Artists

Roberto Abbado, awarded the prestigious “Premio Abbiati” by the Italian Music Critics Association for his “accomplished interpretative maturity, the extent and the peculiarity of a repertoire where he has offered remarkable results through an intense season”, is Chief Conductor of the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. He studied orchestra conducting under Franco Ferrara at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice and at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome, where he was invited – the only student in the history of the Academy – to lead the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia. He made his debut in the United States in 1991 in New York conducting the St. Luke’s Orchestra. Since then he has returned regularly to the US to lead the Symphonic Orchestras of the cities of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, San Francisco, as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra – of which he is one of the “Artistic Partners” – working with soloists like Yo-Yo Ma, Midori, Nigel Kennedy, Gil Shaham, Joshua Bell, Hilary Hahn, Vadim Repin, Sarah Chang, Yefim Bronfman, Mitsuko Uchida, Alfred Brendel, Radu Lupu, André Watts, Andras Schiff, Lang-Lang, and Katia and Marielle Labèque.

He was Musical Director of the Münchner Rundfunkorchester from 1991 to 1998, of the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía in Valencia from 2015 to 2019, of the Festival Verdi in Parma from 2018 to 2022. He has worked with many ensembles, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouworkest, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Orchestre national de France, the Orchestre de Paris, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhausorchester and the MDR-Sinfonieorchester (Leipzig), the NDR Sinfonieorchester (Hamburg), the Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester (Stockholm), the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della Rai, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestra of Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Taipei Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid.

Roberto Abbado has conducted numerous world premieres and new opera productions, including Fedora and Ernani at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York; I vespri siciliani at the Wiener Staatsoper; La Gioconda, Lucia di Lammermoor, La donna del lago, and the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Teneke at La Scala; L’amour des trois oranges, Aida and La traviata at the Bayerische Staatsoper; Le Comte Ory, Attila, I Lombardi alla prima crociata, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Henze’s Phaedra – at its Italian premiere – and Anna Bolena at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; Don Giovanni at the Deutsche Oper Berlin; Simon Boccanegra and La clemenza di Tito at the Teatro Regio of Turin; La donna del lago at the Opéra Garnier in Paris; Ermione, Zelmira, and Mosè in Egitto at the Rossini Opera Festival; the Italian premiere of Marschner’s Der Vampyr at the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, and more recently the world premiere of Arianna, Fedra e Didone at the Festival di Spoleto, Le Trouvère,  Luisa Miller and Macbeth at the Festival Verdi in Parma. 

A passionate interpreter of contemporary music, Abbado’s repertoire includes composers like Luciano Berio, Bruno Maderna, Goffredo Petrassi, Sylvano Bussotti, Niccolò Castiglioni, Azio Corghi, Ivan Fedele, Luca Francesconi, Giorgio Battistelli, Michele dall’Ongaro, Giacomo Manzoni, Salvatore Sciarrino, Fabio Vacchi, Pascal Dusapin, Henri Dutilleux, Olivier Messiaen, Alfred Schnittke, Hans Werner Henze, Helmut Lachenmann, John Adams, Ned Rorem, Christopher Rouse, Steven Stucky, Charles Wuorinen and Silvia Colasanti.

Particularly significant are his symphonic tours with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (Spain 2005), the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Europe 2006), the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Europe 2007), the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Bucarest Enescu Festival 2009), the Orchestra Verdi di Milano (Switzerland 2009), the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo (Russia 2011), and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (USA, East Coast 2011).

During the past seasons he conducted La Favorite at the Salzburg Festival (starring Juan Diego Flórez and Elīna Garanča); Don Pasquale, Samson et Dalila, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I vespri siciliani, Tancredi, La damnation de Faust, I masnadieri, Rigoletto and Lucia di Lammermoor at the Palau de les Arts in Valencia; La Gioconda, Maometto II, Lucia di Lammermoor, Benvenuto Cellini, Andrea Chénier and I masnadieri at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma; Norma at the Teatro Regio in Turin; he has opened two seasons of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna conducting Macbeth (staged by Bob Wilson) and Parsifal (staged by Romeo Castellucci); Così fan tutte at the Teatro Petruzzelli in Bari; La traviata (staged by Ferzan Özpetek) on a tour to Hong Kong with the Teatro di San Carlo of Naples, Rigoletto and Lucia di Lammermoor at New York Metropolitan; Simon Boccanegra on a tour to Hong Kong with Turin’s Teatro Regio; Norma at the Teatro Real in Madrid; La Traviata at the Shanghai Opera House; Lucia di Lammermoor at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris; Don Pasquale at Ópera de Bilbao; Le siège de Corinthe at the Rossini Opera Festival, Lucia di Lammermoor at the Opéra de Monte Carlo.

More recently he conducted I puritani and Madama Butterfly at the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma; Lucia di Lammermoor and Roberto Devereux at the Teatro Massimo di Palermo; at the Festival Verdi in Parma Macbeth, Un ballo in maschera (Gustavo III), La forza del destino and the Divertissements from Nabucco – premiered in modern times in a symphonic concert and recorded for the album Vive Verdi! French Rarities and Discoveries; La Cenerentola at the LA Opera, Il barbiere di Siviglia at the Paris Opera and the world premiere of Fabio Vacchi’s Janus.

His recordings include Bellini’s I Capuleti e i Montecchi (nominated “Best Recording of the Year” by the BBC Magazine in 1999), Rossini’s Tancredi (winner of the “Echo Klassik Deutsche Schallplattenpreis” in 1997), Don Pasquale with Eva Mei and Renato Bruson, Turandot with Eva Marton, Ben Heppner, and Margaret Price. Under Decca he has recorded Verismo Arias with Mirella Freni, L’amour and Arias for Rubini with Juan Diego Flórez. With Deutsche Grammophon he has issued Bel Canto (“Echo Klassik Deutscher Schallplattenpreis” 2009), Revive – both with Elina Garanča – and a DVD of Fedora with Mirella Freni and Placido Domingo from New York’s Met. Roberto Abbado was the first Italian conductor to lead the traditional New Year’s Concert at La Fenice in Venice on 1 January 2008 (Hardy Classic Video DVD). Moreover, three DVDs from the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro have also been issued: Ermione, under the label Dynamic; Zelmira with Juan Diego Flórez, Kate Aldrich and Gregory Kunde under Decca; Mosè in Egitto with Sonia Ganassi, Dmitry Korchak, Riccardo Zanellato and Alex Esposito under Opus Arte. With Dynamic he has recorded Giuseppe Verdi’s Messa da Requiem, Le trouvère directed by Robert Wilson, Gustavo III, and Macbeth in the original 1865 French version for Paris, the performance has won the Premio Speciale della Critica Musicale “Franco Abbiati” 2021.

Robin Adam’s upcoming engagements include THOAS Iphigenie en Tauride Konzerttheater Bern, ALBERICH Das Rheingold Staatsoper Stuttgart and Wozzeck (title role) Theater Freiburg as well as his debut as NEKROTZAR Le Grand Macabre for the Enescu Festival. In the 21/22 season Robin Adams made his debut at Theater St Gallen as JAN NYMAN in Breaking the Waves as well as performing three major roles at the Konzerttheater Bern: ALBERICH Das Rheingold, GOLAUD Pelleas et Melisande and the world premiere of Haas’ Liebesgesang.

Previous international engagements have included VATER/ANDERVATER Coraline Oper Zürich, Der Prinz von Homburg (title role) Staatsoper Stuttgart, BALSTRODE Peter Grimes Theater Basel, KURWENAL Tristan und Isolde Theater Bern, and VICOMTE DE VALMONT in Francesconi’s Quartett Teatro alla Scala di Milano. Other recent engagements have included MR KALLENBACH Satyagraha De Vlaamse Opera Antwerp, PRIOR WALTER Angels in America Theater Freiburg, and RICHARD NIXON Nixon in China Concertgebouw.

Notable past projects were ORALTO Vivaldi’s La Fida Ninfa Baden-Baden, HUSBAND The Last Hotel (world premiere) by Donnacha Dennehy Edinburgh International Festival and Royal Opera House Linbury Studio, Wozzeck (title role) Theater Augsburg, TRAVELLER Curlew River, DON CASSANDRO La Finta Semplice and SCHAUNARD La Bohème Oper Frankfurt and DANILO Die lustige Witwe Oper Leipzig. Robin made his debut in the world premiere of Quartett at La Scala di Milano in 2011. The production has since been invited to Wiener Festwochen, Liceu Barcelona, Teatro Colon, Opera de Rouen, Cité de la Musique Paris, Holland Festival, Opéra de Lille, Casa da Musica and Gulbenkian Foundation.

Robin was a member of Stadttheater Bern, where roles included NICK SHADOW The Rake’s Progress, CONTE Le nozze di Figaro, ENRICO Lucia di Lammermoor, FORESTER The Cunning Little Vixen, RICCARDO I Puritani, SHARPLESS Madama Butterfly, FORD Falstaff, PAPAGENO Die Zauberflöte, MACBETH, DON GIOVANNI, and EUGENE ONEGIN. In the ensemble at Landestheater Linz he performed DANDINI La Cenerentola, WOLFRAM Tannhäuser and GUGLIELMO Così fan tutte.

As a noted performer of contemporary music, his appearances have included BLAZES The Lighthouse by Peter Maxwell Davies La Monnaie and Muziektheater Transparant, KUNSTENAAR BECK Triumph of Spirit over Matter (world premiere) by Wim Henderickx La Monnaie, ANTIGONUS and PICKPOCKET II in Boesmans’ Winter’s Tale Liceu Barcelona, LEONCE Leonce and Lena (world premiere) by Christian Henking Theater Bern and CAPTAIN The Bassarides Théâtre du Châtelet.

Robin’s wide experience on the concert platform includes Zemlinsky´s Lyrische Symphonie Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Bach´s Magnificat English Chamber Orchestra at the Barbican and a recital of Hugo Wolf for the Hugo Wolf Society.

An artist of international renown and an accomplished teacher, British tenor and conductor Paul Agnew has made his mark on all the main international stages as a specialist in the music of the 17th and 18th centuries and as the performer of choice for the high-tenor roles of the French Baroque. After studying at Magdalen College, Oxford, he met William Christie in 1992 and subsequently became a close collaborator of the conductor and his ensemble Les Arts Florissants, while continuing to perform with such other conductors as Marc Minkowski, Ton Koopman, Paul McCreesh, Jean-Claude Malgoire, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe and Emmanuelle Haïm. In 2007, his career took a new turn when he began conducting certain projects for Les Arts Florissants. From 2011 to 2015, he undertook a complete cycle of Monteverdi’s madrigals, a project for which he directed nearly 100 concerts throughout Europe and made three recordings for harmonia mundi the first of which won the Gramophone Award in 2016. He has conducted Les Arts Florissants in such productions as the ballet Doux Mensonges (Opéra de Paris), a new production of Rameau’s Platée (Theater an der Wien, Paris’s Opéra Comique and New York’s Lincoln Center), and created a new production of L’Orfeo as part of the celebration of Claudio Monteverdi’s 450th anniversary – not to mention many concert programs. He is artistic director of the Festival de Printemps – Les Arts Florissants which takes place in churches throughout the region of the Vendée, since its creation in 2017, and is co-director of Le Jardin des Voix, Les Arts Florissants’ academy for young singers. This interest in the training of new generations of musicians has led him to conduct the Orchestre Français des Jeunes Baroque, the European Union Baroque Orchestra and, in 2017, the European Baroque Academy in Ambronay. Dedicated to musical education for all, he has devised educational concerts such as Le Voyage de Monsieur Monteverdi and La Lyre d’Orphée. As a guest conductor, Paul Agnew regularly conducts orchestras such as the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg, the Staatskapelle, Dresden, the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, the Houston Symphony Orchestra, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the Akademie fur Alte Musik Berlin. 

Recent projects with Les Arts Florissants include a concert cycle dedicated to Carlo Gesualdo and recorded by harmonia mundi (Gramophone Award, Diapason d’Or, CHOC de Classica), Bach’s St. John Passion, the concert series “Bach, A Life in Music” at the Philharmonie de Paris and the Festival d’Ambronay, Purcell’s The Indian Queen, Handel’s Partenope, as well as Heinrich Schütz’ madrigals and sacred music. Let us also mention a new production of Platée directed by R. Villazon at the Semperoper Dresden. 

In the 2021-22 season, he will continue his concert cycles devoted to Bach cantatas and Gesualdo madrigals, and will conduct several programs of Purcell’s music, as well as Glück’s Orpheus and Eurydice and Purcell’s The Fairy Queen with the young laureates of the Jardin des Voix. 

Israeli violinist Gregory Ahss made his solo debut under Claudio Abbado and Orchestra Mozart Bologna. He went on to perform regularly with Abbado, who appointed him concertmaster of the Luzern Festival Orchestra.

Gregory’s recording of Haydn’s Symphony Concertante with Orchestra Mozart under the baton of Claudio Abbado has won numerous prestigious awards including ICMA the best concerto of the year 2015.

As a soloist he also appeared with such conductors as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Teodor Currentzis, Daniel Blendulf and Andres Orozco Estrada, with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra Mozart Bologna, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra Munich Symphony orchestra and Camerata Salzburg.

Gregory is regularly invited to take part in educational projects and masterclasses at Villa Musica, Mozarteum Salzburg, Maastricht Conservatory, Australian National Academy of Music, Orchestrzentrum Dortmund, ZHDK, HSLU and El Sistema Venezuela.

He is also a jury member at Mozarteum Salzburg and Sendai International Music competition.

Among his chamber music partners are Natalia Gutman, Janine Jansen, Vilde Frang, James Ehnes, Lawrence Power, Emmanuel Pahud, Gautier Capuçon, Nicolas Altstaed, Sabine Meyer, Alexander Melnikov and Fazil Say.

He also performed as a violin duo partner with Pinchas Zukerman.

Gregory has appeared as guest director with such notable ensembles as the Mahler chamber orchestra, Orchestra Mozart Bologna, Luzern Symphony orchestra, Belgrade Philharmonic, Zürich Chamber Orchestra, Gran Canaria Philharmonic orchestra and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra leading the repertoire ranging from chamber symphonies to full symphonic literature from the violin.

Gregory Srarted his education in his native Moscow, at the Gnessin School of Music. He continued his studies with Lena Mazor and Irina Svetlova at the Israel Conservatory, Tel-Aviv Music Academy and later at the New England Conservatory in Boston in the class of Donald Weilerstein.

He previously held a position of concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and currently is a Concertmaster of Camerata Salzburg, Luzern Symphony orchestra and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra.

Widely acclaimed as a key figure in the music of our time, Pierre-Laurent Aimard has had close collaborations with many leading composers including György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen, George Benjamin, Pierre Boulez and Oliver Messiaen.

Aimard begins the 2022/23 season receiving Denmark’s most prominent music award, the Leonie Sonning Music Prize 2022 which will be celebrated in a series of concerts with Royal Danish Orchestra/Cambreling and recitals in Copenhagen and Aarhus. Elsewhere he continues to work closely with leading orchestras and conductors across Europe including Antwerp Symphony/Herreweghe, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest/Deneve, Deutsche Symphony Orchester Berlin/Chan, Orchestre National de Lille/Bloc and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. He continues his collaboration with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra and Esa-Pekka Salonen, recording Bartok’s complete piano concertos due for release in Autumn 2023, and returns to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.4. 

In celebration of György Ligeti’s 100th Anniversary in 2023, Aimard will perform works by the composer in collaborations throughout the season, including, Seoul Philharmonic/Robertson for his Concerto for Piano; acclaimed German Jazz pianist, Michael Wollny on an improvisatory project around the Etudes and continuing to celebrate the composer through his unique recital programming.

In other chamber projects, highlights include collaborations with Tamara Stefanovich for Visions de l’Amen at the Boulez Saal and continued partnerships with Mark Simpson and Jean-Guihen Queyras for trio recitals including works by Lachenmann in Luxembourg and Vienna. Together with Isabelle Faust and Jorg Widmann, Aimard joins Queryas for Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps touring the work across Spain in the Autumn.

Orchestral successes of the 2021/22 season included collaborations with Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Chung, Munich Philharmonic/Nagano, Bamberg Symphoniker/Honeck, Seattle Symphony Orchestra/Stasevska, hr-Sinfonieorchester/Altinoglu, Vienna Symphony/Afkham and the World Premiere of Klaus Ospald’s concerto with WDR/Poppe. In recital and chamber projects, Aimard continued to champion contemporary composers, performing works by Birtwistle, Lachenmann, Cage, Schoenberg and Andre in Berlin, Amsterdam, and Frankfurt as well as Messiaen’s colossal Vingt Regards in Paris and Amsterdam. In the UK highlights included Saffron Walden for Bach’s Well Tempered Klavier and the Edinburgh Festival to perform his Fantasy recital programme. 

Having recently released a new disc of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata and Eroica Variations for Pentatone to great critical acclaim, Aimard releases a new recording of Visions de l’Amen with Tamara Stefanovich in September 2022. Recent seasons have also included Messiaen’s opus magnum Catalogue d’oiseaux which was honoured with multiple awards including the prestigious German music critic’s award “Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik.” Aimard has also performed the world premieres of piano works by Kurtág at Teatro alla Scala; Carter’s last piece Epigrams, which was written for him; Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s works Responses; Sweet disorder and the carefully careless and Keyboard Engine for two pianos which received its London premiere in autumn 2019.

Through his professorship at the Hochschule Köln as well as numerous series of concert lectures and workshops worldwide, Aimard sheds an inspiring light on music of all periods. He was previously an Associate Professor at the College de France, Paris and is a member of Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste. In spring 2020, he re-launched a major online resource Explore the Score, after several years work, which centres on the performance and teaching of Ligeti’s piano music in collaboration with the Klavier-Festival Ruhr. 

Lithuanian tenor Ilja Aksionov (born 1996) first gained experience on the stage when still a boy soprano, where he made his debut on the opera stage as the Prince in “The Little Prince” by Rachel Portman and as the soloist in Leonard Bernstein’s “MASS”. This was later followed by vocal studies with Prof. Virgilijus Noreika at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in Vilnius. During that time he won the 1st Prize in the International Competition “Kaunas Sonorum” in 2015, and together with pianist Gustas Raudonius the 2nd Prize in the “Citta di Barletta” Competition in Italy. Since October 2017 he studies at the Robert Schumann Conservatoire in Düsseldorf in the class of Prof. Konrad Jarnot. His studies have been further enriched by masterclasses with artists including Dame Sarah Connolly, Anne le Bozeck, Hans Eijsackers and Christianne Stotijn amongst others. At the Robert Schumann Conservatoire he has taken part in opera projects in roles such as Tamino in Mozart’s “Die Zauberflöte” and as Flute in Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”. In recent years he could be heard as Alfred in “Die Fledermaus” (J. Strauss) and as Prince Ramiro in “La Cenerentola” (G. Rossini) at Festspiele Ettlingen. Most recently he performed the role of Orphée in Gluck’s “Orphée et Eurydice” in Enschede, Holland. In addition he performs as a singer of art song. As such in a year 2021 he won a Press Prize in IVC ‘S-Hertogenbosch. In 2021/22 he was awarded a scholarship by the Richard Wagner Association Düsseldorf.

Soprano Louise Alder studied singing at London’s Royal College of Music. Among her prizes are a Young Singer Award at the International Opera Awards and the Joan Sutherland audience prize at the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. Between 2014 and 2019 she was a member of the Frankfurt Opera, where her roles includes Atalanta (Serse), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare in Egitto), Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro), Despina (Così fan tutte), Gilda (Rigoletto), Musetta (La bohème), Gretel (Hänsel und Gretel), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier) and the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen. Guest engagements have taken her to the Vienna State Opera, the Theater an der Wien, the Zurich Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the English National Opera, the Teatro Real in Madrid and the Glyndebourne Festival. She is also a passionate lieder recitalist and has appeared in this capacity at the Schubertiade in Schwarzenberg, London’s Wigmore Hall, the BBC Proms, the Graz Musikverein, the Frankfurt Opera, the Bath Mozart Festival and the Snape Maltings as part of the Aldeburgh Festival. Among her accompanists have been Helmut Deutsch, Julius Drake and Roger Vignoles, while the conductors with whom she has worked in the concert hall include Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Simon Rattle, Daniele Rustioni and Jakub Hrůša. She made her debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in 2018 as Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel, subsequently appearing as Marzelline (Fidelio), as Mozart’s Susanna and as Fiordiligi in a new production of Così fan tutte under Vladimir Jurowski. In September 2023 she is accompanying the Bayerisches Staatsorchester on its European tour, during which she will be heard in performances of Mahler’s Fourth Symphony in London and Bucharest.

The New York Times has called Norwegian Leif Ove Andsnes “a pianist of magnificent elegance, strength and insight”. With his phenomenal technique and profound interpretations, Leif Ove Andsnes has won appreciation throughout the world. In 2019-2020 he was Artist in Residence at the Gothenburg Symphony. Leif Ove Andsnes gave his first concert with the Gothenburg Symphony as early as 1989, and has done over ten concerts with the orchestra since then.

Leif Ove Andsnes gives solo evenings every season and appears as a soloist in the world’s leading concert halls with the leading orchestras. In 2017-2018 he was Artist in Residence at the New York Philharmonic. He is also a diligent chamber musician and founder of Rosendal’s chamber music festival. For nearly two decades he shared the artistic leadership of the chamber music festival in Risør and in 2012 was the artistic director of the Ojai Festival in California. He was awarded an honorary doctorate at Juilliard in New York in 2016 and at the University of Bergen in 2017.

Leif Ove Andsnes has made over 30 disc recordings, including solo piano by Chopin, “Ballades & Nocturnes” (Sony Classics). The edition of Beethoven’s five piano concertos has been praised by the critics. He is above all known as a master of Grieg and his recording of Grieg’s piano concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker (2003) is considered one of the best of all time.

Born in Milan, Giovanni Antonini studied at the Civica Scuola di Musica and at the Centre de Musique Ancienne in Geneva. He is a founder member of the Baroque ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, which he has led since 1989. With this ensemble he has appeared as conductor and soloist on the recorder and Baroque transverse flute in Europe, United States, Canada, South America, Australia, Japan and Malaysia. He is Artistic Director of Wratislavia Cantans Festival in Poland and Principal Guest Conductor of Mozarteum Orchester and Kammerorchester Basel.

He has performed with many prestigious artists including Cecilia Bartoli, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Giuliano Carmignola, Isabelle Faust, Sol Gabetta, Sumi Jo, Viktoria Mullova, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Emmanuel Pahud and Giovanni Sollima. Renowned for his refined and innovative interpretation of the classical and baroque repertoire, Antonini is also a regular guest with Berliner Philharmoniker, Concertgebouworkest, Tonhalle Orchester, Mozarteum Orchester, Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, London Symphony Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

His opera productions have included Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto and Bellini’s Norma with Cecilia Bartoli at Salzburg Festival. In 2018 he conducted Orlando at Theater an der Wien and returned to Opernhaus Zurich for Idomeneo. In 2019 he conducted Guilio Cesare for La Scala, and returned there in 2021 for Così fan tutte. He also returned to Theater an der Wien in 2021 with Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo. In the 22-23 season, he returns to Bamberg Symphoniker for Haydn’s Die Schöpfung, Deutsches Symfonie-Orchester Berlin for Pugnani’s Werther, Czech Philharmonic and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

With Il Giardino Armonico Antonini has recorded numerous CDs of instrumental works by Vivaldi, J.S. Bach (Brandenburg Concertos), Biber and Locke for Teldec. With Naïve he recorded Vivaldi’s opera Ottone in Villa, and for Decca he has recorded 2 volumes with Julia Lezhneva. With Alpha Classics (Outhere Music Group) he released various albums including La Morte della Ragione; exploring his interest in renaissance music through collections of sixteenth and seventeenth century instrumental music. With Kammerorchester Basel he has recorded the complete Beethoven Symphonies for Sony Classical and a disc of flute concertos with Emmanuel Pahud entitled Revolution for Warner Classics.

Antonini is Artistic Director of the Haydn2032 project, created to realise a vision to record and perform with Il Giardino Armonico and Kammerorchester Basel the complete symphonies of Joseph Haydn by the 300th anniversary of the composer’s birth. The first thirteen volumes have been released on the Alpha Classics label with two further volumes planned for release every year.

The violinist Ștefan Aprodu began studying the violin at The Dinu Lipatti National College of Arts in Bucharest under the guidance of teacher Magdalena Ursu. He is currently a student in the class of Prof. Krzysztof Węgrzyn at the University of Music, Theatre and Media in Hanover.

Ștefan has a rather rich stage experience, performing with several symphony orchestras and conductors (Ad Honorem Ivry Gitlis, unde the baton of David Stern; Gabriel Bebeșelea – Junior Orchestra; Koichiro Kanno – Brașov Philharmonic Orchestra, Sabin Păuța – Camerata Regală, Yasuo Minami – Takasaki Youth Orchestra, Japan, Martin Lill – German Youth Orchestra).

He was recently awarded 2nd prize at the George Enescu Competition in Bucharest, but Ștefan is also winner of the 1st prize at the Vaso Abadjiev International Violin Competition in Sofia, as well as a winner of the 3rd prize at the Arthur Grumiaux International Competition, the winner of the Golden Lyre International Competition, 1st prize at the Remember Enescu International Competition, 1st prize at The North International Competition and more than others 80 prizes.

He is also a passionate and internationally award-winning young composer, and since 2020 has been participating in the online composition course taught by Dåsele Vådår Sevaidå at the Dondolo Ruso Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. One of his compositions – Concerto No. 3 for violin and orchestra in E minor – he performed as soloist himself in autumn 2022 with Pitesti Philharmonic Orchestra.

During the pandemic, Ștefan Aprodu founded the Dinu Lipatti Youth Orchestra, which he not only conducts but also coordinates. 

Stefan’s passion for music has also led him to participate in a series of master classes led by musicians such as Evgeniya Chugaeva, Suren Hakhnazaryan, Sergey Kravchenko, Mihaela Martin, Silvia Marcovici and Igor Petrushevski.

The French conductor and composer Arnaud Arbet first studied piano at Grenoble’s Conservatory, Paris’ National Superior Conservatory and at the University of Arts of Berlin. After being rehearsal pianist at the Atelier Lyrique of the Paris’ National Opera, he was engaged by Gerard Mortier at the Teatro Real of Madrid as a rehearsal pianist and assistant conductor and worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle, Semyon Bychkov, Ingo Metzmacher, Sylvain Cambreling, François-Xavier Roth and Alejo Pérez. There he conducted his first concerts with the Symphony Orchestra of Madrid.

Kapellmeister at the Opera of Chemnitz during one year, Arnaud Arbet continued assisting at the Salzburg Festival, the Ruhrtriennale, the operas of Milan, Rome and Amsterdam. Between 2014 and 2018, he was engaged by the Teatro alla Scala of Milan as personal assistant of György Kurtág for the opera Fin de partie and worked in close collaboration with the composer.

In 2018, Arnaud Arbet conducted at La Scala of Milan a concert with the Ensemble Bernasconi in the festival « Milano Musica ». He returned to this festival in 2021, with Mare Nostrum of Kagel in the multidisciplinary project FLUXO at the HangarBicocca.

Arnaud Arbet regularly conducts at the Opera of Cologne : Die Eroberung von Mexico by Rihm, Die Soldaten by Zimmermann (co-director with François-Xavier Roth), Mare Nostrum by Kagel, La Scuola de’ Gelosi by Salieri and Carmen by Bizet. In 2020, he created Philipp Maintz’s clamitationes colonienses with the Gürzenich Orchester in the Philharmonie of Cologne. In 2023, he conducted Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffmann at the Norrlandsoperan in Umeå, in Sweden. This production is broadcast on the national Swedish television.

In 2022, he founded the ensemble « Le Seuil Musical » (the musical threshold), which aim is to play, explain and promote the music of the first half of the 20th century. The ensemble has performed in Paris, Berlin, Bamberg and Tokyo.

Winner of the Osaka International Chamber Music Competition (2014), the Wigmore Hall London International String Quartet Competition (2012), and the International Chamber Music Competition Hamburg (2009), the Arcadia Quartet has quickly become one of the most spectacular ensembles of its generation.

Founded in 2006 at the “Gheorghe Dima” Academy of Music, later becoming graduates of postgraduate courses at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna and Alumni members of the European Chamber Music Academy, the quartet has performed all over the world. Since April 2015, the quartet has been in residence at the National Art Centre “Tinerimea Română” [Romanian Youth] in Bucharest, where it is still active, having collaborated with many world-renowned artists including Diana Ligeti, Amit Peled, Sarah Chang, Robert Levin, János Bálint, Cvartetul Belcea, etc.

The Arcadia Quartet began collaborating with the Chandos label in September 2017, with whom they released an album featuring the complete quartets of Béla Bartók. Recently, a special new project has taken shape, namely the recording of the 17 quartets composed by Mieczysław Weinberg. The first volume released in January 2021 won the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik award and was nominated for the ICMA 2022 awards, reaching the finals of the chamber music category. Volume 2, released in May 2022, is praised by the Financial Times, praising the first-class performance of the Arcadia Quartet, a finalist in the chamber music category for Limelight Recording of the Year 2022, and the third volume released in April this year received the Diapason d’Or award.

The Arcadia Quartet members’ desire to promote classical music at the highest level, combined with a desire to share their experiences with future generations of musicians, has given rise to the chamber music workshop, called Arcadia Chamber Music Classes, a series of yearly masterclasses dedicated to string chamber ensembles, offering professional guidance and support to young people.

Born in Buenos Aires (Argentina), Martha Argerich began her first piano lessons at the age of five with Vincenzo Scaramuzza. Considered a child prodigy, it was not long before she was performing regular concerts and recitals. In 1955, she moved to Europe and continued her studies in London, Vienna, and Switzerland with Bruno Seidlhofer, Friedrich Gulda, Nikita Magaloff, Dinu Lipatti, and Stefan Askenase. In 1957 she won both the Bolzano and Geneva Piano Competitions, and in 1965 followed suit with the Warsaw International Chopin Competition. Since then, she has been considered one of the most prominent pianists in the world, both in ability and popularity.

Despite the fact that her character has often lead her towards the virtuosic masterworks of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Martha maintains an extensive repertoire, including but by no means limited to the works of Bach, Bartok, Beethoven, and Messiaen, as well as Chopin, Schumann, Liszt, Debussy, Ravel, Franck, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Tchaikovsky.

Regularly invited by the most prestigious orchestras, conductors and music festivals in Europe, Japan, America, and Israel (with Zubin Mehta and Lahav Shani), chamber music remains a significant part of her musical life. She regularly plays and records with Mischa Maisky, Alexandre Rabinovitch, Gidon Kremer, and Daniel Barenboim, of which she has said : « This harmony within a group of people gives me a strong and peaceful feeling ». She performed and recorded with Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire for more than 50 years.

Martha Argerich has recorded for EMI, Sony, Philips, Teldec, and DGG, with many of her performances broadcast on television worldwide. She has also been the recipient of many prestigious awards, including a Grammy for her recording of the Bartok and Prokofiev Concertos, “Gramophon – Artist of the Year” and “Best Piano Concerto Recording of the Year” for her recording of the Chopin concertos, “Choc” of the Monde de la Musique, “Künstler des Jahres Deutscher Schallplatten Kritik”, as well as further Grammy awards for her recording of Prokofiev’s Cinderella with Mikhael Pletnev, and of Beethoven’s Second and Third Concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under Claudio Abbado (DGG / Best Instrumental Soloist Performance).

With the intention of helping young musicians, Martha became Artistic Director of the Beppu Festival in Japan in 1998. in 1999 she created the International Piano Competition and Festival Martha Argerich in Buenos Aires and, in June 2002, the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano. In 2018, she launched the Martha Argerich Festival in Hamburg.

Martha Argerich has been awarded numerous distinctions, amongst them : “Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres” in 1996 and “Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres ” in 2004 by the French Government, — “Accademica di Santa Cecilia” in Rome in 1997, — “Musician of the Year” by Musical America 2001 – “The Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Rosette“ by the Emperor of Japan —“Praemium Imperiale“ awarded by the Japan Art Association in 2005. – “Kennedy Center Honors“ awarded by Barack Obama in December 2016 – “Commendatore dell’Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana“, awarded by Sergio Mattarella in October 2018.

Described by critics as ‘extraordinary’ with ‘flawless technique’, French-Cypriot soprano Sarah Aristidou is considered a rising star and has already worked with several major conductors including Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle and François-Xavier Roth. An award-winning interpreter of the evolving contemporary repertoire, she is the first ever singer to win the 2022 Belmont Prize for Contemporary Music and was also awarded the Luitpold Prize for outstanding performance by a newcomer at the 2021 Kissinger Sommer Festival. She has twice been nominated for Opernwelt’s “Best Newcomer” award, for her performances of Christian Jost’s Die arabische Nacht (2016) and Claude Vivier’s Kopernikus (2019).

