"Ouverture" Season 2025-2026

So here we are! The programme that you are holding in your hand is the symbol both of the beginning of an adventure and the culmination of a long journey.

Driven by a legitimate ambition to endow the city with a setting in which its ambitions can flourish, Sion has long dreamed of this Concert and Conference Hall. A lengthy gestation has proven necessary for the dream finally to become a reality. Today, Noda BCVS is ready to welcome an impatient audience.

The gateway to the new Cour de Gare district, equidistant from the Place du Midi and the Energypolis Campus, Noda BCVS is the hub at which the energies of the present-day city and the city of tomorrow intersect.

Its location, just a short walk from the CFF railway station, makes it an ideal point of convergence, further enhanced by the presence of a 120-room hotel.

An intersection, a place to meet and share with people, a crucible in which emotions and thoughts will be forged. Such are the ambitions that this multimodal hall will nurture, be they classical music concerts or conferences and major gatherings. The aim of Noda BCVS is to establish its position as one of the major focuses of the capital’s cultural life and event programming.

The first season, given the stamp of approval by our artistic director, Giada Marsadri, sets the tone. An amalgam of fresh discoveries and safe bets, Noda BCVS offers an eclectic but ambitious programme. The stage will welcome international productions as well as local performers, whose quality and commitment are no stranger to us.

The music can speak for itself! Long live Noda BCVS!

Philippe Varone
President of Sion

This is a seminal moment. A promise long hinted at and now kept. With the inauguration of Noda BCVS, the Valais has finally endowed itself with a setting worthy of its musical ambitions: a place designed for sound, dedicated to artistic stringency, sharing and meeting.

I am very proud to be given the chance to make my own contribution at this key moment, proposing a season of classical music that flirts with the sublime and dialogues with the territory’s wealth of music. In a place where we can dream bigger, dream farther.

Ouverture: the title given to the first season is doubly symbolic. It celebrates the burgeoning of a brand new venue and marks the start of an ambitious artistic plan. I felt that this inaugural season should be like an intake of breath, a kind of momentum, an invitation to discover – or rediscover – music in all its rich variety, from its timeless masterpieces to the voices of the future.

The programme relies on a fine balance between excellence and audacity. Alongside the great regional and national orchestras – the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Festival Strings Lucerne – we shall be hosting some exceptional ensembles from throughout Europe: The Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, the Prague Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and the Filarmonica della Scala.

These ensembles, with their pronounced artistic personalities, will dialogue with some of the world’s most renowned conductors – Lorenzo Viotti, Gianandrea Noseda, Tomáš Netopil, Bertrand de Billy, Philippe Jordan – artists with a powerful, contemporary vision.

Noda BCVS embodies the concept of season, i.e. a rhythm, a bond. It makes it possible to forge lasting ties between the artists and the audience. It also makes it possible to lay the groundwork for a strong commitment to the act of creation, starting with a work by the Valaisian composer, Andreas Zurbriggen, for our opening concert.

Noda BCVS also means having a weather eye out for what comes next. Artists like Francesco Piemontesi, Anastasia Kobekina, Pablo Ferrández, Kian Soltani, Nemanja Radulović and Beatrice Berrut, for instance, embody that generation which is pushing back the limits of convention without ever sacrificing its demanding principles. Alongside them, major figures like Janine Jansen, Sir András Schiff, Nelson Goerner, Gabriela Montero and Martin Fröst, among others, add to the dialogue with the audience in formats designed to engender closeness and attentiveness.

For this first outing, I have considered the idea of the figure of the common thread pulling everything together: the Signature Artist. Emmanuel Pahud, a flautist and an incomparable artist, will accompany us throughout our innovative journey, forging a rare bond with the audience, at once deep and inspirational.

Lastly, because music is also a space for play, experimentation and intermixture, we will open our doors to other forms, other idioms. The concert by KT Gorique with the Geneva Chamber Orchestra will be one of its highlights, along with essential local collaborations, from the Sion Festival to the HEMU, taking in Les Riches Heures de Valère and the Sinfonia Valais-Wallis.

With Noda+, we are also inventing new ways to get into music: conferences, participative choirs, workshops, private audiences with artists, off-site concerts, etc. All springboards to exploring, feeling and understanding together.

Noda BCVS is not just a concert hall. It is a breath of fresh air. A living project attentive to its times, its location and those that breathe life into it. So why not step inside? The story begins…

Giada Marsadri
Artistic Director

Emmanuel Pahud, a flautist of Swiss origin, a musician who has lived a thousand different lives, he has been solo flute at the Berliner Philharmoniker since he was 23 and has pursued a staggering international career. This new format spotlights an extraordinary musician, invited to share every aspect of his art.

Discover Everything About the Signature Artist