Valery Gergiev and Denis Matsuev are to give their first joint performance of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Fourth Piano Concerto in Europe

In October Valery Gergiev will run a series of concerts in Europe with the Mariinsky Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

The first concert of the tour will take place on 3 October at the National Palace of Culture in Sofia (Bulgaria) where, together with the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev, Denis Matsuev will perform Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No 4 for the first time for a European audience. The programme also includes Dmitry Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony and music from Igor Stravinsky's ballet Le Sacre du printemps.

On 4 and 5 October Valery Gergiev will conduct the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. The ensemble will be appearing at one of the finest concert venues in The Netherlands – the Concertgebouw. The programme includes Alexander Scriabin's Symphony No 3 Le Divin Poème and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No 3. The soloist is Behzod Abduraimov.

Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra will then present several concerts in Great Britain and Ireland. On 8 and 9 October there will be performances at the renowned Cadogan Hall in London. The programme will highlight works by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Igor Stravinsky, the one hundred and thirty-fifth anniversary of whose birth is being commemmorated by many Mariinsky Theatre events this year. The first evening will see a performance of the suite from the opera The Golden Cockerel and the symphonic suite Schéhérazade by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, as well as Igor Stravinsky's Symphony in C. The concert programme for 9 October includes the suite from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Tale ofTsar Saltan and the suite from the ballet The Firebird and Concerto for Strings and Violin Concerto by Igor Stravinsky. The soloist will be Kristóf Baráti.

On 11 October the Mariinsky Orchestra under Valery Gergiev will appear at the Belfast International Arts Festival (Great Britain). The Ulster Hall will host performances of the Polonaise and Waltz from Pyotr Tchaikovsky's opera Eugene Onegin, the suite from Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan and Dmitry Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony.

The tour will conclude with a performance by the Mariinsky Orchestra and Valery Gergiev in Birmingham (Great Britain). The concert programme at Symphony Hall features the suite from the opera The Golden Cockerel by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Sergei Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances and Sergei Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto. The soloist is Denis Matsuev.