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Sir Simon Rattle was born in Liverpool and studied at the Royal Academy of Music.
From 1980 to 1998, Sir Simon was Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and was appointed Music Director in 1990. In 2002 he took up the position of Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker where he remained until the end of the 2017-18 season. Sir Simon was appointed Music Director of the London Symphony Orchestra in September 2017, a position he remained in until the 2023-24 season when he became the orchestra’s Conductor Emeritus. In 2023-24, Sir Simon took up the position of Chief Conductor with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks in Munich. He is a Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Founding Patron of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group.
Sir Simon has made over 70 recordings for EMI record label (now Warner Classics) and has received numerous prestigious international awards for his recordings on various labels. Releases on EMI include Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms (which received a Grammy Award for Best Choral Performance) Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique, Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges, Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring and Rachmaninov’s The Bells and Symphonic Dances, all recorded with the Berliner Philharmoniker. His most recent recordings include Berlioz’ Le damnation de Faust, Helen Grime’s Woven Space, Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande , Turnage’s Remembering, and Beethoven’s Christ on the Mountain of Olives, which were all released by the London Symphony Orchestra’s own record label, LSO Live.
Sir Simon regularly tours within Europe, the United States and Asia, and has strong longstanding relationships with the world’s leading orchestras. He regularly conducts the Staatskapelle Berlin, Berliner Philharmoniker, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and the Czech Philharmonic. Recent operatic highlights include Der Rosenkavalier with the Metropolitan Opera New York, Janáček’s Katya Kabanova with the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin, and Wozzeck with the London Symphony Orchestra at Festival d’Aix en Provence.
Music education is of supreme importance to Sir Simon, and his partnership with the Berliner Philiharmoniker broke new ground with the education programme Zukunft@Bphil, earning him the Comenius Prize, the Schiller Special Prize from the city of Mannheim, the Golden Camera and the Urania Medal. He and the Berliner Philharmoniker were also appointed International UNICEF Ambassadors in 2004 – the first time this honour has been conferred on an artistic ensemble. In 2019, Sir Simon announced the creation of the LSO East London Academy, developed by the London Symphony Orchestra in partnership with 10 East London boroughs. This free program aims to identify and develop the potential of young East Londoners between the ages of 11 and 18 who show exceptional musical talent, irrespective of their background or financial circumstance. Sir Simon was awarded a knighthood by Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1994 and received the Order of Merit in 2014. He received the Order of Merit in Berlin in 2018. In 2019, Sir Simon was given the Freedom of the City of London.
His inaugural season (23/24) as Chief Conductor of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks will include tours in the US and Europe, concert performances of Idomeneo, as well as an important new commission by Thomas Adés. Appearances elsewhere include concerts with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Berliner Philharmoniker, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Czech Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra and at the Verbier Festival 2024.
November 2023
Fabio Luisi is Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Danish Radio National Symphony Orchestra (DR Symfoni Orkestret) and Emeritus Conductor of the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI based in Torino.
In addition, starting from the 2022/2023 season he will be Principal Conductor of the NHK Orchestra in Tokyo.
He conducts the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Münchner Philharmoniker, Cleveland Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, just to name a few.
A former Principal conductor of the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Maestro Luisi has been honored with the Gold Medal and Gold Ring dedicated to Bruckner. His past engagements include Music Director at the Dresden Staatskapelle and the Sächsische Staatsoper, Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Artistic Director of the Leipzig Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, Music Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Principal Conductor of the Tonkünstler-Orchester in Vienna and Artistic Director of the Graz Symphony Orchestra.
Luisi received a Grammy Award for his conducting of the last two operas of The Ring of the Nibelung, and the DVD of the same cycle, recorded live at the Metropolitan and released by Deutsche Grammophon, was named Best Opera Recording in 2012. His extensive discography includes works by Giuseppe Verdi, Antonio Salieri, and Vincenzo Bellini; symphonies by Arthur Honegger, Ottorino Respighi, and Franz Liszt; music by Franz Schmidt and Richard Strauss; and his award-winning interpretation of Anton Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony. In 2015, the Philharmonia Zürich launched its own Philharmonia Records record label with Luisi’s interpretations of Hector Berlioz, Richard Wagner, and Giuseppe Verdi’s Rigoletto, to which was recently added the rare performance of the original version of Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony.