Aristidou’s 2023/24 season is highlighted by the Ligeti centenary with several appearances in Le Grande Macabre, including at the George Enescu with Arnaud Arbet, for Wiener Staatsoper with Pablo Heras-Casado, at Radio France with François Xavier Roth and in Krzysztof Warlikowski’s new production at the Bayerische Staatsoper under Kent Nagano. Her season also includes a world premiere by Brett Dean with the Scharoun Ensemble, a programme entitled ‘Transfiguré – 12 vies de Schönberg’ with Orchestre de Paris conducted by Ariane Matiakh and directed by Bertrand Bonello, Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill with Staatskapelle Berlin under Finnegan Downie Dear, a late night concert with Jörg Widmann at Philharmonie Berlin, and Bach’s St John Passion with RIAS Kammerchor and the Akademie für Alte Musik conducted by Justin Doyle.

In 2021 Aristidou released her debut album, AETHER, on Alpha Classics, featuring a collaboration with Thomas Guggeis and the Orchester des Wandels. The album was nominated for a BBC Music Magazine Award and includes collaborations with Daniel Barenboim, Emmanuel Pahud and Christian Rivet in a programme which ranges from Handel to Varèse to the premiere of Jörg Widmann’s Labyrinth V.  Her second album, Enigma is set for release in November 2023.

A regular guest with leading orchestras worldwide, Stefan Asbury’s 2022/23 season starts with visits to the Chicago Center for Contemporary Composition, the Indianapolis and Tulsa Symphony orchestras, followed by engagements with the Norrköpings Symfoniorkester, Ensemble Modern, the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan and the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra.

Recent seasons saw Stefan returning to and debuting with several orchestras across the world, including the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Copenhagen Philharmonic, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Seattle and Vancouver Symphony orchestras, Ensemble Resonanz in Hamburg, Pacific Philharmonia Tokyo, Auckland Philharmonia and China National Symphony Orchestra. He conducted the MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig as part of Beethovenfest Bonn and Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao during Bilbao’s Musika-Musica 2019 festival.

Asbury has particularly strong relationships with many living composers including Steve Reich, Wolfgang Rihm, Unsuk Chin and Mark-Anthony Turnage. In 2015/16, he conducted the world premiere of Bernd Richard Deutsch’s Organ Concert at the Musikverein in Vienna. In the 2014/15 season he conducted the world premiere of Sir Harrison Birtwistle’s Piano Concerto with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and also gave the US premiere with Aimard and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Following the sad passing of Oliver Knussen, a very close mentor, Stefan conducted his last completed composition with the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group in November 2018. 

As a recording artist, Stefan’s album with works by Jonathan Harvey was awarded a Monde de la Musique CHOC award, and his complete cycle of Gerard Grisey’s Les Espaces Accoustiques with WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln won a Deutschen Schallplattenkritik award.

In October 2013 he conducted the world premiere of Michael Jarell’s Siegfried Nocturne at the Wagner Geneva Festival. Other opera highlights include Porgy and Bess at the Spoleto Festival, John Adams’ A Flowering Tree for the Perth International Arts Festival, Wolfgang Rihm’s Jakob Lenz for the Wiener Festwochen, Britten’s Owen Wingrave with Tapiola Sinfonietta and Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are at Tanglewood. He also collaborated with Copenhagen Phil and the Danish Dance Theatre on a new production of The Firebird, the Mark Morris Dance Group in productions of Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, and Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts with performances at the Lincoln Center in New York, London’s Barbican and the Brooklyn Academy of Music, amongst other venues. 

Since 1995 Stefan Asbury has served on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center and has held the Sana H. Sabbagh Master Teacher Chair on the Conducting Faculty since 2005. In addition to his regular summer teaching he has given masterclasses at the Hochschule der Kunste (Zürich), Venice and Geneva Conservatoires, and with the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Inside the TMC.

The first mandolin soloist to be nominated for a classical Grammy, Avi Avital has been compared to Andres Segovia for his championship of his instrument and to Jascha Heifitz for his incredible virtuosity. Passionate and “explosively charismatic” (New York Times) in live performance, he is a driving force behind the reinvigoration of the mandolin repertory.

He has commissioned over 100 works for the mandolin including concertos for mandolin and orchestra by Anna Clyne, Jennifer Higdon, Avner Dorman, David Bruce and Giovanni Sollima which he has performed with orchestras and conductors such as the Munich Philharmonic with Krzysztof Urbański, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Robert Spano, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI and Ryan Bancroft and the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Daniele Rustioni.

Highlights of the 2022/23 season see performances of the Mandolin Concertos by Jennifer Higdon, Anna Clyne and Giovanni Sollima commissioned for Avital, alongside tours with the Academy of Sat Martin in the Fields, Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini, B’Rock and Arcangelo, duo recitals with Ksenija Sidorova (accordion), Olga Pashchenko (harpsichord/fortepiano) and Omer Klein (piano), and a tour of Australia with cellist Giovanni Sollima. Avital launches his new venture, the “Between Worlds Ensemble” with a three-part residency at the Boulez Saal in Berlin. The ensemble was formed to explore different genres, cultures and musical worlds focusing on different geographical regions and in its first year will feature traditional, classical and folk music from the Iberian Peninsula, Black Sea and Italy.

Avi Avital collaborates with musicians across many genres including Mahan Esfahani, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Alice Sara Ott, Andreas Scholl, the Dover Quartet, the Danish String Quartet, Brooklyn Rider, Omer Klein, Omer Avital, actress Martina Gedeck and Georgian puppet theatre Budrugana Gagra. His versatility has led to features as “Portrait Artist” at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, BOZAR in Brussels and the Dortmund Konzerthaus (Zeitinsel). He is a regular presence at major festivals such as Aspen, Salzburg, Tanglewood, Spoleto, Ravenna, MISA Shanghai, Cheltenham, Verbier and Tsinandali.

An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, his sixth album for the label “The Art of the Mandolin” has been received with high praise and top reviews in The Times, Independent, Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine as well as the international press. Previous recordings “Bach” (2019), “Avital meets Avital” (2017), “Vivaldi” (2015), an album of Avital’s own transcriptions of Bach concertos (2012) and “Between Worlds” (2014) also received numerous awards.

Born in Be’er Sheva in southern Israel, Avital began learning the mandolin at the age of eight and soon joined the flourishing mandolin youth orchestra founded and directed by his charismatic teacher, Russian-born violinist Simcha Nathanson. He studied at the Jerusalem Music Academy and the Conservatorio Cesare Pollini in Padua with Ugo Orlandi. Winner of Israel’s prestigious Aviv Competitions in 2007, Avital is the first mandolinist in the history of the competition to be so honoured. He plays on a mandolin made by Israeli luthier Arik Kerman.

Aurelian Băcan was born in Brăila and began his journey in the world of music at the age of six with the study of the accordion. At the age of 11 he discovered the clarinet under the guidance of Professor Petrea Gogu at the Hariclea Darclée High School of Arts in Brăila, which he perfected in high school in the class of Prof. László Gheorghe of the “Sigismund Toduță” College of Music in Cluj-Napoca and further on, until graduating from university with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree (in the class of Prof. Ioan Goilă and Prof. Flavius Trif, at the Gheorghe Dima National Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca). 

In 2019 he obtained with summa cum laude the title of doctor in music (coordinator prof. univ. dr. Cristian Misievici). He is currently solo-clarinetist in the Orchestra of the “Transylvania” Philharmonic in Cluj-Napoca (member since 2009), member of the Romanian Chamber Orchestra and university lecturer doctor at the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” (since 2019) in the department of chamber music, being also very active in the field of composition.

Christian Badea has received exceptional acclaim throughout his career, which encompasses prestigious engagements in the foremost concert halls and opera houses of Europe, North America, Asia, Australia and South America.

At Carnegie Hall, Suntory Hall, Salle Pleyel, Rudolfinum, or at the Concertgebouw, Christian Badea has conducted many orchestras such as the Royal Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony, the Czech Philharmonic and the Saint Petersburg  Philharmonic, the Gothenburg Symphony, the Hague Philharmonic and  the Amsterdam Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, the RAI Orchestra in Torino, the Maggio Musicale Orchestra in Florence, the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon and the National Orchestra of Spain among many others. In Asia he conducted the Hong Kong Philharmonic and he toured Japan with the Tokyo Philharmonic.

In North America, Christian Badea was a guest of the Pittsburgh Symphony, the National Symphony in Washington DC, the Montreal Symphony, the Atlanta Symphony, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and the American Symphony at Carnegie Hall among others.

Equally dividing his time between symphony and opera conducting, Christian Badea has appeared as a frequent guest in the major opera houses of the world.

At the Metropolitan Opera in New York he conducted over 160 performances in a wide variety of repertoire, from Mozart, Verdi and Puccini to Mussorgski, including many of the MET international broadcasts, collaborating  with the most important singers of our time.

Among the opera houses where Christian Badea has guest conducted, are the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London, the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, the Sydney Opera, the Staatsoper in Hamburg, the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf, the Grand Theatre in Geneva, the Theatre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, the Netherlands Opera in Amsterdam, the Royal Opera theaters in Copenhagen and Stockholm, the Oslo Opera, the Teatro Regio in Torino and the Teatro Comunale in Bologna, the Opera National de Lyon and in North America – the opera companies of Houston, Dallas, Toronto, Montreal and Detroit.

Recently, Christian Badea conducted a new production of Don Carlo for the Gothenburg Opera in a performance which was hailed as “world class” by the critics, opened the Enescu International Festival in Bucharest with the Hague Philharmonic  and conducted a new production of Die tote Stadt  for the Australian Opera in Sydney – a triumph with critics and audiences alike. He was immediately asked to return to Sydney and Melbourne, to conduct concerts and several opera productions, including Tosca, Otello, Turandot and Falstaff.

After a most successful debut with Tannhauser at the Budapest Opera, he was invited to return with Der Fliegende Hollander and Parsifal, as well as for concerts with the Budapest Philharmonic.

In 2017 he debuted with Andrea Chenier, at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, with Jose Cura in the title role– a production which was a resounding success.

With the “George Enescu” Philharmonic and soloists such as Stefan Vinke, Petra Lang and Eric Halfvarson, Christian Badea brought Parsifal to the Romanian Athenaeum in 2016, in the double role of conductor and stage director.

Christian Badea’s extensive repertoire ranges from the works of Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven to the composers of the 21st century. His programs have frequently included many of the works of such 20th century composers as Zemlinsky, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Bartok, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Messiaen, Ligeti and Berio. His particular interest in French culture has been featured in concert programs and recordings dedicated to French music.

His operatic repertoire encompasses more than 100 operas with particular emphasis on the works of Mozart, Strauss, Wagner, Verdi, Puccini, Tchaikovsky, as well as those of 20th century composers such as Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Berg and Samuel Barber. He has conducted  extensively the Italian and French repertoire, collaborating with the most important singers of the last three decades.

Christian Badea’s strong commitment to contemporary music has brought him in direct collaboration with many composers. Among them are Leonard Bernstein, Samuel Barber, Peter Mennin, Michael Tippett, George Crumb, John Corigliano, Christopher Rouse and Romanian composers such as Dan Dediu, Stefan Niculescu and Cornel Taranu, to name just a few.

His discography includes the Saint Saens Symphony no.3 with the Royal Philharmonic on the Telarc label, award winning recordings of symphonies of American composers Roger Sessions and Peter Mennin, as well as a live recording of Samuel Barber’s opera Antony and Cleopatra, which won a Grammy Award.

Christian Badea has appeared frequently in the United States on nationally telecast performances. He was also featured in televised concerts and opera performances in Italy, Netherlands, Spain, United Kingdom, Austria and Japan and has conducted at festival venues in Florence, Vienna, Paris, Munich, Bucharest, Hong Kong and Verona. He was the Music Director of the Spoleto Festival of Two Worlds, in Italy and the USA, for a period of 10 years.

His career is marked by important collaborations with many of the major artists of our time, such as Leonard Bernstein, Mstislav Rostropovich, YoYo Ma, Yefim Bronfman, Shlomo Mintz, Midori, Cho Liang Lin, Mitsuko Uchida, Misha Maisky, singers such as Placido Domingo, Renee Fleming, Bryn Terfel, Natalie Dessay, Thomas Hampson and many stage directors, including Stefan Herheim, Bruce Beresford, David Pountney, John Cox, Werner Herzog, Andrei Serban and Keith Warner.

Christian Badea received his initial training as a violinist at the Bucharest Conservatory of Music, followed by studies in Geneva and New York with Henryk Szeryng and Dorothy DeLay. He studied conducting  in Brussels, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Herbert von Karajan and at the Juilliard School. One of his most important mentors in New York was Leonard Bernstein.

Since 2012, Christian Badea is Principal Conductor of the “George Enescu” Philharmonic in Bucharest.

In the same year, he established the ROMANIAN FOUNDATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN MUSIC, dedicated to creating projects of the highest international artistic quality. Among these projects are the Sibiu – Hermannstadt International Music Festival, the project PARSIFAL AT THE ATHENAEUM – realized in partnership with the “George Enescu” Philharmonic and the Romanian Cultural Institute, the series of the Great Concerts of the Centenary of Romania, as well as collaborations with soloists such as Mischa Maisky and Khatia Buniatishvili.

His last appearance at the George Enescu Festival was in 2019 , when he conducted the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic with Vadim Repin as soloist.

Alena Baeva is considered one of the most exciting, versatile, and alluring soloists active on the world stage today. Highlights of the recent seasons include debuts with the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Ensemble Resonanz, Göteborgs Symfoniker, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon, and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, as well as returns to such leading ensembles as the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Gävle Symfoniorkester, Orchestre National de Lille, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Tonkünstler-Orchester.

She now enjoys a particularly strong artistic partnership with Paavo Järvi, with whom recent and future collaborations include performances with the Estonian Festival Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, and the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich. Baeva also enjoys regular work with such world-renowned conductors as Teodor Currentzis, Charles Dutoit, Marek Janowski, and Tomáš Netopil.
Baeva holds an already vast and rapidly expanding repertoire, including over 40 violin concerti, and is a champion of lesser known works – with recent performances promoting such composers as Bacewicz, Karaev, and Karłowicz.

Born in Kazakhstan in 1985, Baeva studied in Moscow, France, Switzerland and Israel. Aged 16, Baeva won the Grand Prix at the 12th International Henryk Wieniawski Competition (2001), and the Grand Prix at the Moscow International Niccolò Paganini Competition (2004).

In 1947, by decree of King Michael I of Romania, the “Banatul” Philharmonic was founded in Timișoara. The first Festive Concert took place on April 27, 1947, ten days after the actual founding act, and the conductor George Pavel presented the following program: Divertisment rustic (Dance and Wedding Song) by S. V. Drăgoi, Eight Russian Songs by A. K. Liadov and the Overture to the opera The Singing Masters by R. Wagner.

The first actual concert of the “Banatul” Philharmonic took place on June 8, 1947, with both the „Banatul” Philharmonic and the Philharmonic Society of Friends of Music on the bill. The guest artists were the pianist Monique de la Bruchollerie (France) and the conductor Charles Bruck who, although adopted by the city on the Seine, did not forget his roots in Banat.

The first season of proper concerts was inaugurated on 26 October 1947, following a series of numerous concerts whose programmes did not lack Romanian works, which reveals the importance that the Philharmonic gave to Romanian music from the beginning, assuming the quality of promoter of our culture and cultural identity. As testimony to the artistic activity of the first season of the Philharmonic is the article published on 24 May 1948 by Sabin V. Drăgoi in Luptătorul bănățean [The Banat Figher]: „The orchestra is in full evolution… Regular concerts… well attended, accessible to all through popular and not luxurious admission prices, this is how this soul food can creep into the broadest strata of the masses like a beneficial and recreational balm.”

Among the guest artists who have honoured the Timisoara audience since the beginnings of the newly established institution we mention the conductors: Constantin Bugeanu, Colonel Iosif Klein, László Somagyi, Traian Mihăilescu, Egizzio Masini, Alfred Mendelsohn, Constantin Sivestri; and the soloists – Elise Cserfalvy (violinist), Monique de la Bruchollerie (pianist), Ion Voicu (violinist), Miloš Sadlo (cellist), Ecaterina Vâlcovici (soprano), Radu Aldulescu (cellist).

Starting with the next season, many well-known artists have been invited, together with the permanent conductors Mircea Popa and Paul Popescu. Constantin Sivestri and Egizzi Masini, who were also invited in the previous season, also took the podium, as well as Constantin Bobescu, Atanasie Margaritoff (Bulgaria), Theodor Rogalski, George Georgescu, Jean Bobescu, Edgar Cosma, Sergiu Celibidache, Mihai Brediceanu, Emanuel Elenescu, Nicolae Boboc, Mircea Basarab, Antonin Ciolan, Nicolae Brânzeu, Radu Botez.

Among the invited soloists we mention the pianists: Mândru Katz, Leo Freund, Ella Philipp, Grete Miletineanu, Jesette Hârsu, Xenia Moscu, Valentin Gheorghiu, Gheorghe Halmoș, Sylvia Șerbescu, Sanda Bobescu, Alexandru Demetriad, Corneliu Gheorghiu, Miron Șoarec, Dan Grigore, Elisabeth Leonskaja; violinists: Ion Voicu, Virgil Pop, Lucian Savin, Nicolae Drăgoi, Mihai Constantinescu, Ștefan Gheorghiu, Mircea Săulescu, Ștefan Ruha; cellists: Radu Aldulescu and Vladimir Orlov.

In the 2022-2023 season, the “Banatul” Philharmonic in Timișoara enjoyed the presence of conductors on stage: Gabriel Bebeșelea (Conductor-in-Residence of the Filarmonica Banatul Timișoara in 2023), Róbert Farkas (Principal Guest Conductor of the Filarmonica Banatul Timișoara), Stefan Geiger (Principal Guest Conductor of the Filarmonica Banatul Timișoara in the 2022-2023 season), Cristian Măcelaru (Principal Conductor of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Cologne, Artistic Director of the French National Orchestra, Artistic Director of the George Enescu International Festival), Sasha Goetzel, Ruben Gazarian, Radu Paponiu, David Crescenzi, Valentin Uryupin, Sander Teepens, Walter Hilgers, Huba Hollókői, Sergey Simakov, Dionysis Grammenos, Gheorghe Costin, as well as soloists: Andrei Ioniță (soloist in Residence of the Banat Philharmonic Timișoara for the year 2023 – European Capital of Culture), Wynton Marsalis, David Fray, Nicola Benedetti, Sarah Nemțanu, Alexander Boldakev, Rosanne Philippens, Szimon Nehring, Bryan Cheng, Máté Szücs, Alexandru Tomescu, Florin Iliescu, Ionuț Podgoreanu, Felicia Greciuc etc.

Hungarian violinist Kristóf Baráti is recognised increasingly across the globe as a musician of extraordinary quality with a vast expressive range and impeccable technique. Applauded repeatedly for the poetry and eloquence that he brings to his playing, he has been described as “a true tonal aesthete of the highest order”.
In recent seasons, Baráti has performed at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at London’s Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2019 he was the featured soloist in the opening concert of the the Verbier Festival. Baráti has played with orchestras such as Zurich Tonhalle, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, BBC Scottish Symphony, BBC Philharmonic and Hague Philharmonic orchestras. He performs regularly with Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra both in Russia and on tour around the world including in the US and China. Highlights of his 2020/21 season included performances with the Budapest Festival and Bern Symphony orchestras, and debuts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony and Israel Philharmonic orchestras amongst others.
A regular recital and chamber music player, Baráti has performed with partners such as Mischa Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, Enrico Pace, Jean-Efflam Bavouzet, Zoltán Kocsis and Kim Kashkashian amongst others. He performs every year at the White Nights Festival and in 2019 made his debut at the Seattle Chamber Music and Aspen Festivals. In 2016 he made a sensational debut at the Verbier Festival when he performed the complete solo sonatas and partitas of Bach and has since been back every year.
Baráti has an extensive discography which includes the five Mozart concerti, the complete Beethoven and Brahms sonatas with Klára Würtz, and Ysaÿe solo sonatas for Brilliant Classics, and Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Solo violin on the Berlin Classics label. Of his disc of encores ‘The Soul of Lady Harmsworth’ recorded in 2016, Gramophone magazine said “for those who like to hear the violin played at its sweet and acrobatic best, then Baráti is out of the top drawer.”
Having spent much of his childhood in Venezuela where he played as soloist with many of the country’s leading orchestras, Baráti returned to Budapest to study at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and was later mentored by Eduard Wulfson, himself a student of Milstein and Menuhin. Still resident in Budapest, Baráti performs regularly across Hungary and together with István Várdai, he is Artistic Director of the Kaposvár International Chamber Music Festival. Baráti plays the 1703 “Lady Harmsworth” Stradivarius, by kind arrangement with the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.

Graduated in opera singing at the Verona Conservatory in 2016, in 2017 Anastasia Bartoli was chosen by M°Carlo Rizzi to sing excerpts from Cavalleria Rusticana (Santuzza) at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

Recently she was Hanna Glawari in La Vedova Allegra at the Teatro Verdi in Padua, she made her role debut as Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth at the Tokyo Spring Festival conducted by M°Riccardo Muti while in Trieste she performed Rossini’s Stabat Mater, which she also performed in Turin with the Rai National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Michele Spotti; she was the star of an opera gala in Arezzo. She then added important roles to her repertoire, as Abigaille in Nabucco staged at the Petruzzelli Theater in Bari; Maria Boccanegra in Simon Boccanegra staged at the Teatro Masimo in Palermo, alongside Placido Domingo in the title role; Elvira in Ernani at the Teatro dell’Opera in Rome conducted by Marco Armiliato; Nedda in Pagliacci at the Lirico in Cagliari.

She made her debut at the Marseille Opera with her first Verdi role as Lady Macbeth in Verdi’s Macbeth conducted by Maestro Paolo Arrivabeni. Among other forthcoming engagements: I due foscari  at the Fenice in Venice,  Simon Boccanegra at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, La Boheme in Genoa and Tosca in Parma.

Award-winning pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet enjoys a prolific recording and international concert career. He regularly works with orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, BBC Symphony and London Philharmonic orchestras, and collaborates with conductors including Vladimir Jurowski, Gianandrea Noseda, François-Xavier Roth, Vasily Petrenko, Ludovic Morlot, Edward Gardner, Louis Langrée, and Sir Andrew Davis among others.

Highlights of the 2022/23 season include Sydney Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Prague Radio orchestras, Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Budapest Festival Orchestra, and Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo. He returns to Seattle Symphony Orchestra for a play-direct programme of Hadyn, Beethoven, and Mozart, and performs with Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg at the Bishwiller Festival. He continues his relationship with Manchester Camerata and Gabor Takács-Nagy which will include a tour of the Baltics. With Takács-Nagy, Bavouzet also performs Mozart concertos with Orchestre de Chambre de Geneva and the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra.

In recital, Bavouzet continues his three-year residency at the Wigmore Hall, titled ‘Autour de Debussy’, which includes solo recitals and a chamber concert with the Orsino Ensemble. Bavouzet and the Orsino Ensemble also perform at the Helsinki Seriös chamber music series. Other recitals include two Debussy programmes at the Ferrara Musica Festival, Sydney City Recital Hall, and Sala São Paulo to name a few.

Bavouzet’s previous performances include New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonie de Paris with Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, and BBC Proms with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and Nicholas Collon. He has recently appeared with the Budapest Festival Orchestra, Seattle and Toronto symphonies, play/direct with Camerata RCO, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and toured the UK with the Iceland Symphony under Yan Pascal Tortelier.

Bavouzet records exclusively for Chandos. He most recent release has been the final instalment in the highly successful complete Haydn’s Piano Sonatas series and his ‘The Beethoven Connection’ received numerous accolades from magazines including Gramophone, BBC Music and Choc-Classica and the New York Times. Ongoing cycles include the complete Mozart Piano Concertos with the Manchester Camerata and Gábor Takács-Nagy; their fourth volume was nominated for a Gramophone Award in 2020. In September 2020, the complete Beethoven Concertos were released with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra play/directed by Bavouzet.

Other recordings include Bartók’s Piano Concerto’s and the complete Prokofiev Piano Concertos with the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda – the latter won the Concerto category of the 2014 Gramophone Awards. Under Yan-Pascal Tortelier, he recorded Stravinsky’s Complete Works for Piano and Orchestra with Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and the Ravel Piano concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra which won both a Gramophone and BBC magazine award. Bavouzet’s recordings have also garnered Diapason d’Or and Choc de l’année awards.

Bavouzet has worked closely with Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Kurtág, Maurice Ohana, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Bruno Mantovani and Jörg Widmann and is also a champion of lesser-known French music, notably that of Gabriel Pierné and Albéric Magnard. He is the International Chair in Piano at the Royal Northern College of Music and an Advisory Board member of the Pianofest in the Hamptoms. In 2012 he was ICMA Artist of the Year and in 2008 he was awarded Beijing’s first ever Elite Prize for his Beethoven complete sonata series.

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester this year celebrates its 500th birthday, making it one of the oldest orchestras in the world, rich in tradition. As the in-house musicians of the Bayerische Staatsoper, they feel at home both in the orchestra pit and on stage. In 2022 it was voted Orchestra of the Year for the eighth consecutive year by opera critics in Opernwelt magazine. At the London Gramophone Awards, they took home both opera and orchestral awards for their performances of Die tote Stadt and The Snow Queen, as well as for Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 released on the Bayerische Staatsoper Recordings label – an unprecedented tally in the history of these awards.

The Bayerisches Staatsorchester began life as the Munich court orchestra. Its origins can be traced back to the year 1523. The ensemble’s first well-known director was Orlando di Lasso from 1563. While the focus of their artistic expression consisted initially of church music, as the 17th century progressed more mainstream concerts and opera performances were added to their repertoire. By the mid-18th century, operas were being performed more regularly and today constitute one of the orchestra’s principal responsibilities. The world premieres of Mozart’s La finta giardiniera (1775) and Idomeneo (1781) soon marked early milestones. 

In 1811, the members of the court orchestra founded the Musical Academy which hosted Munich’s first ever public concert series, the academy concerts. Here, the Munich audience were introduced to musicians such as Clara Schumann, Johannes Brahms and Edvard Grieg. . Today, the Musical Academy continues to influence the musical life of the city and the state of Bavaria. Alongside the symphonic concerts at the Nationaltheater and a variety of chamber music series, the Academy is also home to the ATTACCA youth orchestra and the Hermann Levi Academy which are committed to supporting and training musicians at the start of their careers. Through the company Bayerisches Staatsorchester Konzert GmbH the Musical Academy organises and manages its orchestra tours and symphonic guest performances itself. These regularly take the orchestra to the music capitals of the Europe, including Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Milan, Paris, Vienna, Lucerne and London, as well as further afield to Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei and New York.

Among the many great composers with whom the orchestra has been affiliated, Richard Wagner stands apart. In 1865, Hans von Bülow conducted the world premiere of Tristan und Isolde at the Nationaltheater. Three further Wagner operas were also premiered in Munich: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868), Das Rheingold (1869) and Die Walküre (1870). Many of the most significant musical personalities of their time have fronted the orchestra as chief conductor: from Richard Strauss, Hermann Levi, Felix Mottl, Bruno Walter and Hans Knappertsbusch to Sir Georg Solti, Joseph Keilberth, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano and Kirill Petrenko. The orchestra also enjoyed a close relationship with Carlos Kleiber. The 2021/22 season saw Vladimir Jurowski take the reins of the Bayerisches Staatsorchester as general music director.  

Gabriel Bebeşelea is Principal Conductor of the “George Enescu” Philharmonic Orchestra in Bucharest and Artistic Director of the period instrument ensemble and festival Musica Ricercata.

Bebeşelea enjoys a vibrant international career, being guest of acclaimed ensembles such as the Rundfunk- Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the Tonkunstler Orchestra, the PKF-Prague Philharmonia, etc.

Season 2023/24 kicks off with appearances at the “George Enescu” Festival alongside Musica Ricercata and Lawrence Brownlee, and sees him conduct performances of Arnold Schoenberg’s monumental “Gurrelieder” and return to the Bochumer Symphoniker, Ulster Orchestra, the Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra and the “Transylvania” State Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he was Principal Conductor between 2016 – 2023.

A remarkable opera conductor, Bebeşelea was named Principal Conductor of the Romanian National Opera of Iaşi in 2011, becoming the youngest ever Principal Conductor in Romania. In 2015 he was named Principal Conductor of the National Romanian Opera House of Cluj-Napoca.

In recent seasons, he has led performances of Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Tsar’s Bride” at the Perm Opera, Rossini’s “Il viaggio a Reims” at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Francesco Cilea’s “Adriana Lecouvreur” at the National Opera House Timisoara (European Capital of Culture 2023) and a new production of “Manon Lescaut” at the Slovenian National Theater Maribor.

Gabriel Bebeșelea is known to devote himself to researching and rediscovering music and is responsible for uncovering several long forgotten or neglected musical masterpieces. In 2017, to bring such music to light, he founded the ensemble Musica Ricercata – an international artistic collective dedicated to the historically informed performance of music spanning from the baroque to modern eras, with an emphasis on early music.

With the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, he recorded a CD featuring George Enescu’s rediscovered oratorio „Strigoii” (The Ghosts) and his “Pastorale – Fantaisie pour petite orchestre” (edition curated by Gabriel Bebeşelea).

In 2015, Gabriel Bebeşelea studied with two of the world’s most appreciated conductors: Bernard Haitink at the Lucerne Festival at Easter and with Kurt Masur at the Aurora Classical Festival. Bebeșelea was also mentored by Alberto Zedda at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro.

In 2011 he was awarded a scholarship consisting of an internship at the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, where he had the possibility to assist at rehearsals and concerts with Mariss Jansons, Bernard Haitink, Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Philippe Herreweghe, David Zinman and Eliahu Inbal.

Born in 1987, Gabriel Bebeşelea is winner of the 1st prize of the “Lovro von Matačić” Conducting Competition (Zagreb 2015) and the 1st prize in the “Jeunesses Musicales” Conducting Competition (Bucharest 2011).

In 2018, Gabriel Bebeşelea obtained his PhD with “summa cum laude” at the National University of Music Bucharest.

Safir, with a first name whose Arabic etymology means travel, awakens to music through the practice of the guitar. Enrolled at the age of 12 in classical guitar lessons, noticed at the end of the year audition, his musical vocation became obvious. In 2004, he obtained a music license at the faculty of Pierre Mendès France in Grenoble, and in parallel a diploma in harmony and jazz guitar in Chambéry, he evolved between vocal ensembles and instrumental formations but it was the prospect of a opera singer that is taking shape and will not let go. He trained at the Grenoble Conservatory then at the National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris, when he left he joined the Académie de l’Opéra-Comique until 2015. From 2017 to 2019, he played Alfredo in Traviata, You deserve a better future, created at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris and taken on international tour a hundred times. We could hear him recently at the Philharmonie de Paris in Die Massnahme, an opera by Hans Eisler and Bertold Brecht created for the first time in France, with Séquenza 9.3 (Catherine Simonpietri), Dafné au Théâtre de l’Athénée in Paris, a creation by Wolfgang Mitterer with Les Cris de Paris ( Goeffroy Jourdain ), and soon in Sonntag aus Licht, Stockhausen’s ultimate opera with Le Balcon (Maxime Pascal).

The Berlin Academy of American Music is a chamber orchestra made of top Berlin-based musicians who share a common focus on performing and promoting the works of American and American immigrant composers. Formed during the height of the pandemic, conductor Garrett Keast conceptualized a way to connect music, performers, and audiences on a deeper level. Transatlantic, BAAM’s first recording receive 5-stars from BBC Music Magazine and das Orchester, and reflects the orchestra’s motivation with a program of Copland, Dorman, Stravinsky, Takemitsu, and Urquhart. The orchestra’s early concerts accentuated social justice themes with the European premiere of Anthony Davis’s You have the Right to Remain Silent, as well as featuring Milhaud’s groundbreaking La Creation du Monde and Caroline Shaw’s fresh and contemporary Entr’acte. Praised for its “successful debut” by Concerti Magazine, the orchestra aims to inspire dialogue exploring the connections between America and Europe.

The Berlin Academy has enjoyed collaborations with acclaimed artists such as Israeli soprano Chen Reiss, American violinist Noah Bendix-Balgley, Greek flutist Stathis Karapanos and French harpist Marie-Pierre Langlamet. BAAM celebrated its album debut with concerts in Berlin, in November of 2021 followed by its Elbphilharmonie Hamburg debut in February of 2022. The future is bright for the orchestra, with festival engagements and further recordings on the horizon.

