Welcome to the 2008-09 season of Opus One concerts, which mixes familiar masterpieces with some lesser-known works. In September Janine Jansen, one of my favourite soloists, joins us for Barber's lyrical Violin Concerto, composed in the aftermath of the extraordinary success of his Adagio for Strings. It concludes with a spitfire finale that usually brings the house down. The concert opens with the Tallis Fantasia - Vaughan Williams leapt back across the centuries with his use of this famous Tudor melody by Thomas Tallis from the 1567 Psalter - and concludes with Elgar's Enigma Variations.

Hans Graf returns to the Hallé with great, turbulent works by Brahms and Tchaikovsky, separated by one of Mozart's most inventive piano concertos. In November Heinrich Schiff combines his skills as both cellist and conductor when he plays and directs Saint-Saëns's First Cello Concerto, and conducts Beethoven's magnificent 'Eroica' Symphony.

Polina Leschenko plays Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto in the December Opus concert which includes music inspired by the Shakespearean tragedy Romeo and Juliet by both Tchaikovsky and Prokofiev. Louis Langrée returns in January with a dazzling programme of French music featuring Renaud Capuçon as the violin soloist in Ravel's Tzigane and music by Saint-Saëns.

In March I am delighted to welcome back Edward Gardner, the Hallé's former Assistant Conductor and now Music Director of English National Opera, for Sibelius's Fifth Symphony and Richard Strauss's beautiful Four Last Songs. In the previous month one of Edward's successors, Rory Macdonald, conducts Dvorák's Ninth Symphony, 'From the New World' as well as Tchaikovsky's elegant Rococo Variations, featuring Alisa Weilerstein on her first visit to the Hallé.

Cristian Mandeal returns in April with an all-Rachmaninov programme in which Nikolai Demidenko brings his supreme gifts to the challenging Third Piano Concerto. The series ends in May when I conduct a concert that includes Beethoven's Second Piano Concerto (with the outstanding Howard Shelley) and Brahms's Second Symphony. It opens with Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream Overture, part of the Hallé's celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of this hugely creative composer.

I look forward to seeing you at our Opus One concerts this season.


Use the links on the left hand side to find out all about the Hallé Opus One Concerts.