Spring 2025 Highlights from Boosey & Hawkes in London
The coming Spring season brings an extensive collection of new and recent works by Boosey & Hawkes and Sikorski composers, including John Adams, Unsuk Chin, Olga Neuwirth and Mark-Anthony Turnage.
Here are highlights selected by Boosey & Hawkes in London taking place in Europe. For season highlights taking place in North America click here.
2025
9 January, Berlin
Donghoon Shin Threadsuns (Viola Concerto) (world premiere)
Amihai Grosz is viola soloist in Shin’s new concerto Threadsuns, titled after the poetry collection by Paul Celan and dedicated to the memory of Peter Eötvös. The first performances feature the Berlin Philharmonic under Tugan Sokhiev at the Philharmonie, with future dates planned by the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Austria.
> Concert info
12 January, London
Mark-Anthony Turnage Sco (world premiere)
Turnage’s new guitar concerto features long-time jazz collaborator John Scofield and was commissioned by the London Symphony Orchestra to celebrate Simon Rattle’s 70th birthday. Rattle and the LSO travel for the French premiere of Sco at the Philharmonie de Paris (14 Jan) and the conductor is at the helm of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra for two performances of Remembering in Munich (13 Feb) and Vienna (15 Feb).
> Concert info
22 January, Zürich
John Adams After the Fall (European premiere)
Vikingur Ólafsson is soloist in Adams’s new piano concerto, premiered by the San Francisco Symphony in January and travelling to Europe for performances by the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zürich (22 Jan), Hamburg (16 Mar) and Paris (18 Mar) and by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra (3 May). This season sees Adams’s latest opera, Antony and Cleopatra, staged for the first time at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, with Gerald Finley and Julia Bullock in the title roles (12 May).
> Concert info
24 January, Valladolid
Gabriela Ortiz Dzonot (European premiere)
Alisa Weilerstein is cello soloist in the first European performances of Ortiz’s new concerto, following its premiere by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the autumn. Performances in Valladolid, conducted by Thierry Fischer, are part of the composer’s residency with the Orquestra Sinfónica de Castilla y León and future performances are planned by co-commissioners the Philharmonia in London and the Orquesta Sinfónica del Estado de São Paulo.
> Concert info
24 January, Madrid
Brett Dean In spe contra spem (Spanish premiere)
The Spanish premiere of Dean’s recent work for two sopranos and orchestra is given by the Orquesta Nacional de España under Jaime Martín, with soloists Jennifer France and Emma Bell in the opposing roles of Mary Queen of Scots and Elizabeth Tudor. Other Dean highlights in the coming season include Marin Alsop conducting Fire Music in Vienna (23 Jan) and Berlin (20 Feb) and the London Philharmonic Orchestra issuing a collection of live recordings from the composer’s recent residency.
> Concert info
4-9 February, Paris
Olga Neuwirth Festival Presences feature
Radio France’s Parisian new music festival offers a portrait of Neuwirth as featured composer in its 2025 edition. Highlights include two concertos for soloist and orchestra: locus...doublure...solus with pianist Tamara Stefanovich and ...miramondo multiplo... featuring trumpeter David Guerrier, both with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. The festival also unveils Neuwith’s new Tombeau for orchestra and electronics, written as a memorial tribute to Pierre Boulez in his centenary year, with a further performance by the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne (9 Mar).
> Festival info
7 February, Hamburg
Bernd Richard Deutsch Urworte (world premiere)
The NDR Elbphilharmonie and Vocal Ensemble join forces with the MDR Radio Choir to give the world premiere of Deutsch's large-scale Goethe setting. The performance is conducted by Alan Gilbert as part of the Elbphilharmonie's Visions Festival, with the US premiere planned for a future season by the co-commissioning Cleveland Orchestra.
> Concert info
11 February, London
Mark-Anthony Turnage Festen (world premiere)
The Royal Opera stages Turnage’s new opera, based on Thomas Vinterberg’s acclaimed film depicting a family celebration that takes an increasingly dark turn. The world premiere staging by Richard Jones features a cast led by Allan Clayton, Stéphane Degout, Gerald Finley, Natalya Romaniw and Eva-Maria Westbroek, with Edward Gardner conducting Royal Opera forces. Turnage has recently completed a new version of Edith Nesbit's classic The Railway Children to be staged by Glyndebourne (Autumn 2025).
> Opera info
13 February, London
James MacMillan Ordo Virtutum (UK premiere)
The BBC Singers present the first UK performance of MacMillan's setting of Hildegard of Bingen's classic text, premiered in Leipzig in January 2024. Scored for double choir and a solo percussionist, the 50-minute musical drama unfolds as a Soul and protecting Virtues are threatened by Satan. The performance at the Barbican's Milton Court is conducted by Sofi Jeannin and broadcast on BBC Radio 3.
