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Carrie-Ann Matheson has a multi-faceted international career as pianist, conductor and educator, and since January 2021, is the Artistic Director of the San Francisco Opera Center. A native of Canada, Ms.Matheson began her career at the Metropolitan Opera, where she was a tenured member of the music staff, serving as assistant conductor, prompter, pianist and vocal coach. The expansion of her European performing career began in 2014 when she was invited by Maestro Fabio Luisi to join the coaching and conducting staff at Opernhaus Zürich.
Especially in demand as a recital pianist, she has performed with many of the world’s most celebrated opera singers, including Rolando Villazón, Benjamin Bernheim, Jonas Kaufmann, Piotr Beczała, Diana Damrau, Thomas Hampson and Joyce DiDonato.
Ms. Matheson made her conducting debut at Opernhaus Zürich, where she has since conducted works such as La Finta Giardiniera, Don Pasquale and Iphigénie en Tauride. As assistant conductor, she has worked with luminaries including James Levine, Fabio Luisi, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, and Gianandrea Noseda, and has been engaged in that capacity by such renowned festivals as the Salzburger Festspiele and the Seiji Ozawa Matsumoto Festival.
Passionate about nurturing the next generation of opera singers and pianists, Ms. Matheson has worked with the world’s leading young artist programs, including the International Opera Studio (Opernhaus Zürich), Atkins Young Artist Program (The Mariinsky Theatre), Lindemann Young Artist Development Program (The Metropolitan Opera), Ryan Opera Center (Lyric Opera of Chicago), Music Academy of the West, Aspen Music Festival and the International Vocal Arts Institute.
Ms. Matheson holds degrees from the University of Prince Edward Island (B.Mus.Ed), the Cleveland Institute of Music (M.Mus in Collaborative Piano), the Manhattan School of Music (Professional Studies Diploma in Vocal Accompanying) and is a graduate of the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Development Program.
Singer and conductor, tenor and baritone, eclectic artist with more than 150 roles, acclaimed by the public on stages all over the world.
Defined Renaissance man, awarded with honorary titles and prizes also for his humanitarian commitment.
Promoter of young talents and founder of Operalia. Worldwide Ambassador of Spanish Culture and Zarzuela.
Extraordinarily versatile, he has been general director and promoter of opera with Carreras and Pavarotti.
Performer of world premieres of operas, starred in opera movies, pioneer of crossover and winner of 12 Grammy Awards.
Conductor with more than 600 performances.
His career has continued for more than half a century and for this he has been celebrated at the Operas of New York, Vienna, Verona, Milan and Buenos Aires.
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.
Praised by Il Corriere della Sera for “obtaining powerful and refined colors” (La Traviata) and by Seen and Heard International for “instilling drama and excitement in every note,” Vincenzo Milletarì is rapidly establishing himself among the leading conductors of his generation.
In the 2023/2024 season, he debuts with the CSO Orchestra in Ankara, returns to the Prague State Opera for Rigoletto, and conducts at the Opéra de Tours, Bergen Philharmonic, Royal Swedish Opera, Den Norske Opera Oslo, and Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano. Since 2017, he has collaborated with prestigious opera companies like the Royal Danish Opera and Prague State Opera.
Equally adept in symphonic repertoire, he works frequently with the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano, Filarmonica Toscanini, and Copenhagen Philharmonic.
Born in Taranto in 1990, Milletarì studied at the “Giuseppe Verdi” Conservatory in Milan and the Royal Academy of Music in Copenhagen. He has won numerous prizes, including the 10th “Arturo Toscanini” International Conducting Competition and the “Sir Georg Solti” conducting competition.
Johanna Soller, conductor, harpsichordist and organist is one of the most versatile musicians of her generation.
She is chief conductor and artistic director of the baroque ensemble capella sollertia, which has its origin in a highly acclaimed performance of Bachs St. Matthew’s passion in 2019. She is also founder and artistic director of the Bach cantata series Cantate um 1715.