Born in Rome in 1961, Alfredo Bernardini moved to The Netherlands in 1981 to specialize in baroque oboe and early music with, among others, Bruce Haynes and Ku Ebbinge. In 1987 he received his soloist diploma from the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. He has performed all over Europe, in Russia, U.S.A., Canada, Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Egypt, Israel, South America and Australia as a member of prestigious baroque ensembles such as Hesperion XX, Le Concert des Nations, La Petite Bande, The Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Das Freiburger Barockorchester, The English Concert, Bach Collegium Japan, Balthasar Neumann Ensemble and others. He has played in more than 100 recordings. In 1989 he founded the ensemble ZEFIRO together with the brothers Paolo and Alberto Grazzi. His recordings with Zefiro have won important prizes such as the Cannes Classical Award and the Diapason d’Or de l’Année 2009. As a director, he has worked with orchestras in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Ireland, Denmark, Norway, Poland, the UK, Sweden, Canada, Cuba, Australia, Israel and with the European Union Baroque Orchestra. In January 2013 he was counsellor and director of the first baroque orchestra project of “El Sistema de Musica” of Venezuela. His research on the history of woodwind musical instruments has resulted in several articles published by important international magazines. Since 1992 he teaches baroque oboe at the Conservatory of Amsterdam and from 2014 he is professor at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg. He also taught from 2002 to 2009 at the Escola Superior de Musica de Cataluña in Barcelona. Ha has also been guest teacher in music academies and summer courses in Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Israel and the U.S.A.

Throughout his career, Avi Avital has been drawn to collaboration with musicians across a wide spectrum of genres. This is a natural and logical result of his advocacy of the mandolin — itself an instrument whose ambiguous and flexible identity is at home in contexts as varied as the Italian Baroque, klezmer, folk and jazz. The vision underlying the Between Worlds project originated in connection with Avital’s 2014 release, Between Worlds, which considered examples of the links between folk and classical traditions in Europe, Central Asia, and the Americas. 

Between Worlds embodied the initial phase of Avital’s ongoing quest to explore both the vitality of folk traditions and the ways in which these have shaped both cultural identity and the development of modern ideals of art music. “From the moment I conceived this project, I have felt it as a calling,” says the mandolinist. “I feel like my whole musical life has been leading up to this.” 

Celebrating the heritage of unique national musical styles associated with specific geographies is only one dimension of Avital’s ongoing project. A central impetus for his vision is to bring together unique configurations of contemporary performers who defy conventional borders and expectations by sharing their expertise in traditional, classical and popular styles. The vitality they generate from blending and conversing in multiple musical dialects opens ears and hearts to a more generous embrace of our shared humanity.   

Avital is in the process of curating six programs for his Between Worlds Ensemble (BWE) that home in on geographical regions, each of which is stamped with a distinctive cultural identity molded by multicultural exchange: the Iberian Peninsula, the Black Sea, and the Italian Peninsula are the topics for the three programmes they are presenting this season. The interplay of styles that will be explored will fascinate and thrill audiences of all ages.

A different assortment of vocalists and instrumentalists joins with the BWE players in each programme to illustrate the living legacy of folk traditions at play. They interact with the ensemble to generate new musical hybrids, mirroring the process of classical composers from the past. But where the art music nourished by these sources has often become too familiar to surprise us, these fresh encounters with authentic exponents of the folk traditions, who will perform specially crafted new arrangements, promise to restore something of its innovative edge.

The BWE comprises ten musicians whose backgrounds are especially suited to this radical versatility, including the collaborations with a group of guest artists unique to each of the project’s programmes. At the core of the BWE is the mandolin — “an incredibly versatile instrument that is at home in almost any kind of music you put it to,” as Avital puts it. The mandolin “leads you to the most exciting discoveries, yet always stays true to itself. The sense of being at home in places that seem foreign, and even of discovering aspects of yourself there, is an idea that I find very moving. And that philosophy is at the heart of this project.”

In 1989, following extensive work with specialist ensembles including Les Musiciens du Louvre and The English Concert, Biondi founded Europa Galante, which quickly became the foremost Italian period ensemble. Biondi and his ensemble have forged a reputation for “fresh, vibrant performances” (New York Times) and breathe new life into Baroque, Classical and early Romantic repertoire, performing at leading international festivals and stages including recently the Berlin Pierre Boulez Saal, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Wiener Konzerthaus, Enescu Festival and Edinburgh International Festival.

Biondi brings this authentic and engaging approach to modern symphony and chamber orchestras, which he both conducts and directs from the violin. Recent and future highlights include the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, RAI Torino, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Mahler Chamber orchestras and the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg. He was Artistic Director for Baroque Music at the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra for eleven years until 2016.

Biondi’s passion for opera takes him to major houses including Zurich Opera, Berlin’s Staatsoper unter den Linden and in 2020 to the Grand Théâtre de Genève for Luk Perceval’s new production of Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail. He was Music Director 2015–18 of Valencia’s Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, where he conducted productions of Donizetti, Rossini, Haydn and Verdi Il Corsaro.

As a violinist, he is respected as a virtuoso “beyond reproach” (The Guardian), performing in recital across the world including at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Auditorio Nacional de Música Madrid and Cité de la Musique.

His broad discography on Warner Classics, Virgin and Glossa has earned Biondi numerous awards, including the Diapason d’Or de l’Année and Choc de Musique; his widely acclaimed recording with Europa Galante of Vivaldi Four Seasons was named Disc of the Year by organizations in over five countries; and he has recorded with Joyce DiDonato, Diana Damrau, Philippe Jaroussky, Vivica Genaux and Rolando Villazón. His recent recording of ‘Paganini Sonatas for Violin and Guitar’ was named Editor’s Choice by Gramophone and BBC Music Magazine.

Biondi has been an academician of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia since 2011, he was named in 2015 an Officer of the National Order of Arts and Letters by the French Ministry of Culture, and in 2019 was awarded the medal of Courage and Veracity by the Polish Government, in recognition of outstanding cultural achievements.

In over 35 years of stage appearances, he has collaborated with most theatres in the country, as well as with philharmonics and operas, as an actor of the Comedy Theatre, then of the Bulandra Theatre where he still works today.

He has been invited by TV channels in children’s shows, entertainment shows, TV theatre, revealing his qualities as an actor-performer, mime, tap, singer. Playing several instruments, but also with his voice, the opportunities offered have been very diverse. He has performed in musicals, opera, operetta and numerous festivals and international festivals.

He has been invited to serve on various national and international juries.

He has acted in films since the early years of his theatre studies, both Romanian and international films, speaking several widely spoken languages: for example, the last film of the late Ion Popescu-Gopo (Maria and Mirabela in Tranzistoria – role of Scăpărici), but also in films with Malcolm McDowell, Michael Paré or Jean-Claude van Damme.

With outstanding vocal skills, he has dubbed countless films in Romanian, including characters such as Donkey from Shrek, Timon from Timon and Pumba or The Lion King, Mushu from Mulan or Paddington from the series of the same name, and then continued as a dubbing director or musical director. His voice is part of Radio Romania’s Golden Sound Archives, and over the years he has recorded numerous radio plays and entertainment shows.

His composing work includes music for theatre, film, but also original musical pieces that have been presented on various TV channels or can be found on YouTube.

He has taught singing and stage speaking techniques at the UNATC Theatre Faculty, holds master classes and workshops, such as the one at the Dan Iordăchescu Arts Festival. He has directed various shows, acted in musical and theatrical performances and children’s shows.

Pierre Bleuse has made a name for himself on the international scene as a regular guest of prestigious orchestras: Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, Festival Présences of Radio France, Tokyo Symphony, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, MDR-Sinfonieorchester of Leipzig, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Symphony Orchestras of Basel and Bern, Brussels Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Belgique, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestras of Basel and Paris, China National Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Quebec Symphony Orchestra, Salt Lake City Symphony Orchestra.

Committed to the interpretation and dissemination of contemporary music, he has notably directed the Ensemble Intercontemporain on several occasions and becomes its musical director from the 2023/2024 season onwards. He has also directed the Lemanic Modern Ensemble, a formation based in Geneva, dedicated to the exploration of today’s repertoire. In the 2021/2022 season, he was appointed Musical Director of the Odense Symphony Orchestra, in Denmark. The same year, he took over the artistic direction of the renowned Pablo Casals Festival in Prades. 

Laureate of the first prize in violin at the National Conservatory of Music and Dance in Paris, Pierre Bleuse has trained with Jorma Panula in Finland and Laurent Gay at the Haute École de Genève. 

French-born Alexandre Bloch assumed the position of Music Director of Orchestre National de Lille at the start of the 2016/17 season. From 2015 – 2021, Alexandre was also Principal Guest Conductor of Düsseldorfer Symphoniker.

Alexandre leads a diverse and thrilling range of repertoire in Lille over the 2022/23 season, performing works in their main concert series by Britten, Bartok, Mahler and Berlioz among others, featuring internationally acclaimed soloists such as Isabelle Faust, Dame Sarah Connolly and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. The season with ONL will also include a tour to Salzburg with Nemanja Radulović. Guest conducting engagements include return visits to Opera de Lyon (Le nozze di Figaro) and Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal). Debut appearances include Utah Symphony, a UK tour with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and performances at the Bratislava Festival with Slovak Philharmonic and Gil Shaham.

Recent highlights include debuts with Bayerische Staatsoper (Thomas), Berner Symphonieorchester, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (concerts and commercial recording with Daniel Müller-Schott); Tiroler Landestheater Orchester Innsbruck , Gurzenich Orchester Köln and his acclaimed debut for Opéra de Lyon conducting George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence. Work with Orchestre National de Lille has included many symphonic programmes, a critically acclaimed Mahler cycle, performances at the Festival de St Denis and at the Philharmonie de Paris, Stravinsky’s major ballet scores and commercial recordings. Earlier seasons have taken him to Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestra of the National Centre for Performing Arts Beijing and Vancouver Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Royal Northern Sinfonia, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and a tour to Kuwait with London Symphony Orchestra.

Past symphonic guest conducting has also included Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre National de France, the Nash Ensemble, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Opera North, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Danish National Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre Métropolitain (Montréal), Brussels Philharmonic, Ulster Orchestra, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Filharmonia Poznanska, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Australian Youth Orchestra. He has conducted opera in concert with Orchestre National de Lille, including Bizet’s Les Pêcheurs de Perles (Lille and Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées), Bernstein’s Mass and Carmen. Opera highlights also include Donizetti’s l’Elisir d’Amore at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Tosca at Opera de Lille.

Shortly after his Donatella Flick Competition success he made his debut with Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, replacing Mariss Jansons at short notice to conduct three performances of a challenging programme including Richard Strauss’ Tod und Verklärung and a Jörg Widmann commission for large orchestra. He was named one of “2012’s Talents” by the ADAMI (French Performing Right Society) and was a conducting fellow at the 2012 and 2013 Tanglewood Music Center Festival. He also drew the attention of conductors such as Mariss Jansons, Charles Dutoit, Pierre Boulez, Bernard Haitink, Sir Mark Elder and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Under Alexandre’s direction, the Orchestre National de Lille was named a finalist for the Gramophone Orchestra of the Year Award 2020.

Born in 1985, Alexandre first graduated with diplomas in cello performance, harmony and conducting from Tours, Orléans and Lille. He then entered the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, to further his studies in composition and conducting. In 2012, he completed his Master’s Degree in Conducting in the studio of Zsolt Nagy, prior to gaining a Diploma and the Sir John Zochonis Junior Fellowship (2012/13 season) at the Royal Northern College of Music. Admired for his musicality, enthusiasm and energy, his First Prize at the 2012 Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition attracted international attention and brought him the opportunity to serve as Assistant Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.

Ehrendirigent Gewandhausorchester Leipzig / Staatskapelle Dresden
/ Bamberger Symphoniker
Conductor Laureate San Francisco Symphony
Honorary Conductor Danish National Symphony Orchestra / Swedish
Radio Symphony Orchestra
Honorary Conductor Laureate NHK Symphony Orchestra

Noble, charming, sober, modest. Such qualities may play a major role in human
coexistence and are certainly appreciated. However, they are rather atypical for
extraordinary personalities such as conductors. Whatever the general public’s
notion of a conductor may be, Herbert Blomstedt is an exception, precisely because
he possesses those very qualities which seemingly have so little to do with a
conductor’s claim to power. That he disproves the usual clichés in many respects
should certainly not lead to the assumption that he does not have the power to
assert his clearly defined musical goals. Anyone who has attended Herbert
Blomstedt’s rehearsals and experienced his concentration on the essence of the
music, the precision in the phrasing of musical facts and circumstances as they
appear in the score, the tenacity regarding the implementation of an aesthetic view,
is likely to have been amazed at how few despotic measures were required to this
end. Basically, Herbert Blomstedt has always represented that type of artist whose
professional competence and natural authority make all external emphasis
superfluous. His work as a conductor is inseparably linked to his religious and
human ethos, and his interpretations combine great faithfulness to the score and
analytical precision, with a soulfulness that awakens the music to pulsating life. In
the more than sixty years of his career, he has acquired the unrestricted respect of
the musical world.

Born in the USA to Swedish parents and educated in Uppsala, New York, Darmstadt
and Basel, Herbert Blomstedt gave his conducting debut in 1954 with the Stockholm
Philharmonic Orchestra and subsequently served as Chief Conductor of the Oslo
Philharmonic, the Swedish and Danish Radio Orchestras and the Staatskapelle
Dresden. Later, he became Music Director of the San Francisco Symphony, Chief
Conductor of the NDR Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig. His former orchestras in San Francisco, Leipzig, Copenhagen,
Stockholm and Dresden as well as the Bamberg Symphony and the NHK Symphony
Orchestra all honoured him with the title of Conductor Laureate. Since 2019, he is a
Honorary Member of the Vienna Philharmonic.

Herbert Blomstedt holds several Honorary Doctorates, is an elected member of the
Royal Swedish Music Academy and was awarded the German Great Cross of Merit
with Star. Over the years, all leading orchestras around the globe have been
fortunate to secure the services of the highly respected Swedish conductor. At the
high age of 95, he continues to be at the helm of all leading international orchestras
with enormous mental and physical presence, verve and artistic drive.

Austrian baritone Florian Boesch is counted as one of today’s foremost Lieder interpreters with appearances throughout Europe, the USA (Carnegie Hall) and Canada. He was featured as artist in residence at the Vienna Konzerthaus and at the Wigmore Hall in London.

Florian Boesch is also a frequent guest on the concert platform, where he has worked with eminent conductors including Giovanni Antonini, Ivor Bolton, Teodor Currentzis, Iván Fischer, Adam Fischer, Sir Roger Norrington, Philippe Herreweghe, Sir Simon Rattle, Ivor Bolton, Pablo Heras-Casado, Robin Ticciati and Valery Gergiev. He enjoyed a particularly close collaboration with Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

On the opera stage Florian Boesch compels as a great singer-actor, most recently in a new production of Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro and Handel’s Saul at the Theater an der Wien. Major productions of his career also include Alban Berg’s Wozzeck, a scenic version of Schubert‘s Lazarus and Händel’s Messiah at the Theater an der Wien and Méphistophélès in Berlioz‘ La Damnation de Faust at the States Opera in Berlin. The 2022/2023 season marks Florian Boesch’s debut at the Vienna State Opera with a Mahler project entitled Von der Liebe Tod (leading Team Calixto Bieito & Lorenzo Viotti).  He will also appear in a staged production of Schubert’s Die Schöne Müllerin with Nikolaus Habjan and Musicbanda Franui at the Berlin State Opera Unter den Linden.

Florian Boesch received his initial vocal trainings from KS Ruthilde Boesch and later studied Lied and oratorio with KS Robert Holl in Vienna. Florian Boesch is holding a professorship at the University of Music and Drama in Vienna.

Cristina Sârbu (Bohaciu) is a musicologist and music critic, a spoken and written press journalist, author of studies and music books and, for 14 years, she has been leading the project Classic is fantastic, education through and for music, carried out in partnership with the George Enescu Philharmonic and the Odeon Theatre and dedicated to young people in general and children in particular.

Rodolphe Briand began his career as an actor/singer and director of the theater company « Les Galas Panique ». He took part in many shows at the Avignon Festival and in different Parisian theatres. He performed for example in How much is your Iron? by Brecht, La Cagnotte by Labiche, La Fausse suivante by Marivaux at the Comédie Française, Le Bébé de Monsieur Laurent by Roland Topor… At the same time, he appeared in several musicals: Le Tour du Monde en 80 jours, Cats, Les Misérables, Kiss me Kate…

In 1994, Rodolphe Briand began a career in opera by taking voice lessons with Jean-Pierre Blivet. He then got into the Ecole d’Art Lyrique and the Paris National Opera’s Centre de Formation Lyrique. In 1997, he won the Concours International de Marseille.

Since then, his great acting and singing skills led him to sing on all the main international stages. In France, he sung at the Chorégies d’Orange (Carmen), at the Opéra de Lyon (L’Enfant et les Sortilèges), at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris (Hamlet and Louise), at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées (Die Fledermaus), at the Capitole in Toulouse (Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Le Nozze di Figaro, L’Homme de la Mancha), in Bordeaux (Les Brigands / Falsacappa by Offenbach in Jérôme Deschamps’ production, La Belle Hélène, Orphée aux Enfers), Strasbourg (Turandot  /Altoum, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Falstaff / Bardolfo, La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein / Fritz, La Belle Hélène), in Avignon (Die Zauberflöte / Monostatos, Evgenij Onegin / Monsieur Triquet), Madama Butterfly / Goro, La Forza del Destino / Trabucco), in Nancy (Les Brigands, Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Evgenij Onegin), in Nice (La Grande Duchesse), in Monte-Carlo (Falstaff, L’Homme de la Mancha, La Fanciula del West, Tosca and Das Rheingold / Mime).

Regularly invited by the Paris National Opera, he has sung there Les Contes d’Hoffmann, Le Nozze di Figaro, La Forza del destino, Die Zauberflöte, Werther, Benvenuto Cellini, Tosca, Madama Butterfly…

He has also been seen on the most prestigious international stages, such as the Grand Théâtre de Genève (Manon Lescaut, Tosca / Spoletta, Jean-Jacques Rousseau a creation by Philippe Fénelon, La Grande Duchesse de Gerolstein), in Lausanne (Tom Jones, Falstaff, Le Chanteur de Mexico), in Liège (Falstaff, The Man of la Mancha / Sancho by Mitch Leigh alongside José Van Dam’s Don Quichotte, Les Contes d’Hoffmann / The Four Valets, La Périchole, La Vie parisienne, Andrea Chénier / Incredibile), the Teatro Real in Madrid (Manon / Guillot de Morfontaine), the Teatro la Fenice in Venice (Carmen / Remendado), the Teatro Massimo in Palermo (Manon), the Teatro Petruzelli in Bari (Dialogues des Carmélites / L’Aumônier), the Bayerischer Rundfunkorchester (Manon), Beijing (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), Sao Paulo (Carmen), Manon at the Opéra Comique, Die Zauberflöte at the Sanxay’s Festival, Tosca, Falstaff and Les Contes d’Hoffmann in Monte Carlo, Carmen at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Barkouf by Offenbach in Strasbourg, Turandot at the Opéra de Marseille, Le Nozze di Figaro and La Vie Parisienne at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Falstaff in Aix-en-Provence.

He has been invited by the conductor Ivan Fischer to take part in the productions of Le Nozze di Figaro and Die Zauberflöte on tour in Budapest, Berlin, New York (Mostly Mozart Festival), Abu Dhabi… In 2009, he appeared in the production of Carmen (Remendado) conducted by Daniel Barenboim that opened the season of the Teatro all Scala. In Milan he also sang Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Manon.

He recently performed La Vie Parisienne in Tours and at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Manon at the Opéra de Paris, Salomé at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Hamlet at the Festival de Radio-France,

Among his upcoming projects, let us mention, La Périchole at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, in Toulon and in Dijon,  Les Mamelles de Tirésias, Le Rossignol and La Bohème also at the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, La Vie parisienne in Limoges and Giuditta at the Opéra National du Rhin.

Born in Romania, and now based in Switzerland, Teodora Brody initially trained in classical jazz and rose to prominence in the late 1990s and early 2000s singing with legendary jazz pianist Johnny Răducanu.

Acclaimed for her extraordinary vocal power and creative vision, Teodora pioneered the fusion of jazz with Doina –Romania’s improvisatory folk singing tradition –and is widely credited with introducing international audiences to this extraordinary, deeply emotive music.

Always searching for new musical territories to explore, Teodora has performed alongside musicians including Stanley Jordan, Theodosii Spassov, Lars Danielsson, Johnny Răducanu, Les Paul, Curtis Fuller, Eric Legnini, Phillippe Duchemin, Guido Manusardi, Benny Rietveld, Daniele di Bonaventura, Ion Baciu and Al Copley. On the world stage, Teodora has regularly appeared at prestigious European jazz festivals including Montreux, Lugano, and Marciac, and across the Atlantic she has performed at the US Library of Congress and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and at legendary clubs including Iridium New York and Blues Alley in Washington D.C.

In 2004 the American government named Teodora a Romanian Cultural Ambassador to the USA, and in both 2007 and 2008 Teodora was awarded the prize for ‘Best International Jazz Contribution by a Romanian Artist’ by the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company.

In recent years, Teodora’s intrepid imagination has taken her far beyond her Romanian and jazz roots into new musical territory. With unique projects including ‘Unifying Worlds’, ‘From Classical to Jazz’ and ‘Classical Emotion’, Teodora has explored classical repertoire with a completely fresh approach, making her riveting account of masterworks by composers including Bach, Beethoven, Pachelbel, Vivaldi, Bartók, Pau Casals and the beloved Romanian composer George Enescu, with original vocal versions.

In 2019 ‘From Classical to Jazz’ was awarded ‘Project of the Year’ at the Romanian Jazz Awards Gala, and Teodora herself was named ‘Musician of the Year’ for the second yearin a row.

Having given impassioned performances at the prestigious George Enescu International Festival in 2019 and 2021, this September Teodora returns to the Romanian Athenaeum with one of the UK’s most exciting chamber orchestras to perform her electrifying rendering of Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody No. 1.

2023 sees Teodora forging ahead on this unique creative path, with exciting projects including her ‘Impromptu’ sessions – a regular series of entirely improvised concerts performed with special guests across Europe – and an upcoming album recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Yefim Bronfman was born in Tashkent, from where he and his family emigrated to Israel in 1973. He studied with Arie Vardi at the Rubin Academy in Tel Aviv before continuing to perfect his technique in the United States at the Juilliard School in New York, the Marlboro School of Music in Vermont and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. His teachers in America have included Rudolf Firkušný, Leon Fleisher and Rudolf Serkin. He made his acclaimed international debut with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Zubin Mehta in 1975, becoming an American citizen in 1989 and giving his first recital in New York’s Carnegie Hall that same year. A series of recitals with the violinist Isaac Stern in 1991 took him back to Russia for the first time since he had emigrated eighteen years earlier. That year he was also awarded the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize and in 2010 he received the Jean Gimpel Lane Prize from Northwestern University. In 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Manhattan School of Music. Yefim Bronfman has performed with all of the world’s leading orchestras, while the conductors with whom he has worked include Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Riccardo Muti, Riccardo Chailly, Franz Welser-Möst, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Sir Simon Rattle. He is also a keen chamber recitalist and has appeared alongside many eminent musicians, including Pinchas Zukerman, Martha Argerich, Magdalena Kožená, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Emmanuel Pahud. He can also look back on an impressive discography that includes no fewer than six Grammy Award nominations. In 1997 he received a Grammy for his recording of the Bartók piano concertos with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen. His appearances with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in September 2023 mark his debut with the orchestra. He is additionally taking part in a European tour as part of the orchestra’s celebrations marking the five-hundredth anniversary of its foundation.

Captivating audiences and critics around the globe, Lawrence Brownlee has been hailed as “an international star in the bel canto operatic repertory” (The New York Times), “one of the world’s leading bel canto stars” (The Guardian), and “one of the most in-demand opera singers in the world today” (NPR). He is a voice for activism and diversity in the industry. 

A leading artist in classical music, Lawrence Brownlee is a regular guest at the world’s most important opera houses including The Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Royal Opera House – Covent Garden, Bayerische Staatsoper, Staatsoper Unter den Linden, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Opéra national de Paris, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Teatro Real, Opernhaus Zürich, and Wiener Staatsoper. He has recently appeared as Rodgrigo in Plateé (Opéra National de Paris), Rossini’s Otello (Opera Philadelphia), Ory in Le Comte Ory (Lyric Opera of Chicago). Plans include Tamino in Die Zauberflöte (The Metropolitan Opera). 

Founded in 2007, the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra is a leading Romanian musical ensemble.

It was founded by three ambitious young musicians, bringing together the most talented instrumentalists in Romania. In order to offer music lovers the opportunity to come into contact with quality music, the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra has developed original and innovative musical concepts, which have been translated on the stage of the annual Salut CULTURA! [Hail CULTURE!] season.

The notoriety and recognition of the value came from the impressive series of concerts and events held both in traditional open-air concert halls and in less conventional venues. The Bucharest Symphony Orchestra tackles a wide range of repertoire, from classical music to less conventional styles such as film music, pop/rock and crossover. The orchestra’s scalability, broad stylistic palette and non-conformism are its main assets.

The mission of the Bucharest Symphony Orchestra is to promote excellence in music and attract young people to concert halls.

Marius Vlad Budoiu is one of the most appreciated Romanian tenors. He graduated from the Gheorghe Dima Music Academy in Cluj, and made his debut at the age of 21 as a soloist in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. In 1996 he made his debut on the stage of the Bucharest National Opera as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte by W. A Mozart). He has sung in hundreds of concerts and performances in England, Australia, Austria, Albania, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Slovakia, Switzerland, and Turkey.

Tenor Marius Vlad Budoiu has performed a wide range of repertoire, from works by Handel and Mozart to 20th century works. His repertoire has included several successful years as an operatic tenor in roles such as Rodolfo (La Bohme), Alfredo (La Traviata), Alfred (Die Fledermaus), Barinkay (Der Zigeunerbaron), Nemorino (L’elisir d’amore), Faust (Faust). Over time, his voice evolved towards the spicy repertoire, he tackled roles such as Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly), Don José (Carmen), Radames (Aida), Cavaradossi (Tosca), Canio (Pagliacci), Turiddu (Cavalleria Rusticana), Don Carlo (Don Carlo) and Manrico (Il Trovatore).

In recent years he has tackled difficult dramatic tenor repertoire, becoming Otello (Otello), Calaf (Turandot), Samson (Samson et Dalila), Don Alvaro (La Forza del Destino), Tannhäuser (Tannhäuser), Lohengrin (Lohengrin) and Tristan (Tristan and Isolde). The tenor’s renowned collaborators include Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Antonio Pappano, Lawrence Foster, Cristian Mandeal, Peter Ruzicka, Marek Jankovski, Friedrich Haider. He has collaborated with the Munich Philharmonic, Hamburg Philharmonic, Staatskappelle Berlin, Berliner Symphoniker, Staatskappelle Dresden, Santa Cecilia in Rome, the opera houses of Bucharest, Bratislava, Budapest, Scala in Milan, Staatsoper Berlin, Freiburg, Marseille, Melbourne, Palermo, Toulon and many others.

Marius Vlad Budoiu holds the title of Doctor in Music and since 1995 he has been working as a teacher at the Academy of Music in Cluj. Among the artists trained under his guidance are some of the most important names in the lyric art, artists with remarkable national and international careers: George Petean, Adela Zaharia, Stefan Pop, Bogdan Baciu, Bogdan Taloș, Ovidiu Purcel, Cristian Hodrea, Cristian Mogoșan and many others. He is always invited for master classes at different art and educational institutions: in Iasi, Bucharest, Düsseldorf, Melbourne, Rome, Santa Cecilia Conservatory, Berlin Academy of Music, Graz Academy of Music and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

Canadian mezzo-soprano Georgia Burashko has been hailed as a “model of expressiveness” and “emotionally evocative” (Opera Going Toronto). Based in Den Haag, Netherlands, Georgia is a Young Bach Fellow with De Nederlandse Bachvereniging for the 2022-23 season, and is a winner of The Dutch Classical Talent, which earned her a solo recital tour of her own curation through The Netherlands in 2023-24.

In early 2022, Georgia premiered J.S. Bach – The Apocalypse, a joint opera production with De Nederlandse Bachvereniging and Opera2Day which toured the Netherlands. In June 2022, Georgia released her debut album with Italian harpist Michela Amici entitled Dal suono dolcissimo. Featuring a track list of 17th century Italian music, and new works for voice and baroque harp, Burashko and Amici toured their program in recital across both Italy and the Netherlands.

Other operatic credits include Nerone (Agrippina), Juno (Orphée aux Enfers), Tirinto (Imeneo), Zosha (Farewell Auschwitz), Cari Bayar (Lizée and Ivany’s No Ones Safe), Dritte Dame (Die Zauberflöte), and Zerlina (Don Giovanni) in which she was praised for her, “heartfelt delivery, her luminous voice matching her radiant beauty” (Opera Canada).

Georgia was a 2019 Rebanks Family Fellow at the Glenn Gould School, and received a Masters in Early Music with Distinction from the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag, where she attended as a Holland Fellow with full scholarship. Her work at the Koninklijk Conservatorium was celebrated for, “possessing a marvellous instrument, placed at the service of musical artistry with the deepest engagement.”

Georgia holds a Bachelor’s degree from McGill University’s Schulich School of Music, a Master’s degree from the University of Toronto Opera Division, and has completed residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Royaumont Abbeye, and with the Europäisches Hanse-Ensemble (Lübeck).

Alan Buribayev is Chief Conductor of the Astana Opera House in Kazakhstan.  He completed his tenure as Chief Conductor of the RTE Orchestra in 2016, and previous roles include Chief Conductor of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra from 2006 to 2011, Chief Conductor of the Brabants Orchestra in the Netherlands from 2007 to 2012 and Principal Guest conductor of the Japan Century Symphony Orchestra in Osaka from 2014 to 2018.

Highly acclaimed for his intensity and spontaneity, his precision and musicianship is equally praised, and his success brings him regular invitations to guest conduct at the highest level.  Recent and future highlights include engagements with the Helsinki Philharmonic, Finnish National Opera, St. Petersburg Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Auckland Philharmonia, Stavanger Symphony and the St. Gallen Symphony.

Alan Buribayev was born in 1979 to a family of musicians; his father is a cellist and conductor and his mother is a pianist.  He graduated with honours from the Kazakh State Conservatory as both violinist and conductor, and continued his conducting studies at the University of Music in Vienna.  His victory at the Lovro von Matacic Conducting Competition in Zagreb brought him to international attention.  In 2001, he reached the final of the Malko Conducting Competition in Copenhagen in which he was recognized with “outstanding talent and promise”.  Alan Buribayev went on to win First Prize in the Antonio Pedrotti Competition in 2001.

Born in Israel, Avigail Bushakevitz grew up in South Africa and now lives in Berlin with her husband and their three young children. She has lived in Cape Town, New York and Tel Aviv, graduating from the Juilliard School of Music where she studied with Sylvia Rosenberg before she moved to Israel to learn Hebrew and study with Hagai Shaham at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music. Whilst at the Juilliard, she was also employed as teaching assistant in Ear training, a position she held for three years.

Avigail has won numerous competitions and was named “Young Artist of the Year” in 2016 for producing exceptional work in the field of music in South Africa. In Israel she was awarded first prize in the national Israeli UNO competition in Jerusalem.

 As a soloist, Avigail has performed concerti by Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Saint-Saëns, Mozart, Beethoven and Bruch with orchestras in South Africa, Israel and Germany. Her love of baroque music and instruments has led her to play Bach and Locatelli concerti with baroque ensembles such as the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra. A passionate chamber musician, she is a member of the Franz Trio, which she founded in 2017 with her husband Ernst-Martin Schmidt and cellist Constance Ricard.  For as long as she can remember, she has also played with her brother, pianist Ammiel Bushakevitz. Together, they have toured Europe and South-Africa, have won a competition in Spain and recorded a CD of Mozart’s Violin and Piano Sonatas. 

As an orchestral musician, Avigail has played as concertmaster at the Royal Albert Hall at the BBC Proms in London under Sir Mark Elder, and in Israel under Zubin Mehta. As a member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra she has toured Spain and Abu Dhabi under Daniel Barenboim. Since 2015, Avigail has been a member of the Konzerthaus Orchestra in Berlin.

«Camerata Bern’s performances come across with fiery spirit.»
BBC Music Magazine, Februar 2021

CAMERATA BERN combines innovation and quality at the highest possible level. Full of curiosity and joy in playing, the ensemble forges new paths, tests limits, and delights audiences with daring programs.

Founded in 1962 with the goal of performing as a flexible formation without conductor, CAMERATA BERN is today a world-renowned chamber orchestra with 15 members, all outstanding soloists. Patricia Kopatchinskaja has been Artistic Partner of the ensemble since 2018.

CAMERATA BERN plays repertoire stretching from baroque to contemporary, performing standing up and without conductor. The ensemble’s innovative programming combines different periods and styles and ranges from classical concert programs to staged concerts, chamber music projects, and children’s concerts.

With its own concert series in Bern and strong ties to the city, the ensemble also appears regularly at international festivals and at leading concert halls in Switzerland, in Europe, in North and South America, and in Asia. CAMERATA BERN performs with high-profile artists such as Antje Weithaas, Sergio Azzolini, Steven Isserlis, Ilya Gringolts, Anna Prohaska, or Kristian Bezuidenhout. Each season the ensemble selects a composer in residence, in 2022/23 the German composer Jan Dvořák.

