Concert information
Info
In 1892, Antonín Dvořák was appointed director of the New York Conservatory of Music – with the task of developing an American national style. His Symphony “From the New World” captures the vastness of the landscape and evokes the songs of both indigenous and African American populations. However, the true father of American music is considered to be Charles Ives, whose enigmatic work The Unanswered Question was far ahead of its time. Dmitri Shostakovich’s expressive Violin Concerto No. 1, with its echoes of Jewish music, opens the programme, with our First Concertmaster, Daishin Kashimoto, as soloist. On the podium: Lahav Shani.
Artists
Berliner Philharmoniker
Lahav Shani conductor
Daishin Kashimoto violin
Programme
Charles Ives
The Unanswered Question (revised version from 1935)
Dmitri Shostakovich
Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No. 1 in A minor op. 77
Daishin Kashimoto violin
Interval
Antonín Dvořák
Symphony No. 9 in E minor, op. 95 ‟From the New Worldˮ
Additional information
Duration ca. 2 hours (incl. 20 minutes interval)
Main Auditorium
27 to 86 €
Introduction
19:15
Series H: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Main Auditorium
27 to 86 €
Introduction
19:15
Series I: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Main Auditorium
27 to 86 €
Introduction
18:15
Series K: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Yearningly successful
Antonín Dvořák in America
Antonín Dvořák composed the Symphony “From the New World”, the “American” Suite, the “American” Quartet and many other works during his two-and-a-half-year stay in America. It was an ambivalent time for the composer: characterized by triumphs, enthusiasm about new impressions, but also yearning for his Bohemian homeland.
Biography
Lahav Shani
Shortly after his double debut as conductor and pianist in Rotterdam, Lahav Shani was appointed chief conductor of the city’s Philharmonic Orchestra in 2016. In the 2020 season—following Zubin Mehta—he became the second music director of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. Born in Tel Aviv in 1989, Shani had already made his debut with the orchestra at the age of 16 as soloist in Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. He began his piano studies in his hometown with Arie Vardi at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, while also studying double bass, which he played regularly with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
He subsequently continued his training in Berlin with Christian Ehwald (conducting) and Fabio Bidini (piano) at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, and received additional mentorship from Daniel Barenboim. His international breakthrough came when he won the International Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition in Bamberg in 2013. Today, Lahav Shani appears with leading orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, with whom he made his debut in 2020 and whom he conducted in the New Year’s Eve concert in 2021 as a substitute for Kirill Petrenko. Alongside his work as a conductor, he is regularly heard as a pianist on major international stages. Another milestone in his career will come in 2026, when he assumes the position of chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic.
Daishin Kashimoto
In 2009, at the age of just 30, Daishin Kashimoto was appointed First Concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker. “For me it is a tremendous honor to be part of this outstanding orchestra,” he said. The violinist, who grew up in Japan, the United States, and Germany, appears frequently as a soloist outside his orchestral work—performing with the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Dresden, and many others, as well as with the Berliner Philharmoniker. He is highly sought-after as a chamber musician, with a repertoire which spans works from the Baroque era to contemporary music. At the age of seven, Daishin Kashimoto became the youngest student admitted to the Pre-College Program of the Juilliard School in New York.
When he was eleven, he transferred to the Musikhochschule Lübeck to study with Zakhar Bron, before continuing his studies in Freiburg with Rainer Kussmaul, who was at that time First Concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker. That Kashimoto would one day become one of his successors was by no means a given: “Rainer Kussmaul never pushed me toward this position, but once it became clear that I would apply, he supported me greatly.” A stroke of good fortune, for, as Bayerischer Rundfunk observed, “a concertmaster as distinguished as Daishin Kashimoto… is a rare find.”
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