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Thomas Hampson has received numerous international awards for his artistry and cultural influence. His operatic repertoire includes more than 80 roles and his discography includes more than 170 albums, which have won several Grammy and Edison Awards and the Grand Prix du Disque. The American baritone is also Honorary Professor of Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg and Honorary Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in London. In addition to several honorary doctorates, he is the Kammersänger of the Vienna State Opera and Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres de la République française, as well as the recipient of the Hugo Wolf Medal. In 2003 he founded the Hampsong Foundation, through which he uses the art of singing to promote intercultural dialogue and understanding.
She is the recipient of the First Prize, the Audience Prize, the Orchestra and Technicians’ Prize of the Concours International de Chant de Mâcon, the First Prize and Special Prize of the Jury of Léopold Bellan International Competition, of a Golden Medal from Manhattan International Music Competition, and is a winner of Armel Opera Competition, as well as a finalist of Concorso Liricio Internazionale Ottavio Ziino and Concours International George Enescu. This season, Jeanne will be making her debut at the Opéra National de Paris for a Beethoven concert (Amphithéâtre Bastille), at the Chorégies d’Orange for the 10th anniversary of Musiques en fête, at the Festival de Pâques d’Aix-en-Provence where she will give a recital with Renaud Capuçon and Tanguy de Williencourt, and at the Festival de Fénétrange under the baton of Mathieu Herzog with the Ensemble Appassionato. Upcoming roles include Sophie (Werther) at the Opéra de Nice, Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) at the Grand Théâtre, Scène Nationale de Mâcon under the baton of Eric Geneste directed by Sébastien Lemoine, Dorinda (The Tempest) and The Second Woman (Dido and Aeneas) conducted by Leonardo García Alarcón with the Cappella Mediterranea, staged by Pascal Neyron at the Rencontres Musicales d’Evian – La Grange au Lac. Her next recording projects are the song cycles of Karol Beffa’s next album under French label Klarthe as well as the role of Tessa (Die Afrikareise) with the Sofia Philharmonic and conductor Dario Salvi for Naxos Records.
Most recent operatic engagements include Der Hüter des Tempels (Die Frau ohne Schatten) under the baton of Valery Gergiev during the Verbier Festival, Le Feu/ Rossignol (cover) in Richard Jones’s production of L’Enfant et les sortilèges at the Opéra National de Paris and Amore (Orfeo ed Euridice) at Opera North in Sweden and Budapest Palace of Arts. As a chamber musician, Jeanne has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, Symphony Space, Danny Kaye Playhouse, Bargemusic, Dimenna Center, the Bohemian Hall in New-York, Grand Théâtre de Provence, Salle Cortot…
Jeanne Gérard has earned a Master’s of classical voice from Manhattan School of Music, where she studied under the tutelage of Patricia Misslin. She took part in the masterclasses of Thomas Hampson, Thomas Quasthoff, Barbara Frittoli, Mariella Devia, Graham Johnson, Dalton Baldwin, Martin Katz, Jake Heggie, Giulio Zappa… Jeanne has been a member of the Martina Arroyo Foundation, Songfest and the Atelier Lyrique of the Verbier Festival. Jeanne studied humanities at Henri IV (classe préparatoire littéraire) and holds a bachelor degree in philosophy from la Sorbonne. A versatile artist, she studied acting with Jean-Laurent Cochet, Scott Williams and Matt Newton, and played the roles of Mrs Wire in The Lady of Larkspur Lotion (T. Williams), Girl in Mr Paradise (T. Williams) and Yelena in Uncle Vanya (A. Chekhov) at the Producers’ Club in New-York. She trained in dance at the Centre de Danse du Marais and at the Broadway Dance Center. She has performed in famous jazz clubs in Paris and New York such as Le Petit Journal Montparnasse, The Manderley Bar, The Bitter End and The Lounge.
Jeanne’s performances have been broadcasted on Medici TV, Arte Concert, France Musique and France 3.
Equally at home as a soloist and as part of a chamber ensemble, violinist Mihaela Martin has collaborated with musical greats such as Kurt Masur, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Martha Argerich, Radu Lupu, Leon Fleisher, and Menahem Pressler. As a young musician, she won top prizes at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, the Montreal International Music Competition, the Queen Elisabeth Competition and the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis. She credits Silvia Marcovici and the great pedagogue, Stefan Gheorghiu, with whom she studied for 10 years, as key influences in her development as an artist.
Martin left Romania in 1986 and has since resided in Germany, where she now teaches at the Barenboim-Said Akademie. She is a regular guest at many chamber music festivals, and pursues her intense love for chamber music as member of the Michelangelo String Quartet, which she helped found in 2003.
