Symphony Concert N° 9

Susanna Mälkki Conductor

Georg Friedrich Haas

  • »I don't know how to cry« for orchestra

Franz Schubert

  • Symphony in C major D 944 »Große«

»Meaning everywhere«

One of the old masters closest to the heart of the Staatskapelle’s Composer-in-Residence, Georg Friedrich Haas, is Franz Schubert, whose music repeatedly ventured into new expressive realms. So it is only logical that Susanna Mälkki, in her debut with the Staatskapelle, contrasts the world premiere of Haas’s new orchestral work, written especially for the orchestra’s anniversary, with Schubert’s longest and most ambitious symphony. When, eleven years after Schubert’s death, the work was given its first concert performance in Leipzig, Robert Schumann was rhapsodic: »Life in every fibre, colouring down to the finest gradation, meaning everywhere.«

A concert introduction will be offered 45 minutes before the beginning of each performance in the opera cellar of the Semperoper.

  • Sunday
    14.04.2024
    11:00 Uhr
    Semperoper
  • Monday
    15.04.2024
    19:00 Uhr
    Semperoper
  • Tuesday
    16.04.2024
    19:00 Uhr
    Semperoper

Susanna Mälkki

Susanna Mälkki is sought-after at the highest level with symphony orchestras and in opera houses worldwide. She appears regularly with top orchestras throughout Europe and North America; Los Angeles Philharmonic, where she was Principal Guest Conductor from 2017 until 2022, Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony, London Symphony Orchestra, the Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Bayerischer Rundfunk and the Berliner Philharmoniker.

Equally in demand with major opera houses, past notable appearances include at the Opéra national de Paris, Teatro alla Scala Milan, the Wiener Staatsoper, The Metropolitan Opera, the Gran Teatre del Liceu and The Royal Opera House, London, where she conducted Saariaho’s Innocence, which Mälkki premiered in 2021 at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Upcoming

operatic titles include Janáček’s The Makropulos Case at the Opéra national de Paris, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Beethoven’s Fidelio.

Recognised for her significant contribution to the art form, Mälkki was awarded the Pro Finlandia Medal of the Order of the Lion of Finland – one of Finland’s highest honours – in 2011. She has been awarded as Officier (2014) and Commandeur (2022) de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France and in January 2016 was made a Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in France. She is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London and a member of the Kungliga Musikaliska Akademien in Stockholm. In October 2016 she was named Musical America’s 2017 Conductor of the Year, and in November 2017 she was awarded the Nordic Council Music Prize.