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Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson is a prolific soloist and chamber musician, equally adept on modern and historical instruments, and widely respected as both performer and pedagogue. Highlights of 2025 include multiple appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall, performances as concerto soloist with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and engagements at festivals such as Bath Mozartfest, Cumnock Tryst, Musikdorf Ernen, Festivalta, Lewes Chamber Music, Resonances, and Yellow Barn. His musical collaborators include Steven Isserlis, Viktoria Mullova, Pieter Wispelwey, and the Nash Ensemble.
Renowned for his sincerity and adventurous programming, Alasdair champions a broad repertoire with particular focus on Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann; the solo and chamber works of Gabriel Fauré, Bartók, and Janáček; concertos by Bach, Bartók, Britten, Fauré, Hindemith, Messiaen, and Mozart; and contemporary compositions including Thomas Adès’s piano quintet, George Benjamin’s Piano Figures and Shadowlines, and Harrison Birtwistle’s Harrison’s Clocks.
His recent recordings include the solo recital Aus Wien on Pentatone, featuring music by Schumann, Schoenberg, Ravel, Korngold, and Schubert, as well as works by Beethoven and Schubert for violin and fortepiano with Viktoria Mullova on Signum. These join a distinguished discography of solo and chamber recordings across labels including BIS, Champs Hill, Chandos, Claves, Evil Penguin, Onyx, Pentatone, and SOMM.
Alasdair teaches solo piano at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and regularly mentors through Chamber Studio and MusicWorks. From 2012 to 2018, he was founder and artistic director of Musique à Marsac, and since 2019 he has served as artistic director of the chamber music festival at Musikdorf Ernen in Switzerland.
Lang Lang, born on 14 June 1982 in Shenyang, is a world-renowned Chinese pianist.
He began studying the piano at the age of three and gave his first public recital at five. Lang Lang has won several prestigious competitions, including first prize at the Shenyang Piano Competition in 1987 and first prize at the Xing Hai Competition in Beijing in 1991. He was also admitted to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he studied under Professor Zhao Ping-Guo.
He made his U.S. debut in 1998 and quickly gained fame for his remarkable performances, extraordinary technique, and expressive interpretations. His foundation, the Lang Lang Music Foundation, was established in 2007 to support pianists around the world.
John Fisher studied at Glasgow University and the Royal Academy of Music & Drama and The London Opera Centre. His career, which began as Music Director of Welsh National Opera’s ‘Opera for All’ project, has included work at the Théâtre à la Monnaie (Brussels), Nederlands Opera (Amsterdam), La Scala (Milan), where he was also Artistic Administrator, and as the first non-Italian to be appointed Artistic Director in a state-funded Italian opera house, at the Teatro alla Fenice (Venice). He was Director of Opera and Vocal Productions and Executive Producer at Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, Hamburg, and Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. In 2006, he took up the post of Chief Executive and Artistic Director at Welsh National Opera, a role he held for five years. He subsequently returned to the Metropolitan opera as Assistant General Manager.
John has collaborated throughout his career with the industry’s most distinguished conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber and Sir Georg Solti. He has also worked extensively with many of the world’s greatest opera stars, notably José Carreras, Marilyn Horne, Luciano Pavarotti and Dame Joan Sutherland. John’s recent work in New York has also featured engagement with the Young Artists programme at the Metropolitan Opera and at the world-renowned Juilliard School. As Hodge International Chair in Opera since 2015 he has been a regular visiting artist at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama working with many young singers on the College’s Masters programme in Advanced Opera Performance.
Described as ‘an amazingly talented pianist’ by Musica, Emma Abbate performs with many of the leading singers and instrumentalists of her generation.
Emma has made a series of acclaimed recordings devoted to Italian vocal chamber music, the latest of which is the world-première Franco Alfano: Songs with the leading Italian dramatic soprano Anna Pirozzi. Previously, Emma has recorded Sera d’inverno: Songs by Ildebrando Pizzetti with mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Shakespeare Sonnets with bass-baritone Ashley Riches, all on Resonus Classics.