Aleksandar Madžar was born in Belgrade in 1968. He started playing the piano under the guidance of Gordana Malinović at the age of six, and later studied in Novi Sad, Belgrade, Moscow and Brussels, with Arbo Valdma, Elisso Virsaladze and Daniel Blumenthal.
He won prizes in Geneva, Leeds, the Busoni and Umberto Micheli competitions and gave his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Ivan Fischer in 1990. He has since then been performing regularly all over Europe, enjoying a rich and varied career in recital, concertos (with André Previn, Marcello Viotti, Paavo Järvi, Andris Nelsons) and chamber music, occasionally also touring North and South America, South Africa and the Far East and Australia.
Aleksandar Madžar is a frequent guest of the Wigmore Hall in London, the Theatre de la Ville in Paris, the Brussels Bozar, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, as well as the Conservatorio in Milan; the Delft, Lockenhaus, Peasmarsh and Juventus (Cambrai) summer festivals. His regular chamber music partners include, among others, the Takács Quartet, Anthony Marwood, Nicolas Altstaedt, Vilde Frang, and the soprano Juliane Banse.
Aleksandar Madžar teaches at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in Brussels and at the Hochschule für Musik
Manfred Honeck has firmly established himself as one of the world’s leading conductors, whose unmistakable, distinctive and revelatory interpretations are receiving great international acclaim. For more than a decade, he has been Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. In the 2020-21 season, he will celebrate the 125th anniversary season of the Orchestra, which is marked by special concerts, programming and partnerships to commemorate the occasion. Manfred Honeck and the orchestra are celebrated both in Pittsburgh and abroad. Guest appearances regularly include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as the major European music cities and festivals such as the BBC Proms, Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn and Grafenegg Festival. The close relationship with the Musikverein in Vienna continued with a residency in autumn 2019 as part of the orchestra’s most recent European Cities Tour, which took them to 10 cities in five countries.
His successful work in Pittsburgh is extensively documented by ten recordings on the Reference Recordings label. All SACDs featuring works by Strauss, Beethoven, Bruckner, Tchaikovsky and others have received a multitude of outstanding reviews and awards, including a number of Grammy nominations. The recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 and Barber’s Adagio won the Grammy for “Best Orchestral Performance” in 2018. The following year, Bruckner’s Symphony No. 9 garnered three Grammy nominations. A recording of Tchaikovsky No. 4 paired with the world premiere of Jonathan Leshnoff’s Double Concerto for Clarinet and Bassoon was released in May of 2020.
Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck completed his musical training at the University of Music in Vienna. His many years of experience as a member of the viola section in the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Orchestra have had a lasting influence on his work as a conductor. His art of interpretation is based on his determination to venture deep beneath the surface of the music. He began his conducting career as assistant to Claudio Abbado and as director of the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra. Subsequently, he was engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was awarded the European Conducting Prize in 1993. He has since served as one of three principal conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, as Music Director of the Norwegian National Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm.
From 2007 to 2011, Manfred Honeck was Music Director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart. There he conducted, among others, premieres of Berlioz’s Les Troyens, Mozart’s Idomeneo, Verdi’s Aida, Richard Strauss’s Rosenkavalier, Poulenc’s Dialogues des Carmélites and Wagner’s Lohengrin and Parsifal. Guest performances in opera led him to Semperoper Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, Royal Opera of Copenhagen, the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg and the Salzburg Festival. In Beethoven’s anniversary year of 2020, he conducted a new staging of Fidelio (1806 version) at the Theater an der Wien. Beyond the podium, Manfred Honeck has designed a series of symphonic suites, including Janáček’s Jenůfa, Strauss’s Elektra and Dvořák’s Rusalka. He recorded all of these arrangements with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and regularly performs them with orchestras around the globe.
As a guest conductor, Manfred Honeck has been at the podium of all leading international orchestras including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic. In the United States, he has conducted all major US orchestras, including New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. He has also been Artistic Director of the International Concerts Wolfegg in Germany for twenty-five years. Manfred Honeck has been honoured by several universities in the United States as an honorary doctorate and also was awarded the honorary title of Professor by the Austrian Federal President. The jury of the International Classical Music Awards selected him as “Artist of the Year” 2018.
Born in 1986 in Paris, Jean-Frédéric Neuburger studied organ, piano and composition before entering the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris at the age of thirteen, from which he graduated in 2005 with five first prizes. He then studied composition in Geneva with Michael Jarrell and Pascal Dusapin. Since then, he has a double activity of composer and pianist recognized for the extreme variety of his repertoire.
