Press Enter to search
Simon Wiget is the Director of Verbier Tourism.
Jean-François Bobillier was born in Orsières in 1973. After his beginnings with the Echo d’Orny brass band, he completed his studies in music theory, euphonium, and conducting at the Sion Conservatory in 1994. In 1995, he attended the first military music officers’ school in Zurich, training that enabled him to conduct various military music orchestras. He entered the symphonic orchestra conducting class of Mr. Hervé Klopfenstein and the orchestration class of Mr. Jean Balissat at the Lausanne Conservatory, successfully completing his studies in 2001. He also studied orchestration with composer Mr. Franco Cesarini at the Zurich Conservatory. He has additionally participated in various symphonic orchestra conducting academies abroad, notably in Cernay (1997), Sarajevo (1998), and Pontarlier (2001).
In 2003, he placed 5th in the European brass band conducting competition in Bergen, Norway, and won the “Golden Baton” that same year, taking first place in the Swiss conducting competition in Baden. He is currently professor of wind orchestra conducting at the Sion Conservatory.
He served as director of the Geneva Cadets music school (from 1997 to 2005), founded the Ambitus Brass Ensemble which he conducted from 2001 to 2006, led the ECV (Valais Brass Ensemble) from 2006 to 2013, and has been invited as guest conductor notably by the professional wind orchestra “Aulos” (2004-2007), the National Youth Wind Orchestra (2008), the National Youth Brass Band (2012), and the Shostakovich Wind Orchestra (2022). He is regularly engaged as a juror at various festivals and competitions, such as the European Brass Band Championships in Linz in 2010 and the Swiss brass band competition in Montreux in 2021.
Gaëtan Juge is a French sound engineer trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris and the Universität der Künste Berlin. He has worked on recordings for Warner, Alpha, Apparté, and Château de Versailles Spectacles, collaborating with artists such as Huw Montague Rendall, Pene Pati, Florian Sempey, and ensembles including Les Talens Lyriques and Les Arts Florissants. His experience includes opera and orchestral recordings with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre d’Auvergne, and others. He has contributed to productions at Opéra Bastille, Opéra de Nancy, and in Barcelona, Munich, and Kyiv. As a music producer for Radio Télévision Suisse in 2022, he captured and mixed numerous live performances. Juge holds a DEM in accordion and has a strong interest in opera, concerts, travel and ornithology.
Australian soprano Eden Shifroni is a member of the Royal College of Music Opera Studio, where she studies with Russell Smythe as the recipient of the Alastair Jackson International Opera Award. She won the 2024 IFAC Australian Singing Competition and received the Audience Prize at the Joan Sutherland and Richard Bonynge Bel Canto Award. Operatic highlights include Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Musetta (La bohème), Suor Genovieffa (Suor Angelica) and Poppea in the Australian premiere of Elena Kats-Chernin’s re-orchestration of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. In 2025, she made her Pinchgut Opera debut in Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, and in 2026 made her role debut as Serpetta in the Royal College of Music production of La finta giardiniera. Eden is a Melba Opera Trust scholar and holds a Bachelor of Music and a Master of Music Studies in Opera Performance from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Aleksandra Melaniuk is a Britten-Pears Young Artist and a Salonen Conducting Fellow in the Negaunee Conducting Program at the Colburn School, in partnership with the San Francisco Symphony. Recent highlights include her subscription concert debut with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, appearances with the San Francisco Symphony in the SoundBox series, and her participation in the Ojai Music Festival. During the 2025/26 season, she made her debut with the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the Symphonies for Youth series. Her work as a cover conductor has included collaborations with leading international orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Bayerische Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre de Paris, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the San Francisco Symphony, working alongside conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen and Simone Young. Aleksandra has also participated in the Ziering-Conlon Initiative for Recovered Voices, conducting dedicated concerts featuring works by Mieczysław Weinberg.
Beginning in the 2025/26 season, Nicholas Sharma joins the Toronto Symphony Orchestra as TSO RBC Resident Conductor and Conductor of the Toronto Symphony Youth Orchestra. He has led performances with orchestras across North America, earning recognition for his versatility and musical artistry. Recent highlights include débuts with the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra and the Eugene Symphony, as well as roles as Assistant Conductor of the South Dakota Symphony Orchestra and Music Director of its Youth Orchestra for the 2024/25 season. He has taken part in masterclasses and festivals with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, the New World Symphony, the National Academy Orchestra of Canada, the Aspen Music Festival and the Colorado College Summer Music Festival, working with conductors including Michael Tilson Thomas, Stéphane Denève, Neeme Järvi, Robert Spano, Nicholas McGegan, Mark Stringer and Boris Brott. A native of Toronto, he trained as a violinist and holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music and the University of Oregon.
Celia Llácer completed her Master’s degree in conducting at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK), studying with Johannes Schlaefli and Christoph-Mathias Mueller. She has conducted orchestras including the Dallas Opera Orchestra, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Göttinger Symphonieorchester, Boston University Tanglewood Institute Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra, Hradec Králové Philharmonic Orchestra and Schweizer Jugend-Sinfonie-Orchester.
In the 2025/27 season, she serves as Assistant Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra under Thomas Søndergård. Previous engagements include collaborations with the Schweizer Jugend-Sinfonie-Orchester and Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège under Gergely Madaras in the 2023/24 season and her tenure as Chief Conductor of the Junges Kammerorchester Ostschweiz in 2024/25.
In 2024, she conducted the Gstaad Festival Orchestra as part of the Gstaad Conducting Academy. She was selected for the Linda and Mitch Hart Institute at the Dallas Opera in 2023 and appeared at the Tanglewood Festival with the Boston University Tanglewood Institute Orchestra.
Dr Manuela Filippa obtained her PhD in Psychology from the University of Paris Ouest Nanterre and she is currently Maître Assistante (Assistant Professor) at the University of Geneva. Her work aims to advance an embodied and integrative science of emotion, bridging brain, physiology, and behavior at the origins of intersubjectivity. She studies neural and physiological systems as dynamic, interacting processes, with a particular focus on music and affective prosody as privileged paradigms for understanding human connection. She has authored more than 100 publications, including peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and has written popular science books for educators, parents, and children.
Soprano Emily Rocha is a Second Prize winner of the Canadian Opera Company Centre Stage Competition and a current member of the COC Ensemble Studio. In spring 2027, she performs Adina (L’elisir d’amore) at the Canadian Opera Company. Her 2025/26 season also includes appearances as Countess Ceprano (Rigoletto) and covering Gilda, Juliette (Roméo et Juliette), Euridice (Orfeo ed Euridice) and Sophie (Werther). In summer 2025, she joined the National Ballet of Canada as soprano soloist in Anna Karenina, sang Laurie Moss (The Tender Land) with Toronto City Opera and performed the title role in The Merry Widow with Highlands Opera Studio. She made her Canadian Opera Company mainstage debut as Kate Pinkerton (Madama Butterfly) in the previous season. Recent concert highlights include Mahler’s Second Symphony ‘Resurrection’, Orff’s Carmina Burana and Mahler’s Rückert-Lieder with the University of Toronto Symphony Orchestra as Concerto Competition winner. A 2024 Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellow, Emily holds a Bachelor and a Master of Music in Opera from the University of Toronto.