Recordings on CD and vinyl have won several international awards, such as the Grand Prix du Disque, the German Record Critics’ Award or the Echo Klassik. The two most recent CD releases, «Time and Eternity» with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and «Plaisirs illuminés» with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Sol Gabetta and featuring a commissioned piece by Francisco Coll (Composer in Residence 2018/19), were both nominated for a Gramophone Award. «Plaisirs illuminés» was also awarded the BBC Music Magazine Award in 2022.

CAMERATA BERN carries out significant work in music education for children, performing regular school concert tours in the Canton of Bern. Since 2010, in more than 250 concerts, around 18 000 school children have been able to experience music of the highest level in an accessible way in their own classrooms.

The CAMERATA BERN foundation is subsidized by the city of Bern, the Canton of Bern and the regional conference Bern-Mittelland. The foundation receives support from the Burgergemeinde Bern, the Ursula Wirz Foundation as well as other foundations, partners and sponsors.

In the year 2022, CAMERATA BERN celebrates the 60th anniversary of its founding.

CAMERATA Salzburg is one of the leading chamber orchestras worldwide. Invitations to the most prestigious venues from New York to Beijing complement the orchestras concert activities in their hometown, Salzburg.
The CAMERATA is one of the core ensembles of the Salzburg Festival and Mozart Week since 1956. The subscription series of the CAMERATA in the great hall of the International Foundation Mozarteum is a pillar of Salzburg´s musical life.

At the center of the repertoire, in addition to the works of Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert, is of course the work of our genius loci Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It is above all the typical “Salzburg Mozart sound” that over the years has made CAMERATA an international ambassador and musical figurehead of the city of Salzburg.
Highlights in recent years have included appearances at the Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence, BBC Proms in London, Enescu Festival in Bucharest, Beijing Music Festival and Carnegie Hall in New York. The CAMERATA has a close cooperation with the Wiener Konzerthaus and appears regularly in the Tonhalle Zurich, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Kultur- und Kongresszentrum Luzern, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, the Prinzregententheater Munich as well as the Cologne Philharmonie and the Philharmonie de Paris.

Personalities like Géza Anda, Sándor Végh and Sir Roger Norrington have shaped the CAMERATA sound. Musicians such as Alfred Brendel, Philippe Herreweghe, Franz Welser-Möst, Pinchas Zukerman, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Teodor Currentzis, Matthias Goerne, Fazıl Say, Renaud Capuçon, Yuja Wang, Janine Jansen and Hélène Grimaud, among others, have been prominent partners of the CAMERATA in past years.

When Bernhard Paumgartner founded the orchestra in 1952, the artistic credo of each individual member was clear: making music on one’s own responsibility within the CAMERATA community. A maxim that the orchestra and its members live to this day. Long time mentors Bernhard Paumgartner and Sándor Végh shaped the world-famous “CAMERATA sound”. After Végh’s death, Sir Roger Norrington, as chief conductor, had a lasting influence on the orchestra. Today Sir Roger is the Director Laureate of CAMERATA. His successors as artistic directors were Leonidas Kavakos and the French conductor Louis Langrée. Since 2016, the musicians at CAMERATA have taken artistic direction into their own hands.

Led by their concert masters Gregory Ahss and Giovanni Guzzo as “primus inter pares”, the musicians work together to interpret sound and its subtleties and the music behind the notes. In this way, even in the seventh decade of its existence, CAMERATA maintains a “joy of playing that is contagious” (Neue Zürcher Zeitung). 

The CAMERATA has recorded over 60 productions for well-known labels such as Deutsche Grammophon (Most recently “The Messenger “ together with Hélène Grimaud), DECCA, Sony or Warner Classics – many of which have won important prizes – testifying to the excellence and dedication to music of the CAMERATA musicians.

The chamber orchestra “Cameristi della Scala”, composed of musicians from the Orchestra Teatro alla Scala di Milano, was founded in 1982. The particularity of this chamber orchestra is to play with or without a conductor. Its central repertoire includes many masterpieces for chamber orchestra, ranging from the 18th century to the present day, while at the same time promoting and defending the works of lesser-known composers. Cameristi della Scala often features the wonderful soloists of the La Scala Orchestra and also performs regularly with renowned soloists such as Daniel Müller-Schott, Khatia Buniatishvili, Jan Lisiecki, Sergei Babayan, Alexei Volodin, Daniel Lozakovich, Giovanni Sollima, Julius Berger etc. Famous conductors who have conducted at Teatro alla Scala in the past to this day, have significantly influenced the character and sound of Cameristi della Scala, known for their Italian sound and musical phrasing.

Cameristi della Scala has performed in many prestigious venues, concert halls and festivals around the world such as Carnegie Hall in New York, Library of Congress in Washington D.C., Salle Gaveau in Paris, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Tonhalle in Zurich, Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires, Narodowa Opera Theatre in Warsaw, Enescu Festival in Bucharest, Tbilisi Autumn Festival, Izmir International Festival in Turkey and many others. At their annual concert at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the orchestra performed a program in honor of Leonard Bernstein’s 100th Birthday in May 2018. In collaboration with the famous dancer Roberto Bolle, who is one of Teatro alla Scala’s leading star dancers, Cameristi della Scala joined him for a performance at the 2018 World Economic Forum in Davos.

Cameristi della Scala received the Premio Isimbardi (Isimbardi Award) from the Province of Milan in 2012, in recognition of their outstanding contribution to the community and the prestige of the city of Milan in the world. Following his outstanding debut with the orchestra, conductor Wilson Hermanto was appointed Principal Guest Conductor in 2017. In their close and continuing relationship, the orchestra and the Maestro have, to date, given numerous concerts in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Romania, Turkey and look forward to future projects, local and international, in collaboration with internationally renowned soloists.

French violinist Renaud Capuçon is firmly established internationally as a major soloist, recitalist and chamber musician. He is known and loved for his poise, depth of tone and virtuosity, and he works with the world’s most prestigious orchestras, artists, venues and festivals.

Born in Chambéry in 1976, Renaud Capuçon began his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris at the age of fourteen, winning numerous awards during his five years there. Following this, Capuçon moved to Berlin to study with Thomas Brandis and Isaac Stern and was awarded the Prize of the Berlin Academy of Arts. In 1997, Claudio Abbado invited him to become concertmaster of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester, which he led for three summers, working with conductors including Boulez, Ozawa, Welser-Möst and Claudio Abbado.

Since then, Capuçon has established himself as a soloist at the very highest level. He performs with leading orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Boston Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Filarmonica della Scala, London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre National de France, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

His many conductor relationships include Barenboim, Bychkov, Dénève, Dohnanyi, Dudamel, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Gergiev, Haitink, Harding, Long Yu, Paavo Järvi, Nelsons, Nézet-Seguin, Roth, Shani, Ticciati, van Zweden. Upcoming highlights in the 22/23 season include his debut at Carnegie Hall with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra as part of a tour around the US.

A great commitment to chamber music has led him to collaborations with Argerich, Angelich, Barenboim, Bashmet, Bronfman, Buniatishvili, Grimaud, Hagen, Ma, Pires, Trifonov, Yo-Yo Ma and Yuja Wang, as well as with his brother, cellist Gautier Capuçon, and have taken him, among others, to the Berlin, Lucerne, Verbier, Aix-en- Provence, Roque d’Anthéron, San Sebastián, Stresa, Salzburg, Edinburgh International and Tanglewood festivals. Capuçon has also represented France at some of the world’s most prestigious international events: he has performed with Yo-Yo Ma under the Arc de Triomphe for the official commemoration of Armistice Day in the presence of more than 80 heads of state and played for world leaders at the G7 Summit in Biarritz.

Capuçon is the Artistic Director of two festivals, the Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, since 2016, and the Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence, which he founded in 2013. Since 2021, he has also been the Artistic Director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne.

Capuçon has built an extensive discography and, up until recently, recorded exclusively with Erato/Warner Classics. In September 2022, Capuçon announced his new partnership with Deutsche Grammophon, and two months later released his first album with the yellow label – a collection of violin sonatas performed with Martha Argerich and recorded at his Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence. Recent releases with Erato include a recording of Elgar’s violin concerto and violin sonata with the LSO conducted by Simon Rattle, an album with Guillaume Bellom featuring an extensive range of shorter works arranged for violin and piano, and, most recently, recordings of violin concerti by Vivaldi and Saint-George with the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne. His album ‘Au Cinema’, featuring much loved selections from film music, was released to critical acclaim in October 2018.

Capuçon plays the Guarneri del Gesù ‘Panette’ (1737), which belonged to Isaac Stern. In June 2011, he was appointed ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite’ and in March 2016 ‘Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur’ by the French Government.

Gautier Capuçon is a true 21st century ambassador for the cello. Performing internationally with many of the world’s foremost conductors and instrumentalists, he is also a passionate ambassador for the Orchestre à l’École Association which brings classical music to more than 40,000 school children across France. In January 2022 Gautier Capuçon launched his own Foundation to support young and talented musicians at the beginning of their career and increasing his commitment to young artists: fondationgautiercapucon.com. A multiple award winner, he is acclaimed for his expressive musicianship, exuberant virtuosity, and for the deep sonority of his 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello “L’Ambassadeur”.

 In summer 2020, mid-pandemic, Capuçon brought music directly into the lives of families across the length and breadth of France, free of charge, during his musical odyssey ‘Un été en France’.  During July 2022, for the third edition of this project, he performs 15 concerts across the nation including Autun, Clairveaux, Eauz, and his hometown of Chambéry. He also showcases 14 young musicians and 8 young dancers within his concert presentations.

 Committed to exploring and expanding the cello repertoire, Capuçon performs an extensive array of works each season and regularly premieres new commissions. Current projects include collaborations with Lera Auerbach, Danny Elfman and Thierry Escaich.

 In the 2022/23 season Capuçon appears with, amongst others, the Boston Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons, Chicago Symphony/Manfred Honeck, San Francisco Symphony/Michael Tilson Thomas, Bayerische Rundfunk/Marie Jacquot, Leipzig Gewandhaus/Andris Nelsons, NDR Hamburg/Pablo Heras-Casado, Munich Philharmonic/Lorenzo Viotti, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich/Christoph Eschenbach, Orchestre de Paris/Mäkelä, and the Czech Philharmonic/Semyon Bychkov. He is the Curating Artist at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, and in addition, Capuçon plays at festivals worldwide, including the Salzburg, Grafenegg, and Verbier festivals.

 In recital Capucon pairs regularly with Frank Braley and Jérôme Ducros – while other chamber music partners include Nikolai Lugansky and Gabriela Montero as well as Martha Argerich, Daniel Barenboim, Lisa Batiashvili, Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Andreas Ottensamer, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Daniil Trifonov, Yuja Wang, the Labèque sisters and the Artemis, Ébène and Hagen quartets.

 Recording exclusively for Erato (Warner Classics), Capuçon has won multiple awards and holds an extensive discography. His latest album Sensations released in Autumn 2022, explores short pieces from a range of different genres. His album of romantic works by Brahms and Rachmaninoff in collaboration with Andreas Ottensammer and Yuja Wang is also released in Autumn 2022 by Deutsche Grammophon. 2020’s Warner Classics album Emotions features music from composers such as Debussy, Schubert and Elgar and has achieved gold status in France, remaining at Number 1 in the charts for over 30 weeks and selling more than 110,000 copies. Earlier recordings include concertos by Shostakovich (The Mariinsky Orchestra/Valery Gergiev) and Saint-Saëns (Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Lionel Bringuier); the complete Beethoven Sonatas with Frank Braley; Schubert’s String Quintet with the Ébène Quartet; Intuition with Orchestre de Chambre de Paris/​Douglas Boyd and Jérôme Ducros; an album of Schumann works, recorded live with Martha Argerich, Renaud Capuçon and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe/​Bernard Haitink; Beethoven Piano Trios with Renaud Capuçon and Frank Braley; Chopin and Franck sonatas with Yuja Wang; and a solo album featuring Bach, Dutilleux and Kodaly as well as a “Best of” recording on occasion of his 40th birthday.

 Capuçon has been featured on DVD in live performances with the Wiener Philharmoniker/Andris Nelsons (Saint-Saens Cello Concerto No.1) Berliner Philharmoniker/Gustavo Dudamel (Haydn Cello Concerto No.1) and with Lisa Batiashvili, Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann (Brahms’s Concerto for Violin and Cello). A household name in his native France, he also appears on screen and online in shows such as Prodiges, Now Hear This, and The Artist Academy, and is a guest presenter on Radio Classique in the show Les Carnets de Gautier Capuçon. 

 Born in Chambéry, Capuçon began playing the cello at the age of five. He studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris with Philippe Muller and Annie Cochet-Zakine, and later with Heinrich Schiff in Vienna. Now, he performs with world leading orchestras, works with conductors such as Semyon Bychkov, Christoph Eschenbach, Andrès Orozco-Estrada, Pablo Heras-Casado, Klaus Mäkelä, Andris Nelsons, and Christian Thielemann, and collaborates with contemporary composers including Lera Auerbach, Karol Beffa, Esteban Benzecry, Nicola Campogrande, Qigang Chen, Bryce Dessner, Jérôme Ducros, Henry Dutilleux, Thierry Escaich, Philippe Manoury, Bruno Mantovani, Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm, and Jörg Widmann.

With his extraordinary musicality and endless technical ability, the American organist Cameron Carpenter is one of the exceptional talents in the international musical landscape. His pioneering spirit has already left its mark on recent music history: with the International Touring Organ (ITO), built according to Cameron’s own plans, he has toured not only Europe and the USA, but also Australia, New Zealand and Asia.

2022 saw the release of Cameron’s recording of J.S. Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” along with his arrangement of Howard Hanson’s “Romantic” Symphony for the Decca label. In 2019, he released the “Paganini Variations” by Sergei Rachmaninoff as well as Francis Poulenc’s Organ Concerto with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin under Christoph Eschenbach on Sony Classical, a recording, that was awarded the OPUS KLASSIK 2020. Earlier recordings released on Sony Classical include the albums “All You Need is Bach” (2016), and “If You Could Read My Mind” (2013).

Cameron Carpenter was the first organist ever to be nominated for a GRAMMY for his album Revolutionary (2008, Telarc). The album Cameron Live! (2010) was also released by Telarc.

In 2021, he performed Miloslav Kabeláč’s Symphony No. 3 for organ, brass and percussion with the Dresdner Philharmonie under the baton of Tomáš Netopil for Deutschlandfunk Kultur. The current season sees Cameron appear in concerts in Berlin, Luxembourg, Graz, Wroclaw, and on tour in the USA.

Born in 1981 in Pennsylvania, USA, Cameron performed J. S. Bach’s ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’ for the first time when he was eleven and became a member of the American Boychoir School in 1992. Besides his mentor Beth Etter, he was taught by John Bertalot and James Litton. At the University of North Carolina School of the Arts he studied composition and organ with John E. Mitchener. Cameron has transcribed over 100 works for organ, including Mahler’s Symphony No. 5., and whilst a student at Juilliard School in New York, where he attended from 2000 – 2006, his composed his own works alongside studying the piano with Miles Fusco. In 2011 his concerto for organ and orchestra “The Scandal” was premiered by Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen at the Kölner Philharmonie, and in 2021, his concerto overture for orchestra and organ “Great Expectations” with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.

The Portuguese tenor Rodrigo Carreto has been appointed for the 11th edition of ‘Le Jardin des Voix‘ in the 2023/24 season with Les Arts Florissant, William Christie and Paul Agnew. He took part in the ‘2021 Bach Young Soloists Masterclass’ of Collegium Vocale Gent under Phillippe Herreweghe, with whom he has been working and performing since the 2021/22 season. Carreto was awarded the 3rd prize at the “2021 American Music Talent Competition”. In March 2020, he was invited to sing in the masterclass at Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart where he performed, among other works, the Cantata “Klagt, Kinder, klagt es aller Welt” BWV 244a with the JSB Ensemble under Hans-Christoph Rademann.

Great versatility enables Rodrigo Carreto to sing works from the Baroque to the 21st century. He has been mainly dedicated to the interpretation of masterpieces by J. S. Bach and G. F. Händel, french Baroque haute-contre repertoire as well as Romantic German Lieder cycles and other major works such as the W. A. Mozart’s ‘Requiem’ and ‘C Minor Mass’, J. Haydn’s  ‘The Creation’, F. Mendelssohn’s ‘Paulus’ and ‘Lauda Sion’, C. Gounod’s ‘St. Cecilia Mass’, C. Saint-Saëns’s ‘Christmas Oratorio’ and B. Britten’s ‘Cantata Misericordium’. He regularly performs as a soloist with the Capriccio Barockorchester and La Chapelle Ancienne and in 2019 he gave the modern-day premiere of the  ‘Te Deum’ with the Portuguese Symphony Orchestra and the Choir of the Teatro Nacional de S. Carlos. In 2021, together with the Os Músicos do Tejo, Rodrigo presented in Lisbon the cantata ‘Pyrame et Thisbé’ by L. N. Clérambault.

In the opera field, Rodrigo Carreto has sang the roles of Spoletta in G. Puccini’s ‘Tosca’ at the Lisbon OperaFest 2020 with the MPMP Ensemble, Belfiore in W. A. Mozart’s ‘La Finta Giardiniera’ under Johannes Schlaefli and Annette Uhlen at the Theater der Künste Gessnerallee, Zürich May 2021, amongst others. In December 2021 he performed and recorded as D. Fuas in “As Guerras do Alecrim e da Manjerona”, at the CCB in Lisbon. 

Other than for the Collegium Vocale Gent, Rodrigo Carreto is also part of the pool of singers for the Schweizer Vokalconsort under Marco Amherd, and has collaborated with La Capella Nacional de la Catalunya under Jordi Savall, J. S. Bach-Stiftung under Rudolf Lutz, La Cetra under Andrea Marcón and  Chœur de Chambre Namur under Leonardo García Alarcón and La Grande Chapelle under Albert Recasens. Between 2017 and 2019, Rodrigo Carreto was part of the Gulbenkian Choir, where he worked regularly with Michel Corboz, Paul McCreesh and Lorenzo Viotti, as well as in projects with Ton Koopman, Gustavo Dudamel, David Afkham, John Nelson and Alain Altinoglu.

Rodrigo Carreto has extensive concert and festival experience throughout Europe and further afield, including in Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium, France, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Spain and China, and has performed on such prestigious stages such as Berliner Philharmoniker and Elbphilharmonie, Philharmonie Paris, Het Concertgebouw and Auditorio Nacional de Música. 

After completing his degree in Choral Conducting and Music Theory at the University Escola Superior de Música in his home city of Lisbon, and vocal study with Joana Nascimento, Rodrigo Carreto moved to Switzerland to undertake a Master in Singing Performance at the Zurich University of the Arts under the tuition of Scot Weir, and also had his musical and technical development in parallel with guidance from British singers Peter Harvey and Robert Murray. Rodrigo has attended workshops and masterclasses with internationally acclaimed singers such as Dame Emma Kirkby, Werner Güra, Margreet Honig, Peter Kooij, Yvonne Naef, Jill Feldman, Geert Smits, Lothar Odinius, Flavio Ferri-Benedetti and Xavier Moreno.

Praised by the New York Times for having “traversed the palette of emotions” with “gorgeous tone and an edge of-seat intensity,” and described by Diario de Menorca as an “ideal performer” that offers “elegance, displayed virtuosity, and great expressive power,” Spanish-born cellist and composer Andrea Casarrubios has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, Asia, Africa and the Americas. First-prize winner of many international competitions and awards, she has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Lincoln Center and the Ravinia, Piatigorsky and Verbier festivals. Recent engagements include commissions and concerts in Mexico, Spain, Canada, Germany and the United States.

Her album Caminante presents some of her own original music. Released on Odradek Records, it was chosen as one of the best 2019 classical music albums by Australia’s ABC Classic, celebrating her artistry as “superhuman.” As a guest soloist at Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, she performed her own Concerto for Cello and Orchestra, Mirage, among other works. Her compositions have been programmed worldwide, presented by organizations such as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, National Philharmonic, the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Washington Performing Arts, World Heritage Festival, Sphinx Organization, the European Parliament, Carnegie Hall, NPR, and the Spanish National Radio.

A dedicated mentor, Casarrubios has taught master classes at the Juilliard School, University of Southern California, Eastman School of Music, Missouri State University, as well as at numerous festivals and institutions in Spain, China, Brazil and South Africa. Her cello teachers have included Maria de Macedo, Lluís Claret, Amit Peled, Marcy Rosen and Ralph Kirshbaum. As part of her doctorate studies in New York, Casarrubios also studied composition with John Corigliano.

Recently awarded in Germany and Romania, the young cellist Ștefan Cazacu has added two international distinctions to his palmares: first prize at the International Danube Festival – Donaufest (Ulm, Germany – 2022) and third prize at the George Enescu International Competition (Bucharest, Romania – 2020-2021 edition). 

Ștefan Cazacu enjoys a good reputation which is the basis of a successful career. He received an early and complex education in a famous family of musicians, studied music at universities in Bucharest and Vienna, won prizes in various national and international competitions and was appreciated – as a soloist or as a member of the Romanian Youth Orchestra – in countries such as Holland, Germany, Austria, Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Italy, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Norway, Luxembourg, Belgium, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Serbia, Republic of Moldova, Turkey, Israel, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, China, United States of America.

His story in the world of music is written with a collector’s cello as his travelling companion, which Ștefan has had the privilege of playing since the age of 15. His instrument was created more than 100 years ago, in 1917, in Turin, Italy, by the violin maker Georg Ullman. 

In recitals and concerts – as a soloist or as a member of the Romanian Youth Orchestra – Ștefan Cazacu has been applauded on important European stages, such as the Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna, the Philharmonic Hall in Paris, the Konzerthaus and Philharmonic Hall in Berlin, the Elbphilarmonie Hamburg, the Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Philharmonic Halls in Skopje, Sofia, Belgrade. He has also performed on Romanian stages, such as the Romanian Athenaeum, Radio Hall, Palace Hall, Bucharest National Opera and in the halls of philharmonic orchestras throughout the country. 

He has participated in events such as the Mahler Festival in Toblach – Italy, Milan Youth Orchestra Festival, Ravello Festival, Young Euro Classic Festival – Germany. 

He has collaborated as a soloist with all the Romanian symphony orchestras, including the George Enescu Philharmonic, the National Radio Orchestra and the Radio Chamber Orchestra, but also with the Philharmonic of Chișinău (Republic of Moldova) or with the Alicante Youth Orchestra – Spain, etc. Among the conductors who have accompanied him are Cristian Mandeal, Horia Andreescu, Cristian Măcelaru, Camil Marinescu, Theo Wolters. 

His talent has been rewarded by numerous distinctions, such as 1st prize at the Liezen International Competition – Austria (2008), 2nd prize at the Antonio Janigro Competition – Croatia (2008), Grand Prize at the national selection for the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition – Bucharest (2010) and others. 

Born in 1994, Ștefan Cazacu began his musical training at the age of 6 with his father, the famous cellist Marin Cazacu. He studied at the National University of Music in Bucharest, at the class of another important Romanian cellist: Răzvan Suma. 

Thanks to the Erasmus scholarship offered by the European Union, he completed his master studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, one of the most important music institutions in the world, whose history began more than 200 years ago, in 1817. 

Ștefan Cazacu has participated in master classes held by renowned international cellists such as Reinhard Latzko, Wolfgang Boettcher and Frans Helmerson.

In addition to his solo activity, in recent years Ștefan Cazacu has chosen to devote himself in parallel to teaching, giving further of his experience to contribute to the training of young musicians. Thus, Ștefan Cazacu teaches (since 2020) at the National University of Music Bucharest and at the “Dinu Lipatti” National College of Arts and has held a series of masterclasses. 

His most recent masterclass is the one presented at the CellEAST International Festival – the first cello festival in Romania (2022), where he was also invited as a soloist, performing with the Romanian Youth Orchestra. 

In October 2018, together with his parents and his sister – cellist Marin Cazacu, flutist Constanța Cazacu and violinist Iulia Cazacu – Ștefan participated in his first national tour, entitled Classical to the Third Power. 

Since 2011, Ștefan Cazacu has also been collaborating with the Violoncelissimo ensemble, created by his father Marin Cazacu in 1992. The ensemble assumes a flexible formula – comprising between 4 and 100 cellos – depending on the event. Together with Violoncelissimo, Ștefan Cazacu has played abroad, in cities such as Brussels and Washington DC, but also in the country, in Bucharest, Iași, Timișoara and so on. 

Ștefan also often plays with cellist Mircea Marian – the two artists presenting themselves to the public under the name of Duo Serafim – and has been appreciated in the PlaCello ensemble – together with Răzvan Suma, Ella Bokor and Mircea Marian.

Bertrand Chamayou has mastered an extensive repertoire displaying striking assurance, imagination, artistic approach, and remarkable consistency in his performances. He is a regular performer in venues such as the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Lincoln Center, the Herkulessaal Munich and London’s Wigmore Hall. He has appeared at major festivals including New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival, the Lucerne Festival, Salzburg Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival and Beethovenfest Bonn.

This season sees him appear with Philharmonie de Paris and Vienna Philharmonic, with both in Messiaen‘s Turangalila Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France with Barbara Hannigan, San Francisco Symphony, Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España, Barcelona Symphony, Antwerp Symphony, Orchestra National du Capitole de Toulouse, Czech Philharmonic and the Orchestre de Paris under the baton of Esa-Pekka Salonen. A tour with Orchestre des Champs-Elysees and Louis Langree will lead him to important venues across France.

Bertrand Chamayou has worked with orchestras including Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, hr-Sinfonieorchester, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Recent highlights have included his celebrated debuts with New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Pittsburgh Symphony and Budapest Festival Orchestra, Bamberger Symphoniker, Atlanta Symphony and Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig.

Chamayou collaborated with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Leonard Slatkin, Sir Neville Marriner, Michel Plasson, Stéphane Denève, Emmanuel Krivine and Andris Nelsons.

Chamayou is a regular chamber music performer, with partners including Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Quatuor Ébène, Antoine Tamestit and Sol Gabetta. Following his successful performances at Lincoln Center’s Great Performers Series and Salzburg’s Easter Festival, this season sees him perform recitals at Schleswig Holstein Musik Festival, London Symphony Orchestra St Luke‘s, Ittingen, Berlin Philharmonic, Hong Kong Arts Festival and Grenoble, and with Sol Gabetta in Vincenza, Bolzano, Bari, Florence, Solomeo, Torino, Merano, Siena and Toulouse. This season Chamayou also performs with Belcea Quartet at Laeiszhalle Hamburg, London’s Wigmore Hall and in Innsbruck, Madrid, Vienna, Munich, Berlin, Antwerp and Paris, and with the Boulez Ensemble and Daniel Barenboim in Berlin, Paris and Vienna.

Bertrand Chamayou published a large number of highly successful recordings, including a Naïve CD of music by César Franck, which was awarded several accolades. For his recording of Camille Saint-Saëns’ Piano Concertos Nos. 2 and 5 he was awarded the Gramophone Recording of the Year Award 2019. The only artist to win France’s prestigious Victoires de la Musique on four occasions, he has an exclusive recording contract with Warner/Erato and was awarded the 2016 ECHO Klassik for his recording of Ravel’s complete works for solo piano.

Bertrand Chamayou was born in Toulouse; his musical talent was quickly noted by pianist Jean-François Heisser, who later became his professor at the Paris Conservatoire. He completed his training with Maria Curcio in London.

Alexandru Ioan Chirică was born in Iași in 1989 and studied the bassoon at the “Octav Băncilă” Art High School in Iași, in the class of Professor Valentin Petrescu. Shortly after graduation, he left the country and pursued his career mostly in Scandinavia. He furthered his studies in Sweden with the first bassoonist of the Malmö Opera, Constantin Barcov, 

He later won the co-principal bassoon audition at Malmö Opera and was also hired as a teacher for a year at Lund University. He is currently Solo Bassoonist with Malmö Symphony Orchestra and collaborates with major orchestras in Scandinavia, including the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Aarhus Symphony Orchestra, Norrköping, Esbjerg Ensemble.

Founded in 1950 upon the initiative of conductor Constantin Silvestri, director of the Philharmonic at that time, the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir is a large musical ensemble whose repertoire includes a cappella, vocal-symphonic and opera works pertaining to a multitude of musical periods and movements, from the Renaissance to 21st century music. The first conductors of the choir were Ștefan Mureșianu, Dumitru D. Botez and Vasile Pântea, and since 1997 the musicians have been conducted by Iosif Ion Prunner.

Over its 70 years of existence, the ensemble from Bucharest has performed many of the masterpieces of the choral and vocal symphonic genres, from Monteverdi to Bach, from Haydn to Berlioz, Brahms or Mahler, as well as modern and contemporary representative works: Missa and Symphony no. 3, “Kaddish” by Leonard Bernstein, works by George Enescu, Igor Stravinsky, Benjamin Britten, Francis Poulenc, Arthur Honegger, Ștefan Niculescu or Requiem and The Seven Gates of Jerusalem by Krzysztof Penderecki, under the direction of the composer. Opera music is performed in concert or semi-staged versions, and the works performed include The Abduction from the Seraglio, Fidelio, Norma, Parsifal (acts I and III), Moses and Aaron, Wozzeck and Oedipus Rex.

Apart from the permanent season at the Romanian Athenaeum where it performs with the orchestra, the Philharmonic Choir has performed both at the George Enescu International Festival and as a guest ensemble in various projects with the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra in Moscow, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, the Berlin Radio Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Berlin Philharmonic. The choir’s history is crowned by collaborations with important names in the conducting world, including George Georgescu, Igor Markevitch, Georges Prêtre, Lawrence Foster, Sergiu Comissiona, Ion Marin, Cristian Mandeal, Ghenadi Rojdestvenski, Michel Plaçon, Christian Badea, Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Neville Mariner, Vladimir Jurowski, Kirill Petrenko, Paavo Järvi and Vasily Petrenko.

Among recent achievements is the performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Four Sacred Pieces with the Staatskapelle Berlin under the baton of Daniel Barenboim (2013), the concert version of George Enescu’s Oedipe in 2017 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski at the George Enescu Festival and at the Royal Festival Hall in London and the semi-staged version of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s Christmas Eve with the Radio Berlin Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski at the Berlin Philharmonic.

The discography of the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir includes recordings by Electrecord, Arte Nova and the Romanian Radio Broadcasting: Mozart’s Requiem, the Enescu vocal-symphonic complete, motets by Bruckner and Brahms. Some of the Philharmonic Choir’s concerts have also been featured by France Music and the U.E.R.

The variation of the repertoire, the members’ constant interest in improving their skills, who not infrequently perform the solo parts in vocal-symphonic concerts, along with the collaboration with eminent figures in the world of conducting, are just some of the factors that have contributed, over the years, to the shaping of a remarkable artistic identity of the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir. An impressive number of musicians, opera, operetta and vocal-symphonic soloists, teachers and musicologists began their careers as members of the Philharmonic Choir, and among them we mention: Iulia Isaev, Laura Niculescu, Elena Cernei, Ștefan Ignat, Marius Rinzler, etc.

Founded in 1933, the first year of the Maggio Musicale Festival, under the guidance of Andrea Morosini, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino Chorus has always been one of the most prestigious Italian vocal ensembles for both opera and symphonic repertoire. The Chorus has had many important Masters including Adolfo Fanfani, Roberto Gabbiani, Vittorio Sicuri, Marco Balderi, José Luis Basso, Piero Monti and, since 2013, Lorenzo Fratini.

The Chorus has also performed vocal chamber and contemporary music, with premieres by important 20th century composers such as Krzysztof Penderecki, Luigi Dallapiccola, Goffredo Petrassi, Lugi Nono and Sylvano Bussotti. Particularly significant is the collaboration with great conductors such as – among the many – Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini, Bruno Bartoletti, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Georges Prêtre, Myung-Whun Chung, Seiji Ozawa, Semyon Bychkov, Giuseppe Sinopoli, Lorin Maazel, Fabio Luisi and Daniele Gatti.

In recent years the Chorus has expanded its repertoire to include major modern and classic symphonic-choral works and took part in many tours also with the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

On the occasion of the 700th anniversary of Dante Alighieri’s death, the Choir performed in three celebratory concerts conducted by Riccardo Muti in Ravenna, Florence and Verona. In 2003 it won the Grammy Award with Renée Fleming for the CD Belcanto and in 2013 it celebrated 80 years since the foundation with performances conducted by Lorenzo Fratini.

The Bucharest National Opera Choir is a prestigious vocal ensemble, part of one of the most
important cultural institutions in Romania. It was founded in 1948, after the nationalization of
Romanian theatres and opera houses during the communist period. Since then, the choir has
become an integral part of the Bucharest National Opera and has contributed significantly to
the high-quality musical productions performed in our institution. With a rich history and a
vast repertoire, the choir is an essential pillar in supporting operatic art and opera
performances in Bucharest and Romania. The members of the Bucharest National Opera
Choir are talented artists, known for their exceptional interpretations and their ability to bring
emotion and depth to the characters in famous operas. Among the names that have marked
the work of the Bucharest National Opera Choir are the masters Gheorghe Kulibin – the
founder of the choir and Stelian Olariu – the longest-serving choir conductor.

