Dallas Symphony Orchestra Announces Two-Week European Tour Scheduled for Summer 2024
Led by Music Director Fabio Luisi, the orchestra will perform in ten cities in Spain, Germany, Austria and Belgium
June 3 – 16, 2024
This will be the DSO’s first international tour since spring 2013
The DSO’s European tour is supported by the Linda and Mitch Hart Touring Fund
Soloists Anne-Sophie Mutter, Thomas Hampson and James Ehnes will join the DSO
DALLAS, TX (November 1, 2023) – The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Music Director Fabio Luisi (Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Directorship) will embark on a two-week tour across Europe this summer, marking the first international tour of Luisi’s music directorship and the DSO’s first visit to Europe in over a decade. The ten-city tour will include stops in Spain, Germany, Austria and Belgium beginning June 3 through June 16. Luisi will lead the DSO in programs featuring Tchaikovsky’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony and What Keeps Me Awake by former DSO composer-in-residence Angélica Negrón. Also of note, the orchestra will present the European premiere of composer-in-residence Sophia Jani’s new work, Flare, in her hometown of Munich, Germany. World-renowned soloists Anne-Sophie Mutter (violin), Thomas Hampson (baritone) and James Ehnes (violin) will be featured throughout the tour.
“We are thrilled to bring the orchestra to Europe this summer and are eager to share the musical partnership of Luisi and the DSO with international audiences,” said the DSO’s Ross Perot President & CEO Kim Noltemy. “Touring abroad puts the DSO in a unique position to not only reach new audiences, but also to elevate the city of Dallas’ position as a musical and cultural hub. We’re honored and proud to represent our wonderful city in this way.”
“It’s an honor to bring the music we enjoy week after week in Dallas to Europe once again,” added Linda Hart. “Mitch and I are proud of the Dallas Symphony, and we are pleased to do our part to help enhance the orchestra’s reputation around the world.”
“I am incredibly proud of the sound that we have developed here in Dallas over the past three years working together,” said Luisi. “We have put together an exhilarating program for our European tour that will showcase the orchestra’s artistic range, from the epic intensity of Mahler to the delicate dreaminess of Angélica Negrón’s What Keeps Me Awake, to exploratory sounds from rising star Sophia Jani. It will be a joy to share performances in these esteemed venues in Europe.”
DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA SUMMER 2024 EUROPEAN TOUR SCHEDULE
Dallas Symphony Orchestra | Fabio Luisi, conductor
Monday, June 3, 2024, at 7:30 p.m.
Auditorio del Palacio de Congresos | Zaragoza, Spain
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN What Keeps Me Awake
WEILL Four Walt Whitman Songs (with Thomas Hampson, baritone)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E minor
Tuesday, June 4, 2024, at 7:30 p.m.
Auditorio Nacional de Musica | Madrid, Spain
MENDELSSOHN Violin Concerto in E minor (with James Ehnes, violin)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique”
Wednesday, June 5, 2024, at 7:30 p.m.
Auditorio Nacional de Musica | Madrid, Spain
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN What Keeps Me Awake
WEILL Four Walt Whitman Songs (with Thomas Hampson, baritone)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E minor
Friday, June 7, 2024, at 8:00 p.m.
Alte Oper Frankfurt | Frankfurt, Germany
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN What Keeps Me Awake
WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E minor
Saturday, June 8, 2024, at 8:00 p.m.
Konzerthaus Freiburg | Freiburg, Germany
WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
MAHLER Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor
Sunday, June 9, 2024, at 8:00 p.m.
Isarphilharmonie | Munich, Germany
SOPHIA JANI Flare
WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E minor
Tuesday, June 11, 2024, at 8:00 p.m.
Elbphilharmonie | Hamburg, Germany
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN What Keeps Me Awake
WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E minor
Wednesday, June 12, 2024, at 7:30 p.m.
Konzerthaus Wien | Vienna, Austria
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN What Keeps Me Awake
WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique”
Friday, June 14, 2024, at 6:00 p.m.
Kolner Philharmonie | Cologne, Germany
ANGÉLICA NEGRÓN What Keeps Me Awake
WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5 in E Minor
Saturday, June 15, 2024, at 8:00 p.m.
Philharmonie Essen Alfried-Krupp-Saal | Essen, Germany
WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
MAHLER Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor
Sunday, June 16, 2024, at 7:00 p.m.
Bozar Music | Brussels, Belgium
WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (with Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin)
MAHLER Symphony No. 5 in C-sharp minor
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ABOUT THE DALLAS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
The Dallas Symphony Orchestra, under the leadership of Music Director Fabio Luisi, presents more than 150 orchestra concerts each year at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center, one of the world’s top-rated concert halls. As the largest performing arts organization in the Southwest, the DSO is committed to inspiring the broadest possible audience with distinctive classical programs, inventive pops concerts and innovative multi-media presentations. As part of its commitment to the community, the orchestra reaches more than 243,000 adults and children annually through performances, educational programs and community outreach initiatives. The orchestra offers more than 200 outdoor chamber concerts in neighborhoods throughout Dallas each year, as well as music lessons to more than 900 students as part of its Young Strings and Young Musicians programs.
