Under the direction of Dimitri Liss, the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra (UPO) conquers the festival season in June. The "Miracle of Ekaterinburg" (Bonner Generalanzeiger) is a guest at the Kissinger Sommer and the Rheingau Music Festival, along with renowned soloists. The programme includes Tchaikovsky, Rossini and Paganini, an important composer from the orchestra's home country, as well as great Italian masters. At the Kissinger Summer, the UPO will perform Paganini's Fifth Violin Concerto together with Sergei Krylov, while Behzod Abduraimov will be the soloist of the evening at the Rheingau Music Festival with Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto....

Michael Pelzel’s latest work is named 'Last Call'. In a dramatic future dystopia, the composer creates a picture of the earth that has been overrun by modern communication media and evacuated by people. Only one man and one woman are left behind and conquer their planet as an abandoned space of silence. The conductor Jonathan Stockhammer, a proven expert in New Music, has been entrusted the musical direction. The work will be premiered on the studio stage of the Zurich Opera in June....

The Iceland Symphony Orchestra has appointed Eva Ollikainen Chief Conductor and Artistic Director, with an initial four-year contract beginning with the 2020/21 season. The ISO is the national orchestra of Iceland and resident at Harpa Concert Hall, a landmark building in Reykjavík’s waterfront area. She will be working alongside Managing Director Lára Sóley Jóhannsdóttir:...

Over five evenings from 22 to 26 June, Antje Weithaas will be performing at the Chamber Music Festival Spannungen in a wide variety of formations and with a diverse repertoire. Cellist Maximilian Hornung will also be part of the festival, which takes place under the artistic direction of Lars Vogt at a special location: At its inauguration in 1905, the Heimbach Power Station in the north of the Eifel was the largest storage hydroelectric power station in Europe....

On 22 June, Vito Žuraj's new work Hors d'oeuvre for Cook-Performer and Chamber Orchestra will be premiered as part of the WDR 3 concert series Musik der Zeit. Under the direction of Peter Rundel, the WDR Symphony Orchestra will perform the piece, developed together with the dramaturge Patrick Hahn and star chef Daniel Gottschlich....

With Bach's Goldberg Variations in her luggage, Mariam Batsashvili will travel to China from 22 to 29 June. On 22 June she will perform the cycle in Nanjing and the following day in Xiamen. In Wuhan she can be heard as the soloist with orchestral accompaniment on 29 June: Together with the Wuhan Philharmonic, she will perform Clara Schumann's Piano Concerto op. 7, with which she will also make her debut at the BBC Proms in August, as well as Franz Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1....

Jeremias Schwarzer's new CD Le Ballet Imaginaire was released by the label Genuin at the beginning of May. The album is dedicated to "European elegance around 1730". Together with harpsichordist Ralf Waldner, the recorder player selected works by Johann Sebastian Bach, Georg Friedrich Händel, Georg Philipp Telemann and Nicolas Chédeville for this album....