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Internationally-acclaimed viola player Lawrence Power is widely heralded for his richness of sound, technical mastery and his passionate advocacy for new music. Lawrence has advanced the cause of the viola both through the excellence of his performances, whether in recitals, chamber music or concertos and the creation of the Viola Commissioning Circle (VCC), which has led to a substantial body of fresh repertoire for the instrument by today’s finest composers. Lawrence has premiered concertos by leading composers such as James MacMillan, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Julian Anderson, Alexander Goer, and through the VCC has commissioned works by Anders Hillborg, Thomas Adès, Gerald Barry, Cassandra Miller and Magnus Lindberg.
Lawrence is Resident Artist at the Southbank Centre in 2024/25, which commences with a recital with Thomas Adès featuring works by Adès, Britten, Dowland, Stravinsky and Berio where they will be joined by a percussionist and internationally renowned dancer and choreographer Jonathan Goddard. Further performances include the UK Premiere of Magnus Lindberg’s Viola Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Esa-Pekka Salonen, a ‘Lock-in’ featuring live performance and cinematic projection and a newly commissioned project from creative studio Âme.
Elsewhere in the season, Lawrence will give the German, US and Austrian premiere of the Lindberg Viola Concerto with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester (Alan Gilbert), St Louis Symphony (Hannu Lintu) and Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg (Aivis Greters). Further highlights include the Konzerthausorchester Berlin (Ivan Fisher), Orchestre National de Belgique (Antony Hermus) and a return to the Scottish Chamber Orchestra for the Scottish premiere of Anders Hillborg’s Viola Concerto conducted by Andrew Manze.
Over the past decade, Lawrence has become a regular guest performer with orchestras of the highest calibre, from Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Stockholm, Bergen and Warsaw Philharmonic orchestras to the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia, BBC Scottish Symphony and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras, with conductors such as such as Osmo Vänska, Lahav Shani, Parvo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Andrew Manze, Edward Gardner, Nicholas Collon, Ilan Volkov and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Lawrence enjoys play-directing orchestras from both violin and viola, most recently at the Edinburgh International Festival with Scottish Ensemble, Australian National Academy of Music and with Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and leads his own orchestra, Collegium, made up of fine young musicians from across Europe. He is on the faculty at Zurich’s Hochschule der Kunst and gives masterclasses around the world, including at the Verbier Festival.
As a chamber musician he is in much demand and regularly performs at Verbier, Salzburg, Aspen, Oslo and other festivals with artists such as Steven Isserlis, Nicholas Alstaedt, Simon Crawford-Phillips, Vilde Frang, Maxim Vengerov and Joshua Bell. Lawrence was announced in 2021 as an Associate Artist at the Wigmore Hall, a position lasting for five years, with artists performing at least once each season.
Welsh bass-baritone Sir Bryn Terfel has established an extraordinary career, performing regularly on the prestigious concert stages and opera houses of the world.
After winning the Song Prize at the 1989 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, Sir Bryn made his professional operatic debut in 1990 as Guglielmo in Così fan tutte with Welsh National Opera. He made his international operatic debut in 1991 as Speaker in Die Zauberflöte at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, Brussels and made his American debut in the same year as Figaro with Santa Fe Opera. Other roles performed during his career include Méphistophélès in Faust, both the Title Role and Leporello in Don Giovanni, Jochanaan in Salome, the Title Role in Gianni Schicchi, Nick Shadow in The Rake’s Progress, Wolfram in Tannhäuser, Balstrode in Peter Grimes and Four Villains in Les contes d’Hoffmann.
Sir Bryn marked his 50th birthday and twenty-five years in the profession with a special one-off Gala Concert at the Royal Albert Hall, presented by Hollywood star Michael Sheen. The celebrations continued at Cardiff’s Wales Millennium Centre, where he sang Scarpia in a special concert performance of Tosca with Welsh National Opera.
Recent performances include Don Basilio in The Barber of Seville for Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Balstrode for Wiener Staatsoper and Royal Opera House, Holländer in Der fliegende Holländer for Grange Park Opera, Falstaff for Zürich Opera and Bayerische Staatsoper, Münich, Scarpia for Zürich Opera and Opera National de Paris, Don Pizarro in Fidelio at the Schloßberg, Graz, Don Pasquale at the Royal Opera House and Boris Godunov for Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Royal Opera House.
