Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Yuja Wang London Symphony Orchestra

An undisputed protagonist of the international music scene, Yannick Nézet-Séguin makes his debut at the Festival dei Due Mondi, bringing with him his electrifying energy and unconventional vision. He conducts the London Symphony Orchestra with pianist Yuja Wang in a programme that sets Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 alongside Sergei Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26.

Trained at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec, Nézet-Séguin founded La Chapelle de Montréal at just nineteen and soon after began the collaboration with the Orchestre Métropolitain that would become one of the defining artistic partnerships of his life, ultimately sealed by a lifetime contract. After his tenure with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, he is now Music Director of both the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 2026, he conducted the New Year’s Concert in Vienna with the Wiener Philharmoniker. A mentor to Bradley Cooper for the film Maestro, he has been described by the Financial Times as “the greatest generator of energy on the international podium”.

Composed between 1906 and 1907 during a period of self-imposed retreat in Dresden, Rachmaninoff’s Second Symphony marks a decisive turning point in the composer’s life, following his resignation from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow. In an atmosphere of solitude, suspended between homesickness and fierce creative concentration, he produced a work of sweeping breadth and ardent lyricism. Premiered to triumphant acclaim in 1908, the symphony stands as a radiant affirmation of his artistic maturity.

Prokofiev’s Third Concerto, by contrast, was completed in 1921 between France and the United States, following his departure from revolutionary Russia. Conceived in exile and driven by a desire to assert himself on the international stage, the concerto accompanied his return to Europe and quickly emerged as one of his most emblematic works.

The soloist is Yuja Wang, one of the most celebrated pianists of our time, renowned for her astonishing technical command and deeply instinctive musicality. She burst onto the international scene in 2007 at the age of twenty, stepping in at short notice for Martha Argerich in Boston. In 2009 she opened the Lucerne Festival with Claudio Abbado, performing Prokofiev’s Third Concerto. Among her most acclaimed artistic partnerships is that with Nézet-Séguin, culminating by an already legendary Rachmaninoff cycle with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York, a collaboration that now reaches a new and meaningful milestone.

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