Gilbert appears with three major international orchestras this summer. He returns to Munich’s Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO) for a program showcasing the European premiere of returning into darkness, a cello concerto co-commissioned by the BRSO from Diapason d’Or–winning Austrian composer Thomas Larcher. Featuring its dedicatee, MacArthur fellow Alisa Weilerstein, this will be heard between two works by Sibelius: his tone poem Night Ride and Sunrise and his stirring Fifth Symphony (June 5 & 6). Gilbert says of Sibelius that “his music says something very true about all humanity,” and his interpretations of the Finnish composer’s music have been said to evince “deep, clear thinking” that lets “Sibelius’ complex emotions speak for themselves” (New York Classical Review).

As Music Director and Royal Court Kapellmeister of the Royal Swedish Opera, Gilbert returns to the Stockholm house for an early summer concert with the Royal Swedish Orchestra & Chorus. Their program opens with D’un matin de printemps, the final orchestral composition by Lili Boulanger, before celebrating the music of Brahms with performances of the choral Schicksalslied and tragic Fourth Symphony (June 14).

Finally, as Principal Guest Conductor of Japan’s Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Gilbert completes his summer lineup with four performances of Brahms’s First and Second Symphonies (July 18–24). His “spacious and sonorous performance” of Brahms’s First with the NDREO drew a five-star review from Classical Source, which found their account “glorious in the home stretch.”