Concert information
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Two feuding families, and a young, innocent couple: Sergei Prokofiev transformed Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet into a ballet full of tender, lyrical melodies and captivating dance scenes. Folkloric elements run through the music. Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla has compiled highlights from the score for her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker. To open the concert, Gražinytė-Tyla brings us the cheerful, ironic world of a puppeteer in Mieczysław Weinberg’s ballet suite Burattino und das goldene Schlüsselchen. Another highlight: Emanuel Ax is the soloist in the new piano concerto by film composer John Williams.
Artists
Berliner Philharmoniker
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla conductor
Emanuel Ax piano
Programme
Mieczysław Weinberg
Burattino and the golden key: Orchestra Suite No. 4, op. 55d
Programme note
John Williams
Concerto for piano and orchestra
Emanuel Ax piano
Programm note
Interval
Sergei Prokofiev
Romeo und Julia, op. 64: Excerpts
1. The Montagues and the Capulets
2. Juliet as a Young Girl
3. Masks
4. Romeo and Juliet, Balcony Scene
5. Death of Tybalt
6. Friar Laurence
7. Dance of the Couples
8. Dance of the Girls with Lilies
9. Juliet’s Funeral
10. Juliet’s Death
Additional information
Duration ca. 2 hours and 15 minutes (incl. 20 minutes interval)
Dates and tickets
Main Auditorium
27 to 86 €
Introduction
19:15
with Jens Lehmann
Series K: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Main Auditorium
27 to 86 €
Introduction
19:15
with Jens Lehmann
Series A: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Main Auditorium
27 to 86 €
Introduction
18:15
with Jens Lehmann
Series B: Concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker
Background
The power of silence
A portrait of Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla caused a stir when she was appointed as chief conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the age of only twenty-nine. For her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Lithuanian conductor has put together an unusual programme made up of music by Mieczysław Weinberg, Sergei Prokofiev and the legendary film composer John Williams. A portrait
Biography
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
Whether with expansive gestures or minimal, highly charged motion, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla leads her orchestra with total commitment or focused restraint. At just 29, the Lithuanian conductor made history when, following posts in Heidelberg, Bern and Salzburg, she was unanimously appointed Music Director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 2016 she became the first woman to assume this post, succeeding conductors such as Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo, and Andris Nelsons. Even after her departure from Birmingham at the end of the 2021/22 season, Mirga Gražinytė‑Tyla remains associated with the British orchestra as Associate Artist.
Debuts with many of the world’s leading ensembles followed, including the New York Philharmonic, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Recent milestones in her career also include the highly-praised new productions of Mieczysław Weinberg’s operas The Passenger at Teatro Real Madrid and The Idiot at the Salzburg Festival. In spring 2025, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla made her Vienna Philharmonic debut, becoming the first woman to conduct a concert in the orchestra’s subscription series. What drives her? In a documentary portrait, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla describes music as a way of being — and becoming — human.
Emanuel Ax
For many years, Emanuel Ax has been among the world’s leading pianists. The New York Times has praised his playing for its “incisive rhythm, bountiful imagination, delicacy when called for, and thundering power.” Born in 1949 in Lviv, Ukraine, and trained at the Juilliard School after his family emigrated to the United States, he quickly established a reputation for clarity of touch and a wide tonal palette. At just 25, he attracted international attention when he won the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in Tel Aviv in 1974; five years later, he was awarded the Avery Fisher Prize in New York.
Emanuel Ax appears regularly in the world’s major musical capitals and at leading festivals — as a concerto soloist with top orchestras, as a recitalist, and as a committed chamber musician. He enjoyed an especially close artistic connection with the Berliner Philharmoniker as Pianist in Residence in the 2005/06 season. His repertoire extends not only to the major works of the Classical and Romantic periods but also to contemporary music: he has premiered concertos by John Adams, Christopher Rouse, and Krzysztof Penderecki, as well as the piano concerto by HK Gruber, commissioned by the Berliner Philharmoniker Foundation, first performed in 2017 with the New York Philharmonic. His most recent premiere was the piano concerto by John Williams, given in July 2025 at Tanglewood.
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