2025/26 Highlights from Boosey & Hawkes London

(August 2025)

Here are highlights selected by Boosey & Hawkes in London from events taking place in Europe, Asia and Australasia. For season highlights taking place in North, South and Latin America, including events launching the America at 250 celebrations in 2026, click here.

21 September, Berlin
Marc Blitzstein  Parabola and Circula (world premiere)
The Berlin Music Festival presents the first performance – close to a century after its composition - of this Bauhaus-influenced geometric dance opera by Marc Blitzstein. Created in 1929/30 when the American composer was in his mid-20s, the work was planned for a premiere at the Dessau Theatre but was not staged due to the circumstances of the time. The concert performance at the Berlin Philharmonie features the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra conducted by Karl-Heinz Steffens and plans are underway for the first staged performance in a coming season.
> Opera info

24 September, Amsterdam
Gabriela Ortiz  Si el oxígeno fuera verde (world premiere)
Ortiz’s season-long Featured Composer focus with the Philharmonia Orchestra opens with this new 12-minute orchestral work, whose title suggests to the composer the “fragile green murmur of life”. Its premiere also launches her residency at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam which allows composition space to write a further new work for the 2026/27 season. The Philharmonia gives further performances of Si el oxígeno fuera verde this autumn in London (25 Sep), Vienna (14 Oct) and on a coast-to-coast US tour (17-29 Oct). A third composer residency features Ortiz performances at the Palau de la Música in Barcelona.
> Concert info

25 September, Liverpool
Mark Simpson  Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth (UK premiere)
The composer returns to his home city as Artist in Residence with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra throughout the coming season. Highlights include the UK premiere of his viola concerto for Timothy Ridout, a performance of his oratorio The Immortal (26 March) and an Ensemble 10:10 concert with Simpson as clarinet soloist (29 Apr). A further residency in Winterthur sees Hold Your Heart in Your Teeth receiving its Swiss premiere (5 Nov), followed by the work’s Dutch premiere on a tour by Philzuid to Maastricht, Eindhoven and Utrecht (26 Feb – 1 Mar).
> Concert info

1 October, Helsinki
Magnus Lindberg  Piano Concerto No.3 (Finnish premiere)
Events in Lindberg’s home city include the first Finnish performance of Piano Concerto No.3 with soloist Olli Mustonen and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Dima Slobodeniouk. Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducts Serenades with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra (10 Sep) and Kristian Sallinen leads performances of Concerto for Orchestra in Tampere (26 Sep) and Malmö (15 Jan). Other international highlights this season include the recent Viola Concerto for Lawrence Power in Barcelona, Trondheim, Stockholm and on a Scottish tour, plus GRAFFITI in Lisbon and Berlin.
> Concert info

9-19 October, Manchester
Marko Nikodijevic  Balkan Erotic Epic (world premiere)
Marina Abramovic’s latest collaboration with fellow-Serbian composers and sound engineers Marko Nikodijevic and Luka Kozlovacki is her new show Balkan Erotic Epic hosted by the Aviva Studios in Manchester. This four-hour ritual exploring Abramovic’s Slavic roots follows her work together with Nikodijevic on 7 Deaths of Maria Callas, staged in Amsterdam, Barcelona and London in the 2022/23 season. Nikodijevic’s new prologue to Britten’s Curlew River, I didn’t know where to put all my tears, is staged at the Opéra National in Nancy in a double-bill inspired by Noh theatre (29 Mar).
> Concert info

10 October, Katowice
John Adams  The Rock You Stand On (European premiere)
Following its world premiere in Philadelphia, Adams’s new work written in tribute to Marin Alsop is introduced to Europe by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under her baton. The composer himself conducts the UK premiere in a Hallé festival, comprising a trio of all-Adams concerts in Manchester (30 Oct – 1 Nov). Other autumn highlights include the Swedish premiere of After the Fall with Vikingur Ólafsson in Gothenburg (18 Sep) and an East Asian tour of Frenzy by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel visiting Seoul, Tokyo and Taipei (22-28 Oct).
> Concert info (Katowice)
> Concert info (Manchester)

