Academy of St Martin in the Fields

Programme:
Giacomo Puccini, I Crisantemi
Niccolò Paganini (arr. Giuseppe Vaccaro), Violin Concerto No. 4 in D minor, MS 60
*
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Souvenir de Florence, Op.70

The Academy of St Martin in the Fields, a chamber orchestra with an extensive discography and the first – and to date the only – orchestra to receive the prestigious Queen’s Award for Export Achievement, has been shaping its contemporary artistic identity since 2011 under the leadership of its music director, the virtuoso Joshua Bell. Directing the orchestra from the violin, Augustin Hadelich is winner of the 2025 Opus Klassik Award and Artist-in-Residence with the Boston Symphony Orchestra for the 2025/26 season. A regular guest of the world’s leading orchestras, most notably the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Hadelich combines poetic sensitivity and a richly varied sonic palette with unparalleled technical brilliance and compelling stage elegance.

The thoughtfully curated programme highlights the refined expressiveness and nuanced artistry of the guest musicians – from a brief, melancholic lament by one of history’s greatest opera composers, through the fiery dance of strings by the “Devil’s Violinist”, to the romantic echoes of Tuscany imbued with Tchaikovsky’s unmistakable signature.