An evening providing an outlet for the creative energy of standout ballet choreographies speaking the expressive language of movement: a real treat for both ballet connoisseurs and lovers, as well as those who rarely encounter this dance form. 

A series of internationally distinguished artists that regularly appear at prominent dance venues will perform solos and pas-de-deux from the historical treasury of ballet, as well as contemporary choreographies that show great originality. An enchanting evening with some of the biggest names in dance who are prominent members of internationally celebrated ballet companies, including Maria Khoreva, who has the ballet world in awe of her talent and is the first soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg.

Soloists: Edgardo Rocha, tenor; Nuška Drašček, mezzosoprano

The now traditional New Year's gala concert of opera arias will feature two outstanding singers: the Uruguayan tenor Edgardo Rocha and mezzosoprano Nuška Drašček. This year's recipient of the Prešeren Fund Prize and one of the most sought-after and distinguished singers, Drašček is a highly versatile vocalist who has been impressing the audiences with her vocal skills and her astonishingly broad repertoire. 

Her charismatic stage presence will come to the fore especially in the musical dialogue with the renowned tenor, who enjoys a reputation as an unparalleled interpreter of the bel canto repertoire. With regular invitations to the world's leading opera houses and festivals, including the Zurich Opera House, the Grand Théâtre de Geneve, the Bavarian State Opera, the Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival, Rocha is known for his warm tone colour, vibrant coloratura and brilliant pitches.

Together with the Symphony Orchestra of the Slovenian National Theatre Maribor, and under the baton of maestro Simon Krečič, Nuška and Edgardo will celebrate the festive season in an enchanting evening of great opera arias, duets and orchestral interludes.

Impermanence

Impermanence by the Sydney Dance Company is a riveting exploration of the fleeting nature of existence and the beauty found within transience. Choreographed by Rafael Bonachela, the artistic director of the company, Impermanence seamlessly blends contemporary dance with elements of classical ballet. 

One of the most striking aspects of Impermanence is its dynamic choreography, which seamlessly weaves together elements of strength, grace, and vulnerability.
 

Love Lock

Choreographer Melanie Lane sees the future of folk dance as a new creation, a dance that absorbs the complex fabric of our diverse cultures and traditions, while not omitting the contemporary world, its peculiarities and anomalies. Melanie Lane's Love Lock is a “re-imagined, contemporized take on” folk dance that draws upon collective experiences translated into highly specific rituals.
At the same time, the show celebrates the binding act of dance to move us from our comfort zone, warn us of the dangers of adverse social and environmental conditions and empower us, heightening the awareness that ours is only one planet, and as such should be treated with the utmost respect and great responsibility. Love can thus be understood as a desire to discover and preserve a fast disappearing culture and world, and Lock as a way of entering this world and interpreting it through – dance. 

Sydney Dance Company began as a group founded in 1969 by dancer Suzanne Musitz. Soon known as The Dance Company (NSW), from 1975-1976 the Company was directed by Dutch choreographer Jaap Flier, before the appointment of Australian choreographer Graeme Murphy in 1976. In 1979 Murphy and his partner Janet Vernon instituted the defining name change to Sydney Dance Company and proceeded to lead it for a remarkable 30 years. Murphy and his collaborators created work that enthralled audiences in Australia and in extensive international touring, including being the first western contemporary dance company to perform in the People’s Republic of China.

Sydney Dance Company has been led since 2009 by Spanish-born Artistic Director Rafael Bonachela. Over the past 15 years the Company has cemented its reputation as a creative powerhouse, with an acclaimed group of dancers presenting new work by Bonachela and other choreographers, designers, composers and musicians. The Company has expanded its reach into the towns and cities it visits with work for schools and local dancers. 

Rafael Bonachella is a choreographer, artistic director and curator whose career has seen him successfully span high art and popular culture, working across a range of art forms, including contemporary dance, art installations, pop concerts, musicals, film, commercials and fashion.
 

Resilience, to exalt the scars left behind by the injury of the fall or the dizziness of the height. This is the theme of Ukiyo-e, world creation of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, at the head of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre for its 22-23 season opener. For Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui, resilience finds its source in deep meditation. Ukiyo-e, his short story piece is named after the “images of the floating world”, the famous artistic movement that appeared in Japan in the Edo period, in the half-worlds of urban hedonism. The piece activates work on balance in the face of impermanence. Beyond dualities, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui suggests considering bodies that do not do not end with the fracture and the limit but rather to exalt the latter as increases of our person, like the Japanese technique kintsugi which repairs broken porcelain joints of pure gold. 
Amidst a maze of staircases, 22 dancers search for possible paths and are swept towards great depths or great heights. This collective adventure poses the question: what do we do when everything collapses? What do we do when everything around us falls apart? How do we continue to live in an uncertain world? If the question is posed in the singular, each will find his own individual answer. So, Ukiyo-e invites us to consider the collective answer. Inspired by this Japanese pictorial movement, which translates as an “image of the floating world”, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui has composed a profound reflection on resilience for 22 performers of the Ballet du Grand Théâtre de Genève. On stage, enormous labyrinthine mobile structures form a network of impossible staircases.

