A festive evening featuring some of the most iconic works by their composers. George Enescu’s passionate Romanian Rhapsody, Gershwin’s lively Piano Concerto, and Ravel’s gently dreamlike La Valse represent signature pieces in each composer’s oeuvre. Framing them is Antonín Dvořák’s rarely performed Rhapsody in A minor, subtitled Symphonic Poem. Time is often seen as a fair judge in art—until, of course, a piece is labelled unjustly neglected. In the case of Dvořák’s Rhapsody, neither applies: it is a beautiful and dramatic work that the composer himself set aside for a while. Only later did listeners appreciate how visionary its seamless flow of contrasting sections was, even anticipating the style of later composers such as George Gershwin. While Gershwin sought to be as classical as possible in his Piano Concerto, he could not fully conceal his natural flair for catchy, inventive American melodies. The concert opens with the gentle exoticism of Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody and concludes with Ravel’s La Valse—an ethereal yet warm farewell to the evening and a heartfelt promise of future festival editions.

The Orchestre National de France is both an established authority and a dynamic force in the interpretation of French music. Its international tours have made it a flagship for French culture across the world, while its presence throughout France, reinforced by vibrant educational programmes, has cemented its relationship with a diversity of national audiences.

A Radio France ensemble, the Orchestre National de France was founded in 1934 as the country’s first full-time symphony orchestra. Its mission to serve the symphonic repertoire was furthered by radio broadcasts of its concerts, and it soon achieved an enviable reputation.

After the Second World War, Manuel Rosenthal, André Cluytens and Jean Martinon, among others, enriched this tradition, magnified by successive musical directors (Lorin Maazel, Charles Dutoit, Kurt Masur, Daniele Gatti, Emmanuel Krivine) and regular guests (Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Seiji Ozawa...). On September 1, 2020, Cristian Măcelaru took over as Music Director of the Orchestre National de France.

In the course of the 20th century the Orchestre National de France gave the premieres of a number of major works, including Le Soleil des eaux by Boulez, Déserts by Varèse, Messiaen’s Turangalîla Symphony (French premiere), Xenakis’s Jonchaies and the majority of Dutilleux’s large-scale compositions.

Numerous recordings by the orchestra are commercially available. The Orchestre National, under the baton of Louis Langrée, recorded Ravel's two piano concertos with pianist Alexandre Tharaud, and to mark the centenary of the death of Camille Saint-Saëns, a complete set of symphonies conducted by Cristian Măcelaru for Warner Classics. Finally, a boxed set of George Enescu's symphonies conducted by Cristian Măcelaru has been released in 2024 by Deutsche Grammophon, and a box set of Maurice Ravel's orchestral works by the Orchestre National de France and Cristian Măcelaru is scheduled for autumn 2025 by Naïve Records.

Cristian Măcelaru and the Orchestre National de France recently appeared at the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony which was broadcast to 1.5 billion viewers worldwide.

source: Künstleragentur Dr. Raab & Dr. Böhm

GRAMMY® Award-winning conductor Cristian Măcelaru is the Music Director Designate of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director of the George Enescu Festival and Competition, Music Director of the Orchestre National de France, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Interlochen Center for the Arts’ World Youth Symphony Orchestra, Music Director and Conductor of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and Chief Conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester in Cologne, where he will serve through the 2024/25 season and continue as Artistic Partner for the 2025/26 season.

Măcelaru appeared at the Paris 2024 Olympics Opening Ceremony which was broadcast to 1.5 billion viewers worldwide. He led the Orchestre National de France and Chœur de Radio France in the performance of the Olympic Anthem as the Olympic Flag was raised beneath the Eiffel Tower. Măcelaru and the Orchestre National de France continue their 2024/25 season in tours throughout France, Germany, South Korea and China. Guest appearances include his debuts with the Oslo Philharmonic and RAI National Symphony Orchestra in Turin as well as returns with the Wiener Symphoniker, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich in Europe. In North America, Măcelaru leads the Baltimore Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

Măcelaru’s previous seasons include European engagements with the Philharmonia, London Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Concertgebouworkest, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Staatskapelle Berlin and Budapest Festival Orchestra. In North America, he has led the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra and The Philadelphia Orchestra.

In 2020, he received a GRAMMY® Award for conducting the Decca Classics recording of Wynton Marsalis’ Violin Concerto with Nicola Benedetti and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His most recent release is of Enescu Symphonies and two Romanian Rhapsodies with the Orchestre National de France, released on Deutsche Grammophon.

source: Künstleragentur Dr. Raab & Dr. Böhm

Rudolf Buchbinder is one of the legendary performers of our time. The authority of a career spanning more than 60 years is uniquely combined with esprit and spontaneity in his piano playing. Tradition and innovation, faithfulness and freedom, authenticity and open-mindedness merge in his reading of the great piano literature.

