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Jan Willem de Vriend is currently chief conductor of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, principal guest conductor of the Stuttgart Philharmonic, designated principal guest conductor of the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra and artistic partner of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra. He regularly appears as a guest conductor with orchestras such as the Belgian National Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, HR Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Orchester National de Lyon, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Warsaw Philharmonic and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony.

From 2015 to 2019 Jan Willem de Vriend was permanent conductor of the Residentie Orkest Den Haag and from 2006 to 2017 chief conductor of Phion, Orkest van Gelderland & Overijssel. He was also principal guest conductor of the Orquestra Simfònica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya from 2015 to 2021 and principal guest conductor of the Brabant Orchestra (now South Netherlands Philharmonic) from 2008 to 2015. De Vriend recorded numerous works by Beethoven with the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, including numerous symphonies and concertos (with soloists such as Hannes Minnaar and Liza Ferschtman). Classic FM praised the 7th Symphony for its “lively atmosphere that does full justice to the composer’s joyful side”. Another highlight of the recordings for Challenge Records was the complete recording of the Mendelssohn symphonies with the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra and the Schubert symphonies with the Residentie Orkest.

De Vriend first appeared internationally as artistic director of the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, which he founded in 1982 and led as concertmaster until 2015. The ensemble, which specializes in repertoire from the 17th and 18th centuries, rediscovered numerous rarely heard works and plays on modern instruments in historically informed performance practice. Gramophone Magazine praised the musicians as “versed, with technical finesse and a lively sense of design”. The ensemble’s communal spirit lives on in de Vriend’s exploration of the symphonic repertoire, particularly of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Schumann, Brahms and Johann Strauss.

In the opera sector, de Vriend, together with the Combattimento Consort Amsterdam, has performed works by Monteverdi, Haydn, Handel, Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach (scenic versions of the Jagd- und Kaffeekantate at the Leipzig Bach Festival) in Europe and the USA, all under the direction of Eva Buchmann. Operas by composers such as Mozart, Verdi and Cherubini were part of his seasons with the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, including a guest appearance in Switzerland with Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Rossini’s La Gazzetta, again directed by Eva Buchmann. De Vriend has also directed opera productions in Amsterdam (Nederlandse Reisopera), Barcelona, ​​Strasbourg, Lucerne, Schwetzingen and Bergen.

In the Netherlands, Jan Willem de Vriend is known to a wide audience through his appearances in TV and radio series and music formats. In 2012 he was awarded a prize for special creative contributions to classical music by the Dutch radio station NPO Radio 4.

2023/2024
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As a music director and guest conductor committed to collaboration, innovation and education,
Sarah Ioannides creates vibrant programming that inspires her
audience. She was praised by the New York Times for her “undisputed strength and authority.” She
is music director of Washington State’s Symphony Tacoma and resident conductor of the National
Youth Orchestra of the United States of America. While centred on the USA,
her career as a conductor has taken her to six continents.

Sarah Ioannides was born in Australia and has a Cypriot-Scottish
family background. She studied in England (Universität Oxford, Guildhall School) and in the USA
(Juilliard School and Curtis Institute). Before assuming her role at Symphony Tacoma in 2014,
she established a reputation as the dynamic music director of both the El Paso Symphony Orchestra in Texas and the Spartanburg Philharmonic in South Carolina.
Philharmonic in South Carolina.

Her extensive repertoire, spanning four centuries, is enriched by her work with contemporary composers; as a conductor she has led over 60 premieres as well as North American and European national premieres. She has worked with the likes of Steve Reich, Aaron J. Kernis, Zosha Di Castri and Patrice Rushen; one of her earliest operatic projects was the European national premiere of Stephen Paulus’ The Woodlanders. In the early years of her career, Tan Dun was her mentor, premiering his Water Passion after St. Matthew in Australia and Greece and assisting him with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Since becoming the first woman to hold a full-time conducting position with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, she has appeared as a guest conductor with orchestras across North America, including the Buffalo Philharmonic, Charleston Symphony, Hamilton Philharmonic, Hawaii Symphony, Louisville Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, and Orchester Symphonique de Québec , Roanoke Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic Sarasota Orchestra, Toledo Symphony and Tulsa Symphony.

In addition to her concerts with the Symphony Tacoma, her North American schedule includes concerts with the Florida Orchestra, Santa Fe Pro Musica and San Antonio Symphony in 2023-24. The program is broad and ranges from Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Berlioz, Brahms, Dvořák, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Bartók and Korngold to rediscovered composers such as Louise Farrenc, Florence Price, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Joseph Boulogne as well as contemporary works by Aaron J. Kernis, Valerie Coleman, Bernard Roumain, Nick DiBerardino and Jesse Montgomery.

