Brevard Music Center Orchestra
Rune Bergmann, conductor
Stephen Hough, piano
JOHANNES BRAHMS Piano Concerto No. 1
RICHARD STRAUSS An Alpine Symphony
The Brevard Music Center Orchestra, led by Rune Bergmann, presents a program of grandeur and virtuosity.
Pianist Sir Stephen Hough returns to the stage in a performance of Brahms’s dramatic Piano Concerto No. 1. Strauss’s breathtaking An Alpine Symphony follows, portraying an epic journey through mountain landscapes in one of the most vivid tone poems ever written.
Rune Bergmann
Conductor
Norwegian conductor Rune Bergmann is currently Music Director of Canada’s Calgary Philharmonic, Artistic Director & Chief Conductor of Poland’s Szczecin Philharmonic, and Chief Conductor of...
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Norwegian conductor Rune Bergmann is currently Music Director of Canada’s Calgary Philharmonic, Artistic Director & Chief Conductor of Poland’s Szczecin Philharmonic, and Chief Conductor of Switzerland’s Argovia Philharmonic, positions he has held since the 2017/18, 2016/17, and 2020/21 seasons, respectively.
Guest engagements in the 2022/23 season bring Bergmann once again to the podiums of the Baltimore, North Carolina and Malaga Symphony Orchestras. He will also make his debut with the recently formed ADDA Simfonica in Spain.
Bergmann’s recent guest engagements include concert weeks with the Baltimore, Colorado Detroit, Edmonton, Houston, New Jersey and Pacific Symphony Orchestras in North America, and the Bergen Philharmonic, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Orquesta Sinfonica Portuguesa, Norwegian National Opera Orchestra, Orquesta de Valencia, Staatskapelle Halle, Wrocław Philharmonic, and the Risør Festival in Europe, to name a few. Bergmann has also led performances of Il barbiere di Siviglia and La traviata at the Norwegian National Opera, and he made his US operatic debut in Yale Opera’s production of Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as staged by Claudia Solti, while previous guest engagements have led him to such auspices as the Oslo Philharmonic, New Mexico Philharmonic, Münchner Symphoniker, Mainfranken Theater Würzburg, Philharmonie Südwestfalen, as well as the symphony orchestras of Malmö, Helsingborg, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Trondheim, Karlskrona, and Odense.
2018 saw the release of Bergmann’s first recording with the Szczecin Philharmonic, which featured the „Resurrection“ Symphony in E-minor by Mieczyław Karłowicz, a piece which has since become a major focus of Bergmann’s repertoire. He has also released recordings with the Argovia Philharmonic, including Ravel’s G-Major Piano Concerto and Mozart’s Bb-Major Bassoon concerto.
Earlier in his career, Rune Bergmann served as First Kapellmeister and deputy-Music Director of the Theater Augsburg, where he led performances of numerous operas, including such titles as La Traviata, Der fliegende Holländer, and Die Fledermaus. He has also served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Kaunas City Symphony, and has been Artistic Director of Norway’s innovative Fjord Cadenza Festival since its inception in 2010.
Sir Stephen Hough
Piano
Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths, Sir Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career of a concert pianist with those of a composer and writer.
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Named by The Economist as one of Twenty Living Polymaths, Sir Stephen Hough combines a distinguished career of a concert pianist with those of a composer and writer. In recognition of his contribution to cultural life, he became the first classical performer to be given a MacArthur Fellowship and was awarded a Knighthood for Services to Music in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2022.
In a career spanning over 40 years, Hough has played regularly with most of the world’s leading orchestras, including televised and filmed appearances with the Berlin, London, China, Seoul, and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Concertgebouw, Budapest Festival, and NHK Symphony Orchestras. He has been a regular guest of recital series and festivals worldwide including Carnegie Hall, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Salzburg, Verbier, La Roque‑d’Anthéron, Aspen, Tanglewood, Aldeburgh, and Edinburgh.
Sir Stephen Hough opened his 2025/26 season at the Elbphilharmonie, launching the Hamburg Staatsorchester’s season under its new music director Omer Meir Wellber with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3, for which he has composed a brand-new second movement. The following 12 months included more than 60 concerts/recitals across three continents, appearing with leading orchestras in the US, Europe, and Asia. This season also marked the Asian premiere of his Piano Concerto The World of Yesterday—named after Stefan Zweig’s memoir—with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, followed by its Korean premiere with Symphony S.O.N.G. His season also features a series of high-profile recital appearances, including Wigmore Hall in London and Klavierfestival Ruhr in Germany. His Piano Quintet (Les Noces Rouges), inspired by an episode in American novelist Willa Cather’s My Ántonia, and commissioned by the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society in 2024, received its European and UK premieres at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and Southbank Centre in London.