Based in London, Emma is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, a staff coach at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and is regularly invited to teach at the Verbier Festival Academy.
Israeli violinist Lir Vaginsky began playing the violin at the age of seven and has since performed internationally in venues such as Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Elbphilharmonie, and Berliner Philharmonie, with orchestras including the Hamburg Camerata and Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. She recently collaborated with Max Richter in Berlin. In 2024, she released her debut album with the Konzerthaus Berlin Kammerorchester, featuring Mozart’s violin concertos with her own cadenzas.
A former member of the LGT Young Soloists, she became the youngest violinist ever to record two solo albums under RCA Red Seal (Sony Music). Lir studied with Tomasz Tomaszewski, Latica Honda-Rosenberg, and Christian Tetzlaff, and took part in masterclasses with Ana Chumachenco, András Schiff, and Augustin Hadelich. A laureate of the Ysaye, Young Paganini, and Grand Prize Virtuoso competitions, she is supported by the Musikleben, Ponto, and Kalliope Foundations, and performs with an 1810 Louis Pajeot bow.
Born in Madrid in 1995, Sara Ferrández is one of the most exciting violists of her generation. A graduate of the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler under Tabea Zimmermann, and the Kronberg Academy with Nobuko Imai, she has performed with major orchestras including the Spanish National Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and Marseille Philharmonic, under conductors such as Kazuki Yamada, Cristian Macelaru, and Alondra de la Parra. A passionate chamber musician, she has shared the stage with Janine Jansen, Renaud Capuçon, Beatrice Rana, and Pinchas Zukerman. Formerly a member of the Berlin Philharmonic’s Karajan Academy, she performs with Anne-Sophie Mutter’s “Mutter’s Virtuosi” and joins the Orpheum Foundation in 2025. Sara plays a 1730 David Tecchler viola and a Nicolas Léonard Tourte bow, generously loaned by Stephan Jansen and the Stretton Society.
Founded in 1967 by Jean-Charles Dorsaz, the Ensemble de Cuivres Valaisan (ECV) is a Brass Band of around thirty amateur musicians, ranked among Switzerland’s finest. Regularly competing at the national level, the band has worked with renowned conductors and soloists such as James Watson, Philip Harper, Roger Webster, and Estelle Revaz. ECV also stands out for its annual “Brass Band & Classical” concert at Le Baladin Theatre in Savièse, showcasing musical excellence, passion, and strong team spirit. Since 2024, it has been led by Jean-François Bobillier.
Johannes Kammler is one of the most sought-after baritones of his generation, celebrated for his stylistic versatility and captivating presence on opera, concert, and recital stages worldwide, from Canada and Europe to Korea. He made his breakthrough at the Salzburg Festival in 2018 with Der Prozess and has since performed at prestigious venues such as Staatsoper Stuttgart, Bavarian State Opera, Bregenz Festival, and Glyndebourne, in leading roles including Papageno, Conte, Marcello, and Guglielmo.
On the concert stage, he has been acclaimed in works such as Carmina Burana, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms’ Requiem, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, working with renowned conductors like Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle, and Gustavo Dudamel, and top orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra. A passionate recitalist, he regularly collaborates with distinguished pianists at venues like Wigmore Hall. Born in Augsburg, he studied in Freiburg, Toronto, and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, and is a prizewinner of major international competitions including Neue Stimmen and Operalia.
Hera Hyesang Park, a South Korean soprano of remarkable ascent, began her studies at Seoul National University before continuing at New York’s Juilliard School, from which she graduated in 2015. That same year, she won second prize at the prestigious Operalia competition. Soon after, she joined the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, making her Met debut in 2017 as the First Wood Sprite in Dvořák’s Rusalka. She has since appeared there as Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro), the Dew Fairy (Hansel and Gretel), Amore (Orfeo ed Euridice), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), and Nannetta (Falstaff).
During the 2017–2018 season, she also made her debut at the Bavarian State Opera, further establishing herself as one of the most captivating young voices on the international opera scene.
In 2020, Hera Hyesang Park signed with Deutsche Grammophon, marking a new chapter in a career defined by elegance, artistry, and global reach.