🎻EBU partners with BBC Arts for Eurovision Classical Concerts

On July 2nd, the EBU announced that it would partner with BBC Arts for Eurovision Classical Concerts, which will spotlight both broadcast and independent orchestras as well as some of the best and brightest young conductors.

This will be their first co-production since Eurovision Young Musicians, which premiered in 1982. This series will feature four concerts, each broadcast on BBC TV and made available to all 113 EBU member organizations.

Four orchestras featured

The concert series features the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, filmed in Aviva Studios in Manchester and conducted by Ben Gernon; the Gulbenkian Orchestra, filmed in the Grande Auditório of the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon and conducted by Aziz Shokhkimov; the WDR Symphony Orchestra, filmed in the Philharmonie in Cologne and conducted by Marie Jacquot; and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, filmed in the Music House in Helsinki and conducted by Nicholas Collon. Specific broadcast dates are forthcoming but will be during December 2025 and January 2026.

While some repertoire remains to be announced, the concerts will feature works by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Ralph Vaughn Williams, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Kaija Saariaho, Jean Sibelius, and more. For a full list of the announced repertoire, see the EBU press release linked above.

Nicholas Collon, the first non-Finnish conductor to be named chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and its current conductor through the 2027-2028 season, said to the EBU, “I’m absolutely thrilled to take audiences on a tour around Europe, whose cities are home to the world’s best orchestras, to celebrate four exciting and innovative groups of musicians – and the concert halls they play in. […] Eurovision Classical Concerts is a great way to celebrate the versatility of these much-loved groups of musicians and bring them to an even wider audience.”

Will you be tuning in to Eurovision Classical Concerts? What other orchestras would you like to see highlighted in the future? As always, please let us know what you think by getting involved in the comments below. Also, be sure to follow ‘That Eurovision Site’ on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Threads, tumblr, and Bluesky for more information about Eurovision 2026!

News source: EBU
Photo credit: BBC/Gaelle Beri