Performer: The Cleveland Orchestra

Franz Welser-Möst leads a program reflective of the artistic threads that have defined his Cleveland tenure: Prokofiev, contemporary Austrian music and Wagner.

Works by Crumb, Ruggles, Barber and Gershwin offer four distinct ideas of what American music can sound like in Barbara Hannigan’s explorative Cleveland Orchestra program.

Following a polished account of Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony, Shostakovich’s Eleventh erupted with visceral force, as Franz Welser-Möst led The Cleveland Orchestra in a performance of gripping intensity.

Asmik Grigorian leads a strong quartet of soloists and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus shape the performance at Carnegie Hall. 

Mozart and Shostakovich make an uncomfortable fit in a program designed to highlight their differences.

Yuja Wang does double duty in demanding piano concertos by Ravel and Ligeti, while conductor Petr Popelka shows his chemistry with the orchestra in Pictures at an Exhibition.

Longtime music journalist and founder of ArtsJournal talks about the multiple crises facing orchestras and arts organisations in the United States, amid the damage wrought by the second Trump administration.

The Hong Kong-born conductor talks about her entry into music, her love of big Russian repertoire, her “Cinderella moment” winning the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition and her ambition to “go against the grind”. 

The conductor who transformed The Cleveland Orchestra into one of the world's leading ensembles died on 6th September 2025, just two days before his 96th birthday.