2026/27 Highlights from Boosey & Hawkes London

(August 2026)

Here are highlights selected by Boosey & Hawkes in London from events taking place in Europe, Asia and Australasia.

2026
9 September, Southampton
Wladyslaw Szpilman  The Pianist (stage premiere)
This new theatre production retells Szpilman’s powerful story of survival through the years of the Second World War and the Holocaust, as captured in his memoir and Roman Polanski‘s award-winning film. The composer’s music has been specially arranged for Thom Southerland’s staging by Simon Lee. The opening run is at Mayflower Studios in Southampton (9-12 Sep), then transfers to Park Theatre, Finsbury Park, London (15 Oct-28 Nov).
Staging info

10 September, Berlin
Brett Dean  Conversations with Schumann (world premiere)
This new work for soprano and orchestra, referencing Schumann’s alter-egos Florestan and Eusebius, launches Dean’s season-long residency with the Berlin Philharmonic. The premiere is sung by Jennifer France and shares the programme with And once I played Ophelia and Beggars and Angels, conducted by the composer. Future performances are planned by co-commissioners the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Britten Sinfonia. The autumn brings further dates for Dean’s new opera Of One Blood at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich (3/8/11 Oct).
Concert info

16 September, Antwerp
Louis Andriessen  De Materie (Belgian premiere)
The new production of Andriessen’s defining stagework De Materie at Flanders Opera is directed by Phia Ménard and conducted by Bas Wiegers. This promises to be a striking successor to acclaimed earlier productions by Robert Wilson in 1989 and Heiner Goebbels in 2014. Also this autumn, Amsterdam celebrates the 50th anniversary of Andriessen’s minimalist classic Hoketus with Het Muziek at the Muziekgebouw (22 Oct). Next spring brings performances of The nine symphonies of Beethoven in Turin (9 Feb) and Barcelona (10 Apr) as tongue-in-cheek tributes to the classical master in his bicentenary year.
Opera info

24 September, Manchester
James MacMillan  Symphony No.6 (world premiere)
MacMillan’s season as Featured Composer with the Hallé orchestra is launched with his latest symphony at Bridgewater Hall, conducted by Kahchun Wong, which is built from a series of hidden character portraits. Other highlights in Manchester include Christmas Oratorio (14 Nov) and Timotheus, Bacchus and Cecilia (23 Apr) conducted by Mark Elder, and Concerto for Orchestra (7 Feb) under the composer’s baton. MacMillan’s Dresden Philharmonic residency continues with Donald Runnicles conducting a tour of Veni, Veni, Emmanuel (3-10 Apr) and the German premiere of Symphony No.6 (28 Apr). This autumn brings the Australian and German premieres of Christmas Oratorio in Melbourne (26 Nov) and Munich (29 Nov).
Concert info

24 September, Leipzig
Detlev Glanert  Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra (world premiere)
Following the success of his Violin Concerto No.2 for Midori, Glanert has created a double concerto for Midori and Renaud Capuçon. The Leipzig Gewandhaus’s premiere with Semyon Bychkov on the podium will be followed by performances with the Bruckner Orchestra in Linz and Vienna under Jonathan Nott (5/6 Mar). Glanert’s new chamber orchestra version of Fanny Hensel (Mendelssohn)’s piano cycle Das Jahr is unveiled in Salzburg (15 Oct) and Dresden (31 Oct), with excerpts performed within a Hagen Philharmonic residency (7 Nov) and by the Scottish Chamber Orchestra (25 Apr). Bychkov conducts the Czech premiere of the Trumpet Concerto in Prague with soloist Walter Hofbauer (27 Jan).
Concert info

26 September, Quiberon
Olga Neuwirth  Tombeau III (world premiere)
The latest in Neuwirth’s ongoing series of Boulez tributes was commissioned by Pascal Gallois and is scored for string orchestra, while performances of Tombeau I and Tombeau II continue internationally across the season. The Austrian premiere of her recent satirical opera Monster’s Paradise, created in tandem with writer Elfriede Jelinek, is staged by Graz Opera (3 Apr). Jörg Widmann is clarinet soloist in the Swedish premiere of Zones of Blue with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic under Ryan Bancroft (26 May). Following a Berlin MusikFest performance, Matthias Pintscher conducts Dreydl in Stockholm (28 Oct) and with orchestras in Kansas City and Cincinnati.
Concert info