Alexander Dodge's set will feature a network of impossible stairs in which the dancers get lost. These mobile labyrinthine structures aim to evoke ascension as well as the abyss. It is in this series of levels, potentially enabling or incapacitating, that the bodies are called on to unite, dialogue with and contaminate each other. The music accompaniment consists of compositions by Szymon Brzóska for string trio and piano, as well as percussive rhythmic creations and electronics by Alexandre Dai Castaing. Reunited in Ukiyo-e, these universes resonate with the quest for repair and transcendence.

Confronted with obstacles and unstable surfaces, the group loses its way, looks for possible ways out and is drawn towards the depths or soars to great heights. Helping them or hindering them are electronic melodies and the power of a string trio. This internationally renowned and insatiable choreographer, and the new director of this brilliant choreographic ensemble from Switzerland turns every creation into an occasion that is as at once artistic and philosophical.

Grand Théâtre de Geneve 
In 1962, the Grand Théâtre de Genève acquired a permanent ballet company, made up of 22 artists, offering two original choreographic creations per season. Collaborating with choreographers of international renown, over the course of its performances, it has built a worldwide reputation for itself. Today, whilst the premieres are always held in Geneva, the Geneva Ballet frequently performs outside Switzerland (France, Italy, United States, Russia, Australia, China, Brazil, South Africa…). From the 22–23 Season, the Ballet is under the management of Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. 

Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui 
is a globally celebrated figure like few others in dance today: a brilliant auteur-choreographer, with roughly a hundred shows under his belt, touring all around the planet, and former artistic director of the Royal Ballet of Flanders (2015-22). The Belgian-Moroccan’s choreographic oeuvre overflows with memorable productions, some of which originated in Geneva (Loin, 2005) and others on great stages and video sets all over the world (Puz/zle at the Avignon Festival in 2012, to name but one). For Marina Abramović’s maiden voyage as scenographer, and with Damien Jalet as co-creator, Cherkaoui’s whirling, shadowy and darkly mechanical interpretation of Ravel’s Bolero for the Paris Opera Ballet was a sensation at the Palais Garnier in 2013 and remains one of his most iconic pieces. The trio reformed for Pelléas et Mélisande in 2018 at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen; a production which was reprised and live streamed in Geneva. From dancer colleagues to creative partners, Cherkaoui and Jalet form a unique artistic bond: it is only logical that Damien Jalet should join Cherkaoui and the Geneva Ballet as an associate artist.

Soloist: Isata Kanneh-Mason,piano

Programme
Felix Mendelssohn, The Fair Melusine, concert overture 
Sergei Prokofiev, Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26 
*
Robert Schumann, Symphony No. 4 in D minor, Op. 120 (1851 version) 
 

The initiator of Symphony 2030, a project that uses music as a vehicle for improving the quality of life of every Hague resident, the Residentie Orkest was founded in 1904. Based in The Hague, an international seaside metropolis, the Orkest attracted several famous composers during its golden, pre-war era. Eminent figures that came to conduct their own works with the orchestra include Richard Strauss, Stravinsky, Ravel, Hindemith, Bartók and Toscanini. The orchestra comes to Ljubljana under the baton of Ruth Reinhardt who is quickly establishing herself as one of today's most dynamic and nuanced young conductors. 
The programme relies on a standard repertoire of enduring appeal: bookended by Mendelssohn's romantic overture, which reveals the composer’s flair for subtle colour nuances, and Schumann’s unorthodox burst of creative exuberance, is Prokofiev’s thrilling Third Piano Concerto bristling with triumphant optimism. Star pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason made her solo debut at the 2023 Proms with this virtuoso piano piece. The eldest sibling in a British family of the classical music world’s fastest rising stars, Kanneh-Mason is also in great demand as a chamber musician, particularly in a duo with her brother, the acclaimed cellist Sheku.   
 

Soloist: Gil Shaham, violin

Programme
Lili Boulanger, D'un matin de printemps
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 
*
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade, Symphonic Suite, Op. 35 
 

Originally a radio orchestra and today one of Berlin's major musical ensembles, the German Symphony Orchestra Berlin (2011 Grammy Award-winner) has been thrilling the audiences with its unusual and innovative concepts that go beyond the standard framework of classical concert events. The ensemble’s illustrious history, spanning nearly eight decades, has been shaped by highly prominent conductors (Maazel, Ashkenazy, Nagano, etc.). In Ljubljana, the orchestra will play under the baton of David Robertson, a musical visionary and a 2019 Grammy Award-winner.

Concert programmes rich in associations, repertoire discoveries and cross-genre projects define the orchestra’s DNA, laying the foundation stone for the motto “No concert without a female composer!”, a concept applied in the tone poem of the brilliant but underrated Lili Boulanger placed side by side with the dazzlingly colourful Scheherazade. Making his debut in the Golden Season, the award-winning Gil Shaham has attained distinction as one of the foremost violinists of our time. His exploration of “Violin Concertos of the 1930s” is dedicated to masterpieces from one of the most turbulent periods in recent history – including Korngold’s hugely successful concerto that draws extensively on his film music oeuvre.

