Conductor Tugan Sokhiev Steps in for Vienna Phil’s Japan Concerts

In November 2023, Sokhiev will step in for conductor Franz Welser-Möst, who is undergoing cancer treatments

The Vienna Philharmonic has announced that for its upcoming 2023 Asian Tour, the concerts in Japan from November 10–19, 2023, will be led by Tugan Sokhiev, in place of Franz Welser-Möst.

Welser-Möst has withdrawn from his conducting engagements with the orchestra due to his undergoing a treatment plan beginning in October 2023 for a 12 to 16-month period for a cancerous tumor.

“The Vienna Philharmonic wholeheartedly wishes Franz Welser-Möst a speedy and complete recovery,” said the orchestra’s chairman Daniel Froschauer on Facebook. “We have a very close and long artistic partnership and friendship with him — he is one of us. We look forward to making music together again soon!”

Coordinated with Tokyo’s Suntory Hall, Staatskapelle Dresden, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Sokhiev will conduct the originally scheduled tour dates and program, which includes works by Strauss, Brahms, Prokofiev, Dvořák, and Beethoven. Pianist Lang Lang will also be featured in Saint-Saëns’s Piano Concerto No. 2. 

For the full program, click here.

Sokhiev regularly conducts the Vienna, Berlin, New York Philharmonic orchestras; plus the Boston, Chicago, NHK Symphony Orchestras. Other engagements include the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, and Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Additionally, he was music director of the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse from 2008 to 2022; he served as chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre from 2014 to 2022; and from 2012 to 2016, he was principal conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester.