2024/25 Season 95 years and not a bit quiet
In 2024, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony can look back on a 95-year history. Music Director Alain Altinoglu will start the upcoming season with the Europa Open Air in August and has invited French actress and Oscar winner Marion Cotillard to perform in the oratorio »Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher« in December. »Composer in Residence« is Thierry Escaich.
Projects of the Music Director Alain Altinoglu
»I am very happy about the new season, it is multifaceted and has many wonderful musical colors. Above all, however, I am looking forward to the audience in our concerts and to beautiful moments with our orchestra,« says Alain Altinoglu. Altinoglu will start the Große Reihe at the Alte Oper in October with Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony, continuing the orchestra's long Mahler tradition.
He will conduct six programs, enriched by soloists such as Gautier Capuçon, Hilary Hahn and Francesco Piemontesi. A special highlight will be the collaboration with actress Marion Cotillard, who will perform Arthur Honegger's oratorio Jeanne d'Arc au bûcher from 1935. Altinoglu will also continue the Shostakovich cycle and provide musical surprises with a Gershwin evening together with the Frankfurt Radio Big Band
The Frankfurt Radio Symphony's 2024/25 season
For the sixth time, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony and the European Central Bank, supported by Elisabethen Quelle, invite to the Europa Open Air on the banks of the Main in Frankfurt at the end of August. This summer's program includes Bedřich Smetana's »The Moldau« and Modest Mussorgsky's »Pictures at an Exhibition« in the orchestral version by Maurice Ravel.
In the 2024/25 season, audiences will also be able to experience the quality of the musicians of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony at the Quick & Class concerts. This time, three musicians of the younger generation in the Frankfurt Radio Symphony will be in focus in the short concerts at after-work time: solo cellist Peter-Philipp Staemmler, solo trombonist Norwin Hahn and tuba player Ole Heiland. The popular Wandelkonzert at Städelmuseum will be back, as well as the Christmas concert Christmas all over the World at Alte Oper Frankfurt. The unconventional Kammerflimmern concert series will also be continued: at Latin Palace Changó, International Theater Frankfurt and, for the first time, at the Naxos production house in Frankfurt's Ostend district.
Guest conductors are Nathalie Stutzmann, Edward Gardner, Anna Handler, Ivor Bolton, Erina Yashima, Ivan Repušić, Maurice Steger, Riccardo Minasi and Petr Popelka. There will also be a reunion with former Music Director Andrès Orozco-Estrada. The young Lithuanian conductor Izabelé Jankauskaité will be Assistant Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony in the coming season. She is the winner of the Neeme Järvi Prize 2022 from the renowned Gstaad Conducting Academy and will conduct a family concert and the New Year's concert in Wiesbaden. She will also accompany two projects of the »Große Reihe« at the Alte Oper Frankfurt as assistant to Alain Altinoglu.
The Frankfurt Radio Symphony welcomes internationally renowned soloists including violinists Hilary Hahn, Augustin Hadelich, Noa Wildschut and Christian Tetzlaff, pianists Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Frank Dupree, clarinettist Martin Fröst as well as baritone Matthias Goerne and Gautier Capuçon on cello.
»Composer in Residence«: Thierry Escaich
Is he a composer, organist and improviser? Or organist, improviser and composer? He doesn't care about the order: »Everything is mutually dependent,« says Thierry Escaich, »one is not possible without the other two«. Escaich is one of the most important contemporary musicians in France. The 59-year-old draws on the entire history of Western music, on Lutheran chorale, on tonality, polytonality and modality, on the richness of sound colors of the French 19th century. Among Escaich's compositions to be heard this season is the cello concerto »Les chants de l'aube«, composed in 2023. Escaich will also perform as a pianist and write a commissioned work for big band and orchestra, which will be premiered by the Frankfurt Radio Big Band and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony together.
