Lisa Batiashvili has a special relationship with Sibelius’s Violin Concerto. In 1995, at just sixteen years old, she won second prize at the Jean Sibelius International Violin Competition and, ever since, this work — one of the most demanding and beloved in the violin repertoire — has accompanied her throughout a career that has established her among the leading violinists on the international scene. At the Palau de la Música Catalana, she returns to this score alongside the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, one of the world’s great orchestras, and Klaus Mäkelä, a leading figure among the new generation of Scandinavian conductors.

Following the success of their joint appearance at the Palau in early 2025, the Concertgebouw and Mäkelä return with a programme of great symphonic scope. Schumann’s overture to Manfred gives way to the virtuosity and expressive power of Sibelius’s concerto, before the programme moves into Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7, one of the great works of his maturity. In this score, the Czech composer combines the folk roots of his homeland with the major traditions of Western art music, in a masterful symphonic achievement that finds outstanding interpreters in Mäkelä and the Concertgebouw.