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Mezzo soprano Elena Zhidkova made her professional debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. She appeared at the Bayreuth Festival. Claudio Abbado invited her for the concert version of PARSIFAL, for Schumann’s FAUSTSZENEN and for his farewell concert at the Berlin Philharmonic where she appeared again in Händel’s JEPHTA under the baton of Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
At the Teatro Real in Madrid she debuted as Waltraute (GÖTTERDÄMMERUNG) and as Brangäne in TRISTAN UND ISOLDE. A highly sought after guest performer in Tokyo as well she could be heard at the New National Theatre Tokyo among others as Octavian (DER ROSENKAVALIER), Fricka (DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN) and Brangäne (TRISTAN UND ISOLDE). She debuted very successfully as Judith in Bartok’s DUKE BLUEBEARD´S CASTLE at the Teatro alla Scala, a role she has also created at the Barbican Hall London with the London Symphony Orchestra under Valéry Gergiev (published on CD).
Her interpretation of Judith (DUKE BLUEBEARD´S CASTLE) at the Mariinsky Theatre gained her the „Golden Mask“ award as best singing actress in Russia. She was invited to sing the same part under Seiji Ozawas at the Saito Kinen Festival (also published on CD). Her appearance as Fricka (DER RING DES NIBELUNGEN) could be witnessed at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and in the new production of the tetralogy at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. She could be seen as Venus in TANNHÄUSER at the Semperoper Dresden, as Ortrud in PARSIFAL at the Bayreuth Festival and sang Marie (WOZZECK) with the BBC Orchestra under Donald Runnicles and in a new production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. As Kundry (PARSIFAL) she appeared in Lyon, Vienna, Mannheim and Düsseldorf. She has sung La Principessa di Bouillon (ADRIAnA LECOUVREUR), The Foreign Princess (RUSALKA), Eboli (DON CARLO) and Kundry (PARSIFAL) at the Wiener Staatsoper, Charlotte (WERTHER) under Michel Plasson, as well her debut as Ortrud (LOHENGRIN). She enjoyed great success as Didon in Berlioz’ LES TROYENS, as Amneris in AIDA and Eboli (DON CARLOS) at the Hamburgische Staatsoper, as Nicklausse in LES CONTES D´HOFMMANN at ABAO Bilbao Opera, as Eboli at the Bolshoi, as Judith in BLUEBEARD´S CASTLE in Dresden and as Santuzza in CAVALLERIA RUSTIVANA at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Opéra Bastille Paris.
She celebrated a triumphant success at the Bayreuth Festival in the summer of 2019. Shortly before the festival premiere of the new production of TANNHÄUSER, she took over the role of Venus and was warmly acclaimed for her performance by the international press.
Norwegian soprano Lise Davidsen, hailed by the The Economist as “opera’s newest star”, has taken the classical music world by storm since winning the much coveted Operalia competition in 2015. Her resounding debuts in all the most prestigious international venues have garnered overwhelming critical attention: “It’s been a long time since a singer has generated as much buzz,” wrote Gramophone in the review of her debut album for Decca, which debuted at number one in the UK Classical charts. Released on 31 May 2019, her recordings of music by Strauss and Wagner inspired the magazine to declare that “she is one of the greatest vocal talents to have emerged in recent years, if not decades.” Since then, she has released two further solo albums on the label to equal acclaim: an orchestral recital featuring Beethoven, Wagner, Verdi and a
stunning Grieg recital together with with famed Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes.
This season, Davidsen’s many highlights include starring in the BBC’s much coveted Last Night of the Proms, the biggest classical music event in Britain; three major roles debuts: as Marschallin Der Rosenkavalier at the Metropolitan Opera, as Giorgetta Il Tabarro at Gran Teatre del Liceu and as Elisabetta Don Carlo at Royal Opera House, where she also appears as Elisabeth Tannhäuser; and an artistic residency at the Bergen International Festival where she can be
heard singing her first Tosca in concert and Verdi Requiem as well as masterclasses and a song recital. Other appearances include Tannhäuser at Staatsoper under den Linden in Berlin and numerous concert appearances in Paris, Amsterdam, Athens, Barcelona and at the Verbier Festival.
