Abstract
In the first concert of the new season, Krzysztof Urbański makes his debut on the podium of the Philharmonia Zurich. With youthful charisma and dynamic performances, the Polish conductor has attracted attention from some of the world's most important orchestras over the past decade: when he first led the Berliner Philharmoniker at the age of 31, he was already Music Director of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Since 2015, he has been principal guest conductor of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, with whom he has recorded 20th-century masterpieces such as Stravinsky's Sacre du printemps and Shostakovich's 5th Symphony, among others. He now performs Shostakovich's 10th Symphony, written in 1953, at the Opernhaus Zürich. Together with Bartlomiej Niziol and Lev Sivkov, concertmaster and principal cellist of the Philharmonia Zurich, he will also perform a double concerto by the Polish composer Krzysztof Penderecki, who died in 2020. The Concerto doppio, which premiered in Vienna in 2012, was written during Penderecki's late creative phase, when the former avant-gardist was interested in classical forms and composed in a style that made him popular beyond the confines of new music connoisseurs.