3 October
Steve Reich  90th birthday
Events celebrating the great American composer’s 90th birthday peak in the autumn on both sides of the Atlantic. Following its premiere at the Edinburgh International Festival, In All Your Ways travels with the Colin Currie Group to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw (19 Sep), London’s Barbican (28 Oct), Paris’s Philharmonie (15 Nov) and Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie (4 Dec). Reich celebrations in the UK include those at the Southbank Centre (26-27 Sep), the Schwarzman Centre in Oxford (25-30 Sep), the Glasshouse in Gateshead (2-4 Oct) with 18 works across eight concerts, and the Barbican in London (28 Oct – 5 Dec) including a London Symphony Orchestra programme repeated within Paris’s Clapping for Steve Reich series (12-15 Nov).
Concert info (Glasshouse)
Concert info (Barbican)
Concert info (Philharmonie de Paris)

4 October, Berlin
Anna Clyne  Woman of the Mountain (European premiere)
Clyne’s new tone poem describes the ascent of a mountain in Ireland, “evoking a journey by an extraordinary woman in the throes of the natural world on a quest for love”. The European premiere inaugurates Kazuki Yamada’s tenure as Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin. The autumn also brings a new chamber orchestra version of Weathered with Martin Fröst as clarinet soloist alongside the Swedish Chamber Orchestra in Örebro (9 Sep), a new work for the Calidore String Quartet, The Seven Ravens, in Stockholm (10 Oct), and a chamber orchestra version of Steve Reich’s Proverb premiered by the Hallé in Manchester (5 Nov).
Concert info

8 October, Örebro
Mark-Anthony Turnage  Caught Hand (world premiere)
Turnage’s new guitar concerto for Sean Shibe is unveiled by the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Finnegan Downie Dear, with a German premiere planned by the co-commissioning Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra. Following performances in Copenhagen and at the BBC Proms in London, Turnage’s new Festen Suite for orchestra, drawing on music from his award-winning opera, reaches Stockholm in a concert by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Andrés Orozco-Estrada (12 Mar). Further stagings of the complete Festen are planned for future seasons.
Concert info

8 October, Gothenburg
Aziza Sadikova  Farbenzeiten (Swedish premiere)
Kent Nagano is on the rostrum for Sadikova’s reimagining of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons both with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra (8 Oct) and the Bamberg Symphony (26 Feb). Scored for oboe, trumpet, cello, percussion and orchestra, the work sees baroque and contemporary time spaces colliding “as if in mirrors”. Following its premiere at the Carinthian Summer festival, her new double concerto Labyrinthe du temps receives further performances by the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie in Bremen and Dortmund. Soloists are violinist Hilary Hahn and Omer Meir Wellber as accordionist as well as conductor (5-8 Nov).
Concert info

10 October, Bamberg
Jüri Reinvere  Schade! - Schade! - zu spät!! (world premiere)
Beethoven’s last recorded words, ‘Pity, pity – too late!’, were supposedly uttered when a crate of Rhine wine arrived from his publisher, as the composer lay dying. Manfred Honeck has commissioned the new orchestral work from Reinvere for Beethoven’s 2027 bicentenary of death. The premiere by the Bamberg Symphony is followed by further performances under Honeck with the Danish National Symphony (14 Jan), the NDR Elbphilharmonie (21 Jan) and the Pittsburgh Symphony (19 Mar). Recent works by Reinivere include a double concerto for violin and harp, premiered in Cleveland, and The Song of the Two Earths for soprano, Estonian zither and orchestra first heard in Munich.
Concert info

