The Easter Tour 2019 of the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER combines things tried-and-tested with things new. The acclaimed British conductor Jonathan Nott returns to the podium of the GUTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER for the third time, following the Summer Tour in 2009 and the Easter Tour in 2015; and as our soloist, we welcome back Russian mezzo-soprano Elena Zhidkova, much celebrated for her performance of Judith in Béla Bartók’s opera Bluebeard’s Castle in Lisbon in spring 2015. 

The GMJO with Jonathan Nott, Easter Tour 2015, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, (c) Márcia Lessa

Once more, the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER has been invited as Orchestra in Residence at Lisbon’s renowned Gulbenkian Foundation (for the fifth time after 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2017); and, as every year, the musicians will perform at the legendary Vienna Musikverein, where they will conclude this year’s Easter Tour. The tour of Spain which bridges these two traditional engagements, in contrast, is a first: the ensemble will give a total of six concerts at San Sebastián, Pamplona, Oviedo, Madrid, and Barcelona, building on the close cooperation which the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER has shared with the renowned Spanish agency Ibermúsica for many years.

The two artists join forces to perform Gustav Mahler’s monumental Symphony no. 3, as well as a second symphonic programme which brings together Alban Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra op. 6, Gustav Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s (final) Symphony no. 15. In Pamplona and Madrid, this programme is complemented by La Tierra, written by the leading contemporary Spanish composer Jesús Rueda.

Before this series of concerts, Tobias Wögerer, who was recently appointed assistant conductor of the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER, makes his debut with two programmes during the Lisbon residency: one with works by Schoenberg and Mozart, and another with compositions by Bartók, Rachmaninov — featuring the Austrian pianist Anika Vavic — and Rimski-Korsakov, completing the Easter Tour’s wide range of programmes.

As with all projects of the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER, the programmes of the 2019 Easter Tour create a carefully worked-out narrative. The programme opens up a broad canvas that stretches from Mozart, Gustav Mahler, the Second Viennese School, to Dmitri Shostakovich and Jesús Rueda, including many twentieth-century works and offering multifaceted connections between them.

We would like to thank our sponsors, the art section of the Federal Chancellery of the Republic of Austria, the Federal Ministry for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Austria and the Municipal Department 7 - Culture of the City of Vienna, as well as Erste Group and Vienna Insurance Group, the long-standing main sponsors of the GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER, the Förderstiftung des GUSTAV MAHLER JUGENDORCHESTER and the numerous cooperation partners.