Specials: »Amazônia« with Sebastião Salgado and »KiezPalast« with Katja Riemann
The world-famous Brazilian photographer and environmental activist Sebastião Salgado has documented the Amazon rainforest in all its splendor and endangered state. A few years ago, Salgado brought this major photographic project together with music composed by his compatriot Heitor Villa-Lobos in 1958 as a tribute to the Amazon. The Amazônia photo-music project can now be experienced in Germany for the first time. The Frankfurt Radio Symphony will play Villa-Lobos' work under the direction of Simone Menezes and the corresponding photographic works by Salgado will be shown on the big screen.
After three successful editions with actor, musician and presenter Ulrich Tukur, the actress Katja Riemann will be the host of the next KiezPalast, which once again opens its doors in cooperation with the Alte Oper Frankfurt. Under the title »City Life«, the actress, singer and presenter, together with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, will take the audience to the famous cities of New York, Paris, and Buenos Aires.
Music education for children, teenagers and young adults
The Frankfurt Radio Symphony invites you to four Young Concerts at Alte Oper Frankfurt. For the first time, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony will also be presenting music from video games such as »Final Fantasy« and »The Legend of Zelda« in this series. In addition, the brilliant Amazônia project will be offered in a Young Concert Extra especially for children and young people. A new addition to the season calendar is Concert instead of school: twice in the upcoming season, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony will invite school classes to the hr-Sendesaal, and solo bassoonist Theo Plath presents great orchestral music. Two exclusive school tours through Hesse are also planned.
Guest concerts and tours
A highlight in the guest concert calendar is the world premiere of Thierry Escaich's »Te Deum« at the celebrations for the reopening of Notre-Dame in Paris in June 2025. After six years, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra is back on tour in Asia: from October 15 to 22, the orchestra will travelling Japan and present seven concerts in Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Saitama and Yokohama, three of them in the world-famous Tokyo Suntory Hall. The Frankfurt Radio Symphony also appear at Schwetzinger Festspiele, at the Beethovenfest Bonn as well as at the Mozartfest Würzburg, in Dortmund, Aschaffenburg and for the first time at the Philharmonie in Paris. It will perform two programs in Hamburg and Vienna and three concerts in Salzburg. The Frankfurt Radio Symphony will also appear at the famous Grafenegg Festival and will once again perform three concerts at the Festival International de Colmar, whose musical director is Alain Altinoglu.
108 concerts, 83 of them in Hesse
The Frankfurt Radio Symphony will perform a total of 108 concerts in the 2024/25 season, 83 of which will be in Hesse: In addition to its own concert series in Frankfurt and concerts at the Rheingau Music Festival, it will also perform at Schlosstheater Fulda, Stadttheater Gießen and Kronberg Festival. Eight chamber concerts in Hesse round off the orchestra's extensive concert schedule.
The Frankfurt Radio Symphony on all media channels
With around 460,000 subscribers, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony's YouTube channel is on its way to reaching half a million people and is one of the world's most successful channels for classical music on this platform. Next season, many live video streams are planned, which can be streamed on the website. ARD Mediathek and on ARTE Concert.
Most concert programs will be broadcast by hr2-kultur radio in Germany and also in Europe via the European Broadcasting Union (EBU). Selected concert events are available on hr-fernsehen, 3sat and ARTE.
Tickets and advance booking
Advance sales for subscriptions are available now by phone +49 69 155-4111, single tickets from Monday, June 3, by phone +49 69 155-2000. Subscriptions and tickets can be purchased at www.hr-ticketcenter.de.
10 For Teens: Teenagers can join any concert of the "Große Reihe" in the Alte Oper Frankfurt or the concerts in the hr-Sendesaal at a low price: »10 For Teens« offers a limited number of tickets for all young people under the age of 20.
U30-Ticket: The U30-Ticket replaces the former pupil/apprentice/student ticket and guarantees young people under the age of 30 up to 50 percent discount on the Frankfurt Radio Symphony’s own events.
Subscriptions and tickets can also be purchased at www.hr-ticketcenter.de.
Concert magazine
The printed concert magazine 2024/25 is available at the events of Hessischer Rundfunk, it can be ordered at hr-Ticketcenter, phone: +49 69 155-2000, or downloaded as a PDF here. An interactive e-mag with audio samples and additional links as well as further details of the concerts will be available on the website from June 3.