23 October, Manchester
Unsuk Chin  Le Silence des Sirènes (UK premiere)
As Featured Composer with the Hallé in 2025/26, Unsuk Chin travels to Manchester for this UK premiere of her James Joyce setting for soprano and orchestra, with other highlights including the cosmological cantata Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles (19 Feb) and the UK premiere of Operascope with its allusions to Verdi, Puccini and Berg (14 May). Her opera Alice in Wonderland receives its first Austrian staging at the Theater an der Wien (17 Nov) and this season brings further residencies for Chin with the Staatskapelle in Dresden and the hr-Sinfonieorchester in Frankfurt.
> Concert info

24 October, Santa Cruz de Tenerife
Ferran Cruixent  Emergence (world premiere)
Bearing the subtitle ‘Finding La Mer’, Cruixent’s new 10-minute work for the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife draws on the sea as a vital metaphor for what we leave behind, for timelessness, and for the fullness of being alive. The Staatskapelle Weimar gave the premiere of the composer’s Cyborg back in 2010, a key work combining symphonic instruments with mobile technology, much championed by Leonard Slatkin, and the Weimar orchestra features Cruixent’s recent triple concerto Trinity at the end of this season (28 Jun).
> Concert info

26 October, Hamburg
Aziza Sadikova  Schmerz und Vorahnung (world premiere)
Tchaikovsky is Sadikova’s favourite composer and her new orchestral work, translated as Pain and Premonition, comprises new transcriptions inspired by the middle two movements of the composer’s Symphony No.4. They are combined with the original outer movements at the Elbphilharmonie with Holly Hyun Choe conducting the Hamburg State Orchestra. Other premieres over the coming season include a new Concerto for two double basses and chamber orchestra in Gera (22 Apr) and the first concert performance of Stradivari for violin and orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano in Bolzano (29 May).
> Concert info

30 October, Glyndebourne
Mark-Anthony Turnage  The Railway Children (world premiere)
The much-loved children’s classic by Edith Nesbit takes the operatic stage with Turnage setting a new adaptation by Rachael Hewer. Stephen Langridge directs the premiere production, with performances at Glyndebourne (30 Oct – 6 Nov) and the Southbank Centre in London (8 Nov). Next year brings the first Helsinki performances of Festen by Finnish National Opera in the award-winning production by Richard Jones (27 Mar), and the first performance of Turnage’s new Festen Suite for orchestra in Copenhagen (5 Feb).
> Opera info

7 November, Leipzig
Lera Auerbach  Flights of the Angakok (German premiere)
The composer conducts the first German performance of her large-scale work for mixed chorus, piano, percussion and theremin, with the MDR Radio Choir in Leipzig. Inspired by the spirit flights of the Arctic shaman, the score sets Inuit texts exploring the porous realm between time, space and altered consciousness, at a time of climate threat. This season sees a revival of Auerbach’s ballet The Little Mermaid in Hamburg, in the choreography by John Neumeier, together with first Spanish and Dutch concert performances of her much-travelled Icarus in Valladolid (20 Nov) and Amsterdam (11 Apr).
> Concert info

12 November, Salzburg
Bernd Richard Deutsch  Massenkristall (world premiere)
Deutsch is one of four composers contributing to a new theatre work developed from Thomas Mann’s Mario and the Magician, staged at the Odeïon in Salzburg. Peter Rundel conducts the SWR Vocal Ensemble, who give a further concert performance in Stuttgart (8 Feb). Franz Welser-Möst provides bookends for Deutsch’s season, on the rostrum in Cleveland for the US premiere of the composer’s Goethe oratorio Urworte (26 Sep), and conducting the Berlin Philharmonic in the German premiere of his orchestral work Intensity (11 Jun). Both works are related to Deutsch’s recent composer residency with the Cleveland Orchestra.
> Concert info

13 November, Magdeburg
Moritz Eggert  Master and Servant (world premiere)
The world premiere of Eggert’s new percussion concerto is a highlight of the Impuls-Festival with the Magdeburg Philharmonic and soloist Konstantyn Napolov conducted by Armando Merino. A further performance is planned next spring by the concerto’s co-commissioner, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski (8 Mar). Recent Eggert premieres include a new version of his large-scale football oratorio The Seventh Heaven, presented as a co-operation between Basel Sinfonietta and Theater Basel as a kick-off for the UEFA Women’s EUROs.
> Concert info

