ARTHUR WASER PRIZEWINNER CONCERT

With the Arthur Waser Prize, the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester has supported young solo careers since 2013. Rarely has this happened at such an early stage as with the 2026 Arthur Waser Prize: pianist Martina Meola, born in Milan in 2012, won the “Jeune Chopin” competition in 2025 and impressed juror Martha Argerich so deeply that Argerich invited her to the piano festival “Le Piano Symphonique”.

In Martina Meola’s appearance as Arthur Waser Prizewinner with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Chopin’s Second Piano Concerto offers the chance to encounter a rising star. The work combines lyrical intimacy, elegant virtuosity and Romantic sensibility – allowing the piano again and again to speak like a human voice.

A discovery of a different kind is Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s Symphony in F sharp major. Korngold, who won several Oscars as a Hollywood composer after emigrating in the 1930s, also sought to free himself from this reputation with this powerful, darkly dazzling symphony. At the same time, he wove in his own music from pirate and other films. As film music without film, the work belongs to the season’s series of vividly pictorial sound worlds.

John Storgårds conducts. Internationally known for discoveries and innovative programmes, he first conducted the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester during the pandemic period.