Last season saw her make a triple appearance at the Metropolitan Opera as Eva in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, the title role of Ariadne auf Naxos, and as Chrysothemis in Elektra. She returned twice to the Wiener Staatsoper as Ellen Offord alongside Sir Bryn Terfel and Jonas Kaufmann in an all-star performance of Britten’s dramatic opera Peter Grimes, as well as Sieglinde Die Walküre; and Leonore Fidelio at Maggio Musicale in Florence under the baton of Zubin Mehta. On the concert platform, she joined Klaus Mäkelä and the Orchestra de Paris for
Strauss Op. 27 and was an Artist in Focus at the Barbican, where London audiences saw her in recital with Leif Ove Andsnes; an opera gala evening together with Freddie De Tommaso and pianist James Baillieu and a performance of Berg Seven Early Songs together with the Oslo Philharmonic and Klaus Mäkelä as well as a public masterclass with the students of the Guildhall
School of Music & Drama. She also made her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko with Zemlinksy Lyric Symphony and toured together with Leif Ove Andsnes in Madrid, Munich, Vienna, Berlin and at the Bergen and Turku Festivals, earning rapturous reviews for their recital of Grieg, Strauss and Wagner songs. Her solo concerts included Hamburg State Opera, Moscow and the Peralada Festival and in summer 2022 she made another triumphant return to Bayreuth Festival, starring as Sieglinde in the much anticipated new Ring tetralogy and as Elisabeth Tannhäuser.
Despite the Covid crisis, Davidsen’s astonishing ascent has been unstoppable: in August 2020 she was one of the first stars featured by the Metropolitan Opera as part of their celebrated series: Met Stars Live in Concert. Davidsen’s rendition of Grieg En Svane and Ved Rondane from the recital was then broadcast together with the New Year’s Speech of King Harald V of Norway and in April 2021 she was a guest on Norway’s most popular chat show, Lindmo. Shortly after this in May 2021, she re-opened the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, with a solo concert under the baton of Maestro Riccardo Chailly, and Bayerische Staatsoper with a concert performance of the 1st Act of Die Walküre alongside Jonas Kaufmann, and in the same week was awarded Female Singer of the Year by the International Opera Awards. Further highlights include Sieglinde Die Walküre in a new production at Deutsche Oper Berlin and in concert at Opera de Paris; the title role of Jenůfa at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam; Elisabeth Tannhäuser at Bayerische Staatsoper; a return to Bayreuth in Tobias Kratzer’s production of Tannhäuser and concert performances of Die Walküre; as well as a Strauss film project with the Norwegian National Opera. On the recital platform, her appearances include recitals at home in Oslo, for the Norwegian National Opera, in Germany at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, in Spain at the Palau de les Arts Valencia; and together with Leif Ove Andsnes in Trondheim and Rosendal Chamber Music Festival in Norway.
Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer and bandleader, an educator and a leading advocate of American culture. He has created and performed an expansive range of music from quartets to big bands, chamber music ensembles to symphony orchestras and tap dance to ballet, expanding the vocabulary for jazz and classical music with a vital body of work that places him among the world’s finest musicians and composers.
Always swinging, Marsalis blows his trumpet with a clear tone, a depth of emotion and a unique, virtuosic style derived from an encyclopedic range of trumpet techniques. When you hear Marsalis play, you’re hearing life being played out through music.
Marsalis’ core beliefs and foundation for living are based on the principals of jazz. He promotes individual creativity (improvisation), collective cooperation (swing), gratitude and good manners (sophistication), and faces adversity with persistent optimism (the blues). With his evolved humanity and through his selfless work, Marsalis has elevated the quality of human engagement for individuals, social networks and cultural institutions throughout the world.
Born to Polish parents what is today Lyvov, Ukrain, Emanuel Ax moved to Winnipeg, Canada, with his family when he was a young boy. Mr. Ax made his New York debut in the Young Concert Artists Series, and in 1974 won the first Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv. In 1975 he won the Michaels Award of Young Concert Artists, followed four years later by the Avery Fisher Prize.
In fall 2021 he resumed a post-COVID touring schedule that included concerts with the Colorado, Pacific, Cincinnati and Houston symphonies as well as Minnesota, Los Angeles, New York Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras. 2022/23 will include a tour with Itzhak Perlman “and Friends” and a continuation of the “Beethoven For 3” touring and recording project with partners Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma, this year on the west coast.
In recital he can be heard in Palm Beach, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Chicago, Washington DC, Houston, Las Vegas and New York and with orchestras in Atlanta, Detroit, Boston, San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Naples, Portland OR, Toronto, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Cleveland. Touring in Europe in the fall and spring includes concerts in Germany, UK, Switzerland and France.
Mr. Ax has been a Sony Classical exclusive recording artist since 1987 and following the success of the Brahms Trios with Kavakos and Ma, the trio launched an ambitious, multi-year project to record all the Beethoven Trios and Symphonies arranged for trio of which the first two discs have recently been released. He has received GRAMMY® Awards for the second and third volumes of his cycle of Haydn’s piano sonatas. He has also made a series of Grammy-winning recordings with cellist Yo-Yo Ma of the Beethoven and Brahms sonatas for cello and piano. In the 2004/05 season Mr. Ax contributed to an International EMMY® Award-Winning BBC documentary commemorating the Holocaust that aired on the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. In 2013, Mr. Ax’s recording Variations received the Echo Klassik Award for Solo Recording of the Year (19th Century Music/Piano).
