Published: 15 October 2012
Category: Artists

Stanisław Skrowaczewski makes a long-awaited return to the London Philharmonic Orchestra to conduct two concerts at the Royal Festival Hall on October 24 and 26. Skrowaczewski, who last conducted the LPO in 1993, is the world’s oldest working major conductor, whose distinguished career has spanned eight decades. These performances mark 50 years since his London orchestra debut, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in 1962.

Internationally known as a Bruckner expert, Skrowaczewski conducts Bruckner’s Seventh Symphony on October 24. The Berliner Morgenpost wrote of Skrowaczewski’s performance with the Berliner Philharmoniker in May 2011: “Skrowaczewski is what you might call a tried and tested Bruckner expert. He allowed Bruckner’s music to flow, and shaped the harsh complexity of the opening movement of the third symphony most effectively.” Skrowaczewski holds both the Bruckner Society of America’s Kilenyi Medal of Honor and the Mahler-Bruckner Society’s Gold Medal for his interpretations of Bruckner’s symphonies. Hilary Hahn is the soloist in the first half of the concert performing Mozart’s Violin Concerto in A major, 'The Turkish'.

On October 26 Stanisław Skrowaczewski will conduct Shostakovich’s First Symphony. Skrowaczewski has a close affinity to Shostakovich’s music, having met the composer in 1947 and having conducted the Paris premiere of his Fifth Symphony in 1948. This symphony is preceded by a performance of Skrowaczewski’s own arrangement of the Adagio from Bruckner’s String Quintet. He opens the concert with Brahms’s Piano Concerto No.1 with soloist Garrick Ohlsson. This concert will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 3.

Returning to Saarbrücken for his annual visit as Principal Guest Conductor, Skrowaczewski will also be conducting the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie on November 4. Francesco Piemontesi will be his soloist in a perfomance of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No.25, K.503. In anticipation of the Wagner Year of 2013, Skrowaczewski conducts Henk de Vlieger’s symphonic compilation of Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde: An Orchestral Passion. This performance is broadcast at 11:00 (GMT) on SR2 KulturRadio.

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