Kirill Petrenko and the Berlin Philharmonic. Photo: Stephan Rabold A visit from the Berliner Philharmoniker, a string of powerhouse recitals, and some high-profile debuts are among the highlights of the Celebrity Series’ 2024-2025 season, announced Monday. Headlining the classical offerings is the return of the Berlin Philharmonic, following its triumphant 2022 visit with music director Kirill Petrenko. He’ll be on the podium again, this time leading Anton Bruckner’s Fifth Symphony at Symphony Hall on November 20. Opening the season is pianist Emanuel Ax, who performs works by Beethoven ..read more

Benjamin Zander conducted the Boston Philharmonic Youth Ochestra and cellist Zlatomir Fung in Schumann’s Cello Concerto Friday night. Photo: Hilary Scott The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and Benjamin Zander delivered a remarkable performance at Symphony Hall on Friday night to cap off their 12th season. The program of Schumann and Mahler, which the orchestra takes on their European tour this coming June, was a superbly performed showcase of the complexities of 19th-century romanticism. Schumann’s Cello Concerto and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony came from opposite ends of the romantic period ..read more

Andris Nelsons conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra and bass John Relyea in Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette Thursday night. Photo: Winslow Townson The combination of Hector Berlioz and William Shakespeare is a match made in heaven. The French composer didn’t just take passing inspiration from the works of the Bard. Rather, in them, he discovered the voice of a kindred spirit that, in turn, found a glorious outlet in his music. For their part, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is often an ideal vehicle for Gallic musicians, especially Berlioz. The ensemble has a long history with French repertoire ..read more

Sven-David Sandström’s Messiah was  performed by the Cantata Singers and the New England Philharmonic Sunday at Jordan Hall. George Frideric Handel’s Messiah isn’t the only oratorio about the life of Christ: in addition to the Bach Passions, there are, among others, Berlioz’s L’enfance du Christ, Liszt’s Christus, and Richard Danielpour’s The Passion of Yeshua. But until 2009, the Baroque icon was the only one to set a libretto on the subject by Charles Jennens. That was the year conductor Helmut Rilling led the premiere of Sven-David Sandström’s Messiah&nb ..read more

Alessandro Deljavan performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 with Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra Friday night at Symphony Hall. Photo: Hilary Scott On Friday night, the Boston Philharmonic under Benjamin Zander delivered the final concert of their 45th season at Symphony Hall. The program of Mozart and Bruckner spanned two hundred years of Austrian musical tradition —a fitting end to a season of intense and ambitious programming. Friday’s program featured two composers who bookend the Austrian classical symphonic tradition. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Franz Joseph Ha ..read more

Jakub Hrůša conducted the Bamberg Symphony Tuesday night at Symphony Hall. Photo: Ian Ehm There’s nothing like making up for lost time. That, on the one hand, is what the Bamberg Symphony did in their first Celebrity Series concert since 1983, delivering one of the meatiest—and most canon-centric—programs of the season Tuesday night at Symphony Hall. Yet, across the 135-plus-minute appearance that opened their four-city U.S. tour, the orchestra and chief conductor Jakub Hrůša seemed intent to prove that musical familiarity needn’t breed complacency or contempt. Rather, with the right approac ..read more

Celebrity Series Bamberger Symphoniker Jakub Hrůša, conductor Lukáš Vondráček, pianist Wagner: Prelude to Act 1 of Lohengrin Brahms: Symphony No. 3 Schumann: Piano Concerto Wagner: Overture to Tannhäuser 8 p.m. Symphony Hall celebrityseries.org April 25 Boston Baroque Martin Pearlman, conductor Sidney Outlaw, baritone Patrick Carfizzi, bass-baritone Susanna Phillips, soprano Mozart: Don Giovanni 7:30 p.m. The Huntington Theatre Boston Symphony Orchestra Andris Nelsons, conductor Thomas Rolfs, trumpeter Gubaidulina: The Wrath of God Glanert: Trumpet Concerto Prokofiev: Symphony No. 4 7:30 p.m ..read more

Hilary Hahn performed Brahms’ Violin Concerto with Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra Thursday night. Photo: Winslow Townson Thursday night’s performance from the Boston Symphony Orchestra and music director Andris Nelsons wasn’t quite a tale of two concerts. But one half of the evening featured Hilary Hahn and the other didn’t. Such was the violinist’s musicianship that her hour onstage largely overshadowed all that came before. Certainly, it didn’t hurt that Hahn was playing Johannes Brahms’s Violin Concerto. A favorite since its 1879 premiere, the score represents one of the ..read more

Yuja Wang was the piano soloist in Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie with Andris Nelsons conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra Thursday night. Photo: Winslow Townson Kids and, sometimes, conductors say the darndest things. In a 1980 talk to the American Symphony Orchestra League, Leonard Bernstein posited that Stravinsky’s Symphony in Three Movements (completed in 1945) was the last “really great symphony” and went on to make the assertion that “for the last thirty years we have no real symphonic history.” In so doing, Bernstein managed to negate not just two of his own contributions ..read more

Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott performed Tuesday night at Symphony Hall. Photo: Robert Torres/Celebrity Series Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott offered a fitting tribute to the myriad beauties of musical friendship to a full house at Symphony Hall. Tuesday evening’s performance was one of the last of the nearly 40-year collaborative relationship between Ma and Stott, as Ma told the audience. Earlier this year, Stott announced her retirement from public performance at the end of 2024 to devote her time to teaching and supporting young musicians. More than anything—more than the compelling progr ..read more