On 30 January 2026, Alpha Classics will release a new album bringing together cellist Nicolas Altstaedt and violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja, two of today’s leading soloists in the album Bowed Spaces. The recording features works by the Hungarian-born, Germany-based composer Márton Illés and is a collaboration with SWR Experimentalstudio and the Münchener Kammerorchester.

The album includes two concertos, a set of three solo violin studies with live electronics, and a work for 24-piece string orchestra featuring extensive scordatura. Highlighting the extraordinary partnership at the heart of the recording, Gramophone writes that ​“there is something for everyone… the soloists… how composers dream of such collaborators” (2026).

Both Altstaedt and Kopatchinskaja have long been champions of Illés’s music. This album offers an opportunity to hear two of today’s leading soloists exploring some of the most compelling music of the past decade.

The violin concerto Vont-tér by Márton Illés, recorded on this album, receives its UK premiere this evening, 29 January, with the London Symphony Orchestra and Patricia Kopatchinskaja, conducted by Robert Treviño