12 October, Barcelona
John Adams  On the Transmigration of Souls (Spanish premiere)
As an upbeat to Adams’s 80th birthday in February, Gustavo Dudamel leads a European tour of the composer’s ‘memory space’ honouring the victims of the 9/11 attacks. The New York Philharmonic is joined by Barcelona’s Orfeó Català at L'Auditori and for performances in Paris (10 Oct), Madrid (13 Oct), Hamburg (19 Oct) and Vienna (22 Oct). Semyon Bychkov has programmed Adams’s Frenzy extensively this season with the Czech Philharmonic (7 Oct), Bamberg Symphony (11 Dec), Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (17 Dec), Bavarian Radio Symphony (14 Jan) and Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome (6 May).
Concert info

30 October, Edinburgh
Lera Auerbach  Violin Concerto No.1 (UK premiere)
Auerbach’s music has been featured prominently by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra over recent seasons, and this autumn brings her first violin concerto with soloist Philippe Quint and Bassem Akiki on the rostrum in Edinburgh, Glasgow (31 Oct) and Dundee (1 Nov). A major Auerbach focus at the Konzerthaus in Dortmund includes her latest string quartet, No.11 (5 Nov), the German premiere of Symphony No.4 ‘Arctica’ (6 Nov) and her visionary work for choir and saxophone quartet, 72 Angels (7 Nov). Auerbach is currently composing a new orchestral concert opener for Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony (1 Apr).
Concert info

5 November, Frankfurt
Bernd Richard Deutsch  Parcours (world premiere)
This new percussion concerto for Christoph Sietzen was commissioned by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra for premiere at the Sendesaal under Michael Wendeberg, with further performances planned by the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria and at the Kaosiung Center for the Arts in Taiwan. A busy season for Deutsch also includes the Dutch premiere of Balera by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at Amsterdam’s Oosterpark (11 Sep), the Cleveland Orchestra touring Intensity to Germany and Austria under Franz Welser-Möst (3-17 Oct), the Italian premiere of Phantasma in Turin (4 Feb), and an Austrian tour of Deutsch’s recent Saxophone Quartet Concerto (8-11 Apr).
Concert info

8 November, Barcelona
Eric Whitacre  Eternity in an Hour (Spanish premiere)
The coming season takes Whitacre to Barcelona as Guest Composer with choirs at the Palau de la Música Catalana. Programmes include the first complete Spanish performances of his two major choral works, Eternity in an Hour (8 Nov) and The Sacred Veil (10 Apr), featuring the Palau’s Cor de Cambra. The latter premiere is part of a Whitacre weekend which culminates in a concert combining the Orfeó Català and its Escola Coral (11 Apr). This autumn sees The Sacred Veil also receiving its Belgian premiere with the Flemish Radio Choir conducted by the composer (2-3 Oct). The first recording of Eternity in an Hour, featuring the Eric Whitacre Singers, is released by Decca Classics in October.
Concert info

23 November, London
Joe Hisaishi  Concerto for Orchestra (European premiere)
Following performances in Washington, Toronto and New York, Hisaishi’s new Concerto for Orchestra travels with the Orchestre de Paris to Singapore (12 Nov), and receives its first European performance with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London (23 Nov). The concert at the Royal Albert Hall launches a World Dream tour conducted by the composer, taking the concerto to Germany and Switzerland (25 Nov – 2 Dec). Next spring brings the first European performances of Hisaishi’s new Piano Concerto for Alice Sara Ott, with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome and the Orchestre de Paris.
Concert info

26 November, Cardiff
HK Gruber  Short Stories from the Vienna Woods (UK premiere)
The orchestral suite from Gruber’s acclaimed opera Tales from the Vienna Woods, based on Horváth’s classic bitter-sweet play, receives its UK premiere from the BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Simon Crawford-Phillips. The suite shares the programme at BBC Hoddinott Hall with Steven Mackey’s Concerto for Curved Space, also receiving its UK premiere. Martin Fröst is soloist in first complete performances of Gruber’s recent clarinet concerto FINTango with the Musikkollegium Wintherthur (24 Feb) and the Swedish Chamber Orchestras in Örebro (11 Mar). Looking ahead, the 50th anniversary of the premiere of Gruber’s Frankenstein!! is celebrated in 2028.
Concert info