Johanna collaborates with ensembles such as Freiburger Barockorchester, the Nederlandse Bachvereniging, the Zürcher Singakademie, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hofkapelle München, Munich Symphony Orchestra and artists such as Julian Prégardien, Anna Prohaska, Hille Perl and Christine Schornsheim.
Among her chamber music partners are Kristin von der Goltz and Anne Katharina Schreiber. Previous engagements include Theater an der Wien, the International Handel Festival in Goettingen, Thueringer Bachwochen and AUDI summer concerts in Ingolstadt.
An acclaimed choral conductor, Johanna has taken rehearsals for ensembles such as the MDR Radio Choir Leipzig, the Nederlandse Bachvereniging, the Munich Bach Choir and the via nova choir and for conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Ulf Schirmer and Nicholas McGegan. From 2014 to 2020 she served as musical assistant to the Munich Bach Choir, with whom she continues to work. In 2021 she was a chosen finalist of the prestigious Eric Ericson Award in Stockholm and therefore worked with the Eric Ericson Chamber Choir and the St. Jacob’s Chamber Choir. A former fellow in the German Conductors Forum (Forum Dirigieren) of Deutscher Musikrat she also collaborated amongst others with the Bavarian Radio Choir.
Johanna is also in demand as an opera conductor and achieves an excellent reputation as Maestra al cembalo: In 2021 she returned to Theater an der Wien in Vienna as Studienleiter and musical assistant of Christopher Moulds in Claus Guth’s cheered production of Handel’s Saul, playing as well the harpsichord and carillon in the pit with Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. As Laurence Cummings’ musical assistant, she was repeatedly invited to the International Handel Festival in Göttingen. In 2019 she was appointed musical director of the Munich Chamber Opera. She gave her debut as an opera conductor in 2017 with Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto.
Johanna is a lecturer for thorough-bass and score reading at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich and was appointed organist at St. Peter’s church in Munich in 2016. Prizewinner of the prestigious “Prague Spring” International Music Competition she has played recitals in some of the most important venues.
Johanna studied in Munich conducting with Michael Glaeser, harpsichord with Christine Schornsheim, organ and church music with Bernhard Haas and Edgar Krapp. She won a scholarship of the German National Music Competition 2013 and was therefore admitted to the Bundesauswahl Konzerte Junger Kuenstler, a funding programme of Deutscher Musikrat.
In 2020 she was awarded the Bavarian Kunstfoerderpreis.
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.
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.
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.
Soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan, renowned for her dramatic sensibility and innovative artistry, has spent over 30 years at the forefront of contemporary music. She has developed close collaborations with luminaries such as John Zorn, Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, and Krzysztof Warlikowski. A tireless advocate for modern music, Hannigan has premiered nearly 100 new works and collaborated with composers like Boulez, Ligeti, and Abrahamsen.
Beginning her career as a soprano, she gained recognition for tackling challenging roles before transitioning to conducting at age 40. Now, she regularly leads major orchestras including the Concertgebouw, Cleveland Orchestra, and Montreal Symphony, while maintaining relationships with festivals like Aix-en-Provence and Spoleto. Recent highlights include her acclaimed dual role in Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine, where she sings and conducts, and world premieres such as Golfam Khayam’s I am not a tale to be told.
In the 2024/25 season, she will return to lead orchestras including the London Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, and Iceland Symphony, while also embarking on a vocal recital tour with Bertrand Chamayou. In 2026, she will assume the role of Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
Hannigan’s recordings have garnered international acclaim. Her album Crazy Girl Crazy won the 2018 Grammy for Best Classical Solo Vocal album, alongside an Edison and Juno Award. Her recent works include Hannigan Sings Zorn and collaborations with Juilliard and the Royal Academy of Music. A passionate mentor, she founded Equilibrium Young Artists and Momentum: Our Future Now to support emerging musicians.
Her numerous accolades include the Order of Canada, Gramophone Magazine’s Artist of the Year (2022), and Denmark’s Léonie Sonning Music Prize. Hannigan resides in Finistère, France, connecting her Atlantic coast home to her roots in Nova Scotia.