Los Angeles Philharmonic

Swiss conductor Lorenzo Viotti makes his highly anticipated LA Phil debut conducting Rachmaninoff’s masterful Second Symphony. Written during a particularly fruitful period of the composer’s career, the lush and passionate Second bursts with orchestral colors. “[T]here was a real sense of Viotti … getting caught up in the Romantic spirit of the work,” Bachtrack reported following a 2022 performance of the work. Known for her “pure, gorgeous tone and fabulous technique,” Lisa Batiashvili dives into Szymanowski’s shimmering First Violin Concerto from the same era. “It’s a piece full of love and pain deriving from the restrictions experienced by a man who was in love with another man at a time when this was outlawed both legally and morally,” Batiashvili says. Her performances of the concerto—on stage and in recordings—have won raves around the globe. One such review in the Boston Globe exclaimed: “Batiashvili’s violin made its entrance, sylphlike. …[M]aterializing distinct themes out of the freewheeling, atmospheric euphoria, her phrases were seamless without sentimentality.”