Chamber Music & Orchestra at Cal Performances

Each Cal Performances season, Zellerbach Hall and Hertz Hall fill with the sounds of exquisite chamber ensembles and renowned conductors leading stellar orchestras visiting from across the globe. Past orchestra residencies have included concerts by the Vienna Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony, the Czech Philharmonic, the Montreal Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the East-Western Divan Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, and the Simon Bólivar Symphony Orchestra. The list of conductors who have stood at the podium in Zellerbach Hall includes Riccardo Muti, David Robertson, Gustavo Dudamel, Essa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Franz Welser-Möst , Daniel Barenboim, Valery Gergiev, Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons, Lahav Shani, and Kent Nagano.

Audience favorites, the Takács Quartet appear each season, their full cycles of the Bartók and Beethoven string quartets taking their place in the annals of Cal Performances history. Other frequent chamber music visitors have included the duo of cellist David Finckel and cellist Wu Han; the Musicians from Marlboro touring program; Yo-Yo Ma’s SIlk Road Project and its spinoff, the Silk Road Ensemble; Les Violons du Roi; the Brentano Quartet and Jerusalem Quartet, and the newest addition to Cal Performances’ string quartet roster, the Danish String Quartet.

The 2021–22 season invites pianist Mitsuko Uchida with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Vienna Piano Trio, English Baroque Soloists directed by Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the Tetzlaff Quartet, and two visits each by the Danish String Quartet and the Takács Quartet.