Pietari Inkinen conducts Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra and Tabea Zimmermann

Pietari Inkinen will conduct three concerts with the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra at this year’s Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, with performances in Elmshorn, Rendsburg and Büdelsdorf on 17 and 18 July 2026.

The programme brings together two landmark works of the Romantic repertoire: Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, Eroica, and Berlioz’s Harold en Italie for viola and orchestra. The solo part in Berlioz’s fascinating hybrid of symphony and viola concerto will be performed by Tabea Zimmermann, one of today’s most distinguished violists.

Inspired by Lord Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Berlioz’s own experiences in Italy, Harold en Italie places the viola at the centre of a richly imaginative orchestral journey, with the solo instrument embodying the figure of Harold. Beethoven’s Eroica, one of the defining symphonies of the nineteenth century, completes the programme.

In addition to the two evening concerts, Inkinen will also conduct the Festival Orchestra in the SHMF’s special ZOOM format in Büdelsdorf. For this immersive concert experience, the musicians are not seated on a conventional stage but spread throughout the hall around the conductor’s podium. Audience members can choose their own places among them – close to the strings, near the brass, or beside the percussion – experiencing Beethoven’s Eroica at unusually close range, with the conductor, musicians and listeners forming one shared musical space. After the interval, the symphony is performed again in traditional orchestral formation, offering two perspectives on the same work.

Concerts:

17 July 2026, 19:30
Elmshorn, Reithalle
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, op. 55, Eroica
Berlioz: Harold en Italie for viola and orchestra, op. 16
Tabea Zimmermann, viola
Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra
Pietari Inkinen, conductor

18 July 2026, 11:00
Büdelsdorf, ACO Thormannhalle
ZOOM concert
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, op. 55, Eroica

18 July 2026, 19:30
Rendsburg, Christkirche
Beethoven: Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major, op. 55, Eroica
Berlioz: Harold en Italie for viola and orchestra, op. 16

More information and tickets on https://www.shmf.de/

[Photo: Marco Borggreve]