20 November, London
Donghoon Shin  Piano Concerto (world premiere)
Fellow South Korean Seong-Jin Cho is piano soloist in Donghoon Shin’s new concerto, premiered at the Barbican by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maxime Pascal. Future performances are planned by the Boston Symphony and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. This season sees international performances of Shin’s new Winter Sonata for Christian Tetzlaff and Leif Ove Andsnes (Sep) and first US and Austrian performances of Threadsuns for viola and orchestra in Minneapolis (30 Jan) and Vienna (14 Mar).
> Concert info

21 November, Malmö
David T. Little  Black Lodge (Swedish premiere)
Exploring the complex mythologies of surrealist writer William S. Burroughs, David T. Little’s Black Lodge combines film, theatre and industrial rock opera. The first Swedish staging is co-presented by Malmö Opera and Folkoperan in Stockholm (21-26 Nov), performed by Timur and the Dime Museum. Little has recently won the award for Best New Opera conferred by the Music Critics Association of North America for his What Belongs to You, scored for tenor and sinfonietta-sized ensemble. The original cast recording of his acclaimed opera Dog Days is now available digitally from Bright Shiny Things.
> Opera info (Malmö)
> Opera info (Stockholm)

22 November, Dresden
James MacMillan  Symphony No.4 (German premiere)
This season brings a MacMillan composer residency with the Dresden Philharmonic, launched with Donald Runnicles conducting Symphony No.4. Other residency highlights include Jess Gillam performing the Saxophone Concerto (17 Apr) and the composer conducting Cantos Sagrados (9 May). MacMillan’s new A Bunch o Craws, for the King’s Singers and percussionist Colin Currie, travels to Kings Place in London (9 Nov) and Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw (23 Apr). Currie is also soloist for a tour of Veni, Veni, Emmanuel by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Maxim Emelyanychev, visiting Bucharest, Brussels, Essen and Scottish venues (19 Sep – 4 Oct).
> Concert info

23 November, Vienna
Kurt Schwertsik  90th birthday concert
The Musikverein in Vienna hosts celebrations for Schwertsik’s 90th birthday year, with a concert performed by Kontrapunkte conducted by Gottfried Rabl. Repertoire includes Twilight Music, Blechpartie, The Longest 10 Minutes and a collection of songs. Other season highlights include performances of Adieu Satie in Salzburg (1 Oct) and Vienna (13 Oct), and Violin Concerto No.1 with Benjamin Herzl as soloist with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin, conducted by Nil Venditti (19 Apr).
> Concert info

7 December, Birmingham
Joan Armatrading  Homeland (world premiere)
The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Chorus give the first performance of Joan Armatrading’s Homeland, marking a return to the city of her youth for the acclaimed singer/composer. The new 15-minute commission, with Armatrading setting her own texts, is performed within a festive Bringing the Light concert at Symphony Hall, conducted by Michael Seal and presented by Satnam Rana. Armatrading’s Symphony No.1 was premiered in 2023 by the Chineke! Orchestra at the Southbank Centre in London.
> Concert info

21 December, Amsterdam
Leonard Evers  Atman! (world premiere)
Following the success of his earlier stageworks for young audiences, including Gold! and Humanoid, Leonard Evers has composed a further contribution to the genre commissioned by Dutch National Opera together with Netherlands Reisopera and Opera Zuid. Scored simply for mezzo and accordion, Atman! is a collaboration with acclaimed children’s author Bart Moeyaert, telling of a nine-year-old lost boy who needs help to find his way home. The 2025/26 season also brings new productions of Gold! in Dresden (17 Dec) and Weimar (22 Apr) and Humanoid at the Dresden State Opera (13 Jun).
> Opera info

21 December, Hamburg
Detlev Glanert  Sinfonia (world premiere)
The Hamburg State Orchestra introduces Glanert’s new 12-minute Sinfonia at the Elbphilharmonie conducted by Omer Meir Wellber. The concert is part of the orchestra’s Time Games series, here with Glanert building bridges to Haydn’s Farewell Symphony. The coming season sees new productions of Glanert operas including The Three Riddles at the Deutsche Oper in Berlin (11 Oct) and his award-winning Oceane at the Theater Vorpommern (7 Feb). Concert highlights include his recent Brahms-inspired Vexierbild receiving its European premiere in Erfurt (12 Dec) and his Harp Concerto its UK premiere from the BBC Symphony Orchestra in London (30 Jan).
> Concert info

