As part of the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich’s ‘classic meets art’ series, this recital will be held in our Zurich gallery on Limmatstrasse, within the exhibition ‘Mary Heilmann. Works on Paper.’ The exhibition marks Heilmann’s return to Zurich with more than 30 works on paper, created between 1975 and 2005, offering an intimate look at her evolving visual language.

Igor Stravinsky, whose groundbreaking musical language electrified Europe and particularly Paris in the 1910s, went into exile in California in 1939, where he continued to shape the course of modern music. Contemporary American composer Caroline Shaw draws on historical forms and gestures, creating bridges between past and present while developing her own distinctive tonal world. In a similar way, Mary Heilmann has long engaged in dialogue with earlier artists, including Piet Mondrian, while forging a visual language entirely her own.

Creative Chair Thomas Adès also acknowledges his artistic forebears, reflecting on figures such as Mozart, whose music concludes the evening. Variation, transformation, and reinterpretation are themes central not only to Mozart’s compositions, but also to Heilmann’s work, making this musical program a fitting complement to the exhibition.

Musicians
Diego Baroni, Clarinet
Amelia Maszonska-Escobar, Violine
Philipp Wollheim, Violine
Sarina Zickgraf, Viola
Sasha Neustroev, Violoncello

Introductions
Leonie von Bismark, Hauser & Wirth
Ulrike Thiele, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich

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Doors open: 6.30 pm
Start of event: 7 pm

Book your tickets here. The ticket price includes one complimentary drink.
The concert will be seated.

Hauser & Wirth Zurich
Limmatstrasse 270

2nd floor

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About the Exhibition Mary Heilmann’s works on paper are suffused with the same sensibility as her influential abstract paintings, a casual playfulness animating a rigorous attention to form and colour, resulting in joyful, evocative geometries. Their suggestive power reflects Heilmann’s process of what she calls ‘daydreaming’: a conjuring of the sights, sounds, and events of past and future travels, the cyclical nature of memory informing her return to various motifs across nearly five decades of work.

About Mary Heilmann Raised in San Francisco and Los Angeles, Heilmann completed a degree in literature, before she studied ceramics at Berkeley. Coming out of 1960s counterculture, the free speech movement, and the surf ethos of her native California, Mary Heilmann went on to become among the most influential abstract painters of her generation. Although her work is non-representational and based on an elementary, geometrical vocabulary—circles, squares, grids, and stripes—the simplicity of the forms is complicated by a painterly nonchalance.

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About Igor Stravinsky About Igor Stravinsky (1982 – 1971) was a Russian-born composer whose work had a revolutionary impact on musical thought and sensibility just before and after World War I, and whose compositions remained a touchstone of modernism for much of his long working life. He was honoured with the Royal Philharmonic Society Gold Medal in 1954 and the Wihuri Sibelius Prize in 1963.

About Caroline Shaw Caroline Shaw is a musician who moves among roles, genres, and mediums, trying to imagine a world of sound that has never been heard before but has always existed. She works often in collaboration with others, as producer, composer, violinist, and vocalist. Caroline is the recipient of the Pulitzer Prize in Music, several Grammys, and an honorary doctorate from Yale.

About Thomas Adès Thomas Adès is a British composer, pianist, and conductor whose diverse compositional oeuvre, ranging from solo pieces to operas, established him as one of the most-skilled classical music artists of his generation. He is the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich’s Creative Chair for the 2025/26 season. Throughout the season, key works will be performed in various formats and instrumentations - from family concerts and orchestral concerts to film music and opera excerpts from his international successes ‘The Tempest’ and ‘Powder Her Face’.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 – 1791), was an Austrian composer, widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music. With Haydn and Beethoven he brought to its height the achievement of the Viennese Classical school. Unlike any other composer in musical history, he wrote in all the musical genres of his day and excelled in every one. His taste, his command of form, and his range of expression have made him seem the most universal of all composers; yet, it may also be said that his music was written to accommodate the specific tastes of audiences.