2025/26 European Tour
January 27 to February 9, 2026
In the midst of an extraordinary 2025/26 season defined by international artistic explorations, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra will proudly bring Canadian music and music-making to Western Europe as part of a 14-day tour spanning eight cities in six countries. Running from January 27 to February 9, 2026, the European tour celebrates the power of music to transcend national boundaries, and will be Music Director Gustavo Gimeno’s first intercontinental tour with the orchestra.
The TSO will present seven pieces split across multiple programs in different combinations. The major orchestral works include Rachmaninoff’s lush and romantic Piano Concerto No. 2, the soul-filling Symphony No. 5 by Prokofiev, the folk-inspired Violin Concerto No. 1 by Bartók, and Mahler’s heavenly Symphony No. 4. They stand alongside recent compositions by two Canadian composers: Kelly-Marie Murphy’s TSO-commissioned Curiosity, Genius, and the Search for Petula Clark and Rufus Wainwright’s “A Woman’s Face (Sonnet 20)”.
Tour Performers & Composers
Gustavo Gimeno
Anna Prohaska
Bruce Liu
Christina Landshamer
Patricia Kopatchinskaja
Kelly Marie-Murphy
Rufus Wainwright
Austrian-English soprano Anna Prohaska, the 2024 Opus Klassik Female Singer of the Year, made her début at age 18 at Berlin’s Komische Oper as Flora in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw, and soon after with the Staatsoper Unter den Linden Berlin, entering the ensemble at age 23. She has since gone on to have an extraordinary international career with some of the world’s greatest opera houses and orchestras.
Operatic highlights include Zabelle in the world première of George Benjamin’s Picture a day like this and Morgana (Alcina) for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Constance (Les Dialogues des Carmélites), and Nannetta (Falstaff) for the Royal Opera House; Pelléas et Mélisande for the Hamburgische Staatsoper; Anne Trulove (The Rake’s Progress), Merab (Saul), and Angelica (Orlando) for Theater an der Wien; Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for La Scala; the title role in Orphée et Eurydice for Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Blonde (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) at Opéra national de Paris; Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) in Baden-Baden; Iphis (Jephtha) in Amsterdam; and Marzelline (Fidelio), Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, Blonde, Ännchen (Der Freischütz), and Adele (Die Fledermaus) for the Bayerische Staatsoper.
In huge demand on the concert platform, Prohaska has performed regularly with the Berliner Philharmoniker since her début with them at age 24, performing under Rattle, Harding, and Abbado. Other orchestras include the Vienna Philharmonic under Boulez; Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Jansons, Harding, Blomstedt, and Nézet-Séguin; London Symphony Orchestra under Rattle; Los Angeles Philharmonic under Dudamel; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Roth; Bavarian Radio Orchestra under Gardiner; Cleveland Orchestra under Welser-Möst; and Boston Symphony Orchestra under Dohnányi. Recent seasons have included artistic residencies at the Konzerthaus Berlin, Konzerthaus Dortmund, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Kammerakademie Potsdam, and Philharmonie Luxembourg.
Plans for the 2024/25 season include Zabelle (George Benjamin’s Picture a day like this) conducted by the composer for Opéra-Comique; Mozart’s Requiem in Romeo Castellucci’s staged production for Gran Teatre del Liceu; Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte) with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra; and a new opera by Rebecca Saunder, Lash, at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. On the concert platform, Prohaska performs Handel’s Messiah with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi; Haydn’s The Creation with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra; Mozart’s Exsultate, jubilate with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin; and Rufus Wainwright’s Dream Requiem with the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya. She also appears as a 2024/25 Spotlight Artist for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and tours her projects Ophelia with Eric Schneider and Paradise Lost with Julius Drake across Europe.
Bruce Liu was the first-prize winner of the 18th International Chopin Piano Competition in 2021 in Warsaw, and his “playing of breathtaking beauty” (BBC Music Magazine) has secured his reputation as one of the most exciting talents of the new generation.
As Focus Artist of the 2024 Rheingau Musik Festival, Liu featured in five performances ranging from a solo recital to chamber music and concerto performances with hr-Sinfonieorchester, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. Highlights of the 2024/25 season include international tours with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Gustavo Gimeno, London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Antonio Pappano, hr-Sinfonieorchester and Alain Altinoglu, Wiener Symphoniker and Marie Jacquot, Orchestre National de France and Cristian Măcelaru, and Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and Lahav Shani. He also tours extensively in play-direct programs with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and Amsterdam Sinfonietta.
Read more about Bruce Liu at bruce-liu.com/biography.
Few artists of her generation show themselves to be as versatile with a wide variety of repertoire as Christina Landshamer, which has made her a concert, opera and lieder singer in demand around the world today. Her collaboration with conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Manfred Honeck, Alan Gilbert, Marek Janowski, Franz Welser-Möst and Christian Thielemann has led her to such important orchestras as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra Hamburg, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the SWR Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, the Munich and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras, the Concertgebouw Orkest Amsterdam, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre de Paris, the Accademia Nationale di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Swedish Radio Orchestra Stockholm. In the USA and Canada she has appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.
Early opera engagements took the soprano to the Stuttgart State Opera, the Opéra du Rhin in Strasbourg and the Komische Oper Berlin, as well as to the Theater an der Wien under Nikolaus Harnoncourt and to the Salzburg Festival under Sir Simon Rattle. She sang Pamina at the Bavarian State Opera and Het Muziektheater Amsterdam in Simon McBurney's Magic Flute, Ännchen in the new production of Weber's Freischütz under Christian Thielemann at the Semperoper Dresden, Almirena/Rinaldo at Glyndebourne and Sophie/Rosenkavalier at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. At the Bavarian State Opera, Christina Landshamer most recently sang Woglinde in Wagner's Rheingold under Kirill Petrenko and Pamina in Mozart’s Magic Flute. She also appeared in a spectacular La Fura-dels Baus production of Haydn’s Creation in Paris and at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York.
