Classical Music

Milan Symphony, Tjeknavorian's second season goes through Buchbinder

The great pianist will star with Tchaikovsky and Brahms

4 June 2025

Emmanuel Tjeknavorian dirige l’Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano

3' min read

The second season as music director of the Milan Symphony Orchestra for Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, that of 2025/26, with the ambition of "touching the listeners of the Auditorium to the core, always leaving something profound for the audience, collaborating with guest artists with whom we share a common vision of music". According to the director, Milan 'remains our stage, our muse, our pulse. In this city in perpetual motion, we offer moments of stillness, of revelation, of connection. Each concert is a meeting point of minds and hearts, a refuge where beauty becomes possible'.

Hence a musical offering that ranges from the youngest, such as Diego Ceretta, Andrea Obiso, Dominik Wagner, Sebastian Bohren, Sarah McElravy, Tom Borrow and Kiron Atom Tellian, to legends, musicians with long and distinguished careers to their credit, such as Rudolf Buchbinder, Christoph Eschenbach, Marko Letonja, Fabio Biondi and Katia and Marielle Labèque.

This year's Symphonic Season consists of 26 programmes. It opens at La Scala on Sunday 14 September with Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony and Brahms' First Piano Concerto. For the occasion, a legend of piano virtuosity will be tackling this majestic solo page: Rudolf Buchbinder, an exceptional musician who has always brought glory to the work of the great 19th-century composers through an interpretative lens of rare depth.

The first symphonic programme of the season at Milan's Auditorium is a tribute to Mahler: with his Fifth Symphony, the work that marks his departure from the world of the Wunderhorn and the approach to a new creative phase, the Orchestra opens the Season at its 'home' in Largo Mahler on Friday 3 and Sunday 5 October, under the baton of Emmanuel Tjeknavorian.

Also in the sign of Mahler is the concert on 13 and 15 February, in which Yoel Gamzou offers his version of the Tenth Symphony, a work that remained unfinished due to the Bohemian composer's sudden death. This season also features some returns by old acquaintances of the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano. Katia Labèque returns on 10 and 12 October with her sister Marielle to perform Philip Glass's legendary Concerto for two pianos under the baton of Emmanuel Tjeknavorian.

On 17 and 19 April, Claus Peter Flor returns to the Auditorium for a concert combining Šostakovič's sunny Sixth Symphony with Mozart's Symphony No. 40. The programme on 24 and 26 April, on the other hand, offers a plunge into the atmosphere of the Austro-Hungarian empire: Alfred Eschwé, kapellmeister and custodian of the Austrian tradition, proposes this year a journey that begins with Bartòk and the evocative Hungarian Pictures, continues with the last Haydn in Symphony No. 103, and continues with a Straussian selection that cannot be more iconic, including the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka and the Kaiser-Walzer.

Kiron Atom Tellian returns to the Auditorium on 21 and 23 May, under the baton of Tjeknavorian, to perform Liszt's Second Piano Concerto. A pianist of extraordinary intelligence, Andrea Lucchesini returns to play with the Sinfonica on Friday 21 and Sunday 23 November. The occasion is the performance of Compass, a recital for piano and orchestra by Luciano Berio, whose 100th anniversary of his birth is being celebrated this year.

Alongside the Symphonic Season, as always, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano offers a chamber music programme that explores the repertoire for small ensembles far and wide, which this year is doubled: six appointments, as usual, at the Teatro Gerolamo, and three more at the Auditorium in Milan. Plus special projects, such as the performance of Giuseppe Verdi's Popular Trilogy at the Teatro Municipale in Piacenza, from 29 October to 9 November 2025.