Soloist: Ray Chen, violin

Programme
Ludwig van Beethoven, Egmont, Op. 84, Overture 
Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 35 
*
Antonín Dvořák, Symphony No. 7 in D minor, Op. 70 

The Orchestra della Svizzera italiana is one of the main proponents of musical culture in Switzerland. Throughout a rich tradition spanning back almost a century, the orchestral sound has evolved under many illustrious figures, including Richard Strauss, Hindemith, Stravinsky and Berio. Tabita Berglund, one of the most promising and talented young conductors of the younger generation, and the upcoming new Principal Guest Conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, is fast gaining reputation for her inspiring style, a unique blend of youthful energy, musical sensitivity and clarity of expression. 

Joining the star-studded cast is the superb Ray Chen, winner of the Yehudi Menuhin and Queen Elisabeth Competitions. With a global reach and an innovative approach, Chen is redefining what it means to be a classical musician in the 21st century. One of the great showpieces in violin repertoire, underscored with fanciful tunes and colourful Russian orchestration, Tchaikovsky’s concerto is in excellent hands. Beethoven's dramatic postulate of the cultural struggle against French oppression and Dvořák's tragic, thrilling masterpiece that was his major breakthrough, complement a programme dedicated to the Romantic era and composers of different nationalities.

Soloist: Gautier Capuçon,cello

Programme
Blaž Arnič, Memento mori
Dmitri Shostakovich, Cello Concerto No.1 in E-flat major, Op. 107 
*
Franz Schubert, Symphony No. 9 in C major, D. 944, “The Great”

Switzerland's oldest symphony orchestra, enjoying international standing and distinguished with the 2023 European Cultural Foundation Award, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra (1805) successfully combines more than 200 years of tradition with innovation. 

The ensemble's proverbial Swiss precision and attention to detail are uniquely suited to Michael Sanderling, an eminent maestro whose work reflects the highest musical and technical standards and, as of 2021, the orchestra's Music Director. A true 21st century ambassador for the cello, the soloist with the orchestra is the renowned Gautier Capuçon. Multiple winner of the prestigious Echo Klassik Prize, he is hailed for the intense expression of his playing, his flamboyant virtuosity and the deep sound he draws from his 1701 cello by the Venetian luthier Matteo Goffriller.

The evening’s balanced programme, introduced by Arnič's reflection on mortality steeped in neo-romantic realism, juxtaposes two musical worlds: while Schubert's unique melodiousness heralds the emotionality and mystery of the emerging musical Romanticism, Shostakovich's uncertainty and emotional ambivalence reveal the pain, hope and dreams of the post-war era.

Soloist: Bomsori Kim, violin

Programme:
August de Boeck, Rhapsodie Dahoméenne
Max Bruch, Violin Concerto No.1 in G minor, Op. 26 
*
Antonín Dvořák, Symphony No.6 in D major, Op. 60

The Antwerp Symphony Orchestra is the resident orchestra of the iconic Queen Elisabeth Hall. Over the decades, it has become synonymous with the sound of Antwerp, a city of diamonds, and its world-class port. The ensemble, famous for its distinctive warm sound and stylistic flexibility, fulfils its mission as a cultural ambassador of Belgium, paying special attention to Flemish musical heritage. Reflecting this dedication, the evening’s programme combines the brilliantly orchestrated Dahomeyan Rhapsody by the Flemish composer Auguste de Boeck with Dvořák's Sixth, a token of the composer's maturity and his ticket to the broad universe of symphonic music.

Two outstanding musicians are debuting with the orchestra in Ljubljana: conductor Shiyeon Sung, the first woman to win the prestigious Sir Georg Solti Competition (2006), and the first South Korean conductor to make the leap to the podium of internationally renowned orchestras; and violinist Bomsori Kim, laureate of major international competitions (including the Tchaikovsky and the Queen Elisabeth). An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, Bomsori makes her Ljubljana debut with Bruch's First Violin Concerto, much-loved for its soaring melodies and passionate orchestral writing.

Even if writing serious, and less serious, studies of Vlado Kreslin or making all sorts of shows or documentary films about him, we will never be able to fully capture the artist’s personal idiosyncrasies. The uniqueness of Kreslin’s musicality is the envy of even proverbially musical Croats. Vlado's journey from his native Prekmurje to the world of rock’n’roll and his subsequent artistic return to the bosom of his home hearth gave rise to a unique phenomenon in Slovenian popular music that has spread beyond our national borders. At a certain point, the young rebel’s heart softened and filled with the scent of his native land. This artistic evolution helped generate a signature music style that is open and supple, receptive to any innovation, but at the same time committed to its roots. Spanning over five decades, Vlado Kreslin's successful musical career has convinced us that his is one and the same song, but sung in countless different ways. (Gregor Bauman)

This year marks Vlado Kreslin and his combos’, Mali bogovi and Beltinška banda, thirty-fourth anniversary of Gallus Hall concerts, to be held over three consecutive days.