The Dallas Symphony has used digital and broadcast media to share music beyond its geographic boundaries and has become a leader among American orchestras in digital distribution. In 2021, the DSO presented a three-concert broadcast series with Bloomberg Media, reaching over 5 million viewers globally. In October 2021, PBS stations across the country began airing One Symphony, Two Orchestras, a program that documented the historic May 2021 performance of Mahler’s First Symphony, a Luisi-led collaboration between the DSO and musicians from The Metropolitan Opera Orchestra. That program was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award in May 2022. The DSO also captures and streams concert performances for distribution online through its Next Stage Digital Concert Series. Programs are available on the DSO’s website at watch.dallassymphony.org.
The DSO has a tradition dating back to 1900 and is a cornerstone of the unique, 118-acre Arts District in Downtown Dallas that is home to multiple performing arts venues, museums and parks – the largest district of its kind in the nation. The DSO is supported, in part, by funds from the Office of Arts & Culture, City of Dallas. For more information, visit dallassymphony.org.
ABOUT FABIO LUISI
GRAMMY® Award winner Fabio Luisi launched his tenure as Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) at the start of the 2020/21 season. In January 2021, the DSO and Luisi announced an extension of the Music Director’s contract through the 2028/29 season. A maestro of major international standing, the Italian conductor is in his seventh season as Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and in September 2022, he assumed the role of Principal Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. He previously served for six seasons as Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and nine seasons as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera.
Luisi’s 2023/24 season with the Dallas Symphony will feature monumental works including Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, Brahms’s A German Requiem and Liszt’s A Faust Symphony. He will also lead three world premieres: Jessie Montgomery’s Snapshots, Xi Wang’s Year 2020 (featuring Tine Thing Helseth, trumpet, and Karen Gomyo, violin) and Anna Clyne’s Piano Concerto (featuring Jeremy Denk). Luisi’s season will conclude with the first two operas in Wagner’s epic Ring cycle, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre. The DSO and Luisi will continue the complete cycle in the 2024/25 season, marking the first time an American orchestra has mounted the full Ring in recent history.
In October 2023, Luisi and the DSO will release the second of their recording projects, Brahms’s Symphony No. 3. Available through the DSO’s in-house label, DSO Live, this album joins the Fall 2022 release of Brahms’s First and Second Symphonies. During the 2023/24 season, the DSO and Luisi will record two projects for future album release – Franz Schmidt’s epic The Book with Seven Seals and Saint-Saens’s Symphony No. 3, “Organ” which features the mighty Lay Family Concert Organ. Fabio Luisi’s recording of Nielsen’s Fourth and Fifth Symphonies with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra was awarded both Recording of the Year and Best Orchestral Recording at the 2023 Gramophone Awards.
Other highlights of the 2023/24 season include his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic, concerts with the Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, his return to the podium of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra followed by a tour in Japan and Korea and several concerts with the NHK Symphony Orchestra (Tokyo). With the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, he will embark on a new recording series of the complete music of Aleksandr Scriabin for the renowned Deutsche Grammophon label in addition to the season concerts in Copenhagen.
The conductor received his first GRAMMY® Award in March 2013 for his leadership of the last two operas of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, when Deutsche Grammophon’s DVD release of the full cycle, recorded live at the Met, was named Best Opera Recording of 2012. In February 2015, the Philharmonia Zurich launched its Philharmonia Records label with three Luisi recordings: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, a double album surveying Wagner’s Preludes and Interludes, and a DVD of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Subsequent releases have included a survey of Rachmaninov’s Four Piano Concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with soloist Lise de la Salle, and a rare recording of the original version of Bruckner’s monumental Symphony No. 8. Luisi’s extensive discography also includes rare Verdi operas (Jérusalem, Alzira and Aroldo), Salieri’s La locandiera, Bellini’s I puritani and I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko and Elīna Garanča for Deutsche Grammophon, and the symphonic repertoire of Honegger, Respighi and Liszt. He has recorded all the symphonies and the oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln by neglected Austrian composer Franz Schmidt, several works by Richard Strauss for Sony Classical, and an award – winning account of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony with the Staatskapelle Dresden.
Born in Genoa in 1959, Luisi began piano studies at the age of four and received his diploma from the Conservatorio Niccolò Paganini in 1978. He later studied conducting with Milan Horvat at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Graz. Named both Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana and Commendatore della Stella d’Italia for his role in promoting Italian culture abroad, in 2014 he was awarded the Grifo d’Oro, the highest honor given by the city of Genoa, for his contributions to the city’s cultural legacy. Off the podium, Luisi is an accomplished composer whose Saint Bonaventure Mass received its world premiere at St. Bonaventure University, followed by its New York City premiere in the MetLiveArts series, with the Buffalo Philharmonic and Chorus. As reported by the New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning and elsewhere, he is also a passionate maker of perfumes, which he produces in a one-person operation, FLPARFUMS.COM.
MEDIA CONTACTS:
Chelsey Norris, Director of Communications
c.norris@dalsym.com | 214.871.4063
Denise McGovern | Vice President of Communications and Media
d.mcgovern@dalsym.com | 214.718.7094