William Christie, harpsichordist, conductor, musicologist, and teacher, is the inspiration behind one of the most exciting musical adventures of the last 40 years. A pioneer in the rediscovery of Baroque music, he has introduced the repertoire of 17th- and 18th-century France to a very wide audience across the globe. Born in Buffalo, and educated at Harvard and Yale, William Christie has lived in France since 1971. The turning point in his career came in 1979, when he founded Les Arts Florissants.  

As director of this vocal and instrumental ensemble, William Christie soon made his mark as both a musician and man of the theatre, in the concert hall and the opera house. Major public recognition came in 1987 with the production of Lully’s Atys at the Opéra Comique in Paris. 

From Charpentier to Rameau, through Couperin, Mondonville, William Christie is the uncontested master of tragédie-lyrique as well as opéra-ballet, and is just as comfortable with the French motet as with music of the court. But his affection for French music does not preclude him from exploring other European repertoires as Monteverdi, Rossi, Scarlatti, Landi, Purcell, Handel, Mozart, Haydn or Bach. 

Notable among his most recent operatic work are Handel’s Jephtha at the Opéra de Paris and Ariodante at the Wiener Staatsoper, The Beggar’s Opera on European tour and Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Salzburg Festival, Rameau’s Platée at Theater an der Wien, Mondonville’s Titon et l’Aurore at the Opéra Comique and Handel’s Partenope on international tour.

As a guest conductor, William Christie often appears alongside the Berliner Philharmoniker or the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at opera festivals such as Glyndebourne or opera houses such as the Metropolitan Opera of New York, the Zurich Opernhaus, or the Opéra National de Lyon.  

His extensive discography includes more than 100 recordings. The most recent ones – Bach’s B Minor Mass; Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea (CD/DVD); “N’espérez plus, mes yeux”; “Générations: Senaillé – Leclair”; Platée – were issued by harmonia mundi in the “Les Arts Florissants” collection. 

Wishing to develop further his work as a teacher, in 2002 William Christie created Le Jardin des Voix, Les Arts Florissant’s biennial baroque Academy for young singers, now established at Thiré in Vendée. Since 2007 he has been artist in residence at the Juilliard School in New York, where he gives master classes twice a year. In 2021, he launches with Les Arts Florissants the first “Arts Flo Masterclasses” for young professional musicians at the Quartier des Artistes in Thiré (Vendée, Pays de la Loire – France). 

In 2012, he created the festival Dans les Jardins de William Christie in his own gardens, located in the French village of Thiré in the Vendée, where he welcomes every summer young musicians from the Juilliard School and singers of the Jardin des Voix along with the musicians and singers of Les Arts Florissants. 

William Christie has bequeathed his real-estate assets to the Foundation Les Arts Florissants–William Christie created in 2018. 
In November 2008, William Christie was elected to France’s Académie des Beaux-Arts, and gave his official inaugural speech under the dome of the Institut de France in January 2010. 

His projects for the 2022-23 season include: the show Molière and His Music for Molière’s 400th birthday; Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas directed by Blanca Li at the Teatros del Canal, Barcelona’s Liceu, and the Opéra Royal de Versailles; a cycle of exceptional concerts of French music for Christmas at Fontevraud; duo recitals with violinist Théotime Langlois de Swarte or harpsichordist Justin Taylor; Haydn’s Seasons; Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato; Charpentier’s music for the Nativity and for Holy Week; the fourth part of his series of “Airs sérieux et à boire”; and concert programs with great soloists (Véronique Gens and Lea Desandre, Carlo Vistoli and Hugh Cutting).

Romanian theater director NONA CIOBANU’s credits include productions based on contemporary and classical texts, that involve physical and visual theatre, as well as site specific projects, installations and multimedia directing for opera. Her work, which granted her many awards, took place at prestigious theatres around the world, as well as at site specific and galleries in Europe, the US and Mexico. Ciobanu taught at the National University for Theatre and Film, Bucharest, Acting Department and led workshops for theatre companies from around the world. Since 1995, she has been part of Mic Theatre Bucharest and since 1996 she is the founder and Artistic Director of Toaca Cultural Foundation. Between 2003-2006 she was part of the Executive Committee of Trans Europe Halles, a network of 140 cultural centres from Europe.

Some of the performances/projects she directed/created are: The Master and Margarita adaptation after M.Bulgakov, Twelfth Night, As You Like It and The Tempest by W. Shakespeare, The Mother by S.I.Witkiewicz, Moses and Aron by A.Schoenberg, Romanian Poem by G. Enescu, Die tote Stadt by E.W. Korngold, The Bluebeard Castle by B. Bartok, L-Ikla t-Tajba (own scenario with texts by I. Mifsud), The Karamazovs adaptation after F.M. Dostoyevsky, The Three Venetian Twins by A. M. Collalto, Who Shuts the Night adaptation after L. Cavani, The Love of Three Oranges by Carlo Gozzi, Dog’s Waltz by L. Andreev, The Star Cape by M.Pavic, The Canterbury Tales adaptation after Geoffrey Chaucer, The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge,  Well, Mother…by M.Visniec, Dorde based on a Romanian myth, Hopscotch based on a Persian myth and Rumi’s writings, Orpheus or How to Undress Your Feathers (own scenario with texts by G. Naum).

Romanian director Nona Ciobanu views theater as a place for poetic transformation.  The San Diego Union – Tribune

Daniel Ciobanu first attracted international acclaim in 2017 at the Arthur Rubinstein Competition in Tel Aviv where he won both the Silver Medal and Audience Prize. He subsequently appeared at Carnegie Hall, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Konzerthaus Berlin, St John’s Smith Square in London, Enescu Festival in Bucharest, and toured in Japan, China, Taiwan, South Africa and Brazil.

In 2023 he had numerous debuts in prestigious events such as the “Beethoven Easter Festival” in Warsaw Philharmonic, Radio France Festival in Montpellier, Brucknerhaus in Linz, as well as his orchestral debuts with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Volksoper Wien, Tiroler Symphony Orchestra and BBC Orchestra of Wales.

Throughout the recent years he performed with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Konzerthausorchester Berlin; Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León; Enescu Festival in Bucharest with the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra; Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen; Polish Baltic Philharmonic; Israel Camerata; Royal Scottish National Orchestra; George Enescu Philharmonic and Romanian National Radio Orchestra, as well as his recital debuts in the Lucerne Festival , Vienna Konzerthaus with violonist Julian Rachlin and Amsterdam Concertgebouw. In April 2022, Ciobanu stepped in with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra for four major dates in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem with Omer Meir Wellber.

In 2015 he received the 1st Grand Prix, Public Prize and Orchestra Prize at the Morocco Philharmonic International Piano Competition – becoming the first pianist in the history of the competition to have won all the Special Prizes along with being unanimously voted by the jury for the Top Prize. He has also won 1st Prize and Special Prize for the best “Classical Sonata” at the UNISA International Piano Competition in Pretoria (South Africa), and 1st Prize at the BNDES International Piano Competition in Rio de Janeiro.

Cluj is one of the few cities in the world to boast two operatic institutions: The Romanian National Opera Cluj-Napoca and the Hungarian Opera of Cluj, two institutions with their own building, technical equipment and artistic ensemble.

Most of the Hungarian Opera’s performances presented in Hungarian are simultaneously translated into Romanian.

Established in 1792, the Hungarian Opera in Cluj is the oldest Hungarian-language theatre company, which is able to provide technical stage conditions appropriate to the opera genre, and has a pit for the orchestra. Thanks to the famous soprano Mrs Déryné-Széppataki Róza, who between 1823 and 1827 was employed in Cluj, the initial repertoire was gradually enriched with operas by Daniel Auber, Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, Gioacchino Rossini, Franz Weber and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. It should be noted that the Cluj stage presented the operas of the period shortly after their world premiere, keeping pace with European artistic events. Shortly afterwards, in the 1859-1860 season, a new genre appears in Cluj: operetta, gaining popularity at the expense of opera. At the beginning of the new century, the theatre had in its repertoire the most important operas and operettas in the repertoire of the great opera houses.

A new era was the period between 1905 and 1932, when the company was directed by the admirable theatre director Dr Jenő Janovics, a prominent figure on the Cluj stage, who, in addition to plays (prose), added ballets, operas, operettas and other musical pieces by Giacomo Puccini, Gioacchino Rossini, Pietro Mascagni, Richard Wagner, Bedřich Smetana, Johann Strauss, Lehár Ferenc and others to the existing repertoire.

In 1910 a second stage opened on the banks of the Someș river, originally designed to host summer performances. After the First World War, the Hungarian language theatre troupe moved to this building.

The Hungarian Opera Orchestra became one of the most appreciated orchestras in Romania, starting with the period when Antonin Ciolan was the first conductor (1950-1955), with national and even international instrumentalists such as: concertmasters Ștefan Ruha, Péter Zsurka, Ferenc Balogh, László Hintós and the current concertmasters Sándor Barabás, Endre Ferenczi.

Since 2010, the Hungarian Opera in Cluj has been led by director Gyula Szép.

One of the most important missions of the Hungarian Opera in Cluj is to facilitate a close relationship between high culture and the inhabitants of Cluj-Napoca. Opera, whether classical or contemporary works, is a special cultural genre with the ability to convey fundamental human values and belongs to the general culture.

The ensemble was founded in 1970 on Philippe Herreweghe’s initiative by a group of friends studying at the University of Ghent,. They were one of the first ensembles to use new ideas about baroque performance practice in vocal music. Their authentic, text-oriented and rhetorical approach gave the ensemble the transparent sound with which it would acquire world fame and perform at the major concert venues and music festivals of Europe, the United States, South America, Hong Kong and Australia. Since 2017 the ensemble runs its own summer festival Collegium Vocale Crete Senesi in Tuscany, Italy.

 In recent years, Collegium Vocale Gent has grown organically into an extremely flexible ensemble whose wide repertoire encompasses a range of different stylistic periods. German Baroque music, particularly J.S. Bach’s vocal works, has been a speciality of the group and is still the jewel in its crown.

 Besides performing with its own baroque orchestra, Collegium Vocale Gent works with several historically informed instrumental ensembles to perform these projects, including the Orchestre des Champs Elysées, Freiburger Barockorchester and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. It also works with prominent symphony orchestras such as the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra or the Staatskapelle Dresden. The ensemble has worked with Ivor Bolton, René Jacobs and Paul Van Nevel.

 Under Philippe Herreweghe’s direction, Collegium Vocale Gent has built up an impressive discography with more than 100 recordings, most of them with the Harmonia Mundi France and Virgin Classics labels. In 2010, Philippe Herreweghe started his own label φ (phi). Since then some 20 new recordings with vocal music by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Gesualdo, Haydn or Victoria have become available.

 Collegium Vocale Gent enjoys the financial support of the Flemish Community, the city of Ghent and Belgium’s National Lottery.

Born in Bucharest, Teodor Coman began studying the violin with his father at the age of 5. At the age of 14, being seduced by the sound of the viola, he decides to devote himself to it under the guidance of Professor Mugur Popovici.

From 1981 to 1983 he won first prize every year at the national competition “Cântarea României” [Romania’s Singing].  In 1982 he was awarded the first prize at the “Hariclea Darclée” festival-contest in Pitesti.

He graduated from the Conservatory of Music “C. Porumbescu” in Bucharest in 1988 in the class of Professor Valeriu Pitulac.  In 1986 he won the second prize at the international viola competition “Maurice Vieux” in Lille, France.

From 1990 to 1995 he was viola soloist with the Orchestre d’Ile de France with whom he performed many times as soloist.

In 1995 he was admitted as “premier soloist” at the Orchestre National de France.

In parallel with his orchestral activity, Teodor is attracted by chamber music. Since 1993 he has been a member of the Trio à Cordes de Paris, a group which, thanks to concerts and records, has performed in Europe, Russia, China and Japan.

Since 1997 Teodor has been teaching at the Conservatoire National de la Rueil-Malmaison, and at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris “Alfred Cortot” (following in the footsteps of G. Enescu) until 2003.

From 2010 to 2013, he is happy to devote himself to the quartet repertoire with the Renoir ensemble.

In 2016 Teodor won second prize at the international competition “Giorgio Cambissa” organized in France by the orchestra “Bel’Arte” in memory of the Italian composer.

Teodor Coman is one of the founding members of the ensemble Contempo, with an international career since 2002.

Teodor currently plays on a viola built in 2013 by F.H. Chaudiere in Montpellier, France.

Born in 1965, Jeanne-Marie Conquer won the First Prize for violin at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP) at the age of 15 and continued with higher studies in the classes of Pierre Amoyal (violin) and Jean Hubeau (chamber music). She became a member of the Ensemble intercontemporain in 1985. Jeanne-Marie Conquer has developed close artistic relationships with contemporary composers and has in particular worked with György Kurtág, György Ligeti (on the Trio with Horn and Violin Concerto), Peter Eötvös (on his opera Le Balcon) and Ivan Fedele. She has recorded different works on Deutsche Grammophon: Luciano Berio’s Sequenza VIII for solo violin, and Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire and Ode to Napoleon, as well as Pierre Boulez’s Anthèmes and Anthèmes II for a publication by Jean-Jacques Nattiez on the composer’s work.

Jeanne-Marie Conquer was the soloist in Anthèmes II at the Lucerne Festival in 2002 and the first Latin American performance of the work in Buenos Aires in 2006, and in György Ligeti’s Violin Concerto at the Paris Cité de la Musique for his 80^th birthday in 2003. Apart from her soloist career, Jeanne-Marie Conquer teaches at the Conservatoire Municipal W. A. Mozart (Paris 1^st district) and the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP).

Originally from Bacău, Abel Corban is considered a disciple of the pianist Viniciu Moroianu, in whose class he graduated from the Bachelor and Master’s degrees at the National University of Music in Bucharest. His outstanding results and rich stage activity recommend him as one of the most valuable young pianists of his generation. He is the winner of numerous prizes at national and international competitions, being the only Romanian pianist to win the Bela Bartok Prize at the “Liszt/Bartok International Piano Competition” – Sofia, as well as the “Tribute to Romanian Cultural Values” Competition organized by the “Sergiu Celibidache Foundation”.

Since 2018, he has been constantly collaborating in the concerts of the National Chamber Choir “Madrigal – Marin Constantin”.

“To Prokofiev, it was the sound of the human spirit, but in Cox’s hands it sounded like his own story: Taking what he already had and imagining himself anew.” (Symphony No.5, Washington Post).  In July 2020 Roderick Cox spoke to the New York Times about his commitment to changing historic and narrow perceptions of classical music.  Through his own career both on and off stage he sets a standard for excellence, diversity, opportunity, and accessibility in the music he loves.

Berlin-based and American by birth, Roderick Cox’s invitations with the highest level of international ensembles include Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cincinnati Symphony, The Cleveland Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. He is also founder of the Roderick Cox Music Initiative (RCMI, 2019)— a programme that nurtures and provides scholarships and opportunities for young musicians in order to make music more accessible.  Elk Mountain Productions’ award winning 2020 documentary film Conducting Life maps his journey and reflects his passionate belief in the transformative power of music.

Recent highlights include Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, and the Aspen Music Festival Chamber Orchestra.

In 2023/24 he makes his Canadian debuts with Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and National Arts Centre, Ottawa as well as guesting with Hallé Orchestra, Sinfonica di Milano and returning to Orchestre National de Montpellier and Sinfonia Lahti.  He will make summer appearances with Staatskapelle Dresden, Orchestra of St Luke’s at Caramoor Festival, Enescu Festival and he returns to Philadelphia Orchestra.

The 2023/24 season will also feature Roderick’s debut with English National Opera conducting Rossini’s Barber of Seville. He has already conducted at the Houston Grand Opera (Pêcheurs de Perles), San Francisco Opera (Barber of Seville), Washington National Opera (Jeanine Tesori’s Blue) and Opéra National de Montpellier (Rigoletto).

After studying composition and conducting in his home town, Rosario, José Cura moved to Buenos Aires in 1984 to hone his skills. To gain insights into stage life, he worked in one of the professional choirs at the Teatro Coló n from 1984 to 1988, where his voice developed into the distinctive bold and bright tenor with tints of dark baritone that led him to international fame.

In 1999, José Cura resumed his conducting career, working with top orchestras like the London Philharmonia, the London Symphony, the Vienna Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Toscanini Orchestra, and the Hungarian Philharmonic, among others, performing operatic and symphonic works, thrilling audiences with his performances both in the pit and on stage.

2014 was marked by José Cura’s return to his activity as a composer: in November, the South Bohemian Opera premiered his Stabat Mater, written in 1989 and in Easter 2015, after his return as Don José at La Scala, the world premiere of his Magni-icat, written in 1988, took place at the Teatro Massimo di Catania.

From 2015 to 2018, José Cura was the “Artist in Residence” of the Prague Symphony Orchestra. As part of his commitments with the Czech ensemble, he conducted the premiere of his triptych Ecce Homo. In February 2019, José Cura was appointed the [irst “Principal Guest Artist” —singer, composer and conductor— in the history of the Hungarian Radio Art Groups. With them, on January 29th 2020, he conducted the world premiere of his Montezuma and the Red Priest, opera buffa ma non troppo, at the Liszt Academy. His Te Deum was successfully premiered with the London Philharmonia in September 2021 during the Enescu festival, and his Concierto para un Resurgir, for guitar and orchestra, was premiered in September 2021, in Saarbrü cken, together with his Symphonic Suite.

José Cura’s Requiem æternam, for triple choir, soloists and orchestra, has been premiered in Budapest the 9th of May 2022, with the MTVA art groups and the Hungarian National choir. In 2015, José Cura was honored by the Argentinean Senate, with the Domingo Faustino Sarmiento Prize for his achievements in education and culture and in 2017 he was entitled Professor Honoris Causa of the National University of Rosario, Argentina, where he followed his composer studies in the decade of 1980.

Paul Curievici’s current and future plans include roles such as the High Priest of Amon in Akhnaten at the English National Opera, First Jew in Salome at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Tichon in Katja Kabanova and Nick in The Handmaid’s Tale at the Royal Danish Opera, The Marquis in The Gambler at the Martina Franca Festival, Mortimer in Lessons in Love and Violence with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Karl Rossmann in Haubenstock-Ramati’s Amerika at the Oper Zürich, Le Grand Macabre and The Snow Queen at Concertgebouw.

Recent engagements have included Steva in Jenůfa at the Norwegian Opera, Luisa Miller at the Glyndebourne Festival, Saint Francoise d’Assise and Percy Bysshe Shelley in Michael Wertmüller’s Diodati. Unendlich at Theater Basel, Candide (title role) at the Komische Oper Berlin, Melot in Tristan und Isolde, Pirelli in Sweeney Todd, Raul in The Exterminating Angel with the Royal Danish Opera, Mortimer in Lessons in Love and Violence (cancelled due to C19) at Theater St Gallen, Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Melot in Tristan und Isolde at Opéra de Montpellier, and Les Enfants Terribles with The Royal Ballet.

Other engagements have included Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Eames in The Virtues of Things, and Second Jew in Salome at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Elemer in Arabella, Jack in The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny and Guidobald in Die Gezeichneten at Oper Zürich, Pedrillo in Die Entführung aus dem Serail at the Grange Festival, Don Curzio/Don Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro with the Scottish Opera, Painter in Olga Neuwirth’s American Lulu with The Opera Group at the Young Vic, Bregenzer Festspiele and Edinburgh Festival, First Jew in Salome with the Northern Ireland Opera, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lyon and ENO, and Dionysus in The Bassarids (cover) at Opera di Roma. He sang in Gerald Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest at Barbican and Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic, Sam Kaplan in Street Scene with The Opera Group at Liceu Barcelona and Théâtre du Châtelet, Stephen in Huw Watkins’ In the Locked Room at the Music Theatre Wales and Scottish Opera, and Henze’s song cycle Voices at Barbican. 

Paul studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

British tenor Guy Cutting is establishing himself as a sought-after interpreter of Bach and other masters of the baroque. He has collaborated with a number of the foremost practitioners on the period performance scene such as Philippe Herreweghe, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, John Butt, Paul McCreesh, Jeffrey Thomas and Jos van Veldhoven as well as the new generation of conductors and directors including Jonathan Cohen, Laurence Cummings, Leonardo García Alarcón, Shunske Sato, Robert Howarth, David Bates, Steven Devine and Reinoud van Mechelen.

 Guy Cutting’s engagements have included appearances with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (including his BBC Proms début singing the Bach B Minor Mass), The Academy of Ancient Music, Monteverdi Choir, Collegium Vocale Gent, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, The Gabrieli Consort, De Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Swedish Baroque Orchestra, Real, Filharmonia de Galicia and the American Bach Soloists.

 He has recorded Scarlatti and Handel on the Avie label, Charpentier, Couperin, Blow and Mozart for Novum and Gabriel Jackson Passion for Delphian.

 Guy was a chorister and later a choral scholar at New College, Oxford where he gained a first-class degree in Music. In 2013 he became the inaugural recipient of the American Bach Soloists’ Jeffrey Thomas Award and is a Rising Star of the Enlightenment.

 His plans include débuts with the English Chamber Orchestra / Nicholas Kraemer (Messiah), the Netherlands Philharmonic / Marcus Creed (Purcell), The Dunedin Consort / John Butt (Messiah), Gli Angeli Genève / Stephan MacLeod and several Bach projects with Collegium Vocale Gent / Herreweghe.

Nominated for Gramophone’s 2022 ‘Orchestra of the Year’, the 127-year-old Czech Philharmonic gave its first concert – an all Dvořák programme conducted by the composer himself – in the famed Rudolfinum Hall on 4 January 1896. The Orchestra is acknowledged for its definitive interpretations of Czech composers and recognised for its special relationship to the music of Brahms, Tchaikovsky, and Mahler, who conducted the world première of his Symphony No. 7 with the Orchestra in 1908. It is currently recording the complete cycle of Mahler symphonies with Chief Conductor and Music Director, Semyon Bychkov for Pentatone.

The Czech Philharmonic’s extraordinary and proud history reflects both its location at the very heart of Europe and the Czech Republic’s turbulent political history, for which Smetana’s Má vlast (My Homeland) has become a potent symbol. 2024 is the tenth Year of Czech Music, a major celebration of Czech music launched on the centenary of Smetana’s birth and celebrated across the Czech Republic every 10 years. The Czech Philharmonic will mark Smetana’s bicentenary with a series of concerts at the Smetana Litomyšl Festival including a rare concert performance of his opera, Libuše, conducted by Principal Guest Conductor, Jakub Hrůša.. Also in recognition of the Year of Czech Music, the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov will take Dvořák’s final three symphonies, and the concertos for piano, cello and violin on tour to South Korea, Japan, Spain, Austria, Germany and Belgium.

Throughout the Orchestra’s history, two features have remained at its core: its championing of Czech composers and its belief in music’s power to change lives. From as early as the 1920’s Václav Talich (Chief Conductor 1919-1941) pioneered concerts for workers, young people and voluntary organisations, a philosophy which is equally vibrant today.

Alongside the Czech Philharmonic’s Youth Orchestra, Orchestral Academy and Jiří Bělohlávek Prize for young musicians, a comprehensive education strategy engages with more than 400 schools bringing all ages to the Rudolfinum – some travelling as long as four hours – to hear concerts and participate in masterclasses. An inspirational music and song programme led by singer Ida Kelarová for the extensive Romany communities within the Czech Republic and Slovakia has helped many socially excluded families to find a voice. In addition to an annual education exchange with the Royal Academy of Music in London, over lockdown the Orchestra gave seven benefit concerts which were live streamed in 4K to international audiences, raising funds for hospitals, charities, and healthcare professionals.

An early champion of the music of Martinů and Janáček, the works of Czech composers – both established and new – remain the lifeblood of the Orchestra. Instigated by Semyon Bychkov at the start of his tenure, nine Czech composers and five international composers – Detlev Glanert, Julian Anderson, Thomas Larcher, Bryce Dessner and Thierry Escaich – were commissioned to write for the Orchestra.

This season’s Artist in Residence is Sir András Schiff who will have the dual roles of pianist and conductor of the Orchestra at the Dvořák Prague Festival; will perform with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra as part of the Czech Chamber Music Society’s season; and will join Semyon Bychkov for subscription concerts in Prague and on tour in Vienna, Hamburg and Munich.

Joseph Dahdah was born in Zgharta, Lebanon in 1992. Besides Arabic, he speaks French, English, Italian and Spanish fluently and also sings in German, Ukrainian and Russian.

He started studying singing and piano at the age of 12.

When he arrived in Italy, he continued his studies first in Rome with Raina Infantino and then at the Istituto Superiore di Studi Musicali Briccialdi in Terni, where he obtained a three-year 1st level diploma and a 2nd level diploma in opera singing with 110/lode under the guidance of mezzo soprano Ambra Vespasiani.

Joseph has participated in numerous masterclasses with, among others, Richard Barker, Luca Salsi, Eva Mei, Bruno de Simone and Tatiana Chivarova. She has sung numerous operas, oratorio concerts and festivals in Lebanon, Italy, Germany Venezuela, Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria. He then joined the Accademia del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

He made his debut in Umberto Giordano’s Siberia (Sergeant) at the Teatro del Maggio, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda; I due Foscari (Barbarigo) alongside Placido Domingo at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Aida (Radamès) in a production for children by Venti Lucenti in the Cavea of the Maggio theatre, Ariadne auf Naxos (Ein Uffizier), Il trovatore (Un messo), Ernani (Don Riccardo), Don Carlo (Royal Herald and Count of Lerma) conducted by Daniele Gatti, Doktor Faust (Soldier and Herzog von Parma) by Ferruccio Busoni, conducted by Cornelius Meister, La Traviata (Gastone) conducted by Zubin Mehta. His next engagements: tenor soloist in I.F. Stravinsky’s Pulcinella conducted by Daniele Gatti, A. Bruckner’s Te Deum and Cassio in G. Verdi’s Otello both conducted by Zubin Mehta.

Mihai Damian is a graduate of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca, specializing in Conducting, and is currently a student at the same institution, specializing in Singing, class lect. univ. dr. Cristian Hodrea and prof. univ. dr. habil. Iulia Suciu. 

He obtained outstanding results, among which we mention: 1st Prize at the International Mozart Interpretation Competition (Romania), Grand Prize and 1st Prize of Excellence at the National Singing Competition Revelation of Voices (Romania), 3rd Prize at the National Interpretation and Composition Competition Paul Constantinescu (Romania), 1st Prize at the International Interpretation Competition Nouvelles Etoiles (France).

During his training period, he participated in various masterclasses with established artists such as Karola Theill (Germany), Vlad Iftinca (Romania), Roland Börger (Chile), Patrick Russil (UK), Cristian Hodrea (Romania) and Veronica Anușca (Romania).

Since 2019 he has been working as a baritone in the “Transylvania” State Philharmonic in Cluj-Napoca, collaborating over the years with world-renowned conductors such as Lawrence Foster (USA), Sascha Goetzel (Austria), David Crescenzi (Italy), Mihnea Ignat (Romania), Cristian Spătaru (Republic of Moldova), Stefan Novak (Romania), Roland Börger (Chile) and Cornel Groza (Romania), both as a soloist and as an opera artist. 

He debuted with the role of the baritone in Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana with the “Dinu Lipatti” State Philharmonic on 26th of May 2022, with resounding success.

Alexandra Dariescu, creator of “The Nutcracker and I”, is a pianist for the 21^st century, standing out as an original voice whose fundamental values are shining a light on gender equality in both her concerto and recital programmes, championing and premiering lesser-known works. In demand as a soloist worldwide, she has performed with eminent orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Oslo Philharmonic and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, whilst the list of conductors she has worked with includes Adam Fischer, Cristian Măcelaru, Fabien Gabel, Jun Märkl, Vasily Petrenko, Ryan Bancroft, James Gaffigan, Jonathon Heyward, JoAnn Falletta and Michael Francis.

In the 2022/23 season, Dariescu makes her debut with Orchestre symphonique de la Monnaie under Alain Altinoglu on La Monnaie’s 250th anniversary. Throughout the season, Dariescu holds three Artist-in-Residence titles, starting at Pfalztheater-Kaiserslautern Germany, where she explores fascinating juxtapositions between male and female composers, illuminating an inclusive picture of various historic artistic movements. In Canada she returns to Orchestre symphonique de Québec and Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, whilst in the US she debuts with the Richmond Symphony Orchestra as their Artist-in-Residence, followed by the Florida Orchestra. For her third residency this season, she returns to Iserlohn’s Internationale Herbsttage für Musik. Further highlights include debuts with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra and Real Filharmonía de Galicia, a tour of “The Nutcracker and I” in the UK, Germany and Greece, and recitals in the US with Angela Gheorghiu. Most recently, Dariescu made the world premiere recording of the newly discovered piano concerto by Leokadiya Kashperova with the BBC Symphony Orchestra for BBC Radio 3, and has been appointed Professor of Piano at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Highlights of Dariescu’s 2021/22 season included the US premiere of the newly discovered piano concerto by George Enescu for her debut with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, followed by the US premiere of Nadia Boulanger’s Fantaisie Variée for her Houston Symphony debut. Further debuts included Basel Chamber Orchestra for her return to the Enescu Festival, Lapland Chamber Orchestra under John Storgårds and Turku Philharmonic Orchestra for the Finnish premiere of Boulanger’s Fantaisie under Tianyi Lu. In May 2022 Dariescu gave her Irish debut with the National Symphony Orchestra Dublin.

In 2017, Dariescu took the world by storm with her successful piano recital production “The Nutcracker and I”, an original ground-breaking multimedia performance for piano solo with dance and digital animation, which has since enjoyed international acclaim and has drawn thousands of young audiences into concert halls across Europe, Australia, China, the Emirates and the US, realising Dariescu’s vision of building bridges and making classical music more accessible to the wider public.

Dariescu has released eight albums to critical acclaim, the latest disc being her Decca recording with Angela Gheorghiu. The discography includes a Trilogy of Preludes series on Champs Hill Records, as well as Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Darrell Ang (Signum Records), in addition to “The Nutcracker and I” audio book.

Dariescu has been mentored by Sir András Schiff and Dame Imogen Cooper. A Laureate at the Verbier Festival Academy, she received the UK’s Women of the Future Award in the Arts and Culture category. In 2017, Dariescu was appointed patron of Music in Lyddington and Cultural Ambassador of Romania. In spring 2018, Dariescu received the ‘Officer of the Romanian Crown’ from the Royal Family and was selected as a Young European Leader by Friends of Europe. In 2020, Dariescu received the Order ‘Cultural Merit’ in the rank of Knight by the Romanian President and became an Associated Member of the RNCM.

 One of the most exciting and in-demand artists today, French tenor Stanislas de Barbeyrac came to international attention in 2014 when he sang his first Tamino Die Zauberflöte at Aix-en-Provence Festival. A complex and compelling musician and actor, he has been capturing wide acclaim on the world’s most important stages such as Opéra National de Paris, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Wiener Staatsoper, Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Dutch National Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Grand Théâtre de Genève, San Francisco Opera, and at the Aix-en-Provence and Salzburg Festivals.

 In the 2023/24 season, de Barbeyrac makes a series of highly exciting role debuts: as Jason in Cherubini Médée in a new production at Teatro alla Scala in Milan (also his company debut) and at the Staatsoper Berlin; as Siegmund Die Walküre on a tour of Europe with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Yannick Nézet-Séguin and with the Orchestra del Teatro dell’Opera di Roma and Omer Meir Wellber; and as Idomeneo at Grand Théâtre de Genève in a new production by Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui. Further highlights include his return to the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence; a concert performance of Carmen at Theatre de Champs-Elysées; Verdi Requiem with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the baton of Santtu-Matias Rouvali; Pelléas Pelléas et Mélisande at the George Enescu Festival; and the title role of La Damnation de Faust with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Cristian Măcelaru.

 Last season he sang his first Wagner role: Erik Der fliegende Holländer at Staatsoper Berlin where he was also seen as Don José Carmen, a role which was a vehicle for his return to Dutch National Opera. Other appearances include Piquillo in a new production of Offenbach’s La Périchole at the Theatre de Champs-Elysées conducted by Marc Minkowski and Max Der Freischütz at Semperoper Dresden. On the concert platform, de Barbeyrac joined the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for Beethoven Missa Solemnis under the baton of Klaus Mäkelä; the Insula Orchestra for a series of celebratory anniversary concerts and the Grand Théâtre de Genève for a New Year’s Eve concert conducted by Marc Leroy Calatayud.

 His most notable roles include the title role of Pelléas Pelléas et Mélisande (Gran Teatre del Liceu, Theatre de Champs-Elysées, Opéra National de Bordeaux, in Tokyo and in concert in Cologne and Compiegne, France); Florestan Fidelio with Insula Orchestra under the baton of Laurence Equilbey; Tamino Die Zauberflöte, a reference role in his career (Aix-en-Provence Festival, Dutch National Opera, Chorégies d’Orange; Opéra de Paris; Opernhaus Zürich, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Teatro Real and in Budapest); Don Ottavio Don Giovanni (Wiener Staatsoper, Metropolitan Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper, San Francisco Opera and Opéra National de Paris), Tito La Clemenza di Tito (Opéra National de Paris), Arbace Idomeneo (Royal Opera House); Lensky Eugene Onegin (Théâtre du Châtelet) and Chevalier de la Force in Poulenc Dialogues des Carmélites, (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Bayerische Staatsoper, Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, and Dutch National Opera).

