On 16 October 2016, Josep Pons made his debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra in a concert at London’s Royal Festival Hall, one of the United Kingdom’s leading concert venues and the home of one of Europe’s most distinguished orchestras.
The programme featured two landmarks of the Germanic repertoire: Franz Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 in B minor, “Unfinished”, and Gustav Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde. For Mahler’s masterpiece, Josep Pons was joined by tenor Robert Dean Smith and mezzo-soprano Catherine Wyn-Rogers, who joined the project following the withdrawal of the originally announced baritone Matthias Goerne.
The concert marked an important milestone in Josep Pons’s international career, initiating his collaboration with one of Britain’s foremost orchestras. Founded in 1945, the Philharmonia Orchestra has worked throughout its history with conductors including Otto Klemperer, Riccardo Muti, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Christoph von Dohnányi and Esa-Pekka Salonen, establishing itself as one of Europe’s leading symphonic ensembles.
The programme also reflected Josep Pons’s longstanding affinity with the Austro-German repertoire, which has remained a defining feature of his artistic career through both symphonic and operatic performances with major international orchestras.