Jean-Frédéric Neuburger has received numerous commissions, notably from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Evian Festival, Radio-France, the International Long-Thibaud Competition and the Folles Journées de Nantes. His works have been performed by the Orchestre de Paris and the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Christoph von Dohnanyi and the Chœur et l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Pascal Rophé. His chamber music works have been performed by Henri Demarquette, François Salque, Nicolas Dautricourt, Lise Berthaud, Raphaël Sévère, Bertrand Chamayou in venues such as the Lincoln Center, Lucerne Festival, Musikverein Vienna.
He performs as a soloist with the most prestigious orchestras (New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, NHK Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse…) and collaborates with renowned conductors such as François-Xavier Roth, Paavo Jarvi, David Zinman, Jonathan Nott, Michael Tilson Thomas. He has also worked with Pierre Boulez notably to study his Second Piano Sonata. In January 2014, the Louvre Auditorium offered him carte blanche for six concerts.
He is invited by the most important international festivals (Verbier, Lucerne, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, La Roque d’Anthéron, Saratoga, La Jolla Music Society) and as a chamber musician he performs with the most brilliant musicians of his generation, such as the Quatuor Modigliani, Bertrand Chamayou, Renaud Capuçon, Raphaël Sévère.
Recently, he has been heard in Brazil and at the Festival Musica de Strasbourg with Jean-François Heisser in Stockhausen’s Mantra, in Boston with Christoph von Dohnányi for Schumann’s Piano Concerto, as well as at the Lincoln Center in New York for the US premiere of his piece Plein Ciel. In February 2018 he gave the critically acclaimed premiere of his own piano concerto with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and Jonathan Stockhammer. He has also performed at the Berlin Philharmonic, the Philharmonie de Paris and the Lucerne Festival with a program of works by Rihm and Schumann, as well as the premiere of Vito Zuraj’s Alavo with the musicians of the Berlin Philharmonic Academy.
He devotes an important part of his interpretative activity to the diffusion of today’s music: in 2012 he premieres Philippe Manoury’s Piano Concerto with the Paris Orchestra conducted by Ingo Metzmacher as well as works by Bruno Mantovani, Phillip Maintz, Yves Chauris. His recordings have been acclaimed by the international press. The “Live at Suntory Hall” released in 2008 received a “Choc” from Le Monde de la Musique and his recording of Ferdinand Herold’s Piano Concertos received a “Choc” from Classica.
Jean-Frédéric Neuburger received the Lili and Nadia Boulanger Prize from the Academy of Fine Arts and the Hervé Dugardin Prize from the Sacem 2015.
Michael Collins’ dazzling virtuosity and sensitive musicianship have earned him recognition as one of today’s most distinguished artists and a leading exponent of his instrument. At 16 he won the woodwind prize in the first BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition, going on to make his US debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall at the age of 22. He has since performed as soloist with many of the world’s most significant orchestras and formed strong links with leading conductors. Collins also has the distinction of being the most frequently invited wind soloist to the BBC Proms, including several appearances at the renowned Last Night of the Proms.
In recent seasons Collins has become increasingly highly regarded as a conductor and in September 2010 took the position of Principal Conductor of the City of London Sinfonia. His success in this role is testament to the natural musicianship and galvanising leadership that is evident in both his playing and conducting. In recent seasons, his conducting highlights have included engagements with the Philharmonia, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, London Mozart Players, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Kymi Sinfonietta, Auckland Philharmonia and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
In great demand as a chamber musician, Collins performs with musical colleagues such as the Belcea and Takács quartets, Martha Argerich, Stephen Hough, Mikhail Pletnev, Lars Vogt, Joshua Bell and Steven Isserlis. His Residency at Wigmore Hall saw him in performance with András Schiff, Piers Lane and the Endellion String Quartet. His ensemble, London Winds, celebrates its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2013, with entirely unchanged membership during that time. The group maintains a busy diary with high calibre engagements such as the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh Festival, Edinburgh Festival, City of London Festival, Cheltenham International Festival and Bath Mozartfest. Collins is also Artist Director of the Liberation International Music Festival in Jersey.
With a prolific discography, Collins is signed exclusively to Chandos Records and consistently receives the highest critical acclaim for his recordings. His most recent release is British Clarinet Sonatas Vol. 2, recorded with pianist Michael McHale and released in February 2013. Last season, Collins released a disc of British Clarinet Concertos Vol.1, which he play/directed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Collins’s 50th Birthday was celebrated with a Chandos release of Weber Concertos conducted and performed by himself with the City of London Sinfonia.
Alisa Weilerstein is one of the foremost cellists of our time. Known for her consummate artistry, emotional investment and rare interpretive depth, she was recognized with a MacArthur “genius grant” Fellowship in 2011. Today her career is truly global in scope, taking her to the most prestigious international venues for solo recitals, chamber concerts, and concerto collaborations with all the preeminent conductors and orchestras worldwide.
