VIDEO Who is the Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin who performed and brought the hall to its feet at the New Year's Concert in Vienna

The Canadian conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, for the first time on the podium of the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert, scored several firsts and sent a message of “peace and kindness” to everyone. Also for the first time, a conductor descended into the audience and circled the grandiose Musikverein with baton in hand during the Radetzky March. Spectators, excited, immortalized the moment with their phones, “violating” the classic etiquette of such an event.

The 2026 edition of the show brought a first: the orchestra was conducted for the first time at the New Year's Concert by the 50-year-old Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin, known to the Romanian public for his participation in the “George Enescu” Festival.

“The members of the Vienna Philharmonic and I wish you first of all peace in your hearts, peace with the people who surround you and above all peace between all the nations of the world. With peace comes kindness, only with kindness comes peace, that's why I wish you all kindness in our hearts, kindness to each other, kindness to accept each other's differences. Music can unite us all, because we all live on the same planet,” the Canadian conductor said before The Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra to perform the famous “Blue Danube” waltz, writes News.ro.

Who is Yannick Nézet-Séguin

Yannick Nézet-Séguin, 50, is an internationally renowned conductor. The Canadian conductor took to the podium for the first time at the New Year's Concert in Vienna.

He has been music director of the Metropolitan Opera in New York since 2018, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2012 and has been conducting the Montreal Metropolitan Orchestra for 25 years. He is also honorary conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, where he was principal conductor between 2008 and 2018.

Nézet-Séguin has had a close relationship for more than 15 years with the Vienna Philharmonic, which he conducted for the first time in 2010.

In addition to the masterpieces of the Strauss dynasty, Nézet-Séguin introduced into the program of the Viennese orchestra on 1 January five works that were performed for the first time at a New Year's concert.

Between them, two scores written by the composers Josephine Weinlich and Florence Price: polka mazur Sirenen Lieder, written in the summer of 1868 for the debut of her own female orchestra that the Austrian composer founded at the age of 20 and which she conducted from the lectern of the first violin, just like Johann Strauss. Instead, Florence Price's “The Rainbow Waltz” was originally composed for piano and rediscovered only in 2009, along with numerous other manuscripts by this black composer, who despite segregation and racism managed to establish herself at the beginning of the 20th century as the first recognized African-American composer.

The energetic and multifaceted program of the 2026 New Year's Concert, which was broadcast by Romanian Television, mainly included works by members of the Strauss dynasty, but also compositions by Carl Michael Ziehrer, Joseph Lanner, Franz von Suppè and Hans-Christian Lumbye.

Adela Frasineanu, violinist of Romanian origin, was also part of the Viennese orchestra.

The most publicized concert of all time

Thus, the New Year's Concert in Vienna presented this year a special program of over two hours which included, in addition to the refinement of the music of the Strauss dynasty, some absolute firsts. And in 2026, the New Year's Concert transformed the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra into the most important musical ambassador of Europe, with everything that is most representative of the old continent in terms of grace and harmony, TVR wrote.

The message to the world of the concert in the European capital of music was, more than ever, one of hope and peace. January 1, 2026 marks the 68th anniversary of this “concert of concerts” being broadcast by television cameras around the world. This year, the New Year's Concert was televised in more than 150 countries around the world and watched by more than 50 million viewers.