Other operatic highlights to date include his debut in the role of Hans Sachs in the critically acclaimed production of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg for Welsh National Opera, Wotan in The Ring Cycle at the Royal Opera House and the Metropolitan Opera, New York, his debut in the role of Reb Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof for Grange Park Opera, Sweeney Todd for English National Opera and hosting a four day festival, Brynfest, at the Southbank Centre, London as part of the Southbank Centre’s Festival of the World.
Equally at home on the concert platform, his highlights range from the opening ceremony of the Wales Millennium Centre, BBC Last Night of the Proms and the Royal Variety Show to a Gala Concert with Andrea Bocelli in Central Park, New York and curating a special Christmas concert and live international stream for the Metropolitan Opera’s ‘Met Stars Live in Concert’ series from Brecon Cathedral, Wales. He has given recitals all around the world and for nine years, he hosted his own festival in Faenol, North Wales. Recent performances include a 9-date recital and concert tour of the UK, orchestral concerts in Antwerp and Belgrade, and voice, harp and piano recitals in Stockholm and Geneva.
Sir Bryn is a Grammy, Classical Brit and Gramophone Award winner with a discography encompassing operas of Mozart, Wagner and Strauss, and more than fifteen solo discs including Lieder, American musical theatre, Welsh songs and sacred repertory.
Bryn was made a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to Opera in 2003, was awarded the Queen’s Medal for Music in 2006, received a knighthood for his services to music in 2017, was honoured with the title of Austrian Kammersänger for his services to the Wiener Staatsoper and awarded an European Cultural Award at the Tonhalle, Zurich, in recognition of his extraordinary music career in 2022. He was the last recipient of the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation and in 2015, he was given The Freedom of the City of London.
Born in Toro, Spain, Jesús López-Cobos studied at the universities of Granada and Madrid, earning a doctorate in philosophy in 1964. In his student days, López-Cobos led a student chorus with such success that he decided to undertake full-time musical studies, first earning a degree in composition from Madrid in 1966. He then studied conducting with Franco Ferrara in Italy. In 1968, López-Cobos won first prize at the Besançon international conducting competition, and as a student of Hans Swarowsky he took his degree in conducting at the Vienna Academy in 1969. That same year, López-Cobos gave his debut concert as a symphony conductor in Prague, and as an opera conductor at La Fenice in Venice.
López-Cobos first led the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1970 and would serve as general musical director for that company from 1981 to 1990. During that time, López-Cobos led Wagner’s Ring cycle on tour in Japan in 1987; the tour marked the first time the whole Ring cycle had been staged in that country. In the 1970s and 1980s, López-Cobos also led opera productions at Covent Garden, San Francisco, the Vienna Opera, La Scala, and he Metropolitan in New York. López-Cobos was named principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic and served there from 1981 to 1986. Also, from 1984 to 1989, he served as principal conductor and artistic director of the Spanish National Orchestra.
In 1986, López-Cobos was named principal conductor and music director of the Cincinnati Symphony; he added the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra to his musical directorships in 1990. With Cincinnati he would embark on an extensive recording schedule with Telarc, resulting in recordings of works by Respighi, Ravel, Richard Strauss, Wagner, Bruckner, Mahler, Falla, Bizet, Franck, and Dukas. Among these, his recording of the Mahler Symphony No. 9 has been singled out as a critical favorite, and his complete recording of Albéniz’s Iberia in the Arbos and Surinach orchestrations is apparently unique in the catalog. His repertory was rich with works of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. López-Cobos also recorded with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra for Denon and Teldec.
López-Cobos led the usually homebound Cincinnati Symphony on several tours, including one to Puerto Rico in 1998 and the first West Coast tour in the orchestra’s history in 1992. His annual appearances with the Cincinnati orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York regularly sold out the house. In 1997, López-Cobos led the ensemble in its first coast-to-coast telecast on PBS, featuring pianist Alicia de Larrocha. In 1996, the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music awarded López-Cobos an honorary doctorate in music.
In 2001, maestro López-Cobos became conductor emeritus in Cincinnati. He also ended his association with the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra in 2000. López Cobos was the first Spanish Conductor to climb the podium at the Scala in Milan, the Covent Garden in London, the Paris Opera and the Metropolitan in New York. He directed opera regularly, having collaborated in five productions at the Opéra de La Bastille in Paris, at the Metropolitan in New York with “Manon” and “Thaïs”; in Chicago, the Orange Festival, etc. He was also Musical Director of the Teatro Real de Madrid and Chief Conductor of the Madrid Symphony Orchestra with which he offered his own series of concerts.