His interpretations of the works of Ludwig van Beethoven in particular are regarded as setting standards. He has performed the 32 piano sonatas in cycles all over the world more than 60 times to date and has continued to develop the history of interpretation of these works over the decades.

With the edition BUCHBINDER:BEETHOVEN, Deutsche Grammophon presents a complete recording of the 32 piano sonatas and the five piano concertos in the run-up to Buchbinder's 75th birthday in December 2021, thus creating a sounding monument to two outstanding Buchbinder-Beethoven cycles of recent times. Buchbinder was the first pianist to play all of Ludwig van Beethoven's piano sonatas within one festival summer at the 2014 Salzburg Festival. The Salzburg cycle was recorded live for DVD (Unitel) and is now also available on nine CDs.
The sensational cycle of Ludwig van Beethoven's five piano concertos came about during the 2019/20 concert season at the Vienna Musikverein. In celebration of its 150th anniversary, the Vienna Musikverein, for the first time in its history, gave a single pianist, Rudolf Buchbinder, the honor of performing all five piano concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven in a specially created series. Buchbinder's partners in this unprecedented constellation were the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Gewandhauskapellmeister Andris Nelsons, the Vienna Philharmonic under Riccardo Muti and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic and the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden under their principal conductors Mariss Jansons, Valery Gergiev and Christian Thielemann. All concerts were recorded live. The Musikverein cycle, released on three CDs in September 2021 on Deutsche Grammophon, is a historic document of these artistic summits and a tribute to Buchbinder as one of the most profound Beethoven interpreters of our time.

On his new album Soirée de Vienne, released by Deutsche Grammophon in November 2022, Rudolf Buchbinder recreates a Viennese evening party and brings together composers who are intimately connected with Vienna - like himself. "The freedom to savor a moment, the luxury of intelligent naivety and the curiosity in an instant - all this is what makes music come alive," says Rudolf Buchbinder. The album is an attitude to life poured into sound.

As a contribution to the celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven's birth, Rudolf Buchbinder initiated a cycle of new Diabelli Variations. Following the genesis of Beethoven's epochal Diabelli Variations op. 120, Buchbinder succeeded in enlisting eleven leading contemporary composers of different generations and origins - Lera Auerbach, Brett Dean, Toshio Hosokawa, Christian Jost, Brad Lubman, Philippe Manoury, Max Richter, Rodion Schtschedrin, Johannes Maria Staud, Tan Dun and Jörg Widmann - to write their personal variations on the same waltz theme as Beethoven once did. The New Diabelli Variations were commissioned by eleven concert promoters worldwide with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and received their world premiere by Rudolf Buchbinder at the Vienna Musikverein before becoming a part of his touring programs in Europe, Asia and the United States. The project reflects Beethoven's work into the 21st century and impressively underlines the universality of his language across all borders.

Under the title "The Diabelli Project", Deutsche Grammophon released the world premiere recording of the New Diabelli Variations in March 2020 alongside a new reading of Beethoven's Diabelli Variations, which Buchbinder last recorded before in 1976. The double album marked the beginning of his exclusive partnership with Deutsche Grammophon. Also in 2020, a live recording of Beethoven's 1st Piano Concerto with Christian Thielemann and the Berlin Philharmonic followed.

Rudolf Buchbinder is an honorary member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien, the Wiener Konzerthausgesellschaft, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the first soloist to be awarded the Golden Badge of Honor by the Staatskapelle Dresden.

Buchbinder attaches great importance to source research. His private collection of sheet music includes 39 different editions of Beethoven's complete piano sonatas as well as an extensive archive of first printings, original editions and copies of the autograph piano parts of both piano concertos by Johannes Brahms.

As Artistic Director, he is responsible for the Grafenegg Festival, which has been one of the most influential orchestral festivals in Europe since 2007.

Rudolf Buchbinder has published an autobiography entitled "Da Capo" as well as the book "My Beethoven - Life with the Master." His latest book, "The Last Waltz," was published to coincide with the premiere of the New Diabelli Variations in March 2020 and tells 33 stories about Beethoven, Diabelli and piano playing.

The Rudolfinum is one of the most important Neo-Renaissance edifices in the Czech Republic. In its conception as a multi-purpose cultural centre it was quite unique in Europe at the time of its construction. Based on a joint design by two outstanding Czech architects, Josef Zítek and Josef Schultz, a magnificent building was erected serving for concerts, as a gallery, and as a museum. The grand opening on 7 February 1885 was attended by Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, in whose honour the structure was named. In 1896 the very first concert of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra took place in the Rudolfinum's main concert hall, under the baton of the composer Antonín Dvořák whose name was later bestowed on the hall.