 Recent concert highlights saw him perform at Concert de Paris for Bastille Day at the Eiffel Tower; at the Salzburg Festival in Mozart’s Davide Penitente and Haydn Die Schöpfung; Mozart Requiem at the Verbier Festival; several recital appearances in Paris and Barcelona; concerts with Gaëlle Arquez at the Festival d’Auvers-sur-Oise and Licinius La Vestale at Palazzetto Bru Zane.

 Stanislas de Barbeyrac studied at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux with Lionel Sarazzin, who remains his vocal mentor today. He has been a prize-winner at several prestigious competitions, including the Prix du Cercle Carpeaux, Prix Lyriques de l’AROP, and Queen Elisabeth International Competition in Brussels. De Barbeyrac joined the Atelier Lyrique of the Opéra de Paris in 2008 and subsequently began his operatic career at theatres in Nice, Tours, Toulon, Strasbourg, Metz, Marseille and Avignon, as well as at the Opéra de Paris, where he has appeared in many supporting roles, such as Walther von der Vogelweide in Tannhäuser, Evandre in Alceste and Narraboth Salome.

 “Xavier de Maistre is a virtuoso of the highest order, profoundly musical and capable of realising a remarkable range of nuance.” – Gramophone 

Xavier de Maistre is one of today’s leading harpists and a profoundly creative musician. As a fierce champion of his instrument, he has broadened the harp repertoire, commissioning new work from composers. He also creates transcriptions of important instrumental repertoire.

 This musical vision has led him to work with conductors including Sir André Previn, Sir Simon Rattle, Riccardo Muti, Daniele Gatti, Philippe Jordan, James Gaffigan, Bertrand de Billy, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Daniel Harding, Susanna Mälkki, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. He has been invited by orchestras such as Chicago, Montreal, City of Birmingham, NHK, Swedish and Finnish Radio Symphony orchestras; Los Angeles, London, St Petersburg, Oslo and China Philharmonic orchestras; Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo and Orchestre de la Suisse Romande. In his native France he has worked with Orchestre de Paris, the national orchestras of France and Lyon; the philharmonic orchestras of Radio France, Monte-Carlo, Montpellier, Lille and Nancy; and recitals in Paris and Lille operas, Lyon, Bordeaux, Nice, Poitiers and Avignon, among other places.

 Parallel to his orchestral concerts, de Maistre is passionate about chamber music and regularly puts together original recital projects. In 2020 he began a new collaboration with tenor Rolando Villazón, with whom he records a project of South American folk songs for Deutsche Grammophon. Over the last seasons, he has worked with flamenco and castanet legend Lucero Tena in a programme of Spanish repertoire, touring major venues in Europe, Japan and China, and releasing an album (Sony Classical, 2018). Since summer 2020 he has been in residence at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. As a soloist he has been a guest at many top festivals, including Rheingau, Salzburger Festspielen, Wiener Festwochen, Verbier, Budapest Spring, Würzburg Mozartfest and Mostly Mozart in New York. He also works regularly with Diana Damrau, Arabella Steinbacher, Daniel Müller-Schott, Baiba Skride, Antoine Tamestit, Mojca Erdmann and Magali Mosnier.

 During the 2022/2023 season, Xavier goes on tour with the Orchestre National de France in Germany and in Austria under the direction of Cristian Măcelaru to play Reinhold Glière’s famous harp concerto for the release of his new album. He also performs with the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Paris Chamber orchestra, and at the Musica Festival in Strasbourg. Xavier de Maistre also performs in solo recitals in venues such as the Staatsoper Berlin, in duo with Rolando Villazón at the Staatsoper Frankfurt and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and in duo with Diana Damrau at La Fenice in Venice.

De Maistre has been an exclusive Sony Music artist since 2008, when he recorded his first album, Nuit d’Etoiles, dedicated to Debussy. Further releases included Hommage à Haydn (2009), Aranjuez (2010) and Notte Veneziana (2012), featuring significant Baroque repertoire, Moldau (2015), solo harp pieces by Slavic composers, and La Harpe Reine (2016) with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie. His album “Christmas Harp” (October 2021) features paraphrases and fantasies of famous Christmas carols as well as melodies by Schubert and Tchaikovsky. In autumn 2022, his last CD dedicated to Russian music is released, featuring Reinhold Glière’s famous harp concerto and Alexander Mosolov’s forgotten concerto, accompanied by WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln under the baton of Nathalie Stutzmann.

Born in Toulon, de Maistre studied the harp with Vassilia Briano at his local conservatoire, before perfecting his technique with Catherine Michel and Jacqueline Borot in Paris. He also studied in Sciences-Po Paris and then at the London School of Economics. In 1998 he was awarded First Prize (and two interpretation prizes) at the prestigious USA International Harp Competition (Bloomington) and became the same year the first French musician to be admitted at the Wiener Philharmoniker.

He has taught at Musikhochschule in Hamburg since 2001.  He plays on a Lyon & Healy instrument.

Born in Strasbourg, Renaud Déjardin began his musical training under the direction of Mihaly Temesvari and Jean Deplace Paris, before going on to study in Paris with Philippe Muller and at Stony Brook (United States) with Timothy Eddy. From an early age, he was fascinated with the symphonic repertoire —a passion nourished by seminal musical experiences with Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Pierre Boulez, and Colin Davis, even before he embarked on his professional career.

His accolades include prizes from several international competitions (Rostropovitch Competition in Paris, Paulo Competition in Helsinki, Bach Competition Leipzig) and he has performed as a soloist with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Bilkent, and the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France. Through their master classes, he has been mentored by Mstislav Rostropovitch, Anner Bylsma and Bernard Greenhouse.

Continuing to develop his knowledge of the repertoire of yesterday and today, he has worked and performed with the following orchestras and ensembles: Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France (particularly the works of Ravel, Sibelius, Mahler, Boulez, Eötvos), Opéra de Paris (Lulu de Berg), Ensemble intercontemporain (Stockhausen, Nancarrow, Staud, Jarrell), Salzburg Chamber Soloists (Mozart, Strauss’s Metamorphosen), and Ensemble Court-Circuit (Hurel, Grisey, Murail, Maresz).

He pursued further studies in analysis, harmony, orchestration and orchestra conducting. As a conductor, he has premiered a number of pieces for ensemble and recorded works by Jean-Luc Hervé with Ensemble Court-Circuit, Luciano Berio with Vincent David and Ensemble Quaerendo Invenietis, Allain Gaussin with Ensemble Sillages, Ofer Pelz with Ensemble Meitar, Bernard Cavanna and Martin Matalon with Ensemble Mesostics. Turning then to more personal projects, such as composition, he created a volume of piano pieces (Livre des clairs-obscurs) and wrote a number of pieces for young players.

In 2014, he joined the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, before becoming a member of the Ensemble intercontemporain in 2022.

Martijn Dendievel is the winner of the 2021 German Conductors’ Award (Deutscher Dirigentenpreis) and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich and Paavo Järvi Conductors Academy, as well as laureate of the LSO Donatella Flick Competition. He is a finalist at the inaugural ICCR – International Conducting Competition Rotterdam, which will take place in May 2022.

Passionate about discovering new pieces in addition to the main repertoire, Martijn is currently Associate Conductor of the Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen, whilst he finishes his conducting studies in the class of Prof. Nicolás Pasquet and Prof. Ekhart Wycik at the renowned Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar. Prior to this, he served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Academic Orchestra Halle from 2016 to 2020.

He regularly appears with orchestras and theatres such as the Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen, Teatro Comunale Bologna, Philharmonie Zuidnederland, amongst others, and in the current season, Martijn will make his debut with the Nürnberger Symphoniker, Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, and he returns to the MDR Symphony Orchestra and the Hofer Symphoniker.

Over the last few years, Martijn has conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle Orchester, WDR Orchester Cologne, Gürzenich Orchester Cologne, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Lucerne Festival, Dortmund Philharmonic and the Bremen Philharmonic, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Jena Philharmonic, and the Staatskapelle Weimar.

He has been selected as one of the “Maestros von Morgen” of the Forum Dirigieren of the German Music Council (formerly Dirigentenforum) and has received important impules from mentors such as Bernard Haitink, Ivan Fischer, Edo de Vaart, Paavo Järvi and Christian Thielemann, amongst others.

Apart from the music language, Martijn speaks fluently Dutch, French, Italian, German, English, Spanish and Swedish.

Grown up in a family of musicians, he showed a great interest for music during his childhood and took his first musical steps on the violin at the age of three. A few years later, he switched from violin to cello and started his musical studies at the Music Conservatory of Bruges. In the same year he started playing Recorder and Percussion.

Martijn’s first conducting experience took place at the age of 11 conducting a small string orchestra in Lauwe, Belgium. He then started studying with Kristof Van Grysperre, his first mentor and teacher in piano and conducting. In 2010, Martijn went on a 4-week masterclass as Apprentice Conductor in Los Angeles, conducting two performances with the Intimate Opera Orchestra.

At the age of 14, Martijn has exceptionally been admitted to the Royal Conservatory of Brussels, where he completed a Bachelor Program in Music Theory and Harmony with honors as well as beginning his Conducting studies under the guidance of Patrick Davin.  In the same years, in Bruges, healso  graduated  with honors in Cello, Percussion and Chamber Music.

As part of his Conducting studies, Martijn has been selected to participate in the Euroclassical Project, conducting Strauss’ Tod und Verklärung with the Brussels Conservatory Symphony Orchestra.

In 2014, Martijn conducted the highly acclaimed premiere of “La Forêt”, a chamber opera by Baudouin de Jaer, which lead to his debut at the Palais des Beaux-Arts (BOZAR) in Brussels conducting the world premiere of “Cities – Springs of Diversities” by the same composer.

Martijn was the music director of the “Festival for Minimal Music Weimar”, which he organized on the occasion of the 80th birthday of the American composer Steve Reich.

From 2016 to 2020 he was serving as Principal Guest conductor of the Academic Orchestra Halle. He has also made guest appearances with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Jena Philharmonic, the Thuringia Philharmonic Gotha-Eisenach, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Luzern Festival Strings and the Brussels Sinfonietta. He has also conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Zurich Tonhalle Orchester, WDR Orchester Cologne, Gurzenich Orchester Cologne, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Filharmonie Hradec Králové, Dortmund Philharmonic and the Bremen Philharmonic. In December 2019 he made his conducting debut at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam with the Flanders Symphony Orchestra and the pianist Severin von Eckardstein.

Bernard Haitink invited Martijn three times to take part in his master class at the Lucerne Festival. He also received important impulses from Christian Thielemann, Michael Sanderling, Edo de Waart, Simone Young and Iván Fischer amongst others.

Mikhail Gurewitsch, founded the Dogma Chamber Orchestra in 2004, while concertmaster of the Baden-Württemberg Chamber Orchestra “I Sedici.” Young, internationally successful musicians come together under the guidance of Mikhail Gurewitsch to combine new interpretations of classical music with modern concert arrangements.

Their presentation does not have an ingratiating, galloping aesthetic with pretty dresses and dapper suits, which often gives a false picture of classical music. Dogma strives for new ways of rehearsing and performing, as have all musicians in different periods of musical history. It unveils the intellectual and emotional content of the music from a modern viewpoint, and conveys this to the audience as a captivating process – that is dogma’s unique style.

The name of the orchestra derives from this way of thinking. It comes from the manifesto “Dogma 95,” which was published by a group of international film directors led by Lars von Trier in 1995. Their manifesto was a protest against the increasingly unrealistic nature of cinema, dominated by effect and technical sophistication, and fought against its dramatic predictability.

The orchestra sees itself as a homogenous group of musicians sharing the same musical ideas, but also as an ensemble of interacting soloists. Members are encouraged to express their own personalities. The tension between solo impulse and ensemble spirit comes to play. The result is an artistic harvesting. This dynamic is intensified further in that the orchestra plays standing.

The dogma chamber orchestra values diversity in its programming. The repertoire includes not only baroque, classical, and romantic music but also the work of contemporary composers, as well as dogma’s own compositions.

Dogma interacts with the audience. Mikhail Gurewitsch guides and speaks to the public throughout the concert. He bridges the distance between stage and audience. He encourages concertgoers not only to “observe” from the outside and to “consume,” but to appreciate the musical experience as a dialogue, which often continues between musicians and audience following the concert.

The orchestra, in the years of its existence, has developed a continuingly growing network of fans and developed into one of the best known young european chamber music ensembles. For their CD, “The Shostakovich Album,” the dogma chamber orchestra received, already for the second time, the prestigious ECHO Klassik Award. For their live recording, “Mozart/Schubert Symphonies,” they won the OPUS Klassik Award in 2019.

Mihail Dogotari graduated from the National University of Music in Bucharest, Romania (2005-2011), continued his master’s studies at the same institution, simultaneously participating in European masterclasses held by Luciana Serra, Tiziana Fabbricini, Federica Falasconi, William Matteuzzi, Stefano De Luca, Alfonso Antoniozzi and Massimo Lambertini. He started his career performing with the Orchestra and Choir of the National University of Music Bucharest where he performed Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas by Purcel, Figaro from “Il barbiere di Siviglia” by Rossini (2009).

He performed countless solo roles in operas, such as l’Uomo Sakili in “Lupus in Fabula” by Sargenti, Alessio in “La Sonnambula” by Bellini, Mercutio in “Romeo et Juliette” by Gounod, Alidoro in “La Cenerentola” by Rossini at “Teatro Donizetti di Bergamo”, “Teatro di Varese”, “Teatro Auditorium di Trento”, “l’Auditorium S. Antonio di Morbegno”, “Teatro dell’Aquila di Fermo”, “Teatro Alighieri di Ravenna”, ” Teatro Cagnoni di Vigevano”, “Teatro della Societa’ di Lecco”, “Theatre Ariston di Mantova”, “Theatre Ponchielli di Cremona”, “Theatre Comunale di Bolzano”, “Theatre Fraschini di Pavia”, “Theatre Ariosto Reggio di Emilia” , “Teatrul Grande di Brescia”, “Milano Teatrul Arcimboldi”, “Teatrul Sociale di Como”.(2010-2011); Gaspar from “Rita” by Donizetti at the Experimental Opera Studio “Ludovic Spiess” in Romania (2010), Baron Douphol from “La Traviata” by Verdi at “Teatro Ventidio Basso di Ascoli Piceno” (2011), Dandini from the opera “La Cenerentola ” by Rossini at the “Opera Festival”, Sibiu (2017), Schaunard from “La Boheme” by Puccini at the International Festival “Maria Bieșu”, Chisinau (2018), Count Almaviva from “Le nozze di Figaro” at the “National Theater of Opera and Ballet”, Chisinau (2018).

Between 2012 and 2017, he holds the position of soloist at the Vienna State Opera. On this prestigious stage he performed roles such as Dancairo from “Carmen” by Bizet, Marullo from “Rigoletto” by Verdi, Haly from “L’italiana in Algeri” by Rossini, Cristiano from “Un ballo in maschera” by Verdi, Bretigny from “Manon” by Massenet, Aronte from Armide by Lully. On the stage of the National Theater of Opera and Ballet in Chisinau, he debuted in the roles
of Belcore in “L’elisir d’amore” by Donizetti (2019) and Alfio in “Cavalleria rusticana” by Mascagni (2022).

Beginning in 2022, he becomes a soloist of the Romanian National Opera House in Timișoara, where he enriches his repertoire with the roles of Dr. Falke from the operetta “Die Fledermaus” by Strauss and Count Homonay from the operetta “Zigeunerbaron” by Strauss Mihail Dogotari is the laureate of several international competitions, such as “61 Concorso per giovani cantanti lirici d’Europa”, (Como, Italy, 2010, Special Mention), the National Romanian Lied Competition and Festival (Brașov, Romania, 2009, 1st prize) , “MAGDA IANCULESCU” International Masters of Lyric Singing Competition (Bucharest, Romania, 2009, third prize), “Mihail Jora” National Competition (Bucharest, Romania, 2008, first prize).

Peter Donohoe was born in Manchester in 1953. He studied at Chetham’s School of Music for seven years, graduated in music at Leeds University, and went on to study at the Royal Northern College of Music with Derek Wyndham and then in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Yvonne Loriod.

He is acclaimed as one of the foremost pianists of our time, for his musicianship, stylistic versatility and commanding technique.

In recent seasons Donohoe has appeared with Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic and Concert Orchestra, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonia, RTE National Symphony Orchestra, Belarusian State Symphony Orchestra, and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He has undertaken a UK tour with the Russian State Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as giving concerts in many South American and European countries, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Russia, and USA. Other past and future engagements include performances of all three MacMillian piano concertos with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra; a ‘marathon’ recital of Scriabin’s complete piano sonatas at Milton Court; an all-Mozart series at Perth Concert Hall; concertos with the Moscow State Philharmonic Orchestra, St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall; and a residency at the Buxton International Festival.

Donohoe is also in high demand as a jury member for international competitions. He has recently served on the juries at the International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow (2011 and 2015), Busoni International Competition in Bolzano, Italy (2012), Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels (2016), Georges Enescu Competition in Bucharest (2016), Hong Kong International Piano Competition (2016), Harbin Competition (2017 and 2018), Arthur Rubinstein Piano Master Competition (2017), Lev Vlassenko Piano Competition and Festival (2017), Alaska International e-Competition (2018), Concours de Genève Competition (2018)  and Ricardo Viñes International Competition in Lleida, Spain, along with many national competitions both within the UK and abroad.

Donohoe’s most recent discs are two volumes of Mozart Piano Sonatas with SOMM Records. Disc 1 was BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Recording of the Month’ in April 2019; and disc 2 has received high praise from Gramophone Magazine, Classical Ear and Musical Opinion. Other recent discs include Stravinsky: Music for Solo Piano and Piano and Orchestra with the Hong Kong Philharmonic (SOMM); a new recording of Shostakovich’s Piano Concertos and Sonatas with the Orchestra of the Swan, and a disc of Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues (both Signum Records), which was described as ‘thoughtful and poignant’ by The Guardian; a disc of Scriabin Piano Sonatas (SOMM) which was called ‘magnificent’ by the Sunday Times; a recording of Witold Maliszewski’s Piano Concerto in B flat minor with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra conducted by Martin Yates (Dutton Vocalion); and three discs of Prokofiev piano sonatas for SOMM, the third of which was released at the end of April 2016. The first Prokofiev disc was described by Gramophone as ‘devastatingly effective’, declaring Donohoe to be ‘in his element’, and a review in Classical Notes identified Donohoe’s ‘remarkably sensitive approach to even the most virtuosic of repertoire’. His second Prokofiev disc was given 5 stars by BBC Music Magazine, and the third disc was highly praised by The Times, Birmingham Post, and Jessica Duchen. Other recordings include Cyril Scott’s Piano Concerto with the BBC Concert Orchestra and Martin Yates (Dutton Vocalion), and Malcolm Arnold’s Fantasy on a Theme of John Field with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Martin Yates (also Dutton), for which BBC Music Magazine described him as an ‘excellent soloist’, and Gramophone stated that it ‘compelled from start to finish’.

​Donohoe has performed with all the major London orchestras, as well as orchestras from across the world: the Royal Concertgebouw, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Philharmonic, Swedish Radio, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Vienna Symphony and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras. He has also played with the Berliner Philharmoniker in Sir Simon Rattle’s opening concerts as Music Director. He made his twenty-second appearance at the BBC Proms in 2012 and has appeared at many other festivals including six consecutive visits to the Edinburgh Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron in France, and at the Ruhr and Schleswig Holstein Festivals in Germany. In the United States, his appearances have included the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Detroit Symphony Orchestras. Peter Donohoe also performs numerous recitals internationally and continues working with his long-standing duo partner Martin Roscoe, as well as more recent collaborations with artists such as Raphael Wallfisch, Elizabeth Watts and Noriko Ogawa.

Donohoe has worked with many of the world’s greatest conductors: Christoph Eschenbach, Neeme Jarvi, Lorin Maazel, Kurt Masur, Andrew Davis and Yevgeny Svetlanov. More recently he has appeared as soloist with the next generation of excellent conductors: Gustavo Dudamel, Robin Ticciati and Daniel Harding.

​Peter Donohoe is an honorary doctor of music at seven UK universities, and was awarded a CBE for services to classical music in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List.

Mathieu Dubroca was born in 1981. He first studied the bassoon at the Conservatoire of Bordeaux and then graduated as a singer from the Conservatoire of Paris in 2007.

Since then he has been cast in a wide variety of parts ranging from Papageno in The Magic Flute to the Dancaïre in Carmen, Dandini in Cenerentola, Ulisse in Il ritorno d’Ulysse in Patria and Aeneas in Dido and Aeneas, in venues such as Le Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, l’opéra de Rouen, l’opéra de Reims, L’Athénée Louis Jouvet in Paris, various festivals (Festival de la Chaise-Dieu, Festival Berlioz in a Côte-Saint-André).

His experience within the Stadtheater company in Koblenz-Germany, where he was cast as the lead for the German creation of Des Boulingrins by Georges Aperghis, reinforced his taste for the contemporary repertoire which fostered regular collaborations with IRCAM and with musical ensembles such as Le Balcon (directed by Maxime Pascal) and L’itinéraire. He performs music by composers including Michaël Lévinas, Aurélien Dumont, Georges Aperghis, Mauro Lanza.

In 2019 he created the role of Jesus in La Passion selon Saint-Marc by Michaël Levinas in Lausanne, which he then performed at la Philharmonie de Paris with the Paris Chamber Orchestra.

He also enjoys lighter repertoires and works with companies like Les Brigands (Yes!, Les p’tites Michu) and Les Frivolités Parisiennes (Le Petit Duc, Le Diable à Paris, Là-Haut).

His recordings include Fauré’s Requiem as solo baritone with Les Sièclesorchestra and Aedes vocal ensemble, directed by Mathieu Romano (Aparté, 2019) and Le Diable à Paris with Les Frivolités Parisiennes, directed by Dylan Corlay (B-records, 2021).

The world-renowned artist and UNESCO Global Goodwill Ambassador Tan Dun has made an indelible mark on the world’s music scene with a creative repertoire that spans the boundaries of classical music, multimedia performance, and Eastern and Western traditions. A winner of today’s most prestigious honours including the Grammy Award, Oscar/Academy Award, Grawemeyer Award, Bach Prize, Shostakovich Award, Italy’s Golden Lion Award for Lifetime Achievement, and most recently Istanbul Music Festival’s Lifetime achievement award. Tan Dun’s music has been played throughout the world by leading orchestras, opera houses, international festivals, and on radio and television. In 2019, Tan Dun was named as Dean of the Bard College Conservatory of Music. As dean, Tan Dun further demonstrates music’s extraordinary ability to transform lives and guide the Conservatory in fulfilling its mission of understanding music’s connection to history, art, culture, and society.

As a conductor of innovative programmes around the world, his current season includes appearances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. Tan Dun is an Artistic Ambassador of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and serves as the Honorary Artistic director of the China National Symphony, Principal Guest conductor at Shenzhen Symphony, and Honorary Artistic Director and Chief Guest conductor of the Xi´an Symphony Orchestra. Tan Dun has also led the world’s most esteemed orchestras, including London Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Tan Dun’s individual voice has been heard widely by international audiences. His first Internet Symphony, which was commissioned by Google/YouTube, has reached over 23 million people online. His Organic Music Trilogy of Water, Paper and Ceramic has frequented major concert halls and festivals. Paper Concerto was premiered with Los Angeles Philharmonic at the opening of the Walt Disney Hall. His multimedia work, The Map, premiered by YoYo Ma and the Boston Symphony Orchestra, has toured more than 30 countries worldwide. Its manuscript has been collected by the Carnegie Hall Composers Gallery. His Orchestral Theatre IV: The Gate was premiered by Japan’s NHK Symphony Orchestra and crosses the cultural boundaries of Peking Opera, Western Opera and puppet theatre traditions. Most recently, Tan Dun conducted the premiere of his new oratorio epic Buddha Passion at the Dresden Festival with Münchner Philharmoniker, the piece was co-commissioned by New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Dresden Festival and has since had premieres worldwide and will continue with upcoming premieres in London, Hamburg, and Amsterdam. 

Tan Dun records for Sony Classical, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Opus Arte, BIS and Naxos. His recordings have garnered many accolades, including a Grammy Award (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and nomination (The First Emperor; Marco Polo; Pipa Concerto), Japan’s Recording Academy Awards for Best Contemporary Music CD (Water Passion after St. Matthew) and the BBC’s Best Orchestral Album (Death and Fire). Tan Dun’s music is published by G. Schirmer, Inc. and represented worldwide by the Music Sales Group of Classical Companies.

Charles Dutoit received two of the most prestigious honours in the music world: in 2017, the gold medal of the “Royal Philharmonic Society” becoming the 103rd recipient since the medal was founded in 1870 in celebration of the centenary of the birth of Beethoven and more recently, the “Premio una vita nella musica 2022” from the Teatro La Fenice in Venice.

Charles Dutoit was music director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra for 25 years, a partnership known worldwide, of the Orchestre National de France from 1991 to 2001 and of the NHK Symphony of Tokyo from 1996 to 2003, of which he is now conductor emeritus.

Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the London Royal Philharmonic Orchestra between 2009 and 2018, he was principal guest conductor of the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic.

Following an artistic collaboration with the Philadelphia Orchestra that spanned 32 years and more than 700 concerts, he performed every season with the orchestras of Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles and is also a regular guest on the stages in London, Berlin, Paris, Munich, Moscow, Sydney, Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tokyo. He has toured China on 34 occasions.

His more than 200 recordings have garnered multiple awards and distinctions including two Grammys.

When still in his early 20’s, Charles Dutoit was invited by Von Karajan to conduct at the Vienna State Opera. He has since conducted at Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Deutsche Oper in Berlin, the Rome Opera and Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires.

In 2014, he was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Classical Music Awards and in 2017, the gold medal of the city of Lausanne, his birth place.

A globetrotter motivated by his passion for history and archaeology, political science, art and architecture, he has traveled in all 196 nations of the world.

WE BUILD BRIDGES.

“Rostislav Krimer and the East-West Chamber Orchestra deliver exceptionally fine performances of these two works. I was particularly impressed by the quality of string playing in the extremely taxing Second Chamber Symphony, not least the capacity of these performers to create a real sense of mystery in the many passages which Weinberg marks to be played treble pianissimo.” – Gramophone

“The 2nd and 4th chamber symphonies, urgently performed here by Rotislav Krimer’s East-West Chamber Orchestra, judder with nervous energy and frustrated ambition… The 4th, from 1992, is damn-near irresistible.” – Norman Lebrecht. The critic

The Orchestra-For-Peace East-West Chamber Orchestra (EWCO) brings together outstanding performers in their own right – winners of the most prestigious competitions worldwide, including the Tchaikovsky, ARD, Queen Elisabeth, Long-Thibaud, Paganini and concertmasters and leaders of renowned orchestras, who hold in their hands most rare instruments including Stradivari, Guarneri-del-Gesu, Guadagnini and Goffriller. This rare combination gives the East-West Chamber Orchestra its distinguished sound.

Residing in the Beethoven-City Bonn in Germany it was founded by Rostislav Krimer in 2015 and was for more than 5 years the orchestra-in-residence of the Yuri Bashmet International Music Festival. Since 2023 EWCO named the orchestra-in-residence at the East-West-Festival in Germany.

The Orchestra understands itself as an ambassador for transnational collaboration, Peace and cultural interaction across Europe and beyond.

The pool of the East-West Chamber Orchestra include best soloists from Germany, Italy, France, Czech Republic, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Spain, Croatia, UK, USA as well as Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Israel, Japan, China, Turkey, Australia and many others in order to strengthen the bonds and cultural co-operations between Eastern- and Western Europe and all over the world.

East-West Chamber Orchestra takes part regularly in charity events for children, collecting funds for medical equipment in hospitals and working closely with UNICEF. It was the first orchestra in the history to play by Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, who admitted the work of the orchestra as Ambassador of Peace.

Patrons of the orchestra include such great names as Sofia Gubaidulina, Evgeny Kissin, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Julian Rachlin, John Axelrod, Mihai Constantinescu among others.

The East-West Chamber Orchestra is an active promoter of contemporary music and new
repertoire. Recently, the releases of M. Weinberg all 4 Chamber Symphonies by Naxos collected best critics from all over the world as well as was nominated among others for International Classical Music Awards and Opus Classic. EWCO also committed pieces by renowned composers for world premieres. Their performances were broadcasted by Medici.TV as well as numerous TV channels and radio around the globe.

The orchestra collaborated with best soloists like Paul Badura-Skoda, Fazil Say, David Geringas, Julian Rachlin, Yuri Bashmet, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Sergey Krylov, Alexander Knyazev, Ksenija Sidorova, Vivian Hagner, Leticia Moreno among many others. In 2021 EWCO also successfully made debut at the Enescu Festival what resulted re-invitation in 2023.

They are also experts in creating new exceptional projects such as for example “The Classical Night in Underground”, when a metro station transforming into a real concert hall with stage, lights, lasers and projection only in couple of hours which became an annual event crossing with fashion, sport, art, ballet on one stage. Also, regular collaboration of the orchestra with winners of Worldand Europe- Championships of rhythmic gymnastics is an example of such exclusive activities.

Founded in 1976 by Pierre Boulez, with the support of Michel Guy (then Minister of Culture) and the collaboration of Nicholas Snowman, Ensemble Intercontemporain is dedicated to 20th-21st century music.

United by the same passion for creation, the Ensemble’s 31 soloists – under the new direction of conductor Pierre Bleuse – work in close collaboration with composers, exploring instrumental techniques and developing projects that interweave music, dance, theater, film, video and visual arts.   

In collaboration with IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), the Ensemble Intercontemporain remains very active in the field of synthetic sound generation.

The Ensemble is also renowned for its strong emphasis on music education: concerts for kids, creative workshops for students, training programs for future performers, conductors and composers, to whom new pieces are regularly commissioned and performed each year.

Resident of the Philharmonie de Paris, the Ensemble performs and records in France and abroad, taking part in major festivals worldwide. In 2022, the Ensemble was awarded the prestigious Polar Music Prize.

The Ensemble is financed by the Ministry of Culture and receives additional support from the Paris City Council.

In Greek mythology, Zephyr – ZEFIRO in Italian – was the gentle, kind god of the West Wind. In 1989 oboists Alfredo Bernardini and Paolo Grazzi and bassoonist Alberto Grazzi, members of some of the most outstanding Baroque orchestras, founded ZEFIRO, a versatile music group specialising in the eighteenth-century repertoire that gives particular prominence to wind instruments.

Since then, ZEFIRO has performed at many major European festivals, including those of Amsterdam, Aranjuez, Barcelona, Bonn,  Geneva, Graz, Helsinki, Innsbruck, London, Liege, Lyons, Malmö, Manchester, Milan, Munich, Palma de Mallorca, Paris, Potsdam, Prague, Ravenna, Regensburg, Rome, Salzburg, Stuttgart, Stresa, Utrecht and Vienna. They have also played in Israel, Egypt, Japan, Korea, USA, Canada, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Brazil and have always received enthusiastic responses from both audiences and the press.

In 1999 Zefiro has realized a documentary-film on Antonio Vivaldi for the Belgian broadcasting company RTBF. ZEFIRO’s recordings include the six Sonatas for two oboes and bassoon by Jan Dismas Zelenka, the complete works for wind ensemble of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and their own arrangements for 12 winds and a double bass of excerpts from the three Mozart operas to librettos by Lorenzo da Ponte, Concertos for oboe, bassoon and strings and Concerti per vari strumenti by Antonio Vivaldi as part of the project by Opus/Naïve for the complete recording of Music by this composer from the University Library of Turin. 

The ensemble has also rehabilitated two remarkable composers of the late eighteenth century, Georg Druschetzky and Luigi Gatti, and its recording of Handel’s Water Music and Telemann’s Wassermusik has established ZEFIRO’s reputation also as a Baroque orchestra. 

Also the recordings for the label Deutsche Harmonia Mundi/Sony Bmg that include wind music by L.v.Beethoven, the Divertimenti for winds and strings by W.A.Mozart, “The Musick for the Royal Fireworks” by G.F.Handel and “Concerti & Ouverture” by J.F.Fasch.

More recent recordings all published to the “Arcana” label include the concerts for bassoon by Vivaldi, the Ouvertures by Telemann, the Venetian concerts for oboe, the CD “Harmonie & Turcherie”, the Bach Ouvertures/Suites and the Brandenburg Concertos.

All these CDs have received several international awards, including the coveted Grand Prix du Disque, the “Premio Nazionale Classic Voice” and the “Choc du Monde de la Musique de l’année 2007, the ’Editor’s Choice di Gramophone, the “Diapason d’Or de l’année 2009”, the “Premio Franco Abbiati 2016”; ZEFIRO is now a reference worldwide, famed for its virtuoso performances of the wind repertoire on period instruments. 

