Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, called“one of the world’s most formidable orchestras” by The Guardian, has toured the USA, Europe, Japan and the Far East and performed at major music centres and festivals throughout the world. In autumn 2013, the distinguished American conductor Kent Nagano started his tenure as the orchestra’s Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor.

Founded in 1905, the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (Goteborgs Symfoniker) now numbers 109 players. The great Swedish composer Wilhelm Stenhammar was appointed Principal Conductor in 1907, contributing strongly to the Nordic profile of the orchestra by inviting his colleagues Carl Nielsen and Jean Sibelius to conduct their own works. Subsequent holders of the post include Sergiu Comissiona, Sixten Ehrling, and Charles Dutoit. During Neeme Jarvi’s tenure (1982–2004), the orchestra became a major international force. In 1997, it was appointed “The National Orchestra of Sweden”.

During his celebrated tenure as the Orchestra’s Music Director 2007-2012, Gustavo Dudamel and the Gothenburg Symphony made acclaimed appearances at the BBC Proms and Vienna Musikverein. The list of prominent guest conductors includes Wilhelm Furtwangler, Pierre Monteux, Herbert von Karajan,Myung-Whun Chung, Herbert Blomstedt, Vladimir Jurowski, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Sakari Oramo and Sir Simon Rattle. The Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra also runs extensive concert projects for children, GSOPULS, and digital live concerts, GSOplay.

For Chandos the Orchestra has recorded concertos and symphonies by Mieczysław Weinberg, a comprehensive two-disc set of orchestral works by Alban Berg, and a disc coupling Beethoven’s Triple Concerto and Brahms’s Double Concerto. The latest project is the complete symphonies of Kurt Atterberg, the first release of Symphonies No 4 & 6 and other orchestral works which has been praised by the critics, and singled out as Recording of the Month by Music Web International. Volume II is also readily available, containing Symphonies No 2 & 8.

Among the orchestra’s many recordings on BIS and Deutsche Grammophon labels, several of them award-winning, are the complete symphonies of Sibelius, Nielsen, Stenhammar, Berwald, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky, operas and symphonies by Rachmaninov, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, and the complete orchestral music of Edvard Grieg. The latest DG release is a 3 CD-box with Gustavo Dudamel conducting Bruckner’s ninth symphony, Sibelius’ second and Nielsen’s fourth and fifth symphonies.

Kent Nagano Conductor

Kent Nagano is renowned for interpretations of clarity, elegance and intelligence. He is equally at home in music of the classical, romantic and contemporary eras, introducing concert and opera audience throughout the world to  new and rediscovered music and offering fresh insights into established repertoire. Since September 2006 he has been Music Director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and became Artistic Advisor and Principal Guest Conductor of Gothenburg Symphony in September 2013. In 2015 he will take up the position of General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra.

Born in California, Nagano maintains close connections with his home state and was Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra from 1978-2008. His early professional years were spent in Boston, working in the Opera House and as Assistant Conductor to Seiji Ozawa at the Boston Symphony Orchestra. A very important period in Nagano’s career was his time as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000-2006. At the end of his tenure with the orchestra, Kent Nagano was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra, only the second recipient of this honor in their 60-year history. At the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he was General Music Director from 2006 to 2013, Kent Nagano commissioned new operas such as Babylon by Jorg Widmann, Das Gehege by Wolfgang Rihm and Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin.

As a much sought after guest conductor, Nagano has worked with most of the world’s finest orchestras including the Vienna, Berlin and New York Philharmonics, Chicago Symphony, Dresden Staatskapelle and Leipzig Gewandhaus. He has an ongoing relationship with Sony Classical and has also recorded for Erato, Teldec, Pentatone and Deutsche Grammophon as well as Harmonia Mundi, winning Grammy awards for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with Opera National de Lyon, Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra and Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin with the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin.

Violinist: Ray Chen

Winner of the Queen Elisabeth (2009) and Yehudi Menuhin Competitions (2008), Ray Chen is among the most compelling young violinists today. Ray has released three critically acclaimed albums on Sony, “Virtuoso”, the recital program was distinguished with the prestigious ECHO Klassik award. Following the success of the recordings, Ray was profiled by The Strad and Gramophone magazines as “the one to watch”.

Ray continues to win the admiration of fans and fellow musicians worldwide. In 2012, he became the youngest soloist ever to perform in the televised Nobel Prize Concert for the Nobel Laureates and the Swedish Royal Family. His Carnegie Hall debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Sakari Oramo, as well as his sold-out Musikverein concert with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly were met with standing ovations. Since season 2012-13, Ray has been invited to join “Junge Wilde” series at Concert hall Dortmund, which presents young and groundbreaking artists in Germany.

Followed by over 1 million people on SoundCloud, Ray Chen looks to expand the classical music audience by increasing its appeal to the young generation via all available social media platforms. He is the first classical musician to be invited to write a regular blog about his life as a touring soloist for the largest Italian publishing house, RCS Rizzoli. In his unstinting efforts to break down barriers between classical music, fashion and pop culture, he is supported by Giorgio Armani and was recently featured in Vogue magazine.

Born in Taiwan and raised in Australia, Ray was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music at age 15, where he studied with Aaron Rosand and was supported by Young Concert Artists. He plays the 1715 “Joachim” Stradivarius violin on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation. This instrument is one of the five 1715 violins once owned by the famed Hungarian violinist, Joseph Joachim (1831-1907)

"One of the world’s most formidable orchestras."

- The Guardian

Programme

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