The Basque National Orchestra kicks off the 23/24 Season with its participation at the Musical Fortnight presenting Mahler’s ‘Symphony of a Thousand’

Tremendous, titanic, immense, grandiose, gigantic, colossal, monumental, immeasurable, formidable, enormous... These are some of the adjectives that can be attributed to Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No.8, which will bring together more than four hundred performers on the Kursaal stage this 18 August (20:00). Tickets for this concert are sold out.

Although one of the most emblematic and ambitious pieces of one of the leading post-romanticism artists, it is rarely included in auditorium or festival programmes given its enormous magnitude. In fact, this is the second time that this symphony, also known as “Symphony of a Thousand” due to the necessary organic dimension, is being performed at the Musical Fortnight. The symphony is comprised of two parts with no resolved transition. The first part includes a religious hymn sung in Latin and, in the second part, the final scenes of Goethe’s “Faust” are sung in German. For its interpretation, the Fortnight has brought together the Basque National Orchestra and the Navarre Symphony Orchestra for the instrumental portion, and the Orfeón Donostiarra, Orfeón Pamplonés, Easo Eskolania, and Easo Gazte Abesbatza for the choral passages. The line-up of soloist voices includes sopranos Sarah Wegener, Mojca Erdmann, and San Sebastian-native Miren Urbieta-Vega; mezzo-soprano Justina Gringyte, contralto Claudia Huckle, tenor Aj Glueckert, baritone José Antonio López, and bass Mikhail Petrenko.

The week began with rehearsals of this grand production at the Basque National Orchestra’s home in Miramon, with the first meeting between the two orchestras under the command of Robert Trevino and the choirs joining in on these rehearsals soon.

A Season full of major dates for the Basque National Orchestra

As such, the Basque National Orchestra is kicking off a new Season full of musical events of great importance. The Season Concerts will begin on 29 September with Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, another grand one. Before this, between August and September, a series of recordings will be made, the Orchestra will participate in the second edition of the Arantzazu Festival organised by the Columbus Foundation with a double concert, and the traditional Concert & Screening will be held at the San Sebastian Velodrome within the framework of the San Sebastian International Film Festival. All information on the Basque National Orchestra’s upcoming dates can be found here.

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