Saisoneröffnung: Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra / Hadelich / Honeck

The Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra will open the 2026/27 season in festive style under its chief conductor Manfred Honeck. The programme includes works »From the New World«: An orchestral fanfare by composer and conductor John Adams, who will conduct the Vienna Philharmonic for the first time in the »Orchestra International« cycle in May, will provide a festive prelude.

Augustin Hadelich with Barber's Violin Concerto
Our portrait artist Augustin Hadelich will play Samuel Barber's Violin Concerto, which draws on the European Romantic tradition but also has American echoes. In addition to voluptuous cantilenas and memorable melodies in the first two movements, it impresses with an extremely breakneck last movement with a dizzying perpetuum mobile.

Between spirituals and country dances
Transatlantic relationships also characterise the second part of the concerto. Antonín Dvořák spent three years in the USA, where he was director of the National Conservatory of Music of America in New York. During this time, he composed his 9th Symphony, which was inspired by the music of the indigenous and African-American population, but is also characterised by a longing for his Bohemian homeland. A wide variety of musical ideas, which Dvořák was so rich in, come together here to create a magnificent overall musical picture.