Recommendations

Asbjørn Ibsen Bruun

Co-principal horn

Our new co-principal horn shares their recommendations for the upcoming season.

A warm welcome to the Oslo Philharmonic’s 25/26 season. It is a great pleasure to recommend four concerts from next season that I’m especially excited about. It has been very difficult for me to choose just four, as next year’s season is filled with exciting, challenging, magnificent, and thought-provoking programs—I could easily have recommended many more! The season will also be a marathon with numerous demanding concerts, presenting significant personal challenges. I’m therefore looking forward to a season that will develop me both as a musician and as a person.

01

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla is a highly sought-after and exciting conductor whom I’m really looking forward to working with. We will perform, among other pieces, Mieczysław Weinberg’s Symphony No. 21, composed in memory of the Holocaust victims of the Warsaw Ghetto, and I can promise it will be a profoundly powerful experience. The program also includes Rachmaninoff’s beloved Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

  • Mieczysław Weinberg  The Golden Key: Suite No. 4
  • Sergej Rachmaninoff  Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini
  • Mieczysław Weinberg  Symphony No. 21
  • Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla -  Conductor
  • Marie-Ange Nguci -  Piano

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
Marie-Ange Nguci Mieczysław Weinberg
Sergei Rachmaninoff

Gold Series
Oslo Concert Hall
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02

As a horn player, I naturally recommend this concert with Jukka-Pekka Saraste conducting Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. Especially beautiful in this symphony is the Adagietto, Mahler’s own declaration of love to his wife, Alma Mahler. The horn takes center stage in the third movement, featuring prominent solo passages—a fantastic challenge! The symphony concludes with a comic rondo that tumbles along at breakneck speed. It’s as if Mahler is reminding us that, after all, it was just a fairy tale.

  • Béla Bartók  Viola Concerto
  • Gustav Mahler  Symphony No. 5
  • Jukka-Pekka Saraste -  Conductor
  • Tabea Zimmermann -  Bratsj
03

Our Honorary Conductor, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, usually comes to Oslo once a year. He often brings along a major symphony that he and the orchestra can truly immerse themselves in, and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 8 is no exception. This is a true cathedral constructed in sound, with magnificent architecture. Performing Bruckner is always an almost religious experience, and I consider the Eighth to be his greatest work. I’m also looking forward to dusting off the Wagner tuba (the horn’s spirited stepsister) and playing some beautiful chorales.

  • Ludvig Irgens-Jensen  Japanischer Frühling
  • Anton Bruckner  Symphony No. 8
  • Jukka-Pekka Saraste -  Conductor
  • Mari Eriksmoen -  Soprano
04

My final recommendation is the sing-along concert featuring Mozart’s Requiem, conducted by our newly appointed Director of Choral Activities, Simon Halsey. Simon is one of the world’s leading choral conductors, and my dear colleagues in Birmingham have expressed their sadness at losing him. The concert will be a sing-along, allowing audience participation from their seats. There are no horns in Mozart’s Requiem, so I’m looking forward to joining in the singing from the audience!

  • Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart  Requiem
  • Simon Halsey -  Conductor
  • Oslo Philharmonic Choir - 
  • Lina Johnson -  Soprano
  • Melis Jaatinen -  Mezzo-soprano
  • Eirik Grøtvedt -  Tenor
  • Johannes Weisser -  Bass

Simon Halsey
Oslo Philharmonic Choir Mozart’s Requiem
– with the Entire Main Floor as the Choir!

Oslo Concert Hall
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