Prom 56: Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester by Wagner, Ravel, Shostakovich, Alkaen (2013/2013), Musiikinjohto Philippe Jordan, Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom

The pan-European Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester returns to the BBC Proms with conductor Philippe Jordan and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in a programme of Wagner’s overture to Rienzi, Ravel’s jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G major and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Founded by Claudio Abbado in 1986, the pan-European Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester remains one of the most musically exciting and technically polished youth orchestras in the world. Tonight, Philippe Jordan directs the GMJO in the overture to Wagner’s Rienzi and Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, written in an atmosphere of intense scrutiny and artistic repression, after the public denouncement of his opera The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. Ravel’s jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G major completes the programme, with the flamboyant French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet as the soloist.