April 14-25: Baritone Matthias Goerne and Pianist Evgeny Kissin Give Three Recitals in Cleveland, Toronto, and New York
Matthias Goerne, Baritone & Evgeny Kissin, Piano
Three Recitals in North America in April
“Goerne’s instrument, with its velvety crevices, catches darkness and light . . .Few artists are so temperamentally suited to this repertoire – and fewer still possess such a plush, darkly inviting voice.”
– The New York Times on Matthias Goerne
“I'm not sure anyone else has the virtuosity to step this far outside the box with such honesty and dignity and power.”
– The Washington Post on Evgeny Kissin
Sunday, April 14, 2024 at 3pm: Presented by The Cleveland Orchestra
Severance Music Center | 11001 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH
Tickets & Information
Sunday, April 21, 2024 at 2pm: Presented Roy Thomson Hall
60 Simcoe St, Toronto, ON
Tickets & Information
Thursday, April 25, 2024 at 8pm: Presented by Carnegie Hall
Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall
57th St. and 7th Ave., New York, NY
Tickets & Information
matthiasgoerne.org | kissin.org
Celebrated and sought-after baritone Matthias Goerne, described as “today’s leading interpreter of German art songs,” by The Chicago Tribune, and legendary virtuoso pianist Evgeny Kissin will give three recitals in North America in April, following appearances across Europe in Brussels, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, and Paris. The superstar duo, who are performing together for the first time this year, will be presented by The Cleveland Orchestra at Severance Music Center in Cleveland, OH on Sunday, April 14 at 3pm; at Roy Thomson Hall in Toronto, ON on Sunday, April 21 at 2pm; and at Stern Auditorium / Perelman Stage at Carnegie Hall in New York, NY on Thursday, April 25 at 8pm.
Goerne and Kissin’s program features some of the most sublime art songs of the Romantic period by Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms, including musical depictions of love and betrayal in Schumann’s Dichterliebe and Brahms’s Lieder und Gesänge, alongside selections from his Songs after Poems by Heinrich Heine.
Celebrated around the globe for his opera and concert performances, German baritone Matthias Goerne is a frequent guest with leading orchestras and renowned festivals and concert halls. Among his musical partners are conductors such as Claudio Abbado(†), Vladimir Ashkenazy, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniele Gatti , Bernard Haitink, Manfred Honeck, Mariss Jansons(†), Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Franz Welser-Möst. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with the most important pianists of our time. His carefully chosen roles range from Amfortas, Marke, Wolfram, Wotan, Orest, and Jochanaan to the title roles in Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck. Goerne’s artistry has been documented on numerous recordings, including five Grammy nominations, an ICMA award, a Gramophone Award, the BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award 2017, Diapason d’or arte, and the ECHO Klassik 2017 in the category “singer of the year.” He has released three albums with Deutsche Grammophon: Beethoven Songs with Jan Lisiecki; a collection of Wagner, Strauss and Pfitzner Songs with Seong-Jin Cho and his new album of Schumann and Brahms Songs with Daniil Trifonov. His latest album Schubert revisited was released in January 2023 by Deutsche Grammophon. In the 2023-24 season, Matthias Goerne embarked on an extensive recital and orchestral tour of China, in addition to this series of recitals with Evgeny Kissin in Europe and the United States. He has premiered Jörg Widmann’s Schumannliebe at Porto’s Casa da Musica and Cologne Philharmonie. Furthermore, he will appear with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and return to the Salzburg Festival in the summer.
Evgeny Kissin’s musicality, the depth and poetic quality of his interpretations, and his extraordinary virtuosity have earned him the veneration and admiration deserved only by one of the most gifted classical pianists of his generation and, arguably, generations past. He is in demand all over the world and has appeared with many of the world’s great conductors, including Abbado, Ashkenazy, Barenboim, Dohnanyi, Giulini, Levine, Maazel, Muti, and Ozawa, as well as all the great orchestras of the world. This season, Kissin returns to tour the United States with a recital program that includes the works of his beloved Chopin, Beethoven, Brahms and Prokofiev. In addition to this collaboration with Matthias Goerne, he also appears in concert with major European orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhaus Orchestra, and the Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, among others. Evgeny Kissin’s newest release is an album featuring Beethoven Sonatas on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Past awards have included the Edison Klassiek in The Netherlands, and the Diapason d’Or and the Grand Prix of La Nouvelle Academie du Disque in France. His recording of works by Scriabin, Medtner and Stravinsky (RCA Red Seal) won him a Grammy in 2006 for Best Instrumental Soloist. In 2002, Kissin was named Echo Klassik Soloist of the Year. His most recent Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with orchestra) was awarded in 2010 for his recording of Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy (EMI Classics). Evgeny Kissin’s extraordinary talent inspired Christopher Nupen’s documentary film, Evgeny Kissin: The Gift of Music, which was released in 2000 on video and DVD by RCA Red Seal.