Krzysztof Urbański conducts Tormis, Szymanowski, and Stravinsky — With Garrick Ohlsson, Bartosz Nowak, and Łukasz Kocur

Krzysztof Urbański conducts an appropriately grand finale for the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra's 2025-26 season, featuring legendary pianist Garrick Ohlsson! Ohlsson — who has a special tie to Polish music as the first American to win the Chopin Competition — joins the orchestra for Szymanowski's "Concertante" Symphony No. 4, which weaves a piano line harmoniously into the orchestral framework and ends with a highly rhythmic, "almost orgiastic" dance in the model of the Polish oberek. The program opens with Estonian composer Veljo Tormis's galvanizing 1972 choral work Raua needmine (Curse Upon Iron), described by Tormis as "a passionate cry against the destructive power of iron, both in Estonian mythology and in modern warfare," here featuring tenor Bartosz Nowak and bass Łukasz Kocur alongside the Warsaw Philharmonic Choir. Urbański concludes the evening, and the season, with Stravinsky's primal Rite of Spring, a turning point in music history that shattered conventions and redefined the limits of possibility for the 20th century and beyond.

Photos: Krzysztof Urbański © Julia Wesely / Garrick Ohlsson © Kacper Pempel