2026
11 January, Berlin
Matthias Pintscher  Das kalte Herz (world premiere)
The Berlin State Opera presents Pintscher’s third full-evening theatre work, his first commission under his recent publishing contract with Boosey & Hawkes. The composer is on the rostrum for this new adaptation by Daniel Arkadij Gerzenberg of Hauff’s classic German folk tale The Cold Heart. The opera in 12 scenes is set deep in a mysterious forest landscape, summoning for the composer a kinship with texts by Maeterlinck and linking his upbringing in Germany with his period living and working in France. The opera is a co-commission with the Opéra Comique in Paris which presents the French premiere with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France next spring (11 Mar).
> Opera info

24 January, Mainz
Julia Kerr Der Chronoplan (world premiere)
Born in Wiesbaden in 1898, Julia Kerr was establishing a thriving career as a composer, when she had to flee Germany as her husband, the writer and literary critic Alfred Kerr, was an outspoken critic of the Nazis. Her second opera, Der Chronoplan, was commissioned by the Hamburg State Opera but was never performed after the war when the couple built a new life in England. The music for this humorous time opera, with a cast including Albert Einstein, Richard Strauss and George Bernard Shaw, has been completed and arranged by Norbert Biermann for premiere at the Mainz Staatstheater conducted by Gabriel Venzago.
> Opera info

1 February, Hamburg
Olga Neuwirth  Monster’s Paradise (world premiere)
In her third operatic collaboration with writer Elfriede Jelinek, Neuwirth has created a ’grand guignol opera’ taking a satirical look at the monstrosities of our conflict-ridden times. Blending absurd theatre and the myths of cult monster films, the new opera is staged at the Hamburg State Opera by Tobias Kratzer and conducted by Titus Engel. The production also travels to the Zürich Opera House next spring (8 Mar). A few days after the Hamburg premiere, Simon Rattle conducts the first performance of Neuwirth’s new clarinet concerto for Jörg Widmann, Zones of Blue, in the Musica Viva series in Munich (6 Feb), with further performances by Widmann in Barcelona (21 Feb) and Cleveland (7 May).
> Opera info

8 February, Paris
Ondrej Adámek  Violin Concerto No.2 (world premiere)
In response to the international success of his first violin concerto, Follow Me, Adámek has created a new concerto written for violinist Christian Tetzlaff. The premiere at the Présences Festival is conducted by Cristian Macelaru with the Orchestre National de France, with performances planned in future seasons with the London Symphony Orchestra, Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra and Musikollegium Winterthur. Adámek’s season opens with the Berlin Festival presenting his new eight-minute orchestral work Between Five Columns with the Berlin Phiharmonic conducted by François Xavier-Roth (12 Sep).
> Concert info

25 February, London
John Adams  After the Fall (UK premiere)
Following European performances in Zürich, Hamburg, Paris, Vienna and Gothenburg, Adams’s new piano concerto reaches London on 25 February. Vikingur Ólafsson is soloist with Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra at the Southbank Centre. Next spring also sees a revival of Opéra de Paris’s production of Nixon in China, with Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming returning as the Presidential couple (24 Feb). Adams’s most recent stagework Antony and Cleopatra receives its German premiere in Koblenz (9 May) and there are new stagings this season of Doctor Atomic in Freiburg (29 Nov) and of The Death of Klinghoffer directed by Luca Guadagnino opening the Maggio Musicale in Florence (19 Apr).
> Concert info

6 March, Amsterdam
Michel van der Aa  Theory of Flames (world premiere)
For his latest cutting-edge film opera, premiered at Dutch National Opera, Michel van der Aa explores the alienating world of post-truth disinformation and conspiracy theories. The creative work and personal life of a filmmaker increasingly blur as she investigates a fire destroying a research project into black holes. Further performances of Theory of Flames are planned by co-commissioners Norwegian National Opera and the Bregenz Festival. 2026 will bring multiple performances of Van der Aa’s award-winning virtual reality opera installation From Dust, following presentations in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and at the Cannes Festival where it won the 2025 Immersive Award.
> Opera info

18 April, Liège
Manfred Trojahn  Je suis l’idée maîtresse (world premiere)
This new work for mezzo-soprano and orchestra is premiered by Gaelle Arquez with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège conducted by Lionel Bringuier. Setting texts by Paul Valéry, Trojahn’s reflective scena is also presented by the orchestra at the Philharmonie in Cologne (19 Apr). This season brings the first Austrian staging of Trojahn’s award-winning opera Eurydice - Die Liebenden, blind, following its premiere at Dutch National Opera in 2022. The production by Neue Oper Wien, directed by Juana Inés Cano Restrepo, receives four performances in Vienna’s Museumsquartier (16 Oct).
> Concert info