28 November, Linz
Gabriela Ortiz  La Reina Roja (European premiere)
Following its premiere at the Festival PAAX in Mexico, Ortiz’s new orchestral work travels to Europe for performances conducted by Alondra de la Parra. The title refers to the Red Queen of Mayan culture, whose tomb was discovered at Palenque in 1994. Performances take place at the Brucknerhaus in Linz (28 Nov), in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw (8 May) and at the Philharmonie de Paris (22 May), with the Spanish premiere presented by the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid (31 May. The coming season also brings the French premiere of her environmentally inspired Si el oxígeno fuera verde in Paris (11 Dec) and the Finnish premiere of Clara, an orchestral reflection on Clara and Robert Schumann’s relationship (21 Apr).
Concert info

4 December
Benjamin Britten  50th anniversary of death
4 December will be 50 years since the death of Benjamin Britten in 1976 and the anniversary is marked in Aldeburgh with a feature at Snape Maltings including performances of St Nicolas and Lachrymae (4-6 Dec). Across the same weekend the Wigmore Hall in London hosts concerts focused on Britten’s songs and chamber music (3-6 Dec). The anniversary has contributed to the extensive list of War Requiem performances across the season, in Coventry Cathedral, La Scala Milan, London, Paris, Dublin, Lisbon, Warsaw, Vienna and staged at Berlin’s Deutsche Oper in Daniel Kramer’s production. December brings the conclusion of our Britten video series, Notes from the Archive, created in collaboration with the Britten Pears Archive.
Video info

10 December, Bergen
Magnus Lindberg  new double piano concerto (world premiere)
This new concerto for the piano duo brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen is unveiled with the Bergen Philharmonic under Jukka-Pekka Saraste. Performances follow with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic in Amsterdam’s NTR ZaterdagMatinee series (20 Feb), by the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne (16 Apr) and by the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Helsinki (12 May). The season also sees Yutaka Sado conduct the Japanese premiere of Lindberg’s Viola Concerto in Hyogo (11 Sep) and an Austrian tour with the Tonkünstler Orchestra (13-17 Feb), both with Lawrence Power as soloist.
Concert info

16 December, Duisburg
Enrico Chapela  new saxophone concerto (world premiere)
Chapela’s concerto for rising saxophonist star Asya Fateyeva is part of a transcultural project with musical artists from five continents, curated by the Duisburg Philharmonic. The 26/27 season also includes the UK premiere of Chapela’s electric violin concerto Antiphaser, exploring the astronomical interaction between Earth and Moon, with soloist Chloë Hanslip joining the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow (29 Oct). The composer recently completed a concerto for cello and chamber orchestra, Alebrije, written for Zuill Bailey and premiered in Cincinnati.
Concert info

17 December, Munich
Donghoon Shin  Piano Concerto (German premiere)
Shin’s Schumann-inspired Piano Concerto is dedicated to fellow South Korean Seong-Jin Cho: he was the virtuoso soloist at its first performance in London last year and returns for its German premiere with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Harding. The New Year sees Shin’s Upon His Ghostly Solitude in Singapore conducted by Hannu Lintu (15 Jan).
The composer’s new waltz-driven orchestral opener, Dance Card, is unveiled by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Elim Chan in October and its first European outing is at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw featuring the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Delyana Lazarova (24 Apr).
Concert info

2027
7 February, London
Ondrej Adámek  Thin Ice: Violin Concerto No.2 (UK premiere)
Last year brought first performances of Adámek’s new violin concerto in Paris, Winterthur and Prague, and the coming season sees Christian Tetzlaff as soloist with the Bergen Philharmonic under Tabita Berglund (3 Sep), the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Alain Altinoglu (7 Feb) and the NDR Elbphilharmonie with Pablo Heras-Casado (14 May). The composer describes the concerto as being “built on the contrast between raw energy and the voice of remorse, conscience, or fate… two forces that cannot be reconciled, wrestling on thin ice”. Adámek is working on a new piano sonata for Filippo Gorini for premiere in Milan (11 May) and a planned cycle of three orchestral works.
Concert info

