Season Opening at the Auditorium: Elgar, Strauss and an Evening for Listening

Season Opening at the Auditorium: Elgar, Strauss and an Evening for Listening

Cello sound, sunrise and an orchestra that tells stories

October 8, 2026 already sounds a little different in Palma. Anyone crossing the Passeig Mallorca that evening will not only hear the usual chatter of cafés and taxi drivers, but also people talking about the concert. On the forecourt of the Auditori the sound of footsteps on the paving mixes with the distant rustle of the city — an ordinary Monday that for many becomes a small cultural holiday.

The Orquestra Simfònica de les Illes Balears has put the programme of this season opener together cleverly, as outlined in OSIB 2025/26: Familiar Tunes, Stars and Small Surprises at the Auditorium. In the first half Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, stands on the podium. The work has something familiar and at the same time fragile about it. It is not a display of virtuosity for spectacle's sake. Rather, the feeling arises that someone is telling a long, quiet story. The soloist is Kian Soltani — a musician whose tone is warm and immediate and who gives well-known passages new breath. In Palma listeners will feel this precisely when the cello speaks as a voice of memory.

Under the baton of Pablo Mielgo the orchestra has the opportunity to unfold its fine palette. No intrusive gestures, but acoustic care: woodwinds, strings, brass — all speak with one another and build the music organically. The Auditorium provides an apt setting for this; the acoustics support intimate moments as well as larger swells. Similar observations were made in Impressionistic Season Opening at the Auditorium: Color, Sound and Late Romanticism.

After the interval attention shifts outward. Richard Strauss's tone poem Also sprach Zarathustra, Op. 30, opens the space wide. The famous introduction is only the beginning of a longer stream of thought in which nocturnal moods, dramatic appearances and philosophical hints meet. One leaves intimacy and looks into the wide sky — or, to put it figuratively, from a small café terrace at El Born up to the luminous roof of the cathedral.

This programme works because it allows contrasts. Elgar invites pausing, Strauss challenges you to think on a grand scale. Together they make an evening that not only offers beautiful listening but also produces echoes — conversations on the way home, a slow applause, the memory of a melody that lingers in the mind.

That cultural events like this take place in Mallorca is good for the island. Local coverage of earlier season openings, for example Brilliant Season Opening: OSIB Between Intimacy and Storm – an Evening That Resonates, underscores this point. They create places where people from different corners of the community come together: neighbours from Santa Catalina, students from Son Espanyolet, tourists who happen to be in town, and regulars who attend every season opener. This is not a loud advertising campaign but something everyday and valuable: the city provides space for conversation, and the music supplies the topic.

For those who want a little preparation: some pieces are collected in a playlist — ideal for listening beforehand and recognising familiar passages during the concert. Tickets are available through the usual channels of the Auditori; the memory of an evening often begins already when buying the ticket, when one deliberately reserves time.

An evening with Elgar and Strauss is not just a concert: it is an invitation. An invitation to slow down, to listen closely and to experience everyday life differently for a few hours. And afterwards? Perhaps a short walk back to the Passeig, a coffee, conversations about what was heard — typical scenes in Palma on an evening when the island pauses and listens.

When: October 8, 2026. Where: Auditorium Palma. Who: Orquestra Simfònica de les Illes Balears, soloist Kian Soltani, conductor Pablo Mielgo.