8 May, London
Anna Clyne  Sirens (world premiere)
Scored for solo horn and string orchestra, Clyne’s Sirens, conjuring up the mythical beauties who lured sailors to their deaths, is premiered by Ben Goldscheider and the London Mozart Players at St Martin-in-the-Fields. Future performances are planned with Goldscheider and the Zürich Chamber Orchestra, the Omega Ensemble and the Arctic Philharmonic. The coming season brings multiple performances of Clyne’s saxophone concerto Glasslands in the UK, Sweden and Germany. Her residency with the Göttingen Symphony includes the German premieres of two recent concertos, ATLAS for piano and orchestra (20 Mar) and Quarter Days for string quartet and orchestra (12 Jun).
> Concert info

10 May, Munich
Brett Dean  Of One Blood (world premiere)
Following the success of his operas Bliss and Hamlet, Dean’s third stagework explores the relationship between Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart, sharing family blood but divided by politics and religion. Claus Guth directs the premiere production of Of One Blood at the Bavarian State Opera, conducted by Vladmir Jurowski, with further stagings planned by the Santa Fe Opera, the State Opera South Australia and Garsington Opera in the UK. The coming season also brings first European performances of Dean’s String Quartet No.4: ‘A Little Book of Prayers’, composed for the Belcea Quartet, and multiple performances in a residency with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie in Saarbrücken.
> Opera info

16 May, Dresden
Elena Kats-Chernin  Simsalabim – Das magische Leben des Dr. Schreiber (world premiere)
This first musical by Kats-Chernin, commissioned by the Dresden State Operetta, takes us into the magical world and dark hidden secrets of Helmut Schreiber. He brightened the post-war 1940s with his groundbreaking show, featuring a disappearing luxury car, the sawing in half of his blonde bombshell partner, and a never empty drinks bar. The coming season also brings the Asian premiere of The Story of Valemon, the Polar Bear King in Tokyo (14 Sep), the Austrian premiere of Snow White and the 77 Dwarves at the Theater Graz (29 Nov), a new production of Iphis at the Staatstheater Darmstadt (19 Feb), and a revival of The Wonderful Adventures of Nils Holgersson by the Komische Oper at the Schiller Theatre in Berlin (2 Apr).
> Opera info

12 June, Munich
Jüri Reinvere  Das Lied von den zwei Erden (world premiere)
Scored for soprano, kannel (an Estonian folk zither) and orchestra, Reinvere’s new work is premiered in the Musica Viva series by Aušrine Stundyte and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Matthias Pintscher. The text by the composer extends on the Biblical promises of a new heaven and earth, offering hope to ‘a last generation’ from the perspective of the Baltic lands. Other premieres this season include a new flute concerto for Monika Mattiesen and the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (24 Oct) and a double concerto for violinist Leila Josefowicz and harpist Trina Struble with the Cleveland Orchestra under Franz Welser-Möst (22 May).
> Concert info

18 June, Berlin
Gabriela Ortiz  Revolución diamantina (German premiere)
Gustavo Dudamel conducts the Berlin Philharmonic in the first German performances of Ortiz’s glittering ballet score whose recording recently won three Grammy awards. The work was inspired by the feminist protest against the ongoing violence against women in the composer’s native Mexico. A further Ortiz collection by Dudamel and the Los Angeles Philharmonic on the Platoon label has just been released, including Yanga and her cello concerto Dzonot, that receives its first UK performances this season with Alisa Weilerstein and the Philharmonia Orchestra under Marin Alsop (11 Mar).
> Concert info

25 June, Regensburg
Hans Winterberg  Symphony No.3 (world premiere)
Regensburg has a special connection with the growing discovery of Winterberg as his musical estate is housed at the city’s Sudeten German Music Institute. Deported to Theresienstadt in 1945, Winterberg survived and worked for Bavarian Radio from 1947 onwards. Stefan Veselka conducts the first performances of the composer’s Symphony No.3 with the Regensburg Philharmonic. Boosey & Hawkes’s first editions of Winterberg’s music continue to be published, with a particular focus on his chamber works, mirrored by releases on the EDA Records label.
> Concert info

> Also visit our Season Highlights from Boosey & Hawkes in New York for events in North, South and Latin America.

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