With her warm, lyrical soprano voice, Christina Landshamer is also an ideal Lied singer: together with her piano partner Gerold Huber, she is a welcome guest at Lied centres such as the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Berlin's Pierre Boulez Hall, Wigmore Hall London, Weill Recital Hall, Carnegie Hall New York or Kioi Hall Tokyo. She was also invited by Thomas Hampson to perform a Schubert programme in Berlin's Pierre Boulez Hall.
More than 50 CD and DVD recordings for labels such as Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Sonymusic, Pentatone, BR Klassik, Oehms Classics, Phi, EMI, Accentus, Unitel etc. document Christina Landshamer's artistic activity.
Since 2024, she has also been appointed professor of singing at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart.
Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s focus is to get to the heart of the music, to its meaning for us—now and here. With a combination of depth, brilliance, and humour, Kopatchinskaja brings an inimitable sense of theatrics to her music. Described by The New York Times as “a player of rare expressive energy and disarming informality, of whimsy and theatrical ambition,” Kopatchinskaja adopts a distinctive approach that always conveys the core of the work, whether it is with an out-of-the-box performance of a traditional violin-repertoire classic or with an original staged project she presents as experimental performance dramaturge.
Kopatchinskaja is a boundary-crosser who thrives on the challenge of musical experiments and describes contemporary music as her lifeblood, and her absolute priority is the music of the 20th and 21st centuries, and collaborations with living composers such as Francisco Coll, Luca Francesconi, Michael Hersch, Márton Illés, György Kurtág, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Aureliano Cattaneo, Stefano Gervasoni, and many others. She directs staged concerts at venues on both sides of the Atlantic and collaborates with leading orchestras, conductors, and festivals worldwide. Starting from the 2024/25 season, she will serve as the Artistic Partner of the SWR Symphonieorchester. A virtuoso, storyteller, and all-around phenomenon, Kopatchinskaja will provide artistic direction that involves designing her own programs, which will include both established concert formats and innovative theatrical and interdisciplinary approaches. Among these is the staged concert The Peace Project, which reflects on centuries of existential suffering caused by war through a kaleidoscope of Baroque and modern works up to the present day. The project addresses the numerous reports from war zones, the violent disruption of daily life, and the constant fear for one’s life and loved ones. Kopatchinskaja will also be Artist in Residence at the 2025 Klarafestival, where she will continue to actively support themes related to environmental protection and sustainability in innovatively curated projects. Furthermore, she holds the position of Associated Artist of the SWR Experimentalstudio, one of the most important international research centres in the field of electronic music.
Read more about Patricia Kopatchinskaja at patriciakopatchinskaja.com.
Kelly-Marie Murphy’s voice is well known on the Canadian music scene. She has created a number of memorable works for some of Canada’s leading performers and ensembles, including the Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras, The Gryphon Trio, and more. Dr. Murphy’s music has been performed around the world by outstanding soloists and ensembles, and has had radio broadcasts in over 22 countries. Kelly-Marie Murphy was born on a NATO base in Sardegna, Italy, and grew up on Canadian Armed Forces bases all across Canada. She began her studies in composition at the University of Calgary with William Jordan and Allan Bell, and later received a PhD in composition from the University of Leeds, England, where she studied with Philip Wilby. After living and working for many years in the Washington, DC, area where she was designated “an alien of extraordinary ability” by the US Immigration and Naturalization Service, she is now based in Ottawa.
Praised by The New York Times for his “genuine originality,” Rufus Wainwright has established himself as one of the great male vocalists, songwriters, and composers of his generation. The New York–born, Montreal-raised singer-songwriter has released 11 studio albums to date, three DVDs, and numerous live albums including the GRAMMY®-nominated Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. He has collaborated with artists such as Elton John, Burt Bacharach, Miley Cyrus, David Byrne, Boy George, Joni Mitchell, Pet Shop Boys, Heart, Carly Rae Jepsen, Robbie Williams, Jessye Norman, Billy Joel, Paul Simon, Sting, and producer Mark Ronson, among many others. He has written two operas and numerous songs for movies and TV.
In 2023, he embarked on a journey to his family folk roots with his GRAMMY®-nominated album Folkocracy featuring reinvented folk duets with artists like Chaka Khan, Brandi Carlile, John Legend, Anohni, and many more.
His first musical of John Cassavetes’s Opening Night for the West End with Ivo van Hove premièred in March 2024. During this time he also completed his Dream Requiem, which premièred with the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France in June 2024 and featured Meryl Streep as narrator. The recording of the performance was released via Warner Classics in January 2025. Upcoming performances include the US première at LA’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in May 2025, featuring Jane Fonda.
It’s my turn to welcome my TSO colleagues to my various homes away from Toronto, in many important European cities and venues. There’s no better time to show the world who we are and what we do.
Tickets
Join us in Toronto to wish Gustavo Gimeno, Bruce Liu, and the TSO a warm bon voyage and hear the mesmerizing music they’ll perform abroad: Bruce Liu Plays Rachmaninoff 2.
Tickets to all tour performances will be available for purchase from the individual European concert venues at a later date. Check back soon.
Madrid, January 27 & 28
Zaragoza, January 29
Barcelona, January 30
Luxembourg City, February 2
Amsterdam, February 3
Hamburg, February 5
Antwerp, February 6
Vienna, February 9