11 February, Berlin
Brett Dean  Phantoms: Scenes for Orchestra(s) (world premiere)
Dean’s Berlin Philharmonic residency continues with this new work for orchestra and electronics, conducted by Sakari Oramo at the Philharmonie, with sound design by Bob Scott. The work’s title refers to the electronically treated instruments and sounds that envelop the space, creating a phantom orchestra alongside the live orchestra. Berlin events conclude with The Lost Art of Letter Writing with Isabelle Faust as soloist (17 Jun), following performances by Faust in Tenerife (5 Feb) and with the London Symphony Orchestra (11 Feb). Good Sometimes Queen is staged by Ola Ince at The Royal Opera’s Linbury Theatre combining two of Dean’s dramatic song cycles: Madame ma bonne sœur and And once I played Ophelia (23-29 Jan).
Concert info

15 February
John Adams  80th birthday
The 80th birthday of John Adams falls on 15 February with celebratory events around the world. The London Symphony Orchestra presents two all-Adams programmes travelling internationally: Simon Rattle conducts Frenzy in London and Paris, and Adams conducts After the Fall with soloist Víkingur Ólafsson in London, Paris and on a German tour (13-24 Jan). January brings a revival of the Deutsche Oper Berlin’s production of Nixon in China (10 Jan) and the birthday month brings new stagings of Doctor Atomic in Munich directed by Claus Guth (4 Feb) and in Zürich directed by Vanessa Beecroft (7 Feb), plus a revival of Christian Spuck’s recent Fearful Symmetries choreography at the Staatsballett Berlin (12 Feb).
Concert info

13 March, Oldenburg
Manfred Trojahn  Eurydice – Die Liebenden, blind (German premiere)
Trojahn’s award-winning opera, reinterpreting the mythical meeting, blind love and parting of Orpheus and Eurydice, receives its first German production in Oldenburg directed by Roland Schwab. This follows stagings at Dutch National Opera by the late Pierre Audi and at Neue Oper Wien by Juana Inés Cano Restrepo. Last season brought performances in Liège and Cologne of Trojahn’s new ‘scène réflexive’ for soprano and orchestra, Je suis l’idée maîtresse, setting text by Paul Valéry. The composer is currently working on his sixth symphony, due for premiere in the 2027/28 season.
Opera info

17 March, Birmingham
Anna Clyne  Resonant Forms (world premiere)
Across the 2026/27 season Anna Clyne is Composer in Residence with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, with her role embracing concerts, education and community events. At the heart of the residency is the world premiere of her new viola concerto, Resonant Forms, featuring soloist Lawrence Power and the orchestra’s Music Director Kazuki Yamada on the podium. Other highlights in Birmingham include Clyne’s saxophone concerto Glasslands with Jess Gillam (10 Feb) and her recent concerto for electronically augmented orchestra PALETTE (25 Jul), closing the CBSO’s season. Next spring also brings the French premiere of Weathered with the Orchestre de Paris and soloist Martin Fröst (19 May).
Concert info

18 March, Bamberg
Osmo Tapio Räihälä  Groove Concerto (world premiere)
Next March sees Finnish composer Osmo Tapio Räihälä travelling to Germany for the unveiling of his new concerto for violist Wen Xiao Zheng in a Bamberg Symphony concert conducted by John Storgårds. Future performances of Groove Concerto, which combines the solo viola with live electronics, are planned by the co-commissioning Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Last year brought the premiere of Räihälä’s monodrama for male voice and chamber ensemble, Farmer George, providing a programming partner for Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King at the Bregenz Festival, jointly depicting the mental struggles of George III.
Concert info