Outside of North America, Sarah Ioannides was and is, among others, guest at the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Daejeon Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Malmö Symphony, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Tonkunstler-Orchester (Vienna), Orchester National de Lyon, Royal Philharmonic (London) and Simón Bolívar Symphony.

Through the creative use of technology, she has realized numerous multimedia projects both in the concert hall and in digital space, thereby broadening the musical horizons of participants and audience. Notable are videos illustrating Holst’s Planets, Steve Reich’s Desert Music and Milhaud’s Création du Monde, as well as – during the COVID-19 pandemic – Symphony Tacoma’s Encore Series and the “digital collage” Eternal Light, inspired by Mozart’s Requiem clips of music, dance, poetry and visual art combined, created by students in the Pacific Northwest, created by students in the Pacific Northwest.

Sarah Ioannides makes a significant contribution to the field of education with Cascade Conducting & Composing: she is the founding director of this annual program in Tacoma, which was launched in 2017 and offers scholarships to various musicians from the USA and the rest of the world. The university orchestras she has conducted include those at Yale University, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and the Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington. Sarah Ioannides is a sought-after guest speaker, serves on numerous advisory boards and was a member of the US government’s National Education Association (NEA). In 2022, she spoke at the Dallas Symphony Orchestra’s Women in Classical Music symposium and conference. In June 2023, she was a panelist at Bridges to the Future and the League of American Orchestras conference.

2023 / 2024

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From 1999 to 2005 he was Music Director of the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari in Sardinia. After studies with Ivan Galamian at the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia he went to Salzburg, where he trained with Sándor Végh, becoming concertmaster and then Assistant Music Director of Camerata Salzburg, of which Végh was Principal Conductor. In 1987 Korsten joined the Chamber Orchestra of Europe as its concertmaster; over his nine years with the ensemble he built close working relationships with such conductors as Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Heinz Holliger.

Gérard Korsten has conducted over 100 orchestras in 24 countries with orchestras such as the Adelaide Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, Orchestre National de Lyon, Scottish and Swedish Chamber Orchestras, as well as the SWR Sinfonieorchester Freiburg.

Gérard Korsten’s operatic appearances to date have included: Teatro alla Scala, Milan (Le nozze di Figaro); Opéra National de Lyon (Ariadne auf Naxos, Idomeneo, La traviata, Siegfried, La Veuve joyeuse and Henze’s L’Upupa); Bregenz Festival (Simon Laks’ L’Hirondelle inattendue, Die Zauberflöte, Le Rossignol, Der Schauspieldirektor); Deutsche Oper Berlin (La traviata); English National Opera (Aida); Glyndebourne Festival (Così fan tutte, Albert Herring); Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (Così fan tutte); Netherlands Opera (Così fan tutte); New National Theatre, Tokyo (Tosca); Royal Opera Stockholm (Don Giovanni) and Hungarian State Opera (Don Pasquale). At the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari, he did not only conduct the Italian premieres of Richard Strauss’ Die ägyptische Helena, Weber’s Euryanthe, Delius’ A Village Romeo and Juliet and Schubert’s Alfonso und Estrella, but also repertoire classics such as Aida, Carmen, Die Fledermaus, Die Zauberflöte, Don Pasquale, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La Traviata, Lucia di Lammermoor, Tosca, Un ballo in maschera and more recently Don Giovanni.

He has served as Principal Conductor of the London Mozart Players, the South African State Theatre in Pretoria and the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra in Sweden. From 1999 to 2005 he was Music Director of the Orchestra del Teatro Lirico di Cagliari in Sardinia. After 13 years as Principal Conductor of Austria’s Symphonieorchester Vorarlberg Bregenz, Gérard Korsten was awarded Conductor Laureate in summer 2018.

Gérald Korsten’s Arthaus DVD of Le nozze di Figaro, recorded at La Scala with a cast led by Diana Damrau and Ildebrando d’Arcangelo, was awarded a Diapason D’Or in France and designated Critic’s Choice by US magazine Opera News. His other recordings include Tchaikovsky’s Serenade and Souvenir de Florence with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Deutsche Grammophon), orchestral works by Crusell, Lindblad and Eggert (Naxos), La Veuve joyeuse (DVD, Erato) and a number of live recordings with the Teatro Lirico di Cagliari: Die ägyptische Helena, Euryanthe and Lucia di Lammermoor on CD (Dynamic) and, on DVD, Alfonso und Estrella (Dynamic) and Don Pasquale (Arthaus).

