Vienna, Austria (27 June, 2025) – Frank Wildhorn’s “Odessa Symphonie” recorded by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra at Musikverein in Vienna was released worldwide on June 27, 2025. The live performance was world premiered on July 13 at the famed Munsterplatz Plaza.

Following the acclaimed success of his Donau Symphonie, Tony, Grammy, and Emmy-nominated composer Frank Wildhorn presents Odessa Symphonie, a deeply personal and cinematic symphonic work recorded by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Koen Schoots at Vienna’s historic Musikverein.

Orchestrated by longtime collaborator Kim Scharnberg, Odessa Symphonie marks Wildhorn’s continued evolution as a symphonic composer by uniting the emotional storytelling of his musical theatre career with the scope, color, and tradition of the classical orchestra. Dedicated to the homeland of Wildhorn’s mother and inspired by the journey of his producer, Walter Feucht’s father, Odessa Symphonie is a musical meditation on memory, displacement, resilience, and hope.

Composer Frank Wildhorn: “With everything I’ve been lucky enough to accomplish in my life, the night of the Donau Symphonie premiere in Vienna was one of the most meaningful nights of music I’ve ever experienced. The response inspired me to continue this new adventure in classical composition. Odessa Symphonie is the next step—music that speaks from the heart about family, identity, and the dream of peace.”

Recorded by more than 80 musicians in the renowned acoustics of the Musikverein, Odessa Symphonie was released worldwide on June 27, 2025, by HitSquad Records and is available on all major streaming platforms and on CD. The recording showcases Wildhorn’s unmistakable gift for melody, now fully realized through symphonic forces—lush strings, expressive solo lines, and sweeping orchestral textures that feel equally at home in the concert hall and the cinematic imagination.

The world premiere of Odessa Symphonie took place on July 13, 2025, at Münsterplatz in Ulm, Germany, in a spectacular open-air concert on the banks of the Danube River. Performed by the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the premiere brought Wildhorn’s second symphony to life in a setting that echoed the work’s themes of history, movement, and shared cultural heritage. The Ulm performance also featured selections from Wildhorn’s Symphonic Suites, including music from Jekyll & Hyde and Dracula, performed by the Vienna All Star Super Orchestra, an ensemble combining musicians from the Vienna Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic.

Composer Frank Wildhorn firmly believes that “music, like love, knows no boundaries. When it’s performed with passion, heart, and soul, it transcends divides and builds understanding.” Odessa Symphonie stands as both a tribute to family and heritage and a bold continuation of Wildhorn’s symphonic journey celebrating music’s power to connect us across generations and cultures.

Comprising seven movements, Odessa Symphonie unfolds as an impressionistic journey through time, conflict, and remembrance. Each movement paints a vivid emotional portrait—sometimes intimate and reflective, sometimes expansive and thunderous—drawing the listener into stories both imagined and deeply personal. Wildhorn’s symphonic voice reflects decades of storytelling through music, with movements that function almost as cinematic chapters, allowing the orchestra to speak with clarity, warmth, and emotional immediacy.

A new voice in the symphonic world—yet one shaped by decades of international success—Wildhorn’s orchestral works have drawn attention for their assured craftsmanship, melodic richness, and emotional clarity. Writing about Donau Symphonie and Odessa Symphonie together, critic Brad Hathaway observed that the two works form “a body of work deserving of the attention of the classical music world,” noting the confidence of Wildhorn’s symphonic voice and his gift for creating vivid sonic portraits through programmatic movement titles and highly melodic themes. The Odessa Symphonie, centered on the Black Sea city where Wildhorn’s mother was born, opens with a gypsy-inflected theme that grows from intimacy to grandeur—exploring the full dynamic range of an orchestra of nearly ninety musicians, from hushed reflection to sweeping, cinematic power.

Wildhorn’s symphonic journey continues to expand beyond the concert hall. On August 3, a principal dancer from one of Europe’s premier ballet companies performed to one of Wildhorn’s symphonic works at Frank Wildhorn – Live in Concert at Theater im Park, Vienna. Shortly thereafter, on August 7, Donau Symphonie received its Hungarian premiere at the Frank Wildhorn & Friends Musical Gala at Budapest’s Margaret Island Main Stage.

At the conductor's podium was Koen Schoots as congenial mediator of Wildhorn's vision between composition and orchestra - known in Europe as conductor of various successful productions, among others at the Komische Oper Berlin and as music director for musicals at the Vereinigte Bühnen Wien. 

Frank WIldhorn’s “Odessa Symphonie” featuring the 80-piece Vienna Symphony Orchestra was recorded in the Great Hall of the Vienna Musikverein and produced by HitSquad Records. It is available everywhere music is streamed and on CD.