“Weilerstein is a throwback to an earlier age of classical performers: not content merely to serve as a vessel for the composer’s wishes, she inhabits a piece fully and turns it to her own ends,” marvels the New York Times. “Weilerstein’s cello is her id. She doesn’t give the impression that making music involves will at all. She and the cello seem simply to be one and the same,” agrees the Los Angeles Times. As the UK’s Telegraph put it, “Weilerstein is truly a phenomenon.”
Weilerstein has appeared with all the major orchestras of the United States, Europe and Asia, collaborating with conductors including Marin Alsop, Daniel Barenboim, Jiří Bělohlávek, Semyon Bychkov, Thomas Dausgaard, Sir Andrew Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir Mark Elder, Alan Gilbert, Giancarlo Guerrero, Bernard Haitink, Pablo Heras-Casado, Marek Janowski, Paavo Järvi, Lorin Maazel, Cristian Măcelaru, Zubin Mehta, Ludovic Morlot, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Peter Oundjian, Rafael Payare, Donald Runnicles, Yuri Temirkanov, Michael Tilson Thomas, Osmo Vänskä, Joshua Weilerstein, Simone Young and David Zinman.
In 2009, she was one of four artists invited by Michelle Obama to participate in a widely celebrated and high-profile classical music event at the White House, featuring student workshops hosted by the First Lady and performances in front of an audience that included President Obama and the First Family. A month later, Weilerstein toured Venezuela as soloist with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra under Dudamel, since when she has made numerous return visits to teach and perform with the orchestra as part of its famed El Sistema music education program.
Born in 1982, Alisa Weilerstein discovered her love for the cello at just two and a half, when she had chicken pox and her grandmother assembled a makeshift set of instruments from cereal boxes to entertain her. Although immediately drawn to the Rice Krispies box cello, Weilerstein soon grew frustrated that it didn’t produce any sound. After persuading her parents to buy her a real cello at the age of four, she developed a natural affinity for the instrument and gave her first public performance six months later. At 13, in 1995, she made her professional concert debut, playing Tchaikovsky’s “Rococo” Variations with the Cleveland Orchestra, and in March 1997 she made her first Carnegie Hall appearance with the New York Youth Symphony.
A graduate of the Young Artist Program at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where she studied with Richard Weiss, Weilerstein also holds a degree in history from Columbia University. She was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes (T1D) at nine years old, and is a staunch advocate for the T1D community, serving as a consultant for the biotechnology company eGenesis and as a Celebrity Advocate for JDRF, the world leader in T1D research. Born into a musical family, she is the daughter of violinist Donald Weilerstein and pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, and the sister of conductor Joshua Weilerstein. She is married to Venezuelan conductor Rafael Payare, with whom she has a young child.
Esa-Pekka Salonen’s restless innovation drives him constantly to reposition classical music in the 21st century. He is known as both a composer and conductor and is currently the Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor for London’s Philharmonia Orchestra. He is the Music Director Designate of the San Francisco Symphony; the 2020-21 season will be his first as Music Director.He is Artist in Association at the Finnish National Opera and Ballet. He recently joined the faculty of LA’s Colburn School, where he developed, leads, and directs the pre-professional Negaunee Conducting Program.
He is the Conductor Laureate for both the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, where he was Music Director from 1992 until 2009. Salonen co-founded—and from 2003 until 2018 served as the Artistic Director for—the annual Baltic Sea Festival, which invites celebrated artists to promote unity and ecological awareness among the countries around the Baltic Sea.
The Moscow-born pianist Elena Bashkirova studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the masterclass led by her father, the renowned pianist and music teacher Dimitrij Bashkirov. The various facets of her creative activity – orchestral pieces, chamber music, recitals, song accompaniment and programing – are all equally important to Elena Bashkirova, and her experiences in each area provide a constant source of inspiration for her work in the others. Elena Bashkirova explores classical and romantic repertoire as well as twentieth-century music; her work has been strongly influenced by collaborations and exchange with artists such as Pierre Boulez, Sergiu Celibidache, Christoph von Dohnányi and Michael Gielen. She enjoys long- standing partnerships with conductors such as Lawrence Foster, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Ivor Bolton, Manfred Honeck and Antonello Manacorda.
Twenty years ago, she founded the Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, an event taking place every year in September which she continues to lead as Artistic Director. The festival has become an important part of Israel’s cultural life. Since 2012, a partner festival has taken place every April at the Jewish Museum Berlin; this has also proved hugely popular.
Through guest performances of the “Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival Ensemble” at renowned chamber music series in Berlin, Paris, London, Salzburg, Vienna, Luxembourg, Lisbon, Budapest, Buenos Aires and São Paolo – as well as at international summer festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Verbier Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival, the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest, the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Bonn Beethovenfest – the festival’s reach extends far beyond the borders of Israel.