The VSO closes its 2025-26 season with Gustav Mahler’s epic Third Symphony, May 29 and 30
Otto Tausk conducts the orchestra, along with mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb and the Vancouver Bach Choir, in a symphony that has a lot of everything
Otto Tausk
The VSO performs Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 3 at the Orpheum on May 29 and 30 at 7:30 pm
IF WE WERE betting types, we’d be willing to wager that Otto Tausk describes himself as a fan of Gustav Mahler. Since the Dutch conductor stepped into the role of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra’s music director in 2018, he has programmed Mahler works a number of times.
Tausk seems especially fond of opening and closing seasons with the Austro-Bohemian’s music. In 2022, for example, the VSO bowed out for the season with Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. The 2023–24 season kicked off with the composer’s Symphony No. 6 and wrapped up with his Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth).
Rihab Chaieb
If this established pattern is good enough for Tausk—who has proven to be a man of exquisite taste—then it’s good enough for us. So, while it was no surprise when the VSO announced that it would cap its current season at the Orpheum with Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, it was definitely exciting.
This symphony has it all, and plenty of it. In composing what would become the longest symphony in the standard repertoire (the VSO promises a 120-minute performance with no intermission), Mahler went all out. Looking for a monolithic first movement that opens with a brooding theme played on a chorus of French horns and closes with a sprightly march? Mahler delivers. Hoping to hear a soloist singing “Midnight Song” from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Also Sprach Zarathustra? You got it. You say you want to hear a choir imitating the pealing of bells? It’s in there!
Mahler once said that a symphony “must be like the world—it must embrace everything”, and he was clearly a man of his word.
So, you really can’t go wrong, and with mezzo-soprano Rihab Chaieb and the Vancouver Bach Choir joining the VSO for the two concerts on May 29 and 30, this is one season closer that should please even the biggest Mahler fan—and yes, Maestro Tausk, we are looking at you. 
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