Mr. Ax is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary doctorates of music from Skidmore College, New England Conservatory of Music, Yale University, and Columbia University. For more information about Mr. Ax’s career, please visit www.EmanuelAx.com.
Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is testament to his enduring belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works from the cello repertoire, collaborating with communities and institutions to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.
In 2018, Yo-Yo set out to perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s six suites for solo cello in one sitting in 36 locations around the world that encompass our cultural heritage, our current creativity, and the challenges of peace and understanding that will shape our future. And last year, he began a new journey to explore the many ways in which culture connects us to the natural world. Over the next several years, Yo-Yo will visit places that epitomize nature’s potential to move the human soul, creating collaborative works of art and convening conversations that seek to strengthen our relationship to our planet and to each other.
Both endeavors continue Yo-Yo’s lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to explore how music not only expresses and creates meaning, but also helps us to imagine and build a stronger society and a better future.
It was this belief that inspired Yo-Yo to establish Silkroad, a collective of artists from around the world who create music that engages their many traditions. Through his work with Silkroad, as well as throughout his career, Yo-Yo Ma has sought to expand the classical cello repertoire, premiering works by composers including Osvaldo Golijov, Leon Kirchner, Zhao Lin, Christopher Rouse, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Giovanni Sollima, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, and John Williams.
In addition to his work as a performing artist, Yo-Yo has partnered with communities and institutions from Chicago to Guangzhou to develop programs that advocate for a more human-centered world. Among his many roles, Yo-Yo is a UN Messenger of Peace, the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees, and a member of the board of Nia Tero, the US-based nonprofit working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and movements worldwide.
Yo-Yo’s discography of more than 100 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners) reflects his wide-ranging interests. In addition to his many iconic renditions of the Western classical canon, he has made recordings that defy categorization, among them “Appalachia Waltz” and “Appalachian Journey” with Mark O’Connor and Edgar Meyer and two Grammy-winning tributes to the music of Brazil. Yo-Yo’s recent recordings include: “Sing Me Home,” with the Silkroad Ensemble, which won the 2016 Grammy for Best World Music Album; “Six Evolutions — Bach: Cello Suites;” and “Songs of Comfort and Hope,” created and recorded with pianist Kathryn Stott in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yo-Yo’s latest album is “Beethoven for Three: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5,” with pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Leonidas Kavakos.
Yo-Yo was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010), Kennedy Center Honors (2011), the Polar Music Prize (2012), and the Birgit Nilsson Prize (2022). He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.
Yo-Yo and his wife have two children. He plays three instruments: a 2003 instrument made by Moes & Moes, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice, and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.
Zubin Mehta was born in 1936 in Bombay and received his first musical education under his father’s Mehli Mehta’s guidance who was a noted concert violinist and the founder of the Bombay Symphony Orchestra. After a short period of pre-medical studies in Bombay, he left for Vienna in 1954 where he eventually entered the conducting programme under Hans Swarowsky at the Akademie für Musik. Zubin Mehta won the Liverpool International Conducting Competition in 1958 and was also a prize-winner of the summer academy at Tanglewood. By 1961 he had already conducted the Vienna, Berlin and Israel Philharmonic Orchestras and has recently celebrated 50 years of musical collaboration with all three ensembles.
Zubin Mehta was Music Director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1967 and also assumed the Music Directorship of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1962, a post he retained until 1978.
In October 2019 he celebrated his farewell with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to which he has served for 50 years. On this occasion he was named Music Director Emeritus of the IPO.
In 1978 he took over the post as Music Director of the New York Philharmonic commencing a tenure lasting 13 years, the longest in the orchestra’s history. From 1985 to 2017 he has been chief conductor of the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence.
Zubin Mehta made his debut as an opera conductor with Tosca in Montreal in 1963. Since then he has conducted at the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Vienna State Opera, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, La Scala Milano, and the opera houses of Chicago and Florence as well as at the Salzburg Festival. Between 1998 and 2006 he was Music Director of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich. In October 2006 he opened the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia in Valencia and was the President of the annual Festival del Mediterrani in Valencia until June 2014 where he conducted the celebrated Ring cycle with the Fura del Baus in coproduction with the Florence opera house. Other Ring cycles were completed at the Chicago Opera and the Bavarian State Opera.
