Tour with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Veronika Eberle and Jean-Guihen Queyras
2nd - 13th December 2025
Programme
It a great joy for the COE players to be reunited a second time this year with its Honorary Member and dear friend Yannick Nézet-Séguin, following our wonderful time in Baden-Baden this summer. Joined by violinist Veronika Eberle and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, they undertake their third intercontinental tour of the year and the six all-Brahms concerts will feature the Tragic Overture, Double Concerto for Violin and Cello in A minor, op. 102 and Symphony No. 1 in C minor, op. 68. They will first travel to Prague where they will rehearse for a few days and perform in Spanish Hall of the Prague Castle (4 December). This first concert will be followed by concerts at the Philharmonies in Luxembourg (5 December) and Paris (6 December) and the Orchestra then flies off to the US for three more concerts: Carnegie Hall (New York, 9 December), Philadelphia (Marian Anderson Hall, 10 December) and Ann Arbor (Hill Auditorium, 11 December). Following on the heels of our recent release of Brahms’s four symphonies with Yannick on the Deutsche Grammophon label, this important concert tour is the first of a four-year series that will celebrate the Orchestra’s and Yannick’s recent work together on Brahms’s symphonies, his two piano concertos, double concerto and violin concerto.
Brahms is deeply ingrained in the COE’s DNA – over the past four decades, the COE performed and recorded his works with many eminent conductors and soloists – including all of the COE’s Honorary Members. Our most recent performances have been during summers of July 2022 and 2023, at the Capitale d’Eté Festival in Baden-Baden with Yannick Nézet-Séguin where we presented Brahms’s four symphonies, his two piano concertos, violin concerto and Academic Festival Overture.
We last performed with Veronika Eberle in 2022 as part of a tour with pianist Dénes Várjon, travelling to Berlin and Eisenstadt where we were launching our residency at the Schloss Esterházy with a programme by Haydn, Hummel, Janacek and Mendelssohn. Thanks to our audiovisual partnership, the Eisenstadt concert was broadcast live and is still available to watch on medici.tv – who have broadcast all our concerts at the Schloss Esterházy since the start of our residency. Our last concert with Jean-Guihen Queyras was also in 2022, this time with another COE Honorary Member, Robin Ticciati, when we had performed the Schumann Cello Concerto at the Berlin Kammermusiksaal.
Veronika Eberle
Veronika Eberle’s exceptional talent and the poise and maturity of her musicianship have been recognised by many of the world’s finest orchestras, venues and festivals, as well as by some of the most eminent conductors.
In the 2025-26 season, Veronika makes her Carnegie Hall debut in a tour of Europe and the USA with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Other notable debuts include Konzerthausorchester Berlin (Søndergård), Helsinki Philharmonic (Bihlmaier), Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony (Storgårds), Hyogo PAC Orchestra (Ottensamer) and Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Widmann). She also makes returns to Dresdner Philharmonie (Albrecht), BBC National Orchestra of Wales (Bloch), Gürzenich Orchestra (Bihlmaier) and Brussels Philharmonic (Ono).
Recent highlights include US debuts with New York Philharmonic Orchestra (Canellakis), Boston Symphony Orchestra (Stutzmann), Cleveland Orchestra (Popelka) and returns to the LA Philharmonic (Rustioni), Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Nagano) and Budapest Festival Orchestra (Fischer).
Veronika plays the 1693 “Ries” Stradivarius, which is on generous loan from the Reinhold Würth Musikstiftung gGmbH.
Read more about Veronika on Askonas Holt’s website
Jean-Guihen Queyras
Curiosity, variety, and a firm focus on the music itself characterize the artistic work of Jean-Guihen Queyras. Whether on stage or on record, on listening one experiences an artist dedicated wholly and ardently to the music, whose humble and unpretentious treatment of the score reflects its clear, undistorted essence.
Three key elements contribute towards a successful performance – the alignment of the inner worlds of composer, performer and audience alike: Jean-Guihen Queyras learnt this interpretative approach from none other than Pierre Boulez, with whom his artistic partnership spanned many years. This philosophy, alongside a flawless technique and a clear, decisive sound, shapes Jean-Guihen Queyras’ approach to every performance and his absolute commitment to the music itself.
This intensity comes to the fore too in his approach to historical and contemporary repertoire – visible notably in his collaborations with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. He has also given world premieres of works by, amongst others, Ivan Fedele, Gilbert Amy, Bruno Mantovani, Michael Jarrell, Johannes-Maria Staud, Thomas Larcher and Tristan Murail. Conducted by the composer, he recorded Peter Eötvös’ Cello Concerto to mark his 70th birthday in November 2014.
Jean-Guihen Queyras was a founding member of the Arcanto Quartet and performs as part of a trio with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov; on the piano, Melnikov and a further collaborator, Alexandre Tharaud, feature too as regular duo partners. In addition, he has collaborated with zarb specialists Bijan and Keyvan Chemirani on a programme featuring music of the Mediterranean.
This versatility of his practice has led to numerous concert halls, festivals and orchestras inviting Jean-Guihen as an Artist in Residence, including the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Vredenburg Utrecht, De Bijloke Ghent and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg.
Jean-Guihen Queyras often appears with renowned orchestras such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Residentie Orkest Den Haag, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhausorchester and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, working with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Philippe Herreweghe, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, François-Xavier Roth, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and Sir Roger Norrington.
Read more about Jean-Guihen on the Impresariat Simmenauer website.