The Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra’s Conductor Laureate, Bernhard Gueller, brings the CPO’s Winter Symphonies at the City Hall season to a close on Thursday, 18 and 25 June 2026.
Cellist Hayoung Choi, winner of the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2022, will perform the Haydn Cello Concerto No. 1 in C Major in the concert on June 18. It is a work of elegance, wit and sophistication, which was only rediscovered in 1961 in Prague, having been lost for 200 years. For Gueller, “it remains absolutely unjustifiable that Haydn remains in Mozart’s shadow. You will struggle to find a cello concerto with more temperament, imagination and a more ingenious dialogue between soloist and orchestra”.
The main work on the programme is the Symphony No. 7 by Anton Bruckner, a work which shows the genius of the Austrian composer to build up to spectacular climaxes.
Distant Light
The final concert, on June 25, features the return to the CPO of the popular Dutch violinist Daniel Rowland. Rowland will perform “Distant Light”, the Violin Concerto No. 1 by the leading Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks. This work, says Rowland, “is gorgeous to listen to and it is inspiring – it has three extremely important elements – Vask’s love of nature, spirituality and, very much present, the conflict, the struggle between the forces of good and the forces of darkness, and Pēteris’s deeply held belief that goodness and love can conquer all.”
The other works on the programme are Ravel’s enchanting Ma Mère l’Oye, or Mother Goose Suite, and the masterful Symphony No. 9 by Schubert, known as “The Great”.
Tickets are available from R190 to R450 at Artscape Dial-A-Suite 021 421 7695 or Webtickets here.
Tickets for the dress rehearsals at 11 am are at the door or on the Quicket platform.
In a nutshell
CPO Winter Symphonies
At the Cape Town City Hall
On Thursday 18 and 25 June 2026
Top picture: Hayoung Choi Picture: Magnus Skrede.