The tour includes a homecoming of another sort for Welser-M‹st, with three concerts (September 11-13) in the Austrian city of Linz, his hometown. The latter two concerts will be at the historic Abbey of St. Florian, where the conductor sang and played violin as a child; the performances, of Bruckner's Symphony No. 5, will be recorded for television broadcast and DVD release.

Other stops on this tour include the Cleveland Orchestra's annual residency at the Lucerne Festival in Switzerland (September 2-4); the German cities of Essen, Berlin and Braunschweig (four concerts, September 6-10); and the orchestra's Italian debut (September 15), at the Teatro Filarmonico in Verona.

The first of the orchestra's Lucerne concerts includes the world premiere of Hanspeter Kyburz's touch_. The work, which features soprano Laura Aikin and tenor John Mark Ainsley, is the third of the Roche Commissions, created under a partnership, funded by the Swiss pharmaceuticals firm Roche, between the Cleveland Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival and Carnegie Hall. Following the world premiere on September 2, touch_ will have its US debut at Severance Hall in Cleveland on October 1 and its first New York performance on October 5 at Carnegie.

The following night (Setember 3) in Lucerne, Welser-M‹st and the orchestra present a special concert performance of Verdi's Falstaff, featuring Richard Sutliff in the title role, Simon Keenlyside and Twyla Robinson as Mr. and Mrs. Ford and Felicity Palmer as Mistress Quickly.

Other repertoire for the tour includes Debussy's La Mer, a suite from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, Kaija Saariajo's Orion and Mozart's Symphony No. 38 ("Prague").

More information about the tour, as well as the Cleveland Orchestra's seasons at Severance Hall, in Miami and at Carnegie Hall, is available at www.clevelandorchestra.com.