> Concert info
22 February, Stuttgart
Johannes Boris Borowski The Waves (world premiere)
The SWR Vocal Ensemble gives the first performances of Borowski’s new choral cycle for 24 voices drawing upon texts from Virginia Woolf’s 1931 experimental novel which explores the weaving together of multiple consciousnesses. The premiere at the Evangelische Kirche Gaisburg in Stuttgart, conducted by Marcus Creed, is followed by a first Dutch performance at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam (27 Feb).
> Concert info
22 March, Potsdam
Detlev Glanert Con Spirito (world premiere)
Markus Stenz conducts the first performance of Glanert’s new orchestral intermezzo, composed for the Kammerakademie in Potsdam. Next season also brings German and Spanish premieres of the composer’s recent Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra with soloist Christoph Sietzen in Frankfurt (13 Sep) and San Sebastian (13 Mar). Midori performs Glanert’s Violin Concerto No.2 with the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg (11 Apr) and on tour with the Bundesjugendorchester (19-30 Apr).
> Concert info
26 April, Luxembourg
Elena Kats-Chernin Lene fliegt ins Zirkusland (world premiere)
The newest in Kats-Chernin’s series of operas for young audiences is staged by the Luxembourg Philharmonic as part of a family circus weekend. The composer again collaborates with librettist Susanne Felicitas Wolf on this fairy tale circus opera full of suspense, magic, humour and poetry. The past autumn brought stagings of Kats-Chernin’s widely-performed Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver in Trier and her recent music theatre version of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol in Kiel.
> Opera info
30 April, Vienna
Hannah Eisendle new work (world premiere)
Boosey & Hawkes’s most recent composer signing, Hannah Eisendle, conducts the world premiere of her new 15-minute orchestral score with the Concert-Verein in Vienna. Recent works by the Austrian-born composer, conductor and pianist include two scores for the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, heliosis and Azinheira, premiered under the batons of Marin Alsop and Joana Carneiro respectively.
> Concert info
2 May, Schwetzingen
Mike Svoboda Adam und Eva (world premiere)
The world premiere of Svoboda’s new Genesis-themed opera is presented by singers from the Landestheater Linz at the Schwetzingen Festival. Scored for six vocalists, actor, choir and orchestra, the stagework sets a libretto by Anne-May Krüger based on the comic play by Peter Hacks. The Fall of Man is interpreted here as the seizing of the unattainable: only by acting in contradiction to God does man become like him - as the creator of himself - and thus free.
> Opera info
6 May, Hamburg
Manfred Trojahn Trame lunari (world premiere)
Commissioned by the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg and the Mozartfest in Würzburg, as part of a residency, Trojahn’s new double concerto is scored for viola, piano and chamber orchestra. Ensemble Resonanz is conducted by Riccardo Minasi with Nils Mönkemeyer and William Youn as soloists. The composer’s recent Achéron for four percussionists and orchestra is performed in Duisburg (14 May).
> Concert info
11 May, Bremen
Lera Auerbach Adam’s Lament (world premiere)
The Bremen Philharmonic gives the premiere of Auerbach’s new orchestral score Adam’s Lament conducted by Valentin Uryupin. This is a successor to her widely performed Eve’s Lament, inspired by Milton’s depiction of the loss of paradise. Highlights this season also include the world premiere of Labyrinth (14 Feb), in Berlin as part of a ‘creative focus’ at the Konzerthaus, and a new orchestral work conducted by Manfred Honeck at the Vienna Konzerthaus (22 Jun).
> Concert info
15 May – 1 June, Leipzig
Dmitri Shostakovich anniversary feature
The 50th anniversary of Shostakovich’s death is marked by a major series in Leipzig, centred on the Gewandhaus, encompassing opera, orchestral and chamber. Highlights include performances by the Boston Symphony and Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras with Andris Nelsons on the rostrum. Repertoire ranges from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at the Leipzig Opera House, to complete cycles of Shostakovich’s 15 symphonies and string quartets. Novelties include performances of his film and light music, together with rarely heard vocal music, and the University of Music and Theatre hosts an academic symposium on the composer.
> Festival info
18 May, Hamburg
Unsuk Chin The Dark Side of the Moon (world premiere)
Following the international success of Alice in Wonderland, Chin turns in her second opera to the world of psychology combined with a sinister Faustian theme. The premiere of The Dark Side of the Moon at the Hamburg State Opera is staged by theatre collective Dead Centre and conducted by Kent Nagano, with a cast including Thomas Lehman, Bo Skovhus and Siobhan Stagg.
> Opera info
5 June, Liverpool
Grace-Evangeline Mason new work (world premiere)
Mason returns to the texts of American poet Sara Teasdale for her new work for soprano and orchestra, premiered by Sophie Bevan and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Domingo Hindoyan. The autumn saw a further performance of the Teasdale-inspired ABLAZE THE MOON by the BBC Philharmonic in Manchester conducted by John Storgårds following its premiere at the 2023 BBC Proms.
> Concert info
