Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert on Thursday and premieres 2 works by women

The Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin will conduct for the first time this Thursday, January 1, the New Year’s Concert of the Vienna Philharmonic, as announced earlier this year by the Philharmonic.

The Spanish Radio Television (RTVE) channels and stations -La 1 HD, RTVE Play, TVE Internacional Europa, RNE and Radio Clásica- will broadcast the event starting at 11am, whose commentator will be Martín Llade.

The artistic collaboration between Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Vienna Philharmonic began at the ‘Mozart Week Salzburg’ in 2010. Since then, the conductor has regularly conducted the orchestra in various concerts in Vienna and Salzburg, as well as on tours.

Vienna Philharmonic President Daniel Froschauer noted earlier this year that “as music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, as well as principal conductor of major international ensembles such as the Philadelphia Orchestra, Nézet-Séguin represents the genres that together make up the musical language of the Vienna Philharmonic.” “By choosing Yannick Nézet-Séguin, we seek to fulfill our goal of collaborating more with the younger generation of directors,” he said.

FIVE RELEASES, TWO FROM COMPOSERS

The Concert, which has been held every morning on January 1 since 1941, is in its 86th edition in its traditional location, the Great Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, adorned with fresh flowers from the city’s gardens, according to RTVE. The Philharmonic has announced that in 2026 five premieres of pieces never performed in this recital will be included, including works by two female composers.

Since 1959, the Concert has been a production of the Austrian television ORF, in co-production with the European Radio-Television Union (EBU-EBU-Eurovision), which broadcasts it to more than 150 countries around the world, with an audience of more than 50 million viewers through television and streaming.

Specifically, the concert on Thursday, January 1, 2026 will begin with the overture of the operetta ‘Indigo and the Forty Thieves’, and then listen, “for the first time at this event”, to the waltz ‘Tales of the Danube’ by Carl Michael Ziehrer, the polka ‘Brausteufelchen’ by Eduard Strauss and the ‘Malapou-Galoppe’ by Joseph Lanner.

As for the two works by female composers, in the second part of the concert the polka ‘Mermaid Songs’ by Josephine Weinlich, who founded the first female orchestra in Europe in Vienna, will be performed, as well as the waltz ‘Rainbow’ by Florence Price.

After the main program, the concert always ends with several encores. Then the musicians collectively wish a Happy New Year (Prosit Neujahr) and play the waltz from ‘The Blue Danube’ by Johann Strauss Jr., ending with the ‘Radetzky March’ by Johann Strauss Sr. In recent years, masters such as Georges Prêtre, Franz Welser-Möst, Zubin Mehta, Mariss Jansons, Gustavo Dudamel, Christian Thielemann, Andris Nelsons, Riccardo Muti and Daniel Barenboim have been invited to conduct this concert.