The world according to conductor and composer George Benjamin

For the eighth time, the Concertgebouw Orchestra will join forces with George Benjamin. This time, listeners can look forward to a highly personalised programme, with the celebrated composer and conductor paying tribute to his predecessors and kindred spirits and giving his uniquely colourful sound world free rein. Benjamin will conduct Stravinsky’s Symphonies d’instruments à vent (Symphonies of Wind Instruments), written in memory of Claude Debussy, and György Ligeti’s Lontano with its subtlety shifting clouds of sound. Benjamin’s contemporary, Unsuk Chin, once studied with Ligeti; she went on to compose Spira, a vibrant ‘concerto for orchestra.’  

Oliver Knussen’s Choral gives the Concertgebouw Orchestra’s wind players a chance to shine. Benjamin dedicated his recent Concerto for Orchestra to his close friend of forty years, Oliver Knussen, who died in 2018. ‘Brilliant solos from around the orchestra constantly breaking through the intricately detailed textures (…),’ according to the Guardian, in a 2021 review of the world premiere, ‘but there are moments of quieter reflection that interrupt the hectic virtuoso activity.’ We eagerly await the first performance of this work in the Netherlands.