Maestro Kazushi Ono has once again chosen Brussels: the consummate conductor, whose vision spans continents, cultures and genres, will be the new music director of the Brussels Philharmonic. The match is made in heaven, as became clear last season in his first collaboration with the orchestra as well as in their shared vision and future plans.
29 September 2021 – The Brussels Philharmonic has been on an extraordinary journey over the past decade: the orchestra has distinguished itself both nationally and internationally with a distinctive profile, outstanding artistic performances, prestigious partnerships, innovative projects and (inter)national recognition. The appointment of Stéphane Denève as music director in 2014 helped drive this momentum.
On 30 June 2022, Maestro Denève will conduct his final concert with the Brussels Philharmonic as its music director – the climax of a leadership in which 21st-century music and the great orchestral repertoire occupied a central place.Starting in the 2022-23 season, Kazushi Ono will take up the baton as music director, and will further reinforce and develop the main lines traced in the past few years.
Maestro Ono shares the DNA of the Brussels Philharmonic: a passion for new music, a desire to keep the great repertoire alive and to continue exploring it, and a permanent quest for innovation and evolution, connected unfailingly to authenticity, engagement and above all to sharing the love of music.
The Brussels Philharmonic is delighted that Maestro Ono, who with his breadth of knowledge and experience is a mainstay both at home and abroad, has chosen to return to Brussels. The future path he will travel with the musicians, the organisation and the audience promises to make for an exciting musical journey in the coming years: ongoing discovery of the great orchestral repertoire, new and ambitious ventures into both contemporary music and the classical and early Romantic oeuvre, and building links with people around symphonic music. The complete plan for the future will be presented in the spring of 2022.
On Friday 1 and Saturday 2 October, Kazushi Ono will conduct 2 concerts with the Brussels Philharmonic at Flagey (Brussels) and the Concertgebouw Brugge. On the programme are the Alban Berg Violin Concerto (with Veronika Eberle) and Edward Elgar’s Enigma Variations.