This week, David Afkham will make his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducting a programme including Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D Minor and Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C Minor. David will also make his debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducting Sibelius’ Violin Concerto with Blake Pouliot and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 3.

In March next year, David will make a return to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with four concerts. Following David’s debut with the CSO in 2016, The Chicago Tribune remarked:

21 Aug 17

Concert

Chicago Symphony Orchestra

“Afkham showed how eloquently and powerfully Shostakovich’s masterpiece can speak to us on its own, purely musical terms. How inexorable was his building of linear and harmonic tension through the long, archlike opening movement…How implacable was the fury Afkham unleashed in the whirlwind Allegro, which generated the kind of driving excitement you associate with the symphony’s greatest early interpreters, Dimitri Mitropoulos and Evgeny Mravinsky…The thunderous reiteration of the “DSCH” monogram at the peak of the finale sealed the triumph, Shostakovich’s as well as Afkham’s.

Chicago Tribune

Other highlights in David’s 2018/19 season include two German opera debuts with Humperdinck’s Hänsel & Gretel at Frankfurt Opera and Wagner’s Die fliegende Holländer at Stuttgart Opera. David will also debut with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Czech Philharmonic, as well as return to the Münchner Philharmoniker, HR Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Swedish Radio Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestra of Accademia Santa Cecilia and NHK Symphony Orchestras.

Visit the Philadelphia Orchestra website for further information about this week’s concert.