Zefiro’s activity is divided into three formations: chamber ensemble, wind group (“Harmonie”) and baroque orchestra to cover a vast part of the baroque repertoire from vivaldi Concertos to Handel Operas, from Bach Cantatas and Haydn Masses to wind music by Mozart, Rossini and Beethoven. 

Europa Galante was formed in 1989 out of the desire of its artistic director, Fabio Biondi, to create an Italian instrumental ensemble for interpretations of the great baroque and classical repertoire on period instruments. The discovery of ancient music was then exclusively the domain of musicians of northern Europe, and the need for a uniquely Italian review of this repertoire was at the heart of the formation of the ensemble.

Europa Galante achieved great success early on with the release of its first recording of the concertos of Antonio Vivaldi (Cini Award in Venice, Choc de la Musique in France). From the outset, the ensemble was praised for its ability to “bring something truly new and vital to repertoires that are often performed, illuminating paths already widely traced with intimate modulations, articulated with expressiveness” (Gramophone).

In the following years, the new and unique character of Europa Galante was underlined by a growing list of important recording awards, including numerous Diapason d’Or and Choc du Monde de la Musique prizes, several BBC editor’s choices, RTL awards and three Grammy Awards nominations.

But above all, the ensemble became widely known for its performances in the world’s most important opera theatres and concert halls including Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Royal Albert Hall in London, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, Boulez-Saal in Berlin, Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York (where the group was reviewed by The New York Times as “characterised by dynamism and refinement”), Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and Sydney Opera House. Major festival performances have included BBC Proms in London, Edinburgh International Festival, Baalbeck Festival in Lebanon, as well as important festivals in Asia including the Spring Festival at the National Center of Performing Arts in Beijing, Hong Kong Arts Festival and other performances in the region such as Suntory Hall in Tokyo, Shanghai Concert Hall and Lotte Hall in Seoul. Europa Galante performs on all continents.

In addition to the rediscovery of the most famous works of the Italian baroque repertoire, such as their revolutionary interpretation of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons which has garnered mythical status, Europa Galante has also been involved in the recovery of hidden treasures of the 1700s. In Italy, the ensemble collaborated with the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in the reconstruction of oratorios by Antonio Caldara, Leonardo Leo and Gian Francesco de Mayo, as well as Scarlatti’s works such as Carlo Re d’Allemagna, Il Trionfo dell’Onore and Massimo Puppieno.

This research work has been widely recognised and awarded. In 2002, Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante received the Abbiati Award from Italian music critics for their concert activity as a whole and for the performance of Il Trionfo dell’Onore.
Again in 2008 Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante, together with Compagnia Colla, were awarded the Abbiati special prize for “Filemone e Bauci” by Haydn, for the originality and value of the rediscovery of this work, which they were able to restore to its full instrumental and vocal splendour.

But the curiosity of Fabio Biondi and Europa Galante goes further, crossing the limit of the baroque and the classical styles. In 2001 the group made its first foray into the bel canto repertoire with a performance of Bellini’s “Norma” on original instruments for the Verdi Festival. Despite the uproar that it aroused from the Parma gallery fans, this Norma marked the beginning of a path of re-reading, both at a musicological and organic level, of Italian nineteenth-century music.

Collaborations with Europa Galante on this exciting journey have included the Rieti Festival with titles such as “I Capuleti e I Montecchi” by Bellini and “Anna Bolena” by Donizetti, and the Bremen Festival with “La Cenerentola” by Rossini. But above all one of the most important festivals in Europe, the Chopin Festival, has since 2016 supported the orchestra in all its projects of rediscovery of the bel canto repertoire such as Bellini, Donizetti and also Verdi with the operas “Macbeth” and “Il Corsaro”. In Warsaw, Europa Galante also regularly performs works by the well-known Polish composer Stanislaw Moniuszko – “Halka”, “Flis”, “Hrabina” – and in August 2021 the ensemble will perform “Verbum Nobile” together with Donizetti’s playful drama “Betly”.

Europa Galante is made up of musicians who, together with and under the guidance of Fabio Biondi, have achieved through years of work and mutual understanding a common vision and passion for what they do. “More than a common orchestra, Europa Galante looks like a multi-register guitar or harp struck by Biondi’s master hand” (Amadeus), and The New York Times recognied that “the musicianship is of such high order that it seems unfair to single individual players for praise”.

This sense of mutual understanding has led to Europa Galante’s increasing chamber music activities which ranges from the Italian sonatas of the 700 to the quintets of Luigi Boccherini, and most recently the unpublished quartets of the Milanese Carlo Monza performed to critical acclaim at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2019.

After the painful hiatal due to the global pandemic of Covid-19, Europa Galante will resume its activities in the 21/22 season with various projects including touring Monteverdi’s Orfeo to the Theater an der Wien and the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, a chamber music program by Haydn in Italy (Rome, Turin, Verona and Florence) and Vivaldi’s opera “Argippo”, recently recorded for the new Naïve discography Company, in Asia.
Europa Galante is resident at the Teatro Due Foundation in Parma with which it collaborates cyclically on staging projects.

Raluca Știrbăț was born in Iași, started studying piano at the “Octav Băncilă” Art High School, and after a year of study at the “George Enescu” Academy of Music she was admitted first to the Universität für Musik in Vienna (Jürg von Vintschger class), where she graduated with the renowned Solistendiplom and the title Magister Artium.

Raluca Știrbăț made her debut at the age of ten with the “Moldova” Philharmonic in Iași, under the baton of Ion Baciu. She went on to perform with most of the country’s symphony orchestras under the batons of conductors Cristian Mandeal, Emanuel Elenescu, Emil Simon, Ludovic Bacs, Paul Popescu, Camil Marinescu, Gheorghe Costin, Nayden Todorov. She has performed on the most important stages in Austria (Konzerthaus, Musikverein, Sala Mare Radio, Yamahasaal, Mozarteum Salzburg, Stefaniensaal Graz) and has given concerts in Europe, USA, Japan.

She has made numerous record label and radio printings, including Enescu’s complete works for piano (Hänssler classic, 2015) and for cello and piano (with Rudolf Leopold, Paladino music, 2021), “Gramol” (2011, 2013), “Music minus one” (USA), Radio Zürich, Hungaroton (Budapest), ORF (Radio Austria). She is the winner of first prizes at numerous national and international competitions, including Sanremo Classico and Stefano Marizza (Italy), Virtuosi per musica di pianoforte (Czech Republic), Lira de oro trophy (Suceava). Her recordings are broadcast in Austria (ORF, Radio Klassik Stephansdom), Switzerland (Radio Zürich, Suisse Romande, Radio Swiss Classic, Radio Svizzera Italiana), Romania, Hungary.

Raluca Știrbăț is the founder of the International George Enescu Society in Vienna, the pianist is also active in the field of musicology and pedagogy (PhD lecturer at UNAGE Iași). We note here the German translation of Enescu’s masterpieces by Pascal Bentoiu (George Enescu. Meisterwerke, Frank & Timme, Berlin, 2015) or the Urtext edition of Enescu’s piano scores (Grafoart Publishing House, 2016). Last year, the pianist published the author’s volume George Enescu – Creația pentru pian [George Enescu – The Creation for Piano] (Editura Muzicală, 2022), appreciated by personalities of Romanian musical life as “a major achievement and a reference for Romanian musicology”.

Raluca Știrbăț is the initiator of the campaign to save the Enescu House in Mihăileni, and for her exceptional artistic merits and social commitment she has been awarded the titles “Messenger of Integration” (Austrian Ministry of the Interior, 2013), “Centenary Order” (Municipality of Iași, 2018) and Honorary Member of the Pro Patrimonio Foundation (2014).

CIPRIAN ŢUŢU

 A conductor of the Romanian Radio Academic Choir since 2016, Ciprian Țuțu has set as a goal to diversify and modernize the ensemble’s repertoire. He has performed in various artistic events, from opera shows to a cappella, accompaniment and symphony music concerts, together with renowned Romanian and foreign orchestras. In 2015 he has won a scholarship from the Transilvania University in Brașov and attended the International Conducting and Choral Masterclass – Sarteano (Italy), where he studied with Simon Carrington (Yale University, USA, a founder of the vocal sextet The King’s Singers), Brian O’Connell (Boston University, USA) and Bronislawa Falinska (Padua Music Conservatory, Italy).

Andrei Feher has already earned a reputation for his musical maturity and integrity, natural authority on the podium, and an imaginative and intelligent approach to programming. At the age of 26 Feher was appointed as the new Music Director of the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, a position which is effective from August 2018.

Having gained early experience as assistant to Fabien Gabel at the Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, at the age of 22 Feher joined the Orchestre de Paris as Assistant Conductor to its Music Director, Paavo Järvi. During this time he collaborated with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Valery Gergiev, Christoph von Dohnányi, Thomas Hengelbrock and Jaap van Zweden, as well as regularly conducting the orchestra in their popular Young Public concerts at the Philharmonie de Paris.

In addition to his commitments with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra, recent and upcoming highlights include performances with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Orquesta sinfonica RTVE Madrid, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, Les Violons du Roy, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, Orchestre National d’Ile de France, Orchestre Métropolitain Montreal and Romanian Radio National Orchestra.

A strong advocate of contemporary music, Feher has recently performed works by Eric Champagne, Pierre Mercure, George Dimitrov, Ciprian Pop and Abigail Richardson, as well as the world premiere of Thierry Besancon’s opera for children Les Zoocrates with Opéra de Lausanne. In November 2015, Feher conducted the world premiere of Soleil Noir by Pierre Jodlowski with the Orchestre de Pau-Béarn, which resulted in an immediate invitation to conduct the work in Toulouse in November 2016.

Till Fellner’s international career began in 1993 with the 1st prize at the renowned Concours Clara Haskil in Vevey (Switzerland). Since then, he has been a sought-after guest at the major orchestras and the major music centres of Europe, the USA and Japan, as well as at numerous festivals.

As soloist he performs with orchestras like Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra and NHK Symphony Orchestra.

Till Fellner has collaborated with Claudio Abbado, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Manfred Honeck, Sir Charles Mackerras, Sir Neville Marriner, Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano, Jonathan Nott, Kirill Petrenko, Hans Zender among many others.

In the field of chamber music, Till Fellner regularly collaborates with violinist Viviane Hagner, tenor Mark Padmore and the Belcea Quartet. In spring 2023 he will be touring Japan with German mezzo-soprano Anna Lucia Richter.

Over the past few years, he has dedicated himself to two milestones of the piano repertoire: The Well-Tempered Clavier of Johann Sebastian Bach and the 32 piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. He performed the Beethoven cycle from 2008 to 2010 in New York, Washington, Tokyo, London, Paris, and Vienna. Till Fellner has premiered works by Kit Armstrong, Harrison Birtwistle, Thomas Larcher, Alexander Stankovski and Hans Zender.

The ECM label, for whom Till Fellner is an exclusive recording artist, has released the First Book of the Well Tempered Clavier and the Two & Three-Part Inventions of J. S. Bach, Beethoven’s Piano Concertos Nos. 4 & 5 with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra and Kent Nagano, chamber music by Harrison Birtwistle and in 2018 a CD “Till Fellner in concert” with live recordings of works by Liszt and Beethoven. In 2016 Alpha Classics released the recording of the piano quintet by J. Brahms with the Belcea Quartet, this recording received the “Diapason d’Or de l’Année”.

In his native Vienna, Till Fellner studied with Helene Sedo-Stadler before going on to study privately with Alfred Brendel, Meira Farkas, Oleg Maisenberg, and Claus-Christian Schuster.

He has taught at the Zurich Hochschule der Künste since 2013.

In 2019 he was jury president at the 62nd Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano.

Founded in 2008 by the will of the professors of the Bologna Theatre Orchestra, the Filarmonica del Teatro Comunale di Bologna has been offering concert cycles at the Teatro Auditorium Manzoni in Bologna since its inception, in collaboration with the best international artists and performers, immediately establishing it as one of the most important Italian realities and always recording sold-out performances. Since 2020, thanks to an agreement with the Fondazione TCBO, our concerts are included in the Symphonic Season of the Teatro Comunale, also at the Teatro Auditorium Manzoni.

Over the years, the Philharmonic has collaborated with soloists such as Ivo Pogorelich, Philippe Entremont, Alexander Lonquich, Louis Lortie, Daniil Trifonov,Alexander Romanovsky, Alexander Malofeev, Misha Maisky, Kian Soltani, Gidon Kremer, Sarah Chang, Julian Rachlin, Sergej Krilov, Baiba Skride, under the baton of Sir Neville Marriner, Gerd Albrecht, Mikhail Pletnev, Alexander Vedernikov, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Henrik Nánási, Ion Marin, Roberto Abbado, Michele Mariotti. Always attentive to young talent, she was responsible for the success of the young conductor Aziz Shokhakimov.

Active in the recording field, she boasts a valuable collaboration with the Deutsche Grammophone label. We recall the two CDs, winners of the 2009 and 2013 ECHO KLASSIK prize, recorded with the prestigious German label, starring mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča: Bel Canto, conductor Roberto Abbadoand Romantique, conductor Yves Abel.

From 2014 to 2018, the Philharmonic was invited to Japan every year, performing in Kyoto, Nagoya, Yokohama, Nara, Himeji, Shizuoka, Kumamoto, and guests several times in Tokyo at the prestigious Suntory Hall and Orchard Hall concert halls.

For the three-year period 2022/2024, the Principal Conductor is Roberto Abbado.

She debuted the role of Varvara (L. Janacek’s Kata Kabanova), the role of Marcellina (W.A.Mozart’s Nozze di Figaro), the role of Dryade (R. Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos) and the role of Maddalena (G. Verdi’s Rigoletto) at Theater Ulm. June 2022 she made her debut as Laura in G. Verdi’s Luisa Miller at Teatro Comunale in Bologna under the conduction of Daniel Oren and she will be Dryade at Teatro della Pergola (Florence, Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino) in R. Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos, under the conduction of M. Daniele Gatti. July 2022 she will be Tisbe in G. Rossini’s La Cenerentola in Switzerland for TICINOMusica, under the artistic direction of Umberto Finazzi and Daniele Piscopo, and August 2022 she recorded A. Stradella’s Moro per Amore with M. Andrea De Carlo and Ensemble MareNostrum. Semifinalist of the 5th International Competition “Eva Marton” in Budapest, in September 2022 she sang R. Wagner’s Wesendonck Lieder at Teatro Comunale Pavarotti-Freni in Modena, and between September and October 2022 she debuted the role of Marta and cover the role of Pantalis in A. Boito’s Mefistofele at Teatro Comunale Pavarotti-Freni in Modena and at Teatro Municipale in Piacenza. October 2022 she also debuted the role of alto solo in G. Mahler’s Third Symphony at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the conduction of M. Zubin Mehta and in November she made her debut as Dritte Edelknabe in R. Wagner’s Lohengrin at Teatro Comunale di Bologna. December 2022 she was back in Florence for L. V. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, under the conduction of M. Daniele Gatti. 

January 2023 she  performed a Baroque recital in Stockholm at Istituto Italiano di Cultura and later  she made her debut as La Volpe in P. Valtinoni’s contemporary opera Il Piccolo Principe. March 2023 she  debuted the role of Mercedes in G. Bizet’s Carmen at Teatro Sociale D. Cajelli in Busto Arsizio, while May  2023 she will debut the role of Emilia in G. Verdi’s Otello at Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under the conduction of M. Zubin Mehta. Between august and December 2023 and January 2024 she will be Dritte Dame in W. A. Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte always at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

The Fine Arts Quartet, “one of the gold-plated names in chamber music” (Washington Post), ranks among the most distinguished ensembles in chamber music today, with an illustrious history of performing success and an extensive legacy of over 200 recorded works. Founded in Chicago in 1946, the Quartet is one of the elite few to have recorded and toured internationally for over three quarters of a century. 

The Quartet’s renowned violinists, Ralph Evans (prizewinner in the International Tchaikovsky Competition) and Efim Boico (former concertmaster of the Orchestre de Paris under Barenboim) have performed together for 40 years. They are joined with two eminent musicians: violist Gil Sharon (founder of the Amati Ensemble), and cellist Niklas Schmidt (co-founder of the Trio Fontenay).  

Many of the Quartet’s latest releases have been selected for inclusion on Grammy® Awards entry lists in the categories “Best Classical Album” and/or “Best Chamber Music Performance” and have received multiple awards and distinctions, among them: “Gramophone award-winner” and “recording of legendary status” (Gramophone Classical Music Guide), “Key Recording/Top Recommendation” (Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music), “Editor’s Choice” (Gramophone Magazine), “Critic’s Choice” (American Record Guide) [2 times], BBC Music Magazine Choice”, “Recording of the Year” [3 times] (MusicWeb International), and a Grammy® Award for producer Steven Epstein (Fauré Quintets with Cristina Ortiz),  The Quartet also received the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, given jointly by Chamber Music America and the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers. The Quartet’s 3 most recent recordings (Mozart, Enescu, Dvorak) will be released by Naxos in 2023. 

The Quartet members have nurtured many of today’s top young international quartets while teaching at the Sorkin International Institute of Chamber Music in Milwaukee and serving as guest professors at major conservatories in Paris, London, New York, Beijing, Hamburg, and music festivals all over the world. 

Lawrence Foster celebrates his seventh year as Music Director of Opéra de Marseille in the 2019/20 season, as well as his first as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Known for his exhilarating and expressive performances in a wide range of music, he enjoys a major career spanning the US, Europe and Asia. As a champion of the music of Enescu, his interpretations are renowned for their faithfulness to the score: “Lawrence Foster seems to have been put on this planet to conduct Enescu’s music. He is clearly a true believer and he understands every technical nuance and every expressive twist and turn” – The Telegraph.

He begins his tenure with the National Polish Radio Symphony at the prestigious Enescu Festival, performing music by Adrian Pop, Chopin and Lutosławski. During the season he conducts the complete Schumann symphonies, the piano concertos of Liszt, Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette and a concert performance of Ravel’s L’heure espagnole. He takes part in Beethoven’s 250th anniversary year with the Third and Ninth symphonies, and conducts repertoire ranging from Vivaldi, Mozart and Mendelssohn to Tchaikovsky, Enescu and Bartók. He also conducts Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in a gala celebrating the 60th anniversary of Debüt im Deutschlandfunk Kultur, and Luzerner Sinfonieorchester in a Saint-Saëns Festival, featuring all the composer’s piano concertos.

Foster’s opera season opens at Opéra de Marseille with Die Zauberflöte. As a guest conductor he returns to Oper Frankfurt for Britten’s Peter Grimes and to Opéra de Monte-Carlo for Kurt Weill’s Street Scene. He has conducted in major opera houses around the world, with highlights including Troilus and Cressida at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, recorded for EMI, the first performance of Berg’s Lulu at Houston Opera, Enescu’s Oedipe at the Deutsche Oper, also recorded for EMI, and the opening performance of the newly created Los Angeles Opera with Plácido Domingo and Sherrill Milnes in Verdi’s Otello.

Following his successful ten-year tenure as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra, he now serves as its Conductor Laureate. He toured extensively with the orchestra, and their discography together includes a number of recordings for Pentatone Classics, including highly acclaimed recordings of Verdi’s Otello and violin works by Bruch, Chausson and Korngold with Arabella Steinbacher. He has also held music directorships with the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona, Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo, Houston Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orchestre et Opéra National de Montpellier and the Aspen Festival Music School.

He has worked with orchestras including Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Copenhagen Phil, Helsinki Philharmonic and Czech Philharmonic orchestras, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Filarmonica Arturo Toscanini of Parma, among others.

In addition to recordings with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, he has received praise for a number of recordings with Pentatone including the early symphonies of Schubert with the Copenhagen Philharmonic, Strauss’ Zigeunerbaron and Die Fledermaus with NDR Radiophilharmonic, and the Martinů Double Concertos.

Born in Los Angeles to Romanian parents, Foster served as Artistic Director of the Georg Enescu Festival from 1998 to 2001. In 2003 he was decorated by the Romanian President for services to Romanian Music.

Bass-baritone Andrew Foster-Williams enjoys a vibrant career on both the opera and concert stage and a vocal versatility that allows him to present repertoire ranging from the classics of Bach, Gluck, Handel and Mozart through to more recent masters such as Britten, Debussy, Stravinsky and Wagner.

Andrew Foster-Williams’ career, initially built on his strong Baroque credentials, has in recent seasons found a new dramatic direction with successes as Pizarro (Fidelio) at Theater an der Wien and Philharmonie de Paris, and an unanimously praised debut as Telramund in Wagner’s Lohengrin under esteemed conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Festival de Lanaudière. A subsequent portrayal of Captain Balstrode in Christoph Loy’s divisive production of Peter Grimes at Theater an der Wien, alongside acclaimed performances as Nick Shadow (The Rake’s Progress), Donner (Das Rheingold) and Gunther (Götterdämmerung) have further enhanced an already highly regarded operatic profile. Other recent role debuts as Lysiart in Christof Loy’s new staging of Euryanthe at Theater an der Wien under Constantin Trinks and as Kurnewal in Tristan und Isolde at La Monnaie under Alain Altinoglu highlight a dramatic capacity that has earned the respect of many stage directors as he “holds the attention of the audience with the energy of someone who has great experience, and with sensational vocal ability, which he uses with total freedom…” (Opéra).

Praised for his facility in the French operatic repertoire, recent roles include Golaud (Pelléas et Mélisande), his debut as Escamillo in Kasper Holten’s spectacular staging of Carmen on the floating stage in Bregenz, as well as specially curated performances at Opéra National de Bordeaux to mark the 400th anniversary of the death of Cervantes and featuring music from Ravel’s Don Quichotte à Dulcinée and Massenet’s Don Quichotte under Marc Minkowski. He made his house debut at Opernhaus Zürich in 2021 as the Four Villains in Andreas Homoki’s new setting of Les contes d’Hoffmann under the baton of Antonino Fogliani and last season reprised those roles in Barrie Kosky’s fantastical staging at Komische Oper Berlin. As a regular guest on the Opéra français series of the Palazzetto Bru Zane label, recent CD releases include Joncières’ Dimitri, Gounod’s Cinq-Mars, Saint-Saëns’ Proserpine, winner of Best Opera 2018 at the International Classical Music Awards and, most recently, Gounod’s Faust, winner of the Opera of the 19th Century category at the Opus Klassik 2020 awards.

Boasting an extensive discography, other commercial releases include Beethoven’s Cantata on the Death of Emperor Joseph II with the San Francisco Symphony (Tilson Thomas) released on SFSMedia, and The Seasons with the Gabrieli Consort and Players (McCreesh) released on Signum and shortlisted for the 2017 Gramophone Awards. Performances captured on DVD include the Gramophone Award winning The Fairy Queen with Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Christie). 

An impressive line-up of concert invitations has taken Andrew Foster-Williams to the most celebrated orchestras and conductors of our day. These include The Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst, Salzburg Mozarteum with Ivor Bolton, San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra with Richard Egarr, Hong Kong Philharmonic under Edo de Waart, the Gulbenkian Orchestra with Lorenzo Viotti and the Sibelius Festival with Dalia Stasevska.  Foster-Williams offers a concert repertoire as diverse as it is broad which includes Bach’s St Matthew Passion, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9, Britten’s War Requiem, Schönberg’s Gurrelieder, Janáček’s Glagolitic Mass and Mahler’s Symphony No.8.

Highlights of the 2022/23 season include a new production of Les contes d’Hoffmann at Göteborgs Operan under Sébastien Rouland, Dvořák’s Stabat Mater with Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra under Kazushi Ono and a recording of The dream of Gerontius with Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh.

Paulina Francisco is a versatile singer and interpreter of early modern music. She has performed with early music ensembles throughout the U.S. and Canada, including the Washington Bach Consort, Chapelle du Québec, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Bach Akademie Charlotte, TENET Vocal Artists, and the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra. Paulina was a finalist in the 2022 Aria Borealis Bodø Competition (Bodø, Norway), and the 2021 Handel Aria Competition (Madison, WI). 

Paulina is passionate about building stronger connections between research and performance. She has presented interdisciplinary research on the 17th-century trillo at the 2022 International Medieval and Renaissance, Spheres of Singing, and IU Historical Performance Conferences. Paulina’s research interests encompass 17th century monody and chamber music, early voice training, and the education and music making of early modern women. Her Master’s thesis “The Virtuosi of Ferrara: The Concerto delle Donne 1580-1601,” including a modern edition of Luzzasco Luzzaschi’s Madrigali (1601), and her recently completed DM dissertation, “The 17th Century Trillo: Historical Practice for the 21st Century Singer,” are available on ProQuest. 

Paulina holds advanced degrees in voice and historical performance from Indiana University, the University of Southern California, and Carroll University, and is currently based in Montréal, QC.

Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang was born in Oslo and studied the violin at the city’s Barratt Due Institute of Music and with Kolja Blacher at Hamburg’s University of Music and Theatre. She also received help and encouragement from Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy. She was still only twelve when Mariss Jansons invited her to appear as a soloist with the Oslo Philharmonic. A scholarship from the Friends of the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation allowed her to start out on an international career at an early age. Important debuts include her first appearance with the Vienna Philharmonic under Bernard Haitink at the 2012 Lucerne Festival and her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle in 2016. In the meantime she has performed with leading orchestras all over the world, including not only the ones already mentioned but also the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester of Berlin, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Liverpool Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Pittsburgh Orchestra at the Mostly Mozart Festival at New York’s Lincoln Center. Among the conductors with whom she has worked are not only Rattle, Jansons and Haitink but also Herbert Blomstedt, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Iván Fischer, Sakari Oramo, Jakub Hrůša, Vladimir Jurowski, Manfred Honeck, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Daniel Harding, Semyon Bychkov, David Zinman, Sir Antonio Pappano, Lahav Shani, Paavo Järvi and Yuri Temirkanov. She plays a Guarneri del Gesù violin from 1734 that is on loan to her. She made her debut with the Bayerisches Staatsorchester in 2019 performing Korngold’s Violin Concerto, following this up in 2023 with Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor under the direction of Zubin Mehta. In September 2023 she will be touring Europe with the orchestra and performing Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto.

The Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra has been a permanent performer of the classical music scene’s international elite for more than half a century; thus they are rightly known as one of the best representatives of the chamber music genre. The orchestra is led by Péter Tfirst since 2016 and year after year performs in the most significant concert halls with first-class soloists, who delights in working with an orchestra due to their high degree of precision, versatility, and adaptability.

The orchestra was founded in 1963 by former students of the Franz Liszt Music Academy. During this half a century – under the leadership of firstly, Frigyes Sándor and subsequently János Rolla – the orchestra has gained an international recognition: they have performed in more than fifty countries; including the Carnegie Hall in New York, the Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Sydney Opera House, the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, and the Théatre de la Ville in Paris.

The recent years abounded with outstanding concerts: the band performed at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, the Musikverein in Vienna, the Victora Hall in Geneva and the Heydar Aliyev in Baku, and also played at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival and the Gstaad Menuhin Festival. They visited the world-famous National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing and were invited to one of the most prestigious festivals of Asia: the Chine-Shanghai International Arts Festival.

They opened the Liszt Year 2011 as well as of the Hungarian EU presidency at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid where the concert was visited by Juan Carlos I, King of Spain, and his wife Sofia as well. Besides the highly acclaimed German and Italian tours the orchestra gave a series of concerts in South America in 2013, and in Japan in 2014.

The band recently played with such outstanding soloists as Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Isaac Stern, Yehudi Menuhin, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Martha Argerich, Julia Fischer, Vadim Repin, András Schiff, Emmanuel Pahud, Vadim Gluzman, Denis Matsuev, Mischa Maisky, Maxim Vengerov, Ilya Gringolts, David Fray, Denis Bouriakov, Júlia Pusker, Gábor Boldoczki and Gábor Takács-Nagy. In 2016, the Deutsche Grammophon released their album as a joint venture with Ödön Rácz, which was unanimously recognized internationally by the critics.

Since 2016 the orchestra is led by concertmaster Péter Tfirst, the orchestra continued to perform both at home and around the world with the usual high level of artistic interpretation and the unique Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra sound. At the beginning of 2020, both in Hungary and abroad, the news spread on István Várdai, the world-famous cellist joining the orchestra as art director to form a new artistic concept and to help in professional training.

The Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra is proud to be the national orchestra of Hungary, and to represent and promote Hungarian culture throughout the world.

Lorenzo Fratini, born in Prato in 1973, graduated in composition, polyphonic vocal composition, choral music and choir conducting, orchestration and clarinet at the Conservatories of Bologna, Ferrara, Florence and Milan. He has attended various courses in conducting led by Gustav Kuhn, Gianluigi Gelmetti and Piero Bellugi and choral conducting with Roberto Gabbiani, Fabio Lombardo, Andrew Lawrence King and Diego Fasolis.

He has conducted various concerts with the Orchestra Regionale Toscana, Radio Orchestra of Bucharest, the Orchestra of the Opera in Cluj-Napoca, the Orchestra of the Teatro Olimpico of Vicenza, the Orchestra of the Teatro Verdi of Trieste and the Orchestra of the Teatro Comunale di Bologna. After a brief period at the Teatro Carlo Fenice of Genoa, from 2004 to 2010 he was choirmaster of the Fondazione Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi of Trieste and from 2011 to 2012 choirmaster of the Teatro Comunale of Bologna, where he conducted the orchestra and choir in Peer Gynt and Mendelssohn’s Ein Sommernachtstraum for Bologna Estate 2011.

He was invited several times as chorus master by the National Academy of Santa Cecilia in Rome, and has been Chorus Master for two summers at the Rossini Opera Festival, collaborating in the production of Mosè in Egitto, that won the Premio Abbiati. He has worked with distinguished conductors including Daniel Oren, Lorin Maazel, Christoph Eschenbach, Wayne Marshall, Nello Santi, Pinchas Steinberg, Roberto Abbado, Nicola Luisotti and Daniele Gatti. He conducted in world premieres music by Fabio Vacchi, Giampaolo Coral, Randall Meyers, Tan Dun and Arvo Pärt. Since January 2013 he is Choir Director of the Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

Recently he conducted the Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in the two inaugural concerts of the new Auditorium of the Teatro del Maggio.

Described by the German newspaper Die Welt as a “perfect example of a thinking musician” and lauded by the New York Times for his “musically refined and technically elegant performances,” pianist David Fray is acclaimed for his interpretations of music from Bach to Boulez, performing in the world’s major venues as a recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician.

He has collaborated with leading conductors, among them Semyon Bychkov, Christoph Eschenbach, Paavo Järvi, Kurt Masur, Riccardo Muti, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin, appearing with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bavarian Radio Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, and Orchestre National de France. In the US, he has appeared with the Cleveland Orchestra, Boston Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, and Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has played recitals at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and Chicago’s Symphony Center and performs regularly at the Vienna Konzerthaus, Mozarteum Salzburg, London’s Wigmore Hall, and Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris.

In the current season, Anett Fritsch made her role debuts as Freia (Das Rheingold) and Ortlinde (Die Walküre) in Dmitri Tcherniakov’s Ring production at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden. She is also expanding her repertoire as Mimì (La bohème), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus) and as Frau Fluth in the new production of Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor at the Volksoper Wien. Performances with Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima, et di Corpo took her to the Wratislavia Cantans Festival and with Andrea Marcon and the La Cetra Baroque Orchestra to Basel with Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

Anett Fritsch appeared as Anima in the new production of Emilio de’ Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo in the 2021/22 season, staged by Robert Carsen and under the musical direction of Giovanni Antonini at the Theater an der Wien. She also appeared at the Volksoper Wien as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) and made her debut at the Teatro Nuovo Giovanni da Udine as Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro). She returned to Brussels for Philippe Boesmans’ Trakl Lieder at the Bozar with the La Monnaie Symphony Orchestra conducted by Sylvain Cambreling. Anett Fritsch made her debut at Zurich Opera as Zdenka in Strauss’ Arabella and debuted at the Bastille in Paris as Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni).

In the 2020/21 season Anett Fritsch sang Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) at Teatro Real in Madrid and Almirena in Rinaldo at Opéra de Lausanne. In the 2019/20 season Anett Fritsch returned to the Dutch National Opera & Ballet Amsterdam as Fiordiligi (Così fan tutte), to Berlin State Opera in Purcell’s King Arthur and as Pamina at Teatro Real in Madrid.

Anett Fritsch studied at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Music Academy in Leipzig with KS Prof. Jürgen Kurth. In 2001 she was awarded the first prize at the Johann Sebastian Bach Competition in Leipzig. She was a laureate at the international competition of the Chamber Opera at Schloss Rheinsberg in 2006 and 2007, where she sang the parts of Despina in Mozart’s Così fan tutte and Adina in Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore. In the season 07/08 the Oper Leipzig engaged Anett Fritsch for various parts. From 2009 to 2015 Anett Fritsch was part of the ensemble of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf/Duisburg, where she sang among others Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites) Konstanze (Die Entführung aus dem Serail) and Marie (La fille du régiment).