He was born in Genova in 1959 where he was awarded the Grifo d’Oro, for his contribution to the cultural heritage of the city. When not busy at the podium, he is a passionate perfume maker.
The Süddeutsche Zeitung reveres him as an ‘icon of early music’, and the New York Times applauds him as a ‘light in a sea of mediocrity’. Reinhard Goebel specialises in the repertoire of the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries; As an expounder of period performance practice for both early music ensembles and modern orchestras, and as an endless fount of knowledge about gems of the repertoire, he is a world-renowned specialist.
The multi-award-winning CD series, “Beethoven’s World”, was released by Sony Classical during the 19/20 and 20/21 seasons, starring Germany’s leading radio orchestras (WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra), ten soloists and seven world premieres. In keeping with Reinhard Goebel’s view, “If you want to appreciate Beethoven’s life achievements you first have to know his contemporaries”, the series is intended to inspire closer investigation into Beethoven’s milieu.
Following this immense success, the next series, “New Mozarts” with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, is due for release by Sony Classical in the 21/22 season, featuring arrangements and compositions by Mozart of which most have never yet been recorded. Furthermore, Reinhard Goebel and the Berlin Baroque Soloists will release two recordings on the Hänssler Classic label with symphonies by the Bach family and works for string orchestra by Mozart.
Musical encounters in 21/22 include the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Bruckner Orchester Linz, the Noord Nederlands Orkest, the Radio Orchestra of Cologne and four concerts with the Neues Bachsches Collegiom Musicum – the baroque orchestra of Gewandhaus Leipzig. A further highlight is a tour with the Berlin Baroque Soloists with performances in the Lucerne Festival, Grafenegg to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Brandenburg Concertos.
Reinhard Goebel was the founder of the legendary Musica Antiqua Köln, whom he directed for 33 years. As a conductor, his unique way of amalgamating passion for music with meticulous musicological knowledge, inspires, captivates and polarises today’s orchestral scene.
In April 2007 the IMA award was conferred on Reinhard Goebel in London.
He is awardee of the Buxtehude Prize of the city of Lübeck (1984), the North Rhine-Westphalian State Prize (1997), the Teleman-Prize of the city of Magdeburg (2002), the Bach-Medaille of the City of Leipzig (2017) and the Dancing Shepard Prize of the city of Würzburg (2020). In 2015 the BBC Music Magazine chose him to appear on their list of the 20 best violinists of all time.
Italian conductor Claudio Vandelli’s acclaimed career takes him to prominent halls such as the Berliner Philharmonie and the Royal Albert Hall, working with orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gürzenich Orchestra Köln and the Hamburger Symphoniker. He is currently the first ever Chief Conductor of the Würth Philharmoniker, founded in 2017, and permanent guest conductor of the Novaya Rossiya State Symphony Orchestra in Moscow, with whom he recently celebrated his 10th year of residence. Vandelli is also devoted to bringing up the next generation of professional orchestral musicians, and the crown jewels of that work have been the creation of the Verbier Festival’s three international orchestras and, most recently, the Pan-Caucasian Youth Orchestra resident at the Tsinandali Festival in Georgia, which launched in September 2019.
Kurt Masur is well known to orchestras and audiences alike as both a distinguished conductor and a humanist. In September 2002 he became music director of the Orchestre National de France in Paris, and, in September 2008, became that ensemble’s honorary music director for life. From September 2000 to 2007 he was principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1991 to 2002 he was Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, and was subsequently named Music Director Emeritus — the first New York Philharmonic music director to receive that title, and only the second (after Leonard Bernstein, who had been named Laureate Conductor) to be so recognized. The New York Philharmonic established the Kurt Masur Fund for the Orchestra, which endows a conductor debut week at the Philharmonic in his honor in perpetuity. From 1970 until 1996 Mr. Masur served as Gewandhaus Kapellmeister of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, a position of profound historic importance; upon his retirement in 1996 the Gewandhaus named him its first-ever conductor laureate. Mr. Masur is a guest conductor with the world’s leading orchestras and holds the lifetime title of honorary guest conductor of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In July 2007 he celebrated his 80th birthday in a concert at the BBC Proms in London, where he conducted the joint forces of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orchestre National de France.
