Teodor Currentzis conducts Rachmaninov and Shostakovich — With Alexandre Kantorow

At the 2025 Verbier Festival, French piano virtuoso Alexandre Kantorow — recipient of the ultra-prestigious Gilmore Artist Award in 2024 — sets his sights on one of Rachmaninov's most celebrated works alongside electrifying conductor Teodor Currentzis and the Verbier Festival Orchestra, who also mark the 50th anniversary of Shostakovich's death with his iconic Fifth Symphony! Kantorow takes on Rachmaninov's Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, a de facto piano concerto that combines a superhuman, Paganinian technique with some of the most raptuorous melodies of Rachmaninov's career, notably in the famous 18th variation. Shostakovich's Fifth represented an unbelievable reversal of fortune for the composer, who had been blacklisted by Soviet authorities but found himself welcomed back into the fold with this symphony's critical and popular success. The much-discussed finale seems to encapsulate Shostakovich's impossible political position, barely concealing a dark cynicism under a facade of uncomplicated triumph.