Anett Fritsch had a great success giving her debut at the Glyndebourne Festival with the part of Almirena in Händel’s Rinaldo and with the part of Merione in Gluck’s Telemaco at the Theater an der Wien. She also made a triumphant debut as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte at the Teatro Real Madrid, a production which was also very successful at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels and in 2014 appeared at the Wiener Festwochen. The tour through Europe as Cherubino in Le nozze di Figaro with René Jacobs and the Freiburger Barockorchester received a great international response. In 2014 Anett Fritsch made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni, in 2015 she returned to Salzburg as Contessa in Le nozze di Figaro, in Munich she sang Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro).

At the Teatro Real in Madrid she appeared as Contessa and Marzelline (Fidelio). To Santiago de Chile she was invited for Pamina, at the Theater an der Wien she sang Contessa and Mrs. Ford in Salieri’s Falstaff. Further she appeared as Ginevra (Ariodante) in Amsterdam, followed by Susanna in Toulouse and Donna Elvira again in Amsterdam. The artist returned to Salzburg for Contessa and sang the same role at the Liceu Barcelona. The Berlin State Opera invited her for their new production of King Arthur, at the Scala Milan she debuted as Donna Elvira and appeared as Emma in Fierrabras and as Arminda in La finta giardiniera. In Bilbao Anett Fritsch sang Marzelline in Fidelio, in Madrid Ilia in Idomeneo.

Aida Garifullina is a celebrated artist in the midst of an internationally acclaimed career. She is a regular guest artist of the world’s leading opera houses and concert venues, including the Royal Opera House (London), La Scala (Milan), the Metropolitan Opera (New York), Paris National Opera, Arena di Verona (Italy) and Salzburg Festival.

Born in 1987 in Kazan, Republic of Tatarstan, Aida Garifullina was surrounded by music from an early age. Her first lessons in music came from her choirmaster and pianist mother who encouraged in her a love and devotion to singing. The work with her mother led her to further her musical development from early childhood and, later, inspiring a passion to pursue a career in opera. She made her performance debut at just five years old, as the youngest participant in one of Moscow’s most popular televised singing competition, and the stage has been her home ever since.

Following initial studies in Nuremberg, Germany and The University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, Austria, Aida achieved huge recognition at Placido Domingo’s 2013 Operalia Competition, winning First Prize. She later joined the ensemble of the revered Vienna Staatsoper, regularly performing there whilst continuing to further her international career.

On the operatic stage she has sung under the musical guidance of some of the most prominent conductors, including Valery Gergiev, Gustavo Dudamel, Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, Antonio Pappano, Yannick Nezet-Seguin and Placido Domingo.

Alongside a successful operatic career, Aida is a celebrated recording artist. Her acclaimed solo album “AIDA”, with Decca Records, won Best Solo Album of the year (ECHO), and in 2017 she was nominated for a Grammy (Best Opera Recording) for the Rimsky Korsakov’s “The Golden Cockerel”.

As a guest singer on Andrea Bocelli’s Album “Si”, she joined artists such as Dua Lipa, Ed Sheeran and The Weekend. The album topped both the US and U.K. charts, and Aida joined Andrea Bocelli for a US tour – performing at Madison Square Garden in NYC, MGM Las Vegas and Verizon Centre in Washington, DC.

In 2018, Aida performed alongside Robbie Williams at both the opening and closing ceremonies of the FIFA World Cup, with over one billion people watching live. She appeared as the guest soloist at the 2018 BBC Proms in Hyde Park, London, and the Bastille Day Concert in Paris – both to vast international audiences – alongside several highly acclaimed international recitals worldwide.

In 2019, Aida was a guest soloist in Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China – as part of the Deutsche Grammophone 120th Anniversary Celebrations. The event was broadcast worldwide, and later released on DVD.

An opportunity to combine two of her greatest passions – Opera and Film – Aida appeared on the big screen as opera singer Lily Pons in the Oscar nominated movie “Florence Foster Jenkins” directed by Steven Frears, featuring Meryl Streep and Hugh Grant.

She was also an invited guest of Good Morning America in December 2019, following her successful Metropolitan Opera Debut. In the same year, she was invited by Alibaba /Jack Ma to perform at his annual Gala Event, alongside Taylor Swift and Lang Lang at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Shanghai.

In 2019, Aida performed a solo concert for the official inauguration of the “One Shenzhen Bay” concert hall in the Chinese city of Shenzhen – located on the 72nd floor of the highest skyscraper in the complex. On that same evening, the tower was given the title of “The Highest Concert Hall in the World” in the Guinness Book of world records.

2019 brought several further landmark events for Aida, as she gave her Argentinian debut with a solo concert at one of the world’s most beautiful Opera houses – the renowned Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires. The journey was supported, and filmed, by a German Film Production company, who made a documentary of the events surrounding the performance. The film was later broadcast throughout Argentina, Europe and Russia.

During 2020, Aida was honoured to receive an audience with Pope Francis, later singing at annual charitable concert of the Vatican – “Concerto di Natale”. The concert raised funds to support children in need in Africa, and was broadcast live on Christmas Eve.

The next stop was the legendary, historical theatre – La Scala, Milan – where Aida appeared as soloist in a Christmas concert, performing Mozart’s “Exsultate, Jubilate”.

In 2021, Aida was named by GQ magazine as Super Woman Of the Year in Culture.

With a strong desire to help those around her, Aida is on the board of several charitable foundations and involved with many humanitarian projects. She works alongside “Angela Vavilova” Children’s hospice in her home city of Kazan, and the Khabensky Charitable Foundation in Russia, and is on the board of trustees for “Friends Fund’. She sings regularly in support of many foundations, including the David Foster Foundation, Andrea Bocelli and Mohammed Ali’s “Celebrity Fight Night” and many more.

Aida is in high demand both on the international operatic stage and concert platform, and is currently working with her team on several large scale music projects, to officially be announced in the near future.

Armenian-German bass Vazgen Gazaryan has been a member of Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe since 2018/19, where he sung roles such as Doktor Wozzeck, Vodnik Rusalka, Zeta Die lustige Witwe, Daland Der fliegende Holländer, Eremit Der Freischütz, Fiesco Simone Boccanegra, Sarastro Die Zauberflöte, Crespel Les Contes d’Hoffmann and Arkel Pélleas und Mélisande. Recent guest appearances include Le Grand Prêtre in Enescu’s Oedipe Komische Oper Berlin, Filippo II  Don Carlo Konzerttheater Bern, Grand inquisitore Don Carlo Theater Basel, and Le Roi Dodon Le Coq d’or Theater Magdeburg.

 In the 2017/18 season he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera as Oroveso Norma and in 2020 was nominated by OperaNow as one of the most promising singers. He sang in Teatro Carlo Felice Genova, Teatro Nacional de São Carlos Lisbon, Barbican Hall London, Michailowski Theater St. Petersburg, Nationaltheater Mannheim, and Theater Würzburg. In Moscow, he sang HUNDING Die Walküre in concert with the Russian National Orchester . He has worked with Kent Nagano, Carlo Rizzi, Gianandrea Noseda, Oliver von Dohnányi, Donato Renzetti, Danielе Rustioni, and Ricardo Frizza.

 From 2007 to 2017, he was a member of Theater Erfurt, where his repertoire included Mefistofele (Boito, title role), Mefistofele Faust (Gounod), Leporello and Commandatore Don Giovanni, Veit Pogner Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Doktor Wozzeck and King René Iolanta.

 Vazgen Gazaryan studied singing and percussion at the Yerevan State Conservatory. He started his operatic career as Basilio Il barbiere di Siviglia at Yerevan Opera Studio.

The George Enescu Philharmonic is Romania’s representative musical institution, with a history of 155 years that begins with the founding of the Romanian Philharmonic Society under the direction of Eduard Wachmann in April 1868. The first concert took place on 15 December of the same year, under the baton of its initiator. After the inauguration of the Romanian Athenaeum Palace (1889), concerts were held in this hall, where they are still held today, the elegant building becoming the emblem of Romanian culture and the headquarters of the Philharmonic Orchestra.

At the age of 17, George Enescu appeared for the first time on the stage of the Romanian Athenaeum as a violinist and composer, with the Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wachmann, on 1 March 1898.

Wachmann, who conducted the orchestra until 1907, proposed a classical repertoire in the first decades of the symphony’s existence to attract and educate the public. He was succeeded by Dimitrie Dinicu (1868-1936) and, from 1920, by George Georgescu (1887-1964), a remarkable conductor and pupil of Arthur Nikisch. During George Georgescu’s directorship (1920-1944; 1954-1964), the repertoire was modernised and the Philharmonic became part of the international music circuit, participating in the first tours abroad and inviting great personalities of the musical world. George Georgescu is also responsible for some reference recordings, such as the complete Beethoven symphonies.

The Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra has collaborated, throughout its seasons, with the most appreciated musicians of the world, the interwar period being one of the most fruitful in the history of the institution. Among the most important names are Pietro Mascagni, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Strauss, George Enescu, Béla Bartók, Pablo Casals, Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Kempff, Yehudi Menuhin, Sviatoslav Richter, Sergiu Celibidache and David Oistrakh, and more recently Seiji Ozawa, Christian Badea, Thomas Sanderling, Mischa Maisky and Khatia Buniatishvili.

After the war, the institution diversified its activities under the mandates of Constantin Silvestri and George Georgescu: the Academic Choir was founded, a valuable corps of concert soloists (instrumentalists and singers), various chamber ensembles (from orchestra to piano trio). George Georgescu’s name is also associated with the memorable concerts given by the Philharmonic Orchestra at the first editions of the “George Enescu” International Festival. After George Enescu’s death in 1955, the Philharmonic bore his name.

After 1964, Mircea Basarab, Dumitru Capoianu, Ion Voicu, Mihai Brediceanu were at the head of the Bucharest Philharmonic, and after the fall of the communist regime, Dan Grigore and Cristian Mandeal were the directors. During the tenure of principal conductor Cristian Mandeal (1991-2010), the Philharmonic Orchestra recorded the complete symphonic works of George Enescu and Johannes Brahms. In addition to its current symphonic and chamber concerts (about 300 annually), the Philharmonic has recorded dozens of LPs and CDs and has undertaken high-profile tours of Europe, Asia and the Far East, earning itself a well-deserved international reputation.

Since 2022, the general director of the George Enescu Philharmonic has been the cellist Marin Cazacu, and since then the institution organises at the end of each season the Athenaeum Summer Festival, a series of events aiming to offer to a wide audience new communication platforms and the experience of enjoying classical and contemporary music in the symbolic space of the Romanian Athenaeum.

The German soprano Annika Gerhards studied voice at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt am Main. After finishing her studies she was an ensemble member of the Wiener Staatsoper where she sang parts like Waldvogel/Siegfried, Gretel/ Hänsel und Gretel, Marzelline/ Fidelio, Adele/ Fledermaus as well as the title part in Lortzing´s „Undine“ in the version for children and Pünktchen in Ivan Eröd´s „Pünktchen und Anton“. 

After her Festengagement in Vienna engagements led her to the Komische Oper Berlin as 1. Elfe/ Rusalka, the Theater Gießen as „Frau“ in Schnittke´s „Leben mit einem Idioten“ and as Adele/ Die Fledermaus to the Oper Köln, to the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hannover (with CD-production) and to the Staatsoperette in Dresden. At this company she sang afterwards also Susanna/ Nozze di Figaro, Kundegonde/ Candide, Gretel, Valencienne/ Die lustige Witwe, the title part in „Die schöne Galathee“, Lauretta/ Gianni Schicchi and Pamina/ Die Zauberflöte.

In 2020/21 she gave succesful role-debuts as Fiakermilli/ Arabella at the Oper Leipzig and as Oscar in a CD-production of „Un ballo in maschera“ with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte Carlo/Marek Janowski for San Francisco Classical Recording, followed by her fantastic role debut in the title part of a concert version of „Lulu“ at the Enescu Festival.

In 2022/23 she gave her role debuts as Titania/ A midsummernight´s dream and Servilia/ Clemenza di Tito at the Theater Gießen. At this company she will give further role debuts as Gilda/ Rigoletto, Romilda/ Xerxes and Leila/ Les pecheurs des perles in the next season. Furthermore she will sing Gretel in a new production of „Hänsel und Gretel“ at the Theater Koblenz and return to the Enescu Festival as Melisande in a concert performance of „Pelleas et Melisande“.

Kirill Gerstein’s heritage combines the musical traditions of Russia, America, and Central Europe with an insatiable curiosity. From Bach to Adès, Gerstein’s artistry is distinguished by a ferocious technique and discerning intelligence, serving an imaginative musicality that places him at the top of his profession. 

Born in the former Soviet Union, Gerstein is an American citizen based in Berlin. His similarly international career ranges from concerts with the Chicago, Boston, and London symphonies, the Leipzig Gewandhaus and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras, and the Vienna and Berlin philharmonics, to recitals in London, Berlin, Vienna, Paris, and New York. Gerstein’s flair for curation is displayed this season as Artist-in-Residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and as curator of the ‘Busoni and His World’ series at London’s Wigmore Hall. 

A prolific recording artist, Gerstein’s latest album on the Berlin Philharmonic’s in-house label features Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto with the orchestra and Kirill Petrenko at Berlin’s Waldbühne, alongside solo works from across Rachmaninoff’s career. The 2020 release of his world première performance of Adès’s Piano Concerto won a Gramophone Award and was nominated for three GRAMMYs. 

Kirill is Professor of Piano at Berlin’s Hanns Eisler Hochschule. His series of free online seminars entitled ‘Kirill Gerstein Invites’ is now in its fifth season, featuring conversations with leading musicians, artists, and thinkers including Ai Weiwei, Iván Fischer, and Deborah Borda. 

Gerstein has received the Gilmore Artist Award, First Prize at the 10th Arthur Rubinstein Competition and an Avery Fisher Career Grant. In 2021, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Musical Arts from the Manhattan School of Music. 

The Gewandhausorchester is the oldest civic symphony orchestra in the world. The
enterprise was founded in 1743 by a group of 16 musical philanthropists – representatives of
the nobility as well as regular citizens – forming a concert society by the name of Das Große
Concert. On taking residence in the trading house of the city’s textile merchants (the
‘Gewandhaus’) in 1781, the ensemble assumed the name Gewandhausorchester. Many
celebrated musicians have been appointed to the office of Gewandhauskapellmeister (Music
Director and Principal Conductor), including Johann Adam Hiller, Felix Mendelssohn
Bartholdy, Arthur Nikisch and Kurt Masur. After his inauguration in 2005, Riccardo Chailly’s phenomenally successful tenure as Gewandhauskapellmeister came to an end in 2016. Andris Nelsons assumed the position of Gewandhauskapellmeister in the 2017/18 season.

The Gewandhausorchester´s unique contribution to Europe’s historical and current musical
wealth has been recognized with the award of the European Cultural Heritage Label.
Music lovers worldwide revere the highly individual sound palette that distinguishes the
Gewandhausorchester from all other symphony orchestras. This unique sound identity, along with the extraordinarily rich diversity of the repertoire which the Gewandhausorchester performs, is cultivated in over 200 performances each year in the Orchestra’s three ‘homes’: as concert orchestra in the Gewandhaus, orchestra of the Leipzig Opera and orchestra for the weekly performances of the cantatas of Johann Sebastian Bach with the Thomanerchor in St.Thomas’s Church. No other elite symphony orchestra dedicates itself so intensively to the performance of the music of J.S. Bach.
The Gewandhausorchester has toured the globe on a regular basis since 1916 and enjoys
almost unparalleled presence in the media of radio, television, CD and DVD.

Few other ensembles have exerted such significant and enduring influence on the
development of the symphonic music tradition as the Gewandhausorchester. Throughout its
history, the Orchestra has consistently attracted the collaborative energies of the world’s
most eminent composers, conductors and soloists. The Gewandhausorchester performed a
complete cycle of the symphonies of Beethoven during his lifetime (1825/26), as well as the
first ever cycle of Bruckner’s symphonies to be mounted (1919/20). Wagner’s Prelude to Die
Meistersinger von Nürnberg, Beethoven’s 5th Piano Concerto Emperor, Brahms’ Violin
Concerto and Deutsches Requiem and Bruckner’s 7th Symphony are just a fraction of the
wealth of the core symphonic repertoire to be given its first performance by the
Gewandhausorchester. The Orchestra commissions and premieres new works each season to
this day.

A decisive contribution to the development of the symphonic repertoire must be attributed to
the celebrated Gewandhauskapellmeister, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. During his tenure
from 1835 until 1847, he presided over the first performances of numerous works from his
own pen, for instance the Violin Concerto, the Scottish Symphony and his Overture to Ruy
Blas, as well as the world premieres of many works of other composers, including Schubert’s
C major Symphony The Great and Schumann’s 1st, 2nd and 4th symphonies. Through the
introduction of new programming concepts – highly innovative for the time – Mendelssohn sharpened the Gewandhaus audiences’ awareness of the music of times past, most notably
reviving the performance of the orchestral oeuvre of J.S. Bach.

It was on Mendelssohn’s initiative that Germany’s first conservatoire was founded, in Leipzig, in 1843 – the modern day University of Music and Theatre “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy”. Following the principles established by Mendelssohn himself, the Gewandhausorchester and University collaborate in the form of the Mendelssohn Orchestra Academy, offering the most talented young musicians the opportunity to hone their skills to the level required by the world’s elite orchestras. Graduates of the Orchesterakademie receive a master’s degree from the University.

The CD and DVD productions released by the Gewandhausorchester since the turn of the
millenium have been decorated with a plethora of international record awards, including a
Golden Disc. Under the direction of Riccardo Chailly, the Decca label produced a complete
cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies and nine of his overtures (CD, 2007-2009) and a cycle of
Brahms’ symphonies (CD, 2012-2013). Riccardo Chailly also led the Orchestra in numerous
acclaimed DVD recordings of the symphonies of Gustav Mahler (accentus music, 2011-2015).
To mark the occasion of Herbert Blomstedt’s 90th birthday in July 2017, a new complete
cycle of Beethoven’s symphonic oeuvre conducted by the Gewandhausorchester’s Conductor
Laureate was released by accentus music. This label has released two DVD productions with
the Orchestra and the new Gewandhauskapellmeister, Andris Nelsons: Antonín Dvořák’s 9th
Szmphony From the New World (released in February 2018) and Alban Berg’s Violin
Concerto coupled with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Scottish Symphony (released in
August 2018). Andris Nelsons is currently leading the Gewandhausorchester in the recording
of a complete cycle of the symphonies of Anton Bruckner, produced on CD by Deutsche
Grammophon. The 3rd Symphony formed the initial release in the spring of 2017, followed
by No. 4 in February 2018 and No. 7. in April of that year. Symphonies No. 6 and 9 were
released in May 2019. Conductor laureate Herbert Blomstedt is leading the
Gewandhausorchester in the recording of a complete cycle of the symphonies of Johannes
Brahms. The Symphony No. 1 in C minor, Op. 68 formed the initial release in September
2020, coupled with the Tragic Overture op. 81, followed by No. 2 in D major, Op. 73 &
Academic Festival Overture op. 80 (Pentatone). On the occasion of Sofia Gubaidulina’s 90th
birthday in October 2021, Deutsche Grammophon released a CD with world premiere
recordings of Der Zorn Gottes, Das Licht des Endes and the violin concerto No. 3 Dialog: Ich
und Du (Vadim Repin violin) under the baton of Andris Nelsons.

Radu Gheorghe is the actor with the most versatile dynamic in comedy! With a complex musical education (violin, piano, guitar, flute, etc.), he had the luxury of giving up his musical career in favour of a career in theatre and film. But in fact, both careers benefited, if we consider that the musical life continued in a less academic form! Folk. As a singer-songwriter, he will surely remain in the memory of lovers of this genre, with the song Tortoise with lyrics by Cristian Morgenstern and the inimitable onomatopoeic refrain Hai lim, Hai lom,….

After finishing his studies at IATC “I.L.Caragiale” in 1975, he gained experience and confidence, using some remarkable stages: That of the “Țăndărică” Theatre, the “Bulandra” Theatre, the National Theatre and last but not least the television and the screen.

With a rare ability to improvise, he has been and still is the favourite of directors who want interactivity and immediate reaction in their productions. The Girl from Andros from the National Theatre, directed by Grigore Gonța, is evidence of this. No wonder Radu Gheorghe is if not the first, then at least the most active supporter of the Stand-up Comedy genre in Romania.

The show that has made and still makes victims among spectators of all ages is The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, in which the actor the head of a symphonic orchestra and, with musical and acting means, manages to impress the audience so much that they come back to the next performances.  

I have left at the end of the presentation the role that television and cinema have played in the career of the special actor that is Radu Gheorghe, because these catapults, although not used to their full potential, have influenced and stimulated his imagination and talent to the maximum!

Titus Munteanu’s TVR series Un trio formidabil [A formidable trio] or Geo Saizesu’s comedy Grăbește-te încet! [Hurry up slowly] will not be easily forgotten, to name just two of the many collaborations with the two institutions!

Horațiu Mălăiele was right when he wrote in his review dedicated to his colleague Radu Gheorghe: “…good, good, good, to the point of being envious!”

“By some way the sparkiest new kid on the classical music block” – (The Times) 

“A true inspiration…she frankly rocks” – (Huffington Post)

“… saxophonist Jess Gillam was the indisputable highlight of the Last Night of the Proms.” – (BBC News)

“There are many more established presenters who lack Gillam’s warmth and impressive ability” – (The Guardian)

“She had the Royal Albert Hall in the palm of her hand” – (The Telegraph) 

Hailing from Ulverston in Cumbria, Jess Gillam is animating the music world with her outstanding talent and infectious personality. She has been forging her own adventurous path since she shot to fame becoming the first saxophonist to reach the finals of BBC Young Musician and the youngest ever soloist to perform at the Last Night of the Proms. Passionate about inspiring and bringing joy to people through music, Jess invites audiences on journeys of musical discovery through her electrifying performances and eclectic programming. 

As well as performing around the world, Jess is a presenter on TV and Radio. She became the youngest ever presenter for BBC Radio 3 with the launch of her own weekly show, This Classical Life. The show is in its third year now and in 2020 won the prestigious ARIA Award for Best Specialist Music Show. In July 2021 Jess presented a special live edition of This Classical Life at the Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall. She has also been a guest presenter for BBC Radio 2 and co-hosted a miniseries for BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme. Keen to explore the creative output of her home county, Jess presented a series of Cumbrian Chats on BBC Radio Cumbria.  TV presenting includes the BBC Proms and BBC Young Musician of the Year. 

2022/23 season highlights include a four-stop US recital tour, featuring her Carnegie Hall debut; her London Symphony Orchestra debut, performing the John Adams saxophone concerto under Gianandrea Noseda; the world premieres of three saxophone concertos: Glasslands by Anna Clyne (with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra), Dani Howard’s Saxophone Concerto (commissioned by the London Chamber Orchestra) and Karl Jenkins’ Stravangaza with the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Further orchestral highlights include performances with Royal Scottish National Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Manchester Camerata. 

Jess is the first ever saxophonist to be signed exclusively to Decca Classics and both of her albums reached No.1 in the UK Classical Music Charts. Her debut album was listed in The Times Top 100 albums of 2019. She has been the recipient of a Classic BRIT Award, has been nominated for The Times Breakthrough Award and was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list 2021 for Services to Music. She is Founder of the Jess Gillam Ensemble – a small group of incredible musicians from a wide range of musical backgrounds – whose programming features a variety of genres, including works by JS Bach and Piazzolla, as well as fresh commissions from Will Gregory of Goldfrapp and Ayanna Witter-Johnson.

JGE’s 2021/22 season featured appearances at Wigmore Hall, Latitude Festival, Cheltenham Festival, Snape Maltings, Mozartfest Augsburg and Liepe & Co Festival to name a few, and this season sees them perform at Newbury Spring and West Wicklow Festivals, and venues including Saffron Hall, Sage Gateshead and Rosey Concert Hall in Switzerland.  

Her infectious enthusiasm and passion for classical and non-classical music lights up every stage and she has performed in prestigious concert halls and with world-class orchestras around the globe including the NDR Hannover, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Lahti Symphony Orchestra and the UK’s leading orchestras. She also enjoys touring with her newly formed Jess Gillam Ensemble bringing together a group of brilliant musicians who share her bold, uplifting and open-minded approach. Jess has performed live at the BAFTAs to millions of viewers at home. 

Jess is an Associate Artist of the Royal Albert Hall, a European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) Rising Star Artist (which sees her perform at many of the top concert halls across Europe) and continues to promote her own concert series, bringing international talent to her hometown of Ulverston. 

Jess is a Vandoren UK Artist and became the youngest ever endorsee for Yanagisawa Saxophones aged just 13.

Current engagements of Christopher Gillett include Red Whiskers in Billy Budd at the George Enescu International Festival, Don Curzio in Le Nozze di Figaro at Staatsoper Berlin, Soothsayer in the world premiere of Battistelli’s Julius Caesar at Opera di Roma, Bardolfo in Falstaff at the Grange Park Opera, and Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Opera Zuid, Festival d’Aix en Provence and Beijing Music Festival. He is also directing his own new version of Der Schauspieldirektor for Opera Zuid.

Past appearances have included Triquet in Eugene Onegin at the Scottish Opera‚ Henri Clerval in Frankenstein and Beadle Bamford in Sweeney Todd at La Monnaie and Bergen Opera, Red Whiskers in Billy Budd at Teatro Real Madrid‚ Opera di Roma and Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Rev. Horace Adams in Peter Grimes at Teatro alla Scala and Aldeburgh Festival‚ Valzacchi in Der Rosenkavalier at Glyndebourne Festival‚ Emperor in Turandot at the Northern Ireland Opera‚ Mr Lovelace in A Harlot’s Progress (world premiere) at Theater an der Wien‚ Cura in Il Postino (world premiere), Arnalta in L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Basilio in Le nozze di Figaro at the Los Angeles Opera‚ Flute in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Teatro alla Scala‚ Sellem in The Rake’s Progress with the Birmingham Symphony‚ and Pisandro in Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Amsterdam‚ Antwerp‚ Lisbon‚ Sydney and New York.

His many operatic world premieres include Rosa‚ a horse opera‚ Broken Strings/Snatched by the Gods‚ Gassir the hero‚ Alice at the Dutch National Opera Amsterdam‚ A King Riding at La Monnaie and TEA at Suntory Hall‚ Tokyo. He has performed in national premieres of Die Soldaten at the English National Opera and Die Wände at Oper Frankfurt. Other 20th century roles include Dov in The Knot Garden at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden‚ and Aschenbach in Death in Venice at Teatro Carlo Felice Genova. Baroque performances include Scarlatti’s Il Telemaco at Opéra de Nice‚ Provenzale’s La Stellidaura Vendicante at La Monnaie and La Didone in Lausanne and Montpellier.

In concert, Christopher has sung with the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Concertgebouw Orkest, amongst many others. 

Gustavo Gimeno is the Music Director with Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg – a title he has held since 2015, and Toronto Symphony Orchestra where his tenure began in 2020/21. He is also Music Director Designate of Teatro Real where he will assume his role in season 2025/26.
Continuing their 100-year anniversary, Gimeno and Toronto Symphony Orchestra celebrate with major symphonic works including Bruckner’s Symphony No.4, Prokofiev’s Suite from Romeo and Juliet and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. He shares the stage with soloists Yo-Yo Ma, Yuja Wang, Yefim Bronfman and Jean-Guihen Queyras. The Toronto Symphony Orchestra embarks on its first tour with Gustavo Gimeno in Spring 2022. This North American tour includes a return visit to Carnegie Hall in New York City, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra’s annual orchestra exchange with National Arts Centre Orchestra, and marks the orchestra’s debut at Chicago’s Symphony Center.

With Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg Gimeno explores repertoire including Strauss’ Ein Heldenleben, Mahler’s Symphony No.6 ‘Tragic’, Lutoslawski’s Concerto for Orchestra and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5. International touring has formed a significant part of Gimeno’s commitment with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg during the last six years. In 2022/23 he tours with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg to Switzerland, Austria and Hungary and together they make the first-ever tour to Korea. Throughout his tenure, Gimeno and Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg have visited many of Europe’s and South America’s most prestigious concert halls, and soloists with whom Gimeno has shared the stage include Daniel Barenboim, Gautier Capuçon, Anja Harteros, Leonidas Kavakos, Bryn Terfel, Yuja Wang, Frank Peter Zimmermann and Martin Grubinger. A highlight has been performances of the complete Beethoven Piano Concertos with Krystian Zimerman.

In April 2022, Gimeno began a new recording relationship with Harmonia Mundi. The first joint project is a recording of Rossini’s Stabat Mater – featuring Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg with Maria Agresta (soprano), Daniella Barcellona (mezzo- soprano), Rene Barbera (tenor), and Carlo Lepore (bass) and the Wiener Singverein. In August 2022 the second album for HM recorded with Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg was devoted to two ballets by Stravinsky (Firebird and Apollon musagète). This season, Gimeno and Toronto Symphony Orchestra record for HM Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie, with pianist Marc-André Hamelin and ondes martenot player Nathalie Forget.

Gimeno and Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg have an extensive discography with Pentatone. Releases include a Francisco Coll monograph featuring the Violin Concerto with Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Shostakovich’s Symphony No.1 and Bruckner’s Symphony No.1, Ravel’s complete ballet music to Daphnis et Chloé, Mahler’s Symphony No.4, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, Rossini’s Petite Messe Solennelle and César Franck’s Symphony in D minor. As an opera conductor he is invited for major titles at great houses such as the Liceu Opera Barcelona, Opernhaus Zürich, Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia, Valencia and Teatro Real Madrid. In 2022/23 Gimeno returned to Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia to conduct the Katie Mitchell production of Jenůfa.

He is much sought-after as a symphonic guest conductor worldwide: debuts in 2022/23 include Staatskapelle Berlin and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. He will return to Münchner Philharmoniker. Highlights of past seasons include Berliner Philharmoniker, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre National de France, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra and Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. Gimeno is also regularly reinvited to the Royal Concertgebouworkest. At home and abroad touring projects have included concerts as far afield as Japan and Taiwan.

Bass-baritone Andriy Gnatiuk was born in Uman, Ukraine, and studied singing at the Kyiv National Conservatory of Music.

In 2012 he joined the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra National de Paris, where between 2012 and 2015 he performed in a number of productions in which he sang operatic roles that are essential for his voice type: Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, conducted by Alexandre Myrat and directed by Christophe Perton (MC93 Bobigny), Don Alfonso in Mozart’s Cosí fan Tutte conducted by Jean-François Verdier and directed by Dominique Pitoiset (Maison des Arts de Créteil, Anthéa Antipolis Théâtre d’Antibes), and Collatinus in Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia with L’Ensemble Le Balcon conducted by Maxime Pascal and directed by Stephen Taylor (Théâtre Athénée Louis-Jouvet). He also took part in a series of concerts dedicated to Jean-Philippe Rameau with Les Folies Françoises conducted by Patrick Cohën-Akenine, where he was lucky enough to sing the role of Huascar in the opera Les Indes Galantes.

In 2014-2015 Andriy Gnatiuk made his debut on the Opéra Bastille stage singing Truffaldino in Strauss’s Ariadne auf Naxos conducted by Michael Schønwandt and directed by Laurent Pelly. He has taken part in numerous concerts and recitals at the Palais Garnier, the Amphithéâtre Bastille and the Auditorium du Louvre, as well as at the Cité de la musique in Paris.

During the 2015 to 2017 seasons Andriy continued to perform at Opéra National de Paris in such productions as Joanna Lee’s Vol Retour (directed by Katie Mitchell), Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo (directed by Julie Bérès) and Mozart’s Bastien et Bastienne (directed by Mirabelle Ordinaire). He took part in the tour of Rossini’s Il Signor Bruschino, playing the role of Filiberto with the Orchestre National d’Île de France conducted by Enrique Mazzola.

During the 2018-2019 season Andriy Gnatiuk sang bass solo in the new production of Stravinsky’s Les Noces at the Opéra National de Paris (Palais Garnier).

In October 2020 Andriy Gnatiuk made his debut in the role of Cyrus the Great, in the French premiere of the stage version of the baroque opera Crésus by German composer Reinhard Keiser, directed by Benoît Bénichou and conducted by Johannes Pramsohler (Athénée Théâtre Louis-Jouvet, Paris).

In the 2022/2023 season he was guest soloist at the Nordhausen Opera House in Germany where he sang the roles of Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni, conducted by Pavel Baleff and directed by Benjamin Prins, and Uberto in Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona, conducted by Julian Gaudiano and directed by Andreas Simma. Also this season, Andriy takes on the role of Blansac in Rossini’s opera La Scala di Seta, in the Académie d’Opéra National de Paris production, under the musical direction of Elizabeth Askren and staged by Pascal Neyron.

Andriy Gnatiuk’s repertoire also includes: Bach’s Magnificat, St. John Passion and Mass in B minor; Handel’s Messiah; Haydn’s Missa in Angustiis or Lord Nelson Mass, The Seven Last Words of Christ and Creation; Mozart’s Coronation Mass and Requiem; Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony; Puccini’s Messa di Gloria and Dvořák’s Stabat Mater.