NOSPR / Bassem Akiki / New Year matinee by Strauss II, Offenbach, Koetsier, Fra (2023/2023), Dirigent Bassem Akiki, NOSPR, Katowice, Poland

Apparently Jacques Offenbach could drag everyone and everything up to dance. Drawing on the New Year atmosphere, the programme of this concert will feature carnivalesque creations of humour, flirting and fun. In this annual journey between the Seine and the Danube, we will be accompanied by light and joyful compositions. The most famous excerpts from the operettas of the above-mentioned ‘Mozart of the Champs-Élysées’ will be heard in enriched arrangements by Manuel Rosenthal, forming part of the 1938 ballet Gaîté parisienne, and the whirling ‘Voices of Spring’ and ‘Blue Danube’ by the ‘King of the Waltz’, Johann Strauss, will only enhance the New Year climate of this matinee concert. A slightly different character, although still suitably lively, festive and in places also lyrical, will be provided by a twentieth-century Concertino for 4 trombones and string orchestra by the Dutch composer and conductor Jan Koetsier. ‘Prosit Neujahr!’