with performances of the highest caliber. Their innovations continue to inspire the art of performance today and are core to the mission of ICCM.
QUARTET ISOLDE
BEETHOVEN SUMMIT LONDON ‘26
Beethoven String Quartets
Friday, March 27 2026, 16:00
Admiral’s House, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Quartet Isolde
Gabrielle Lester, violin I
Ralph De Souza, violin II
Rachel Roberts, viola
Gemma Rosenfield, violoncello
Beethoven: String Quartet in G Major, Op. 18, No. 2 (1800)
Beethoven: String Quartet in F Major, Op. 135 (1826)
The dates of the two compositions are like parenthesis around Beethoven’s Summit ‘26. The first work dating from 1800 still clings to the Classical tradition while some 25 years later (in 1826), the composer has reached a whole new level of expression. The String Quartet Op. 135 is, however, entangled and complicated — and oddly enough, it is Beethoven’s last work in the genre.
CHAMBER PLAYERS OF THE HANOVER BAND
BEETHOVEN SUMMIT LONDON ‘26
Chamber Music, Mendelssohn & Beethoven
Saturday, March 28 2026,
19:30 – 21:30 | EVENING CONCERT |
Admiral’s House, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Chamber Players of The Hanover Band
(on period instruments)
Mendelssohn: String Quintet No. 1 in A major, Op. 18 (1826/1832)
for two violins, two violas, and violoncello
Beethoven: Septet in E-flat Major, Op. 20 (1800)
for clarinet, bassoon, horn, violin, viola, cello, double bass
Mendelssohn’s String Quintet No. 1 is a youthful masterpiece from 1826, written when he was 17, following his famous Octet. It is paired here with Beethoven’s Septet in E-flat Major which was composed around 1799-1800. It was hugely popular work during his life, blending serenade-like charm with symphonic depth for winds and strings (clarinet, horn, bassoon, violin, viola, cello, bass).
EMIL GRYESTEN, piano
BEETHOVEN SUMMIT LONDON ‘26
Lecture-Recital | Q&A
Sunday, March 29 2026,
10:00 – 11:00 | MORNING LECTURE-RECITAL
Admiral’s House, Old Royal Naval College, Greenwich
Emil Gryesten, piano
Associate Professor, Royal Danish Academy of Music
Lecture-Recital
Reincarnation: Experimental Reinterpretations of Beethoven’s Late Piano Sonatas
This lecture-recital forms part of an artistic research trajectory that seeks to generate new aesthetic-epistemic knowledge through experimental re-engagements with Beethoven’s late piano sonatas. Concert pianist and researcher Emil Gryesten originally carried out this project as part of his PhD research at the Orpheus Institute (docARTES)..
COVENT GARDEN CHORUS
THE HANOVER BAND
BEETHOVEN SUMMIT LONDON ‘26
Beethoven’s Choral Symphony
Monday, March 30 2026
19:30 – 21:30 | CLOSING CONCERT |
Cadogan Hall, London
Danny Driver, piano
Elin Pritchard, soprano
Victoria Simmonds, Mezzo Soprano
Andrés Presno, tenor
Darren Jeffery, bass-baritone
Covent Garden Chorus
Tori Longdon, Chorus Master
The Hanover Band (on period instruments)
Zvonimir Hačko, conductor
Beethoven: Egmont Overture, Op. 84 (1810)
from Beethoven music to Goethe‘s play Egmont, Op. 84
Schumann: Piano Concerto in A Minor, Op. 54 (1845)
for piano & orchestra
Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 (1822-1824)
for SATB soli, SATB chorus, and orchestra
Beethoven Summit ‘26 closes with two monumental pieces from the first half of the 19th century: Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor and Beethoven’s Choral Symphony. Together, they represent the 19th-century shift toward “programmatic” thinking—where music isn’t just about notes and patterns, but about philosophy, literature, and the human soul.
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE'S (NY)
VARIATIONS ON A THEME OF LIFE
Tuesday, April 23 2026, 7:30 p.m.
Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center, New York
Polina Osetinskaya, piano
Trumpet tba
Orchestra of St. Luke’s (NY)
Zvonimir Hačko, conductor
Benjamin Britten: Variations of a Theme of Frank Bridge, Op. 10 (1937)
for string orchestra
Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35 (1933)
for piano solo, trumpet, and string orchestra
Dmitri Shostakovich/Bashmet: Chamber Symphony (1960)
String Quartet No. 8, Op. 110 arr. for string orchestra
Three exceptional pieces for chamber orchestra reflect on the recent anniversary of Shostakovich’s passing. A towering figure of modern Romanticism, Shostakovich, like Britten (his colleague and friend), defines the mid-century contemporary music scene. Here, an outstanding cast of artists takes center stage with one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras to bring to life three unforgettable pieces.
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE'S (NY)
MYSTERIES OF MEISTER ECKHARDT
Thursday, May 28 2026, 7:30 p.m.
Stern Auditorium/Carnegie Hall, New York
Orchestra of St. Luke’s (NY)
Zvonimir Hačko, conductor
Hanna Kulenty: Carrés Noirs (Black Squares) (2024)/World premiere
for piano four-hands, two percussionist & two string orchestras
Anders Hillborg: Sound Atlas (2018)/East Coast premiere
for full orchestra
John Adams: Harmonielehre (1985)
for large orchestra
Hanna Kulenty’s ICCM commission opens the concert with a fiery display of energy and virtuosity. Then comes Hillborg’s Sound Atlas. We sink into a disorientating vortex before rising again as the electro-orchestral sounds lifts our spacecraft into another world. After the intermission comes John Adams’ colossal minimalistic creation, Harmonielehre. Harnessing the force of a 100-piece orchestra, it unfolds as a magic spectacle evocative of the 13th-century mystic Meister Eckhart’s theory of the union between the individual soul and God — or, as Adams would rather have it, the union between us and the universe!
NEW YORK CHORAL SOCIETY/
ORCHESTRA OF ST. LUKE’S (NY)
COPERNICUS, THE STAR GAZER
Sunday, June 7 2026, 7:30 p.m.
David Geffen Hall at Lincoln Center, New York
Miroslawa Olegova, soprano
Jazek Krispjec, baritone
Wojciech Błażejczyk, electric guitar
New York Choral Society
Orchestra of St. Luke’s (NY)
Zvonimir Hačko, conductor
Isidora Žebeljan: Rukoveti (Garlands) (1999-2000)/US premiere
Five songs for soprano and orchestra
Wojciech Błażejczyk: Concerto for Electric Guitar, Percussion,
Electronics, and Strings/new version (2020) – US premiere
Henryk Górecki: Symphony No.2 “Copernican” Op. 31 (1972) US premiere
for soprano, baritone, large mixed choir & large orchestra
More than half-a-century has passed since Górecki wrote his groundbreaking 2nd symphony. Commissioned by the Kosciuszko Foundation of New York and written in the monumental minimalistic style, this masterwork has sadly never been performed for the New York audience — until tonight. In sheer contrast, Błażejczyk’s Concerto for Electric Guitar creates as much drama with very limited, modernist means, while Žebeljan’s boisterous, peasant-inspired song cycle brings us an unfettered sense of joy.