Beauty and melancholy lie hidden in the cold season. Tchaikovsky's Winter Dreams is a symphony that takes winter as a metaphor for life. It's a work full of contrasts, from sparkling lights to dark shadows and from warm feelings to cold loneliness. Tchaikovsky employs a rich palette of sounds, rhythms and motifs that will swirl – and occasionally storm – through the Concert Hall tonight.
Our former artist in residence, the fantastic Yeol Eum Son, will take her seat at the piano for Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. This symphonic poem showcases the dialogue and harmony between the soloist and the orchestra: a balance between personal emotion and a universal message. Conducting tonight will be Kwamé Ryan, who had unprecedented chemistry with the Residentie Orkest during the acclaimed opera production Blue at the Dutch National Opera. It will form an exciting contrast with the winter theme. We'll open the evening with the famous love story of Romeo and Juliet, in a dreamy reading by the Romantic Norwegian composer Johan Svendsen, relatively unknown in the Netherlands.