Utah Symphony’s 2014-15 season opens officially this weekend, on Friday 12 and Saturday 13 September, featuring a programme of Mahler, Beethoven and Mosolov. These concerts also mark the beginning of the Utah Symphony’s much-anticipated Mahler cycle, which has been planned to cover two seasons, leading up to the orchestra’s 75th anniversary in 2015-16.

The cycle is a tribute to former Music Director of the Utah Symphony, Maurice Abravanel, who was a champion of Mahler, the Utah Symphony being the first American orchestra to record a complete Mahler cycle. This weekend’s performances will be recorded live for future release, marking Thierry’s first-ever recording with the orchestra.

Reflecting on the planning and performing of cycles, and following the success of the previous season’s Nielsen cycle, Thierry remarks:

“The spirit of this is simply, in providing a musical frame, we allow art to guide us. We don’t have an influence on it, and to complete a cycle we need to prove a certain artistic endurance. There is a sense of inevitability that lies in playing one symphony after the other, and I think we can develop an artistic identity through performing cycles. It means that art is determining our activities – not the other way around – and is pushing us forwards.”

These concerts are part of the Masterworks Series – click here for further details.