López-Cobos continued as permanent conductor of the Orchestre Français des Jeunes, a Paris-based summer workshop for student musicians. He died in Berlin in March 2018 at the age of 78.
From Bach to Adès, pianist Kirill Gerstein’s playing is distinguished by a ferocious technique and discerning intelligence, matched with an energetic, imaginative musical presence that places him at the top of the international profession, with solo and concerto engagements taking him from Europe to the United States, East Asia and Australia. Born in the former Soviet Union, Gerstein is an American citizen based in Berlin whose heritage combines the traditions of Russian, American and Central European music-making with an insatiable curiosity. These qualities and the relationships that he has developed with orchestras, conductors, instrumentalists, singers and composers, have led him to explore a huge spectrum of repertoire both new and old.
In the coming season, Gerstein will feature as a Spotlight Artist with the London Symphony Orchestra, performing four concerti across the season at the orchestra’s Barbican Centre home and on tour, including Adès with Antonio Pappano, Rachmaninov and Ravel with Susanna Mälkki, and Gershwin with Simon Rattle. Gerstein’s flair for curation recently also found expression as Artist-in-Residence with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, in presenting a three-part concert series entitled ‘Busoni and His World’ at London’s Wigmore Hall, and as resident artist at the Festival Aix-en-Provence.
Elsewhere during 2023-24 season, Gerstein will return to orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Nelsons, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and Chamber Orchestra of Europe with Ticciati, Orchestre national de France with Măcelaru, Rotterdam Philharmonic with Shani, Boston Symphony and Los Angeles Philharmonic with Adès, Munich Philharmonic with Popelka, Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala with Harding, Orchestre national de Lyon with Szeps-Znaider, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecila with Kavakos and with Hrůša, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich with Payare, Minnesota Orchestra with Søndergård, and the radio orchestras of Stuttgart, Hamburg, and Cologne, among others. In recital, Gerstein will reprise with Christian Tetzlaff Suite from The Tempest for violin and piano, which was written for them by Thomas Adès, for premières in New York, Washington, and Boston. Gerstein will also appear in solo recital at Carnegie Hall New York, Chamber Music Napa Valley, the Vienna Konzerthaus, and the Abu Dhabi Festival among others.
David Guerrier commence l’étude de la trompette à sept ans et sort en juin 2000 avec un Premier Prix (mention très bien à l’unanimité, félicitations du Jury, mention spéciale pour la qualité exceptionnelle de la prestation) au Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Lyon. Il étudie également le cor au CNSM de Lyon.
David Guerrier complète son éducation musicale au sein de l’Orchestre des Jeunes de l’Union Européenne avec Sir Colin Davis et Bernard Haitink en 1999 et Vladimir Ashkenazy en 2000, ainsi qu’à l’Académie de Musique du XXème siècle avec Pierre Boulez et David Robertson en juillet 1999.
Depuis il enchaîne les succès : avec l’Orchestre National de Bordeaux et Hans Graf à Bordeaux et aux Folles Journées de Nantes, avec l’Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, au Théâtre des Champs Elysées dans le Chostakovitch avec l’orchestre de chambre de Moscou. Il a depuis été l’invité de l’Ensemble Orchestral de Paris / John Nelson, le Philharmonique de Radio France / Christian Zacharias et Diego Matheuz, Orchestre National de France / Yoel Levi et Kurt Masur, Les Siècles / François-Xavier Roth, les orchestres de Lille / Thierry Fischer et Theodor Guschlbauer, Lyon / Hugh Wolff et Jun Märkl, Marseille, Pau, l’Ensemble Matheus / Jean-Christophe Spinosi, La Chambre Philharmonique et les Orchestres du Luxembourg et de Barcelone / Emmanuel Krivine, NDR de Hanovre, l’orchestre Rio de Janeiro, les Wiener Symphoniker/Fedosseyev, l’Orchestre d’Euskadi/ Paul McCreesh, l’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande / Marek Janowski, ainsi que des festivals de Saint-Denis, Strasbourg, la Roque d’Anthéron, La Grange de Meslay, Colmar, Radio-France et Montpellier, Schwarzenberg, Verbier, Rheingau. En décembre 2011, il effectue une tournée européenne avec l’Orchestre de chambre du Verbier Festival et Martha Argerich.
