Bucharest’s George Enescu Philharmonic opens 2023-2024 season with José Cura conducting

The George Enescu Philharmonic will open its 2023-2024 season with two concerts, set for November 5 and November 6, conducted by Argentinian operatic tenor, composer, and conductor José Cura.

Under his baton, the orchestra will perform a program that includes Cura, Chopin, and Rimsky-Korsakov. The concerts will also mark the young pianist Alim Beisembayev’s debut with the Enescu Philharmonic. Born in Kazakhstan in 1998, he is the 2021 winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition.

Beginning this season, cellist Andrei Ioniţă is an artist in residence of the Philharmonic. The 29-year-old is the only Romanian winner of the Tchaikovsky Competition (the 2015 edition) and was an artist in residence at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg between 2019 and 2020.

Throughout the season, the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra will be conducted by principal conductor Christian Badea and conductors Leo Hussain and Gabriel Bebeşelea. Jean-Claude Casadesus, Lawrence Foster, Thomas Sanderling, Leonard Slatkin, and Michael Sanderling are among the guest conductors set to lead the orchestra this season.

Christian Zacharias, an honorary director of the George Enescu Philharmonic, returns as both conductor and soloist this season, which also counts among the guest musicians conductor Cristian Măcelaru and pianists Elisabeth Leonskaja and Nelson Goerner.

Among the young artists set to perform with the Enescu Philharmonic for the first time are Kristine Balanas, Harry Ogg, Arabella Steinbacher, Fr. Lopez Ferrer, Boris Giltburg, and Kian Soltani, as well as Daniel Ciobanu, Mihaela Martin, and Raluca Ştirbăţ.

The program of the 2023-2024 season includes several landmark works of the 20th century, including Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10, Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka and The Firebird, as well as works performed at the Athenaeum for the first time: Hector Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette, Robert Schumann’s Manfred, José Cura’s Requiem Aeternam, and more.

The Philharmonic will mark the closing of the Prokofiev year with a performance of his Symphony No 5 and the 100th anniversary of the birth of György Ligeti with the Romanian Concert.

For the 200th anniversary of the first performance of Beethoven’s Symphony No 9, conductor Justus Franz will lead the Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir for a performance of the work.