BBC Symphony Orchestra & Chorus 2025-26 Barbican Season Making America: Oramo conducts Bartók & Korngold

When Europe’s greatest composers fled from war and tyranny, they rebuilt their careers in the USA – singing of hope, loss and defiance from the shores of a new world. Korngold’s Violin Concerto finds the spirit of Vienna in the Hollywood Hills, while Bartók created an epic display of courage, sorrow and life-affirming brilliance in his dazzling Concerto for Orchestra.

Korngold’s concerto, in particular, is a perfect showcase for the award-winning Spanish violinist María Dueñas. “With her gorgeous sound – dense, warm and brilliant – and her immaculate technique, Dueñas is already at the top” wrote Bachtrack, and it’s hard to imagine a lovelier upbeat to Bartók’s roof-raising orchestral spectacular: a personal favourite of BBC Symphony Orchestra chief conductor Sakari Oramo.