A professor at the Leipzig Academy of Music since 1975, Kurt Masur has received numerous honors, including the Cross of the Order of Merits of the Federal Republic of Germany (1995); Gold Medal of Honor for Music from the National Arts Club (1996); the titles of Commander of the Legion of Honor from the French Government, and of New York City Cultural Ambassador from the City of New York (1997); and the Commander Cross of Merit of the Polish Republic (1999). In March 2002 the President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Johannes Rau, bestowed upon him the Cross with Star of the Order of Merits of the Federal Republic of Germany, and in September 2007 he received the Great Cross of the Legion of Honor with Star and Ribbon from the President of Germany, Horst Köhler.
In September 2008 Mr. Masur received the Furtwängler Prize in Bonn, Germany. He is also an honorary citizen of his hometown, Brieg. He has made more than 100 recordings with numerous orchestras, and in 2008 celebrated 60 years as a professional conductor.
Chilly Gonzales, Grammy-winning Canadian pianist and entertainer currently living in Europe, is known as much for the intimate piano touch of his best-selling Solo Piano album trilogy as for his showmanship and composition for award-winning stars.
“Gonzo” aims to be a man of his time, approaching the piano with classical and jazz training but with the attitude of a rapper. He performs and writes songs with Jarvis Cocker, Feist and Drake, among others and holds the Guinness world record for the longest solo concert at over 27 hours. In 2014 he won a Grammy for his collaboration on Daft Punk’s Best Album of the Year. 2018 saw the cinema release of a career retrospective documentary Shut Up and Play the Piano that premiered at the A-list Berlinale Film festival.
Most recently, Chilly Gonzales ventured into a new form of entrepreneurship. A culmination of recent years’ explorations in teaching, Gonzo inaugurated his very own music school: The Gonzervatory.
His first book Enya: A Treatise on Unguilty Pleasures was published in October 2020. In dazzling, erudite prose Gonzales delves beyond her innumerable gold discs and millions of fans to excavate his own enthusiasm for Enya’s singular music as well as the mysterious musician herself, and along the way uncovers new truths about the nature of music, fame, success and the artistic endeavor. In this musical memoir, he asks: Does music have to be smart or does it just need to go straight to the heart?
In Winter 2020, Chilly Gonzales released A very chilly christmas, his very own Christmas Album. From feudal oldies to newer holiday pop canon, A very chilly christmas surveys a broad scope of seasonal repertoire and sentiment. There’s grandeur and solemnity, there’s austerity and merriment, and there’s Mariah Carey.
For this tour, Chilly Gonzales is joined on stage for a portion of the show by Stella Le Page, Cello, Joe Flory, Drums & Marine Goldwaser, Clarinet.
Clarinettist, conductor and Sony Classical recording artist, Martin Fröst is known for pushing musical boundaries and has been described by the New York Times as having “a virtuosity and a musicianship unsurpassed by any clarinettist — perhaps any instrumentalist — in my memory”. Widely recognised as an artist who constantly seeks new ways to challenge and reshape the classical music arena, his repertoire encompasses mainstream clarinet works, as well as a number of contemporary pieces that he has personally championed. Winner of the 2014 Léonie Sonning Music Prize, one of the world’s highest musical honours, Fröst was the first clarinettist to be given the award and joined a prestigious list of previous recipients including Igor Stravinsky and Sir Simon Rattle. International Classical Music Awards voted him their 2022 Artist of the Year Award for his innovative global career, his impressive discography, and his philanthropy.
Fröst was announced the Artist in Residence with the Royal Concertgebouworkest for the 2022/23 season, the first ever wind player to be given that honour. The residency include season opening concerts with Víkingur Ólafsson and Alain Altinoglu; the world premiere of Anna Clyne’s Clarinet Concert with Jaap van Zweden; and exciting performance of Sally Beamish double concerto with Janine Jansen and Klaus Mäkelä as well as chamber music projects interspersed throughout the season. In 2022/23 Fröst continues to focus on his activities as Chief Conductor of Swedish Chamber Orchestra, including SCO Festival “Fröstivalen”, concerts with international guest artists, recording projects and highly anticipated European tour in early 2023. Other highlights of this season include a residency at Wigmore Hall, returns to the Royal Festival Hall with Philharmonia Orchestra and Pekka Kussisto and to Berlin with RSB Berlin and Lahav Shani as well as a conducting debut with Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
His latest album for Sony Classical Night Passages was released on the 22 April 2022. With acclaimed pianist Roland Pöntinen and legendary bassist Sébastien Dubé, it charts a nocturnal journey through the playful and the profound, reimagining favourites from the Baroque, while touching on jazz and folk music.
