1. Tugan Sokhiev conducts Mahler’s First

Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall

Date of broadcast: January 12, 2025 at 2:00 AM

Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55639

Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 already demonstrates all the hallmarks of the composer’s style: the emotional outbursts, abruptly opening chasms, folk melodies, sounds of nature, and grotesque alienation. Tugan Sokhiev presents this work alongside Lili Boulanger’s Impressionistic, shimmering D’un matin de printemps and the newly composed viola concerto by Mahler enthusiast Donghoon Shin. The soloist is Amihai Grosz, first principal viola with the Philharmoniker.

2. Kirill Petrenko with Rachmaninov’s “Francesca da Rimini”

Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall

Date of broadcast: January 19, 2025 at 2:00 AM

Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55656

In his one-act opera Francesca da Rimini, Sergei Rachmaninov uses bold colours to create a bleak world of hatred, jealousy and loss. Against this backdrop, the heroine’s brief romance shines all the more brightly. Chief conductor Kirill Petrenko presents the powerful score in a concert performance. The concert begins with Samuel Barber’s melancholy Adagio for Strings and Sofia Gubaidulina’s The wrath of God, a work of almost apocalyptic drama.

3. Kirill Petrenko and Frank Peter Zimmermann

Platform: Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall

Date of broadcast: Saturday, February 1, 2025 at 3:00 AM

Link: https://www.digitalconcerthall.com/en/concert/55641

Edward Elgar is to England what Jean Sibelius is to Finland: both composers gave their country its own musical language. In his Lemminkäinen Suite, Sibelius transports us to the world of Finnish legends and tells of the adventures of a high-spirited hero. Elgar’s Romantic and genteel Violin Concerto reflects the spirit of Victorian England. Violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, acclaimed for his soulful tone, performs the concerto under the direction of Kirill Petrenko.

4. Gustavo Dudamel conducts Abreu and Mahler — With Marianne Crebassa

Platform: Medici.tv

Date of broadcast: Sunday, January 12, 2025 at 3:00 AM

Link: https://edu.medici.tv/en/concerts/gustavo-dudamel-conducts-abreu-mahler-marianne-crebassa-simon-bolivar-symphony-orchestra-philharmonie-paris

The bold and charismatic Gustavo Dudamel returns to his roots, leading the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra — the first orchestra he ever conducted as a teenager — in one of the most formidable and poignant monuments of classical music: Mahler's Third! The longest symphony in the standard repertoire, Mahler's Symphony No. 3 in D minor is a six-movement masterpiece, a paean to life, love, and nature that received a 15-minute standing ovation at its 1902 premiere and has enraptured generations of audiences since. To round out the grand forces in this monumental undertaking, award-winning mezzo-soprano Marianne Crebassa and the women's and children's choirs of the Orchestre de Paris join maestro Dudamel and the world-class Venezuelan orchestra — founded in 1978 by José Antonio Abreu, whose works Sol que das vida a los trigos and Luz Tú open the festivities.

5. Alexander Shelley conducts Strauss, Estacio, Price, and Louie — With Randall Goosby

Platform: Medici.tv

Date of broadcast: Friday, January 17, 2025 at 9:00 AM

Link: https://edu.medici.tv/en/concerts/alexander-shelley-conducts-strauss-estacio-price-louie-randall-goosby-orchestre-centre-national-des-arts-ottawa

“For me, music has always been a way to inspire others,” says violinist Randall Goosby ahead of his performance with the National Arts Centre Orchestra. He makes his NAC debut with Florence Price’s rhapsodic Violin Concerto No. 2—discovered over 50 years after the composer’s death—a masterpiece blending the emotive spirit of European romanticism with jazz, African American spirituals, and Chicago blues. Under the skillful baton of Alexander Shelley, the NAC Orchestra performs two cinematic works by Richard Strauss: tone poem Till Eulenspiegel and orchestral suite from comic opera Der Rosenkavalier. As part of the orchestra’s “Strauss Reinvented” series, these works are paired with commissioned compositions by Canadian composers Alexina Louie and John Estacio, Mon seul désir: Hommage à Strauss and Avé, echoing and responding to Strauss’s masterpieces.