Gérard Korsten has two daughters and lives in both Zurich and Arezzo (Tuscany) with his wife, Italian soprano Eva Mei.

2023/2024
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The Iranian conductor Hossein Pishkar became known when he was awarded the prestigious Deutscher Dirigentenpreis in 2017, supported by leading orchestras in Cologne and West German Radio (WDR). Hossein Pishkar was also awarded the Ernst-von-Schuch-Preis, which is awarded annually in cooperation with the Conductors’ Forum.

As a guest conductor, Hossein Pishkar leads orchestras such as the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bremen Philharmonic Orchestra, Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, the Orchester Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchester de Chambre de Lausanne, the Royal Chapel of Copenhagen, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini, the NDR Radiophilharmonie, the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, Stuttgart State Orchestra and the WDR-Sinfonieorchester. Furthermore, he conducted at the Royal Danish Opera the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet (directed by Barrie Kosky), Giuseppe Verdi’s Aida (directed by Annabel Arden), Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito (directed by Jetske Mijnssen), as well as Die Nase by Dmitri Schostakowitsch (directed by Àlex Ollé), at the Staatsoper Stuttgart Die Zauberflöte (directed by Barrie Kosky) and at the Ravenna Festival Rigoletto (directed by Cristina Mazzavillani Muti).

As an assistant, he worked with François–Xavier Roth in May 2019 on the rehearsal of Philippe Manoury’s Lab.Oratorio with the Gürzenich Orchestra and took on concerts as second conductor in the Kölner Philharmonie and the Philharmonie de Paris as well as in the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg. Hossein Pishkar assisted Sylvain Cambreling with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie for Alban Berg’s Lulu Suite and Rebecca Saunders’ Violin Concerto Still. In the 2015/16 season he assisted Daniel Raiskin, then chief conductor of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz.

He attended master classes of Riccardo Muti (2017, Aida as part of the Italian Opera Academy in Ravenna) and Sir Bernard Haitink (2016, Lucerne Festival Orchestra). From 2015 he took lessons from John Carewe, Marko Letonja, Nicolás Pasquet, Mark Stringer and Johannes Schlaefli as part of the Conductors Forum course program.

Before Hossein Pishkar began his conducting studies with Rüdiger Bohn at the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf in 2012, he studied composition and piano in Tehran, the city where he was born in 1988. In Iran he has already conducted the Tehran Youth Orchestra and the Tehran Music School Orchestra. As a child he began to study traditional Persian music, including playing the tar, a traditional stringed instrument from Persian culture.

2023/2024

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In the season of 2023/24, the German-Indonesian conductor Adrian Prabava will be invited back to, among others, the Orchester National de Metz and the Basel Symphony Orchestra. Current debuts take him to the Kanagawa Philharmonic Orchestra.

After his great success at the prestigious Concours International de Jeunes Chefs d’Orchestre de Besançon in 2005, Kurt Masur appointed him musical assistant at the Orchester National de France in Paris from 2006 to 2009. In 2007 he became the first scholarship recipient of the Bernard Haitink Fund for Young Talents. In the following years he assisted Bernard Haitink at the Het Koninklijk Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam.

As First Conductor and Deputy General Music Director at the Altenburg Gera Theater and the Altenburg Gera Philharmonic Orchester from 2006 to 2008, Adrian Prabava acquired a broad opera, operetta and ballet repertoire and conducted a variety of symphonic programs. Adrian Prabava also made guest appearances at the Komische Oper Berlin (Die Fledermaus, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny), at the Theater Bonn (Hänsel and Gretel), at the Theater Magdeburg (The Turn of the Screw), at the Konzert Theater Bern (Rusalka) and at the Slovak National Theater Bratislava (Lohengrin). The production of Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, which he directed at the Opéra de Marseille in February 2022 with great success, received particular recognition in specialist publications.

He has worked with, among others, the German Radio Philharmonic Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Festival Strings Lucerne, the HR Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, the NDR Radio Philharmonic Hannover, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Orchester de Paris, Orchester National de France Québec, Oslo Philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic, Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, Basel Symphony Orchestra, NFM Wrocław Philharmonic, North German Philharmonic Rostock, Odense Symfoniorkester, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia, WDR Funkhausorchester, Chamber Orchestra of Luxembourg, Athens State Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony and Württemberg Philharmonic Reutlingen.