Zubin Mehta’s list of awards and honours is extensive and includes the
“Nikisch-Ring” bequeathed to him by Karl Böhm. He is an honorary citizen of both Florence and Tel Aviv and was made an honorary member of the Vienna State Opera in 1997, of the Bavarian State Opera in 2006 and of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde Wien in 2007. The title of “Honorary Conductor” was bestowed to him by the following orchestras: Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra (2001), Munich Philharmonic Orchestra (2004), Los Angeles Philharmonic (2006), Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (2006), Staatskapelle Berlin (2014) and Bavarian State Orchestra (2006), with whom he performed in Srinagar, Kashmir in September 2013. In 2016 the Teatro di San Carlo in Naples appointed Zubin Mehta as Honorary Music Director and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic honoured him in 2019 as Conductor Emeritus. In February 2019 the Berlin Philharmonic appointed him their Honorary Conductor. A particular honor was made to him in 2022 when the new concert hall of the Teatro del Maggio Musicale in Florence was named after him.
In October 2008 Zubin Mehta was honoured by the Japanese Imperial Family with the “Praemium Imperiale”. In March 2011 Zubin Mehta received a special distinction, in getting a star on the Hollywood Boulevard. The Commander’s Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany was bestowed to him in July 2012. The Indian Government honoured him in September 2013 with the “Tagore Award for cultural harmony” which a year earlier was awarded to Ravi Shankar. The Australian Government named him Honorary Companion of the Order of Australia in 2022.
Zubin Mehta continues to support the discovery and furtherance of musical talents all over the world. Together with his brother Zarin he is a co-chairman of the Mehli Mehta Music Foundation in Bombay where more than 200 children are educated in Western Classical Music. The Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv develops young talent in Israel and is closely related to the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, as is a new project of teaching young Arab Israelis in the cities of Shwaram and Nazareth with local teachers and members of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Shchedrin first visited Verbier 25 years ago in 1997, when Maxim Vengerov and Antonio Pappano performed his new Violin Concerto. He has since then been an annual guest at the Festival with his late wife Maya Plissetskaya, and has over the years composed many new works from his modest chalet lent to him by one of the Friends of the Festival.
Rena Shereshevskaya is a graduate of the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory and a postgraduate of this institution, a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France), a laureate of the Ippolitov-Ivanov International Prize in Musical Education and an Honorary Professor of the Moscow Ippolitov-lvanov Musical and Pedagogical Institute. She taught at the Central Special Music School for Gifted Children at the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatory for 12 years before joining the Ippolitov-lvanov Music Institute as a professor of piano and head of a piano chair. In 1993 she was first invited as a guest professor to France, where she has been working ever since. At present she is a professor of piano at the Paris Alfred Cortot Superior Music School and at the Rueil-Malmaison Conservatory. She gives masterclasses all over the world (France, USA, Canada, Italy, Switzerland, Russia, Monaco, China, amongst others) and serves as a member or head of jury at international piano competitions. Many of her students became prize-winners of major competitions, for example Rémi Geniet (2nd Prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition, Brussels, 2013), Lucas Debargue (4th Prize and the Special Prize of the Association of Music Critics at the 15th Tchaikovsky Competition, Moscow, 2015), Alexandre Kantorow (1st Prize and the Grand Prix at the 16th Tchaikovsky Competition, Moscow, 2019). At the same time, Rena Shereshevskaya continues to play chamber music with internationally renowned musicians and in duo with her daughter Victoria, a mezzo-soprano. Moreover, she is the artistic director of a festival she conceived, Artistic Dynasties and Families.
Ruth Phillips is internationally recognised as a cellist, performance coach, and writer. Working at the intersection of music and mindfulness, she is a graduate of Mindfulness programmes with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield and draws on neuroscience, contemplative practice, somatic awareness, and four decades as a professional musician. Her coaching, mindfulness retreats for creatives, and The Breathing Bow community have become a refuge for performers seeking a more humane and heartfelt relationship with their art and craft.. With an approach described as “inspirational” and “innovative,” she has supported performers from leading chamber groups, conservatoires, festivals and orchestras in finding greater ease, confidence, and creative freedom both on and off stage. Cellist Steven Isserlis writes of her work: “I wish that more musical training started from those precepts.”
She is the author of the book Beauty at the Edge of Catastrophe, Cultivating Mindful Presence in Musical Performance. Jack Kornfield has called the book a “gift”, saying: “Dear musicians, you hold in your hands a beautiful offering that can enliven your embodied presence, and bring heart wisdom to your art.”
Gary Leboff is the UK’s leading Performance Psychologist. A unique figure in the arena of coaching, Leboff has devoted his life to helping people achieve their ambitions, creating a myriad of leading-edge tools and techniques, and transforming performance across the spheres of business, music and sport. He also works with young people and adults from all walks of life, across the world. A new breed of coach, his style is refreshingly direct, jargon free and results orientated, the result of which has been a track record of success that is second to none, helping clients to transcend their boundaries, transform their lives and realise their dreams.