Concertgebouw Orchestra and Sir Antonio Pappano perform Symphony Fantastique
On January 10, 2025, Sir Antonio Pappano conducts the Concertgebouw Orchestra as they perform Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique in the Essentials series. Get your tickets now!
Get ready for Symphonie Fantastique in the Essentials series
The Essentials series introduces you to the masterpieces you will be happy to know, performed by the world-famous Concertgebouw Orchestra and complete with a lively introduction by the incomparable Thomas Vanderveken. At Essentials, Concertgebouw Orchestra welcomes a new generation of music lovers, and the concerts typically have a pleasant informal atmosphere.
Hector Berlioz’s passions ran high. Indeed, he turned his obsessive infatuation into a musical vision, the artist descending into a series of increasingly hallucinatory dreams, culminating in a maniacal nightmare. Sound strange? The work would become a huge success, and has remained so for 200 years.
The Symphonie Fantastique is not only groundbreaking, but also irresistible. Sir Antonio Pappano is the perfect conductor for such theatrical music.
Essentials concerts start at 9pm with an imaginative introduction to the programme (in Dutch). For further information please visit the website at: Essentials: Symphonie Fantastique with the Concertgebouw Orchestra.
Conductor – Antonio Pappano
Sir Antonio Pappano has been Music Director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden since 2002, and chief conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra since 2024. He is music director emeritus of the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, having served as music director from 2005 to 2023.
As a guest conductor, he is in high demand with the world’s finest orchestras. Both as a conductor and a pianist, Pappano has released a steady stream of CD and DVD recordings and has hosted programmes for the BBC, his introductions to Italian opera and Wagner’s Ring cycle deserving special mention.
Antonio Pappano was born to Italian parents in London in 1959. At the age of thirteen, he moved to the United States with his family, where he studied piano, composition and conducting. Through his work as a repetitor and assistant conductor at several opera houses, Pappano quickly developed into a gifted opera conductor.
He has led productions at the New York City Opera, the Lyric Opera of Chicago and Bayreuth. His first permanent appointment as an opera conductor was with the Oslo Opera, followed by La Monnaie in Brussels.
Pappano first conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra in 2004 and has returned regularly since. Among the memorable performances with the orchestra were the 2013 Prinsengracht Canal Concert, performed live on national television, and Berlioz’ Grand messe des morts in 2019.
Concert programme
Performers
- Antonio Pappano - conductor
- The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra was founded in 1888. Its distinctive sound has made it one of the world’s leading orchestras.
The orchestra is famous for its renditions of works by Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Anton Bruckner, and for its long-standing concert traditions such as the St Matthew Passion in the week before Easter and the Christmas Matinee. It has always worked closely with contemporary composers.
The Concertgebouw Orchestra has had just seven chief conductors to date. The eighth was announced in 2022: Klaus Mäkelä joined as artistic partner in the 2022-23 season and will become chief conductor in 2027. The coming season sees five extraordinary programmes with Klaus Mäkelä at the helm.
Buy your tickets now!
A free glass of wine and use of the staffed cloakroom are included in the price of admission. Get your tickets on the Concertgebouw Orchestra website.