Greeting the new season (8 min.)

It has become a tradition that members of the Berliner Philharmoniker welcome the audience of the Digital Concert Hall at the beginning of a new season in a short film. To start the 2014/2015 season, the musicians of the orchestra put on record what concerts they were especially looking forward to. These included the orchestra’s guest appearances with Bach’s St. Matthew Passion and Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier as well as the symphonic cycles of Schumann, Brahms and Sibelius, to be conducted by Sir Simon Rattle in their home base, the Philharmonie. There was also much excitement about the guest conductors who had been announced which included Kirill Petrenko, Christian Thielemann and Bernard Haitink. Words of welcome in different languages also demonstrate that the orchestra is as international as its fans all around the world. Among those interviewed were horn player Fergus McWilliam, who was about to start his 30th season with the Philharmoniker, and trumpeter Florian Pichler who, at the age of eighteen, joined the orchestra at the beginning of the season.