Jaap van Zweden to step in for Kirill Petrenko at the Concertgebouw Orchestra

Conductor Kirill Petrenko unfortunately has had to cancel his return as guest conductor with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra this week due to health reasons. The orchestra is very grateful that Jaap van Zweden has agreed to conduct the concerts on Thursday 22 and Friday 23 June at short notice. 

The concert programme will be different from what was previously advertised. Jaap van Zweden will conduct Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9, followed by Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 (“Pathétique”).  

 

Jaap van Zweden  

Jaap van Zweden assumed the post of music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in 2018, returning to the city where he had once studied violin at the Juilliard School of Music. At age nineteen, he was appointed principal violinist of the Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 1997 he traded in his bow for a conductor’s baton, going on to hold the position of chief conductor of such orchestras as the The Hague Philharmonic and the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, as well as that of chief conductor and artistic director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2008 to 2018, he was music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Van Zweden has conducted such leading orchestras as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic. In 2012, he was also appointed music director of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. In the same year, his recording of Wagner’s Parsifal was awarded an Edison, and he was hailed as Conductor of the Year by Musical America.  

Van Zweden first conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 1998. Since 2005 he has returned regularly as a guest conductor, most recently in January 2023. Van Zweden was awarded the Concertgebouw Prize on April 18th this year. In September 2024 he will conduct Bruckner’s Fourth Symphony as part of the orchestra’s Bruckner Cycle.