Kronberg Academy Festival 2025
21st - 24th September 2025

The COE is thrilled to be back at its Kronberg Academy residency to open this year’s Festival at the Casals Forum with two concerts with Sir András Schiff on 23rd September. The first performance, at 6pm, features Schubert’s Entr’acte No. 3 in B Major from “Rosamunde” and Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C Major op. 56 for Violin, Cello and Piano with soloists William Hagen (violin), Bryan Cheng (cello) and Martina Consonni (piano). The second concert at 8.15pm includes Schubert’s 5 Minuets with 6 Trios D. 89 and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5.

It is always an immense pleasure for the musicians of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe to work with their long-standing friend and COE Honorary Member Sir András Schiff with whom they have performed well over 100 concerts since their first encounter in 1985 – 40 years ago this year – at the Lichfield Cathedral. To hear the whole story, and more, please listen to our interview with Sir András on the COE podcast here.

William Hagen, Bryan Cheng and Martina Consonni are all alumni from the Kronberg Academy. Martina is also part of Sir András Schiff’s Building Bridges initiative which helps talented young pianists to emerge in today’s classical music world through recitals and chamber music concerts where they have a chance to really display their musical personality and skills. Martina performed for the first time with the COE in Eisenstadt last year as part of a chamber music concert involving another Building Bridges artist, Itai Navon. We played with her again at last year’s Kronberg Academy Festival where she performed Haydn’s Piano Concerto No. 11 in a concert which also featured Kirill Gerstein in Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4. Kirill was actually replacing András Schiff who had unfortunately broken his leg and had had to cancel his performances with us at the Festival.

It is indeed a great joy for us to be able to perform again with Sir András, who has been a strong artistic partner of the COE almost since its creation (in 1981). This very special relationship which has developed over 40 years is crystallised in Sir András’s title of Honorary Member of the Orchestra. Together, they have performed across the world in major festivals and venues such as the Berlin, Cologne and Paris Philharmonies and Kammermusiksaal, London’s Royal Albert Hall and Barbican Centre, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Frankfurt’s Alte Oper, Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Zurich’s Tonhalle and the Lucerne and Edinburgh Festivals. Sir András also performed for the COE’s 35th anniversary private concert in St John’s Smith Square in London back in 2016. Together, they recorded Bach concertos BWV 1052 to 1058 to great acclaim for Decca, “a clear first choice” according to the Penguin CD guide.

It was in the evening on 23rd May 2022 that the COE set foot for the first time in the newly-built, not yet open, Casals Forum, a concert hall commissioned by the Kronberg Academy for its students to perform in a hall that truly showcases the outstanding level of music education provided by the Academy. For a number of years, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Kronberg Academy have been working in Partnership, with the COE being invited to perform a number of times in Kronberg, including for the celebration of the Academy’s 25th anniversary in 2018. We are thrilled that this partnership has resulted in an invitation to become orchestra-in-residence at the Casals Forum where we can rehearse ahead of tours as well as perform smaller scale concerts with some of the Kronberg Academy students and teachers.