Strauss & Beethoven

The Charlotte Symphony is bringing violinist Bella Hristova to the Belk Theater for two performances: Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21, 2026, both at 7:30 PM. The program pairs two heavyweights of the violin repertoire: Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Strauss's Ein Heldenleben. Kwamé Ryan conducts the orchestra for both.

Beethoven's concerto is one of the most celebrated works for violin and orchestra, and Hristova has the pedigree to match it. The Bulgarian-American violinist has won international acclaim, with the New York Times noting her "expressive nuance and rich tone" and the Washington Post praising her "impressive power and control." She's an Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient, took first prize at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition, and is a laureate of the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. She's performed as a soloist across the United States, Asia, Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand.

Beyond the classics, Hristova champions living composers through her commissioning project Lineage, which has brought together six new solo violin works by Dai Wei, Gloria Kravchenko, Nokuthula Ngwenyama, Eunike Tanzil, Joan Tower, and Ellen Taaffe Zwilich.

Strauss's Ein Heldenleben is a tone poem completed in 1898 and premiered in 1899. It was inspired by Beethoven's Eroica and runs through six episodes without pause. One of those episodes is a solo violin part Strauss wrote for his wife, Pauline, so the violin remains a central thread throughout the piece. The Belk Theater, designed by Cesar Pelli and opened in 1992, seats its audience in a contemporary European horseshoe arrangement lit by about 2,400 fiber-optic "points of light."

Tickets start at $28.26, and the concert runs Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21, 7:30 PM at the Belk Theater, 130 N. Tryon Street.