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KZN Philharmonic Orchestra 2026 Summer Season
KZN Philharmonic Orchestra 2026 Summer Season
Date: 2026-02-25
KZN Philharmonic Orchestra
2026 Summer Season
The KZN Philharmonic's two-concert 2026 Summer Season runs in The Playhouse Opera on Thursday, 5 and 12 March, starting at 19:00.
'We reach out to music lovers in Durban and across KZN, as we announce our new Summer Season,' says Bongani Tembe, KZN Philharmonic's Chief Executive and Artistic Director. 'We welcome the season's guest artists, who join our resident musicians in performing a roster of masterworks that will engage and enchant our dedicated KZNPO audience,"
Japanese conductor, Yasuo Shinozaki, a longstanding favourite with KZN Philharmonic audiences, takes the podium for the first concert of the season with a juxtaposed bill of French, English and Austrian crowd-pleasers.
Thanks to a bold stroke of programming, the wow factor kicks in at the start of the evening, the concert's soloist, Canadian prodigy Bryan Cheng, joins the maestro onstage to perform Camille Saint-Saëns's virtuosic Cello Concerto No 2, one of the composer's most demanding and structurally innovative works for the instrument.
The 20-year-old Benjamin Britten's exquisitely crafted Simple Symphony, completed in 1934, brings an interlude of calm to the evening's proceedings, before the KZNPO audience is treated to more thrills in the bravura stakes. Shinozaki, Cheng, and the KZNPO players are sure to set pulses racing with their account of Saint-Saëns' visceral Cello Concerto No 1. After the intermission, Schubert's beloved 'Unfinished' Symphony rounds off the programme with a wealth of the work's famous melodies.
Widely acclaimed Conrad van Alphen takes the podium for the second and closing concert of the season, conducting a repertoire by Fauré, Chopin and Beethoven. KZNPO audience members will be transported to an elegant, bygone era with Fauré's enchantingMasques et bergamasques, a work that masterfully blends sprightly dance forms with a touch of wistful nostalgia. The Bulgarian pianist Ludmil Angelov, renowned as a Chopin specialist, steps into the spotlight to perform two of the Polish master's early works, Variations on La ci darem la mano and the Grande polonaise brillante, each demanding 'high-wire' keyboard pyrotechnics, married to the 'bel canto' tones essential to caress Chopin's far-flung lyrical flights. The youthful energy, humour and optimism of Beethoven's Symphony No 2, written in 1801 and 1802, wrap up the night on a benign, happy note.
KZN Philharmonic tickets are available at Quicket outlets. For more information, or to purchase a subscription ticket, call 031-369 9438, email bookings@kznphil.org.za or visit https://www.kznphil.org.za.
There are also park and ride options for patrons who would prefer not to self-drive to town, from Upper Highway, Westville, North Coast and Berea. Book bus tickets on 031359 9438 / info@kznphil.org.za.
As always, the KZNPO season forms an intrinsic part of the orchestra's ongoing school visits, community engagement, and skills transfer programmes, all geared towards reaching out to new-generation artists and audiences alike.