City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra/Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla

Elgar’s Violin Concerto is every bit as passionate, elegiac and noble as its younger sibling, the famous Cello Concerto – and as technically dazzling. Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang is one of a bright new generation of violinists making light of its challenges to champion it and put it in its rightful place among the great concertos of the violin repertoire. Prokofiev’s music is spikier and more sardonic in his telling of Shakespeare’s famous Romeo and Juliet love story. With his masterful scoring and evocative melodies he draws the plot so vividly that being enraptured by the drama is unavoidable.

Since her appointment as their Music Director in 2016, Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and her ‘whiplash baton’ (Bachtrack) have established a special musical rapport with the CBSO, last heard here at our 2020 Beethoven Weekender.