Celebrating our first album release with Kazuki Yamada
6 Mar 2026
News Story
Join us as we celebrate the release of our newest recording with Deutsche Grammophon and the first with Kazuki Yamada.
Kazuki Yamada has been the CBSO Music Director since 2023 and has filled the orchestra with warmth, vibrancy and fun since he joined. We are delighted to be releasing his first recording with the orchestra and debut Deutsche Grammophon album this month.
Released on 6 March 2026, the CD features three great works of Walton, captured live in performance at Birmingham’s Symphony Hall: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 and the Coronation March Orb and Sceptre.
Walton’s symphonies were written on either side of World War II and therefore demonstrate very different stages in his career. His second symphony was written 25 years later and was far more popular in the US, championed by the conductor George Szell to whom Walton later dedicated the work. His music is quintessentially British, writing at the same time as other British composers Elgar and Vaughan Williams. His Orb and Sceptre was written for the coronation of Elizabeth II, the centenary of whose birth will be marked in 2026.
Kazuki comments on how Walton’s music is very special to him - and how he is his most favourite English composer.
His music is very dramatic, exciting and sometimes very emotional. The orchestra did such a fantastic job of recording the music – Walton’s music is not always the easiest to play but it sounds great.
Kazuki Yamada
You can order a digital or physical copy of the CD from its release on 6 March 2026. You can now also stream Orb and Sceptre, listen here on Spotify.
We sat down with students from the Shireland CBSO Academy to get their reactions to the new recordings.