David Guerrier a reçu de nombreuses distinctions : en octobre 2000, le Premier Prix du Concours International Maurice André (à Paris) et en septembre 2001, le Premier Prix du Concours International Philys Jones (à Guebwiller) avec le Quintette de Cuivres Turbulences. En janvier 2003 il reçoit lors du Midem à Cannes le Prix AFAA (Association Française d’Action Artistique) et à New York le Prix du «Young Concert Artists Auditions ». En 2003, il remporte le premier prix au concours de l’ARD de Munich. Le dernier à avoir obtenu le premier prix de trompette était Maurice André. Il est « Soliste instrumental de l’Année » aux Victoires de la Musique 2004 et 2007.
Discographie Virgin Classics / Erato : Septuor de Camille Saint-Saëns (« Choc » / Le Monde de la Musique, disque du mois / Gramophone) et concertos de Mozart (père et fils) pour cor et trompette avec l’Orchestre de chambre de Paris et John Nelson chez Virgin Classics. Chez Naïve : le Konzertstück pour quatre cors de Schumann avec La Chambre Philharmonique et Emmanuel Krivine.
En DVD, le concerto de Chostakovitch avec Martha Argerich et l’Orchestre de chambre du Verbier Festival (Idéale Audience). Il a été cor solo de l’Orchestre National de France et l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg. Il enseigne au CNSM de Lyon.
Timur Martynov is an outstanding trumpet player, one of the golden cast of Maestro Gergiev’s musicians. Every performance he gives is filled with great talent and virtuosity, whether he plays solo or with the orchestra.
Timur Martynov was born in 1979 to a family of musicians. At the age of eight he started to study trumpet and later continued his studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory.
During his career, Timur has given performances at many prestigious venues around the world and participated in various festivals such as BBC Prom, Salzburg Music Festival, Beethoven Festival, Diaghilev Festival Perm, Stars of the White Nights and the Moscow Easter Festival. In 2010, at the BBC Proms he performed a solo trumpet part in Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with the World Orchestra for Peace.
Beside performing, Timur founded himself in lecturing and coaching. He regularly gives masterclasses in Russia and abroad and has been teaching at the St. Petersburg Conservatory and at the Special music school of the conservatory since 2019.
The Russian violinist Ilya Gringolts wins over audiences with his extremely virtuosic playing and sensitive interpretations and is always seeking out new musical challenges. As a sought-after soloist, he devotes himself to the great orchestral repertoire as well as to contemporary and seldom-played works. He has premiered compositions by Peter Maxwell Davies, Augusta Read Thomas, Christophe Bertrand, Albert Schnelzer, and Michael Jarrell. This season he will add a new work by Bernhard Lang to this list. He is also interested in historical performance practices and collaborates regularly with ensembles such as the Finnish Baroque Orchestra and Arcangelo.
Ilya Gringolts has performed with leading orchestras around the world such as the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and both orchestras of the SWR (Southwest German Radio). Recent highlights include projects with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Singaporean Symphony Orchestra, and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra.
He kicked off the 2019/20 season at the Enescu Festival with a performance of Michael Jarrell’s Violin Concerto. This is followed by further invitations to play with internationally renowned ensembles such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Radio Filharmonisch Orkest, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra della Toscana, and NRK Norwegian Radio Orchestra. In spring 2020, Ilya Gringolts is artist in residence at the Badenweiler Musiktage, where in addition to his own Gringolts Quartet Meta4 and Kristian Bezuidenhout will guest.
Ilya Gringolts is also first violinist of the Gringolts Quartet, which he founded in 2008 and which has enjoyed great success at the Salzburg Festival, Lucerne Festival, Menuhin Festival Gstaad and Edinburgh Festival, and at major international houses such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Dortmund Konzerthaus and Teatro La Fenice in Venice. An in-demand chamber musician, Ilya Gringolts regularly collaborates with artists such as James Boyd, David Kadouch, Itamar Golan, Peter Laul, Aleksandar Madzar, Nicolas Altstaedt, Christian Poltera, Andreas Ottensamer, Antoine Tamestit, and Jörg Widmann.
