With the 2024/25 subscription season, we want to build on our plan to offer you unique experiences, with concerts that on the one hand address current social issues and on the other hand are dedicated to contemplation and ritual – with music that is at the pulse of the times.
The upcoming season's six subscription concerts will feature 20 works, including numerous world and German premieres. These will explore a wide range of themes: crises, wars, and conflicts and our perspectives on them; traditions and how we deal with them; idealized and real female figures; diversity and openness; shared enthusiasm for a cause; and the importance of pausing and immersing oneself.
With "Them and Us?", the first subscription concert on September 29, 2024, we are opening a space for diverse perspectives, uncomfortable questions, and even opposing positions. This is already evident in the composers of this program, whose works critically examine a world thrown off balance by war and crises: Yurii Pikush is from Ukraine, Sergej Newski lives as an exiled Russian in Germany, Aleksandra Słyż is Polish, and Stefan Keller is Swiss.
“Disruptive Tradition” on December 8th juxtaposes works by Unsuk Chin and Sofia Gubaidulina, both characterized by a frictional relationship with (old) tradition. Gubaidulina’s music is imbued with spiritual and religious inspirations and forces, a quality that can hardly be said of Chin, who was awarded the prestigious Ernst von Siemens Music Prize in 2024. Pianist Alice Di Piazza will also be performing, interpreting works by Gubaidulina.
The third subscription concert, «From Mary to Fatimah» on January 26, 2025, presents under the direction of Jessica Cottis what long seemed unthinkable: a female perspective on female figures of cultural history: Lera Auerbach's «Sogno di Stabat Mater», Liza Lim's «Annunciation Triptych» and the eagerly awaited new composition by Helga Arias, a commissioned work by the Basel Sinfonietta and Real Filharmonía de Galicia.
A celebration of vibrant and diverse life is the theme of the fourth subscription concert on March 30th, presented in cooperation with Kaserne Basel. Under the motto "Diversity Matters," Ghanaian-German conductor Kevin John Edusei and composer, jazz improviser, and trombonist Alex Paxton will join forces to present an exceptionally diverse program. Alongside works by Paxton, the program will feature compositions by Missy Mazzoli, Julius Eastman, Jessie Cox, and Derrick Skye.
The 2025 UEFA Women's European Championship will start and finish in Basel. Together with Theater Basel, we will celebrate this with the football oratorio "Die Tiefe des Raumes" (The Depth of Space) by Moritz Eggert on May 22nd and 27th. The German composer and friend of the Basel Sinfonietta originally wrote the work for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany and has now created a Basel version.
Our sixth subscription concert on June 5th will feature Olivier Messiaen's "Et exspecto resurrectionem mortuorum" and Thierry Pécou's "Cara Bali." A video installation by Jérôme Tromson accompanies Messiaen's composition, which commemorates the dead of the two World Wars.
The new subscription is available now.