23 April, Belfast
Grace-Evangeline Mason  An Everywhere of Silver (European premiere)
Following its premiere by the Baltimore Symphony in March, Mason’s most recent orchestral work receives its first European performance with the Ulster Orchestra under Anna Handler.
The title An Everywhere of Silver refers to an Emily Dickinson poem describing the shifting relationship between the sea and the sand, nature and ourselves. Spring also brings the Spanish premiere of the composer’s most widely programmed work, The Imagined Forest, by the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castilla y Leon (19 Mar). Mason has recently been announced as the Associate Composer of the Three Choirs Festival in the UK from 2027 to 2029.
Concert info

23 April, Madrid
Hannah Eisendle  A María Zambrano (world premiere)
This new work for soprano and orchestra sets poetry by Rosa Chacel dedicated to the philosopher María Zambrano – they were both members of the Generación del 27 literary movement, alongside Lorca. The work was commissioned by the Orquesta Nacional de España which gives the premiere at Madrid’s Auditorio under the composer’s baton. Eisendle’s recent orchestral music continues to travel widely with Heliosis, her concert opener depicting overheated summers, programmed in Göttingen (8 Nov) and Braunschweig (17 Jan), while Azinheira is performed by the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin under Mark Elder (11 Jan).
Concert info

25 April, Munich
Elena Kats-Chernin  Zirkuszauber im Orchester (world premiere)
The latest in Kats-Chernin’s sequence of works for young audiences is a new family musical, Circus Magic in the Orchestra. Stephan Witzlinger’s production for the Munich Philharmonic at the Isarphilharmonie sees the composer working again with librettist Susanne Felicitas Wolf. Kats-Chernin’s season opens with a further Wolf collaboration – a commission for the Beethovenfest Bonn entitled Susanna Sultana. Scored for soprano and ensemble, this dramatic song cycle examines the historic persecution of Jewish people in the Balkans (19 Sep). Spring brings further performances of Kats-Chernin’s magical musical Simsalabim, a hit last season at Dresden’s State Operetta (Mar-May).
Opera info

7 May, Amsterdam
Magnus Lindberg  new orchestral work (world premiere)
Klaus Mäkelä is on the podium for Lindberg’s major new orchestral work, with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and, a week later, with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (13 May). Future dates are planned by co-commissioners including Casa da Música Porto and the Singapore Symphony. Lisa Batiashvili gave the world premiere of Lindberg’s Violin Concerto No.1 in 2006 and a run of recent performances continues in the spring with Stockholm (1 Apr), Salzburg (18 Apr), New York (5 May) and Chicago (13 May). The Beethoven year in 2027 features multiple performances of Lindberg’s Absences, written in response to the classical master’s Conversation Books inscribed as he grappled with deafness.
Concert info

13 May, Copenhagen
Unsuk Chin  Trumpet Concerto (European premiere)
Håkan Hardenberger is soloist in Chin’s new concerto, commissioned as part of the New York Philharmonic’s Kravis Prize and premiered at Lincoln Center on 8 January. The first European performance is with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Eva Ollikainen (13 May), followed by its French premiere in Paris by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Ingo Metzmacher (25 Jun), with further commissioner performances in future seasons. Chin’s Berlin Konzerthaus residency includes the German premiere of her cosmological cantata Le Chant des Enfants des Étoiles (24 Apr). Alice in Wonderland is staged in France for the first time at Opéra Nice Côte d'Azur in a new French translation by Antoine Gindt (9 Mar).
Concert info

23 May, Cologne
Matthias Pintscher  Nacht ohne Morgen (world premiere)
This 25-minute suite for baritone and orchestra takes us into the dark psychological forest of Pintscher’s recent opera Das kalte Herz, staged last season at the Berlin Staatsoper and the Opéra Comique in Paris. The premiere of Nacht ohne Morgen at the Cologne Philharmonie features the Gürzenich Orchestra conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada. Pintscher has contributed a new mini-tribute, entitled à tout moment, to the Ensemble Intercontemporain’s 50th birthday celebrations, following his ten-year stint as their Music Director (13 Jan). He continues to be much in demand internationally as a conductor, with current US positions with the Kansas City Symphony and Cincinnati Symphony.
Concert info

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