On February 6, 7 and 8, David Afkham conducts in Madrid once again, in a program featuring Turina, Schumann, Richard Strauss and de Falla. Pablo Ferrández will be the soloist in Schumann’s Cello Concerto, which Schumann wrote shortly before he took up the post of conductor of the Düsseldorf orchestra. It {…}
The classic Greek myth of the nymph Daphne, who rejects Apollo’s advances and metamorphoses into a tree, was adapted into an opera by Richard Strauss and premiered in 1938. David Afkham makes his debut at Seattle Opera, conducting a concert version of the work on January 16 and 18. The cast features {…}
On November 28, 29 and 30, David Afkham leads the Orquesta Nacional de España in an emotional program, featuring Mahler’s Blumine, and the Adagio from Symphony No. 10. His first symphony would have had five movements if its composer had not removed the second—Blumine, florid—after 1894. His last symphony, on {…}
On October 24, 25, and 26, David Afkham makes his San Francisco Symphony debut with Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, with soloist Sergey Khachatryan. The second half of the program showcases Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 8, a piece composed in troubled times, and sure to resonate with today’s audiences. He then travels to Minnesota {…}
On October 3 and 5, David Afkham leads two concert performances of Alban Berg’s Wozzeck at the Sala Sinfónica in Madrid. Premiered in Berlin in 1925, more than a social drama or an anti-war statement, Wozzeck is a descent into the abyss of the human condition, captured in a score in which the echoes {…}
On August 22, David Afkham leads the Orquesta Nacional de España in San Sebastián’s Auditorio Kursaal in Maazel’s adaptation of Wagner’s Ring cycle, Der Ring ohne Worte. This eighty-minute work condenses some of the most memorable passages from the four operas that make up the great Wagnerian cycle. He then {…}