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The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is delighted to announce the appointment of Tabita Berglund as its Chief Conductor. She begins her official tenure in August 2026 as Chief Conductor Designate, before assuming the post of Chief Conductor in August 2027. Berglund, who succeeds Edward Gardner, becomes the first Norwegian conductor to take charge of the Bergen Philharmonic since Karsten Andersen’s long relationship with the orchestra ended in 1985, and the first Norwegian female chief conductor of a major Norwegian symphony orchestra. She will conduct the orchestra in 10-12 programmes each season, lead them on international tours and add new recordings to the award-winning discography. Her initial tenure is set to run until July 2031.

Apollo’s Fire and its founder-director Jeannette Sorrell to join forces with members of the English Baroque Soloists for a thrilling musical fencing match during weekend residency at St-Martin-in-the-Fields (Friday 24 & Saturday April 2026)

American period-instrument ensemble’s latest UK tour also includes a recreation of music made in the four quarters of Jerusalem’s Old City, the imagined sounds of a 17th-century pub and a visit to a Middle Eastern café of c.1700

Tour ends with a repeat of Fencing Match programme at Snape Maltings Concert Hall (Sunday 26 April), including double concertos by Vivaldi, Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach

VBPR features in International Arts Manager

Sakari Oramo’s guest conducting engagements in 2025-26, comprising dates in Cologne, Dresden, Hamburg and Leipzig, reinforce his fruitful creative association with Germany’s leading orchestras

Finnish conductor marks his 60th-birthday year with Mendelssohn and Elgar with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in debut performances with the Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra

Season includes six concerts as Artistic Partner of the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne and a visit to Paris to perform monumental works by Saariaho and Mahler with the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France

The Norwegian National Opera & Ballet’s recording of Richard Wagner’s Der fliegende Höllander has won the 2025 Opera Award from Gramophone, the world’s leading magazine for classical record reviews. The coveted accolade, chosen from a formidable shortlist of six nominees, was awarded to the Company by an expert panel of Gramophone critics.

The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is proud and honoured to receive the 2025 Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award. The prestigious accolade, presented during the annual Gramophone Awards at the De Vere Connaught Rooms in London on 15 October, was chosen by public vote from a shortlist of six nominees. It represents heartening recognition of the Orchestra’s achievements on record and in the concert hall, both at home in Norway and through its many international tours. The Award also reflects the popular appeal of the Bergen Philharmonic’s discography, which broadened during Edward Gardner’s inspirational term as Chief Conductor (2015-24) to deliver landmark interpretations of large-scale choral and orchestral works and live recordings of operatic masterworks, among them Britten’s Peter Grimes, winner of the 2022 Gramophone Recording of the Year and Opera Recording of the Year Awards.

Critically acclaimed conductor’s Barbican series includes UK premiere of Camille Pépin’s Inlandsis and first performance of Detlev Glanert’s revised Harp Concerto, together with Cecilia Damström’s ICE, violin concertos by Adès and Magnus Lindberg, and Stravinsky’s rarely heard Persephone

Other highlights include eight-concert East Asia tour, Pierre-Henri Dutron’s revised version of Mozart’s Requiem and a celebration of works by composers exiled from Europe to the United States

Concerto Budapest Symphony Orchestra, led by Chief Conductor András Keller, returns for its third UK tour this November, with performances in Dublin, Warwick, Birmingham, London, and Edinburgh. The tour features masterworks by Beethoven, Liszt, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky, including Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 with acclaimed soloist Paul Lewis.