He has made numerous critically praised recordings on Deutsche Grammophon, BIS, Hyperion and Onyx, and received outstanding reviews for his recording of Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin in 2013. In the orchestral realm, he has released recordings of Mieczysław Weinberg’s Violin Concerto with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra in 2015 as well as Dvorak’s violin concerto with the Prague Philharmonia for Deutsche Grammophon, and concertos by Korngold and Adams with the Copenhagen Philharmonic under Santtu-Matias Rouvali. In 2018 he released the second CD in his recording project of Stravinsky’s complete violin works, recorded with the Orquestra Sinfónica de Galicia under Dima Slobodeniouk.
After studying violin and composition in St. Petersburg, he attended the Juilliard School of Music where he studied with Itzhak Perlman. In 1998 he won the International Violin Competition Premio Paganini, the youngest finalist in the history of the competition. In addition to his position as professor of violin at the Zurich Academy of the Arts, he is also a Violin International Fellow at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. Ilya Gringolts plays a Stradivari (1718 “ex-Prové”) violin.
Violinist Janine Jansen has longstanding relationships with the world’s most eminent orchestras and conductors. During the season 2025/26 she is “Artist-in-Residence“ with the Berliner Philharmoniker as well as “Featured Artist” with Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Both residencies include a number of orchestral and chamber music projects throughout the season.
Extensive tours are planned with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Mäkelä, London Symphony Orchestra/Pappano and the Tonhalle Orchester/Järvi. She continues her Artistic Partnership with Camerata Salzburg culminating in tours across Asia and Europe.
Further orchestral engagements are planned with Orchestre de Paris/Mäkelä and Filarmonica della Scala/Luisi.
She continues her musical partnership with Martha Argerich and Mischa Maisky in a number of concerts including in Vienna, Lucerne and Tokyo. Alongside her regular duo partner Denis Kozhukhin.she presents a Brahms Sonata programme on tour in South Korea and Japan.
Janine records exclusively for Decca Classics. Her latest recording released in June 2024 features Sibelius Violin Concerto and Prokofiev Violin Concerto No 1 together with Klaus Mäkelä and the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and was met with high critical acclaim throughout.
She is the Founder and Artistic Director of the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht as well as Co-Artistic Director of Sion Festival. Since November 2023 she is Professor of Violin Studies at Kronberg Academy.
Janine studied with Coosje Wijzenbeek, Philipp Hirshhorn and Boris Belkin.
Janine Jansen plays the Shumsky-Rode Stradivarius from 1715, on generous loan from a European benefactor.
Janine Jansen is a PIRASTRO artist playing Evah Pirazzi Neo strings.
Iván Fischer is founder and Music Director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Music Director of the Konzerthaus and the Konzerthausorchester in Berlin. Recently he has also been active as a composer: his works have been performed in the US, Holland, Belgium, Hungary, Germany and Austria. He also staged successful opera performances, recently a Mozart cycle in Budapest and New York.
The 30 year-old partnership with the Budapest Festival Orchestra has become one of the greatest success stories of classical music. Intense international touring and a series of acclaimed recordings for Philips Classics, later for Channel Classics have contributed to Iván Fischer’s reputation as one of the world’s most visionary and successful orchestra leaders.
Both in Berlin and Budapest he has developed and introduced new types of concerts, “cocoa-concerts” for young children, “surprise” concerts where the programme is announced from the stage, “public dress rehearsals” where he talks to the audience, open-air concerts attracting tens of thousands of people and “staged concerts” combining concert and theatre. He has founded several festivals, including one composer marathons, the Budapest Mahlerfest which is also a forum for commissioning and presenting new compositions and the Bridging Europe Festival.
As a guest conductor Fischer works with the finest symphony orchestras of the world. He has been invited to the Berlin Philharmonic more than ten times, he leads every year two weeks of programs with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and appears with leading US symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra.
Earlier music director of Kent Opera and Lyon Opera, Principal Conductor of National Symphony Orchestra in Washington DC, his numerous recordings have won several prestigious international prizes.
Ivan Fischer studied piano, violin, cello and composition in Budapest, continuing his education in Vienna in Professor Hans Swarowsky’s conducting class.
Mr. Fischer is a founder of the Hungarian Mahler Society, and Patron of the British Kodály Academy. He received the Golden Medal Award from the President of the Republic of Hungary, and the Crystal Award from the World Economic Forum for his services to help international cultural relations. The French Government named him Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. In 2006 he was honored with the Kossuth Prize, Hungary’s most prestigious arts award. He is honorary citizen of Budapest. In 2011 he received the Royal Philharmonic Award and the Dutch Ovatie prize. In 2013 he was awarded Honorary Membership of the Royal Academy of Music in London.