As a soloist, Fröst has performed with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra and NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. He regularly collaborates with prominent international artists, including Yuja Wang, Janine Jansen, Leif Ove Andsnes, Roland Pöntinen and Antoine Tamestit, as well as performs in international events such as Verbier Festival in Switzerland and Mostly Mozart in New York. Fröst has appeared in some of the world’s most important concert venues, including Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and Konzerthaus Berlin and he has toured in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia.
In recent years he has made successful conducting steps with the most important being his appointment as Chief Conductor of Swedish Chamber Orchestra from the 2019/20 season. Together they have embarked on a music journey that explores Mozart’s historic footprint in Europe through his travels. The project, set to be recorded by Sony Classical over a period of four years, is the orchestra’s first comprehensive green tour initiative, making extensive use of rail travel across Europe.
Renowned for his multimedia performing projects in collaboration with Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, in recent years Fröst has presented Dollhouse, Genesis and most recently Retrotopia – his latest project to perform both as soloist and conductor in a musical journey that explores new repertoire and challenges the traditional conventions of the classical concert.
A keen advocate of the importance of music education, in 2019 Fröst launched the Martin Fröst Foundation with the support of the world’s largest manufacturer of wind instruments, Buffet Crampon. The purpose of the organisation is to provide resources that can improve and enable children’s and young people’s access to music education and instruments. The Foundation aims to join forces with non-profit organisations and various sponsors across the world, having already established presence in Kenya and Madagascar.
‘A voice that can stop time, pure and rich and open and consummately expressive’ is how the Financial Times described Chinese soprano Ying Fang as Ilia in Peter Sellars’s production of Mozart’s Idomeneo at the 2019 Salzburg Festival. Mozart also featured prominently in her 2020/21 season as she made house debuts at Dutch National Opera and Santa Fe Opera as Susanna in Le nozze di Figaro. A former member of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Fang has performed with conductors including James Levine, Alan Gilbert, William Christie, Emmanuelle Haïm and Manfred Honeck, and houses including Opernhaus Zürich, Opéra de Lille, Vancouver Opera, and The Juilliard School from where she holds a Master’s degree and an Artist Diploma. Her awards include the Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, and China’s prestigious China Golden Bell Award for Music.
Universally acclaimed as both conductor and pianist, and renowned for the breadth of his repertoire and the depth of his interpretations, Christoph Eschenbach belongs firmly to his native Germany’s intellectual line of tradition, yet combines this with a rare emotional intensity. Currently Musical Director of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, his previous appointments include musical directorships at the National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris and the Philadelphia Orchestra. His tireless support of young talent includes being Artistic Advisor and lecturer at the Kronberg Academy. Among his awards garnered over five decades of recording are the German Record Critics’ Prize, the MIDEM Classical Award and a GRAMMY. He has been awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, and is a Commandeur de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, a holder of the German Federal Cross of Merit and a winner of the Leonard Bernstein Award.
Quatuor Ébène began its rise to fame in 2004 as winner of the ARD Music Competition, following studies with the Quatuor Ysaÿe in Paris, and also Gábor Takács, Eberhard Feltz and György Kurtág. Today it is internationally fêted for its distinctive, charismatic playing, and the complexity of its oeuvre, including its trademark jazz and pop improvisations. The quartet celebrated its 20th stage anniversary in 2019 and 2020 by live-recording Beethoven’s 16 string quartets for its label Erato, in a Beethoven Around the World project on six continents. Its 2021 ‘Round Midnight album then placed a brand new jazz-inspired work by quartet cellist Raphaël Merlin between Dutilleux and Schoenberg. Beyond numerous awards for its recordings, including Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine and the Midem Classic Award, the quartet became in 2019 the first ever ensemble to be honoured with the Frankfurt Music Prize.