CBSO reveals 2024-25 season

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) has announced details of its 2024-25 season. Alongside more than 100 performances, the orchestra is set to present five premieres plus a new series and week-long community festival. The CBSO is also responding to Birmingham’s ‘challenging financial times’ with a discount scheme for residents, yet to be announced.

Kazuki Yamada, who until now has held the role of chief conductor with the CBSO, will take up the new title of music director, effective immediately, in a move designed to reflect his ‘ever-deepening relationship with the orchestra’ and its creative decision-making. He is set to lead 22 concerts with the orchestra, as well as working with CBSO’s new Shireland CBSO Academy and  the CBSO Youth Orchestra and leading the orchestra on tours to Europe and Japan.

Yamada said: ‘As Music Director, I have renewed my determination to participate more actively in the CBSO's various activities than ever before… For me, the CBSO is a miraculous reality. Our special relationship of trust allows us to create magical moments with our audience at every concert. And new bonds can be created. At its core, music is about having fun and connecting with people – and we want to share music and have fun with as many people as possible.’

Former Principal Guest Conductor, Sir Mark Elder, is also set to make his return to the CBSO after more than 20 years with a programme of Brahms and Shostakovich in partnership with Sir Stephen Hough. The season will also present five premieres of work by composers including Mark Simpson, Nico Muhly, Akio Yashiro, Millicent B James and Héloïse Werner, who gives the premiere performance of her work for orchestra and soprano.

Werner’s premiere forms part of the orchestra’s new CBSO Explores series, discovering new ways to present orchestral music through staging, movement and lighting, narrative and context. Concerts in the series will include immersive performances, audio-visual collaborations, and partnerships with Black Voices and Punch Records.

The orchestra will also present a new week-long festival: CBSO in the City, with free performances aimed at across the city in libraries, community centres, museums, parks, pubs, plus the Bullring, Grand Central, New Street Station and The Hawthorns, home of local football team West Bromwich Albion FC. The CBSO has also launched a new Community Board designed to ‘build connections with a diverse range of voices’ and help the orchestra ‘engage more proactively with communities in the region that are currently under-represented in classical music’.

The CBSO has also appointed two creative associates; Professor Nate Holder and production company MishMash. Associates will hold the role for a year-long tenure with the aim of encouraging new thinking around the CBSO’s work to attract young audiences and support the orchestra’s ambition of further developing an anti-racist approach to work.

CBSO chief executive Emma Stenning said: ‘I’m so proud of this season. It speaks to the future of this remarkable orchestra, puts the brilliant Kazuki Yamada at the heart of our music making, and solidifies our commitment to being an ensemble that truly explores both the creative potential of our glorious city, and the opportunity of creating work in new ways, that will speak to more people.’