Adrian Prabava studied violin at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold and conducting with Eiji Oue at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. In addition, he also attended master classes with Jorma Panula, who became his mentor besides Kurt Masur and Bernard Haitink

2023 / 2024

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With his unmistakable artistic signature, Daniel Raiskin has become one of the most recognized conductors of his generation and had developed a broad repertoire beyond the mainstream in his strikingly conceived programmes. Son of a prominent musicologist, he grew up in St. Petersburg. He attended the celebrated conservatory in his native city and continued his studies in Amsterdam and Freiburg. First focusing on violin and viola, he got inspired to take up the baton by an encounter with the distinguished teacher Lev Savich. In addition, he also took classes with Maestri such as Mariss Jansons, Neeme Järvi, Milan Horvat, Woldemar Nelson und Jorma Panula.

From the 2020/2021 season Daniel Raiskin is the Principal Conductor of the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra in Bratislava. In addition, he is Music Director of the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra since 2018/19 and Principal Guest Conductor of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra since 2017/18.

His regular guest appearances include the Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Naples Philharmonic Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra Taiwan, Niederösterreichische Tonkünstlerorchester, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife, Osaka Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, Sinfonia Varsovia, Stuttgarter Philharmonikern, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra. His appearances in opera productions include Carmen, Shostakovich’s The Nose and Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Within the InClassica Dubai International Music Festival 2021 and 2022 he conducted the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra. Furthermore, he will conduct this orchestra on a tour in Japan and South Korea in 2023.

Raiskin was Chief Conductor of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie in Koblenz (2005- 2016) and of the Artur Rubinstein Philharmonic Orchestra in Lódz (2008-2015), and Principal Guest Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife (season 2017/18).

Daniel Raiskin is also relentlessly committed to sharing his knowledge and passion with young musicians around the world. He devotes his time regularly to working with youth orchestras in a.o. Canada, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Netherlands and South Africa.

Among the major soloists with whom he has appeared are Emanuel Ax, Rudolf Buchbinder, Cameron Crozman,  Xavier de Maistre, Renée Fleming, Nelson Freire, Martin Fröst, Alban Gerhardt, Vadim Gluzman, Natalia Gutman, Daniel Hope, Kari Kriikku, Simone Lamsma, Lang Lang, Dejan Lazić, Francois Leleux, Jan Lisiecki, Alexei Lubimov, Tatjana Masurenko, Albrecht Mayer, Daniel Müller-Schott, Olli Mustonen, Julian Rachlin, Benjamin Schmid, Julian Steckel, Anna Vinnitskaya, Lukáš Vondráček and Alexei Volodin.

Recent recordings include Mahler Symphony No. 3 and Shostakovich Symphony No. 4 with the label AVI, both to great critical acclaim. His recording with cello concertos by Korngold, Bloch and Goldschmidt with Julian Steckel and the label AVI received an Echo Klassik Award in 2012. Other recent recording projects include a Louis Glass Symphony cycles and a concerto cycle with the entire concertos and rhapsodies by Aram Khachaturian, both with the label CPO, Lutosławski’s vocal-instrumental works with the label Dux and a recording of Alexander Tansman’s Isaie le Prophète and Psaumes with the label World Premiere Recordings.

2023/2024

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Frank Strobel is one of the internationally experienced conductors with an incredibly diverse stylistically diverse repertoire. For years he has been one of the most important protagonists in the interdisciplinary field of film and music, through his commitment film with live orchestra has found its way into leading opera houses and concert halls.

As a guest conductor, Frank Strobel works in film music projects and with symphonic repertoire with orchestras such as the Filarmonica della Scala, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Göteborgs Symfoniker, HR-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchester de Paris, Orchester Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Orchester National de Belgique , Oslo Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), Seattle Symphony, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Sydney Symphony, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. His own concert series connect him closely with the Alte Oper Frankfurt and the Tonhalle Zurich.

Frank Strobel has been particularly at home in the French music scene for some time. In 2023 he premiered in Paris with the Orchestre National de France the new score by David Hudry for “Berlin. Symphony of a big city”. Later on the premiere of the film concert with the feature film “Kaamelott: Premier Volet” by producer, actor and composer Alexandre Astier took place with the Orchestre National de Lyon. Another premiere was the film music concert „Chaplin in Concert. With a smile” under his direction at the Philharmonie de Paris with the Orchestre de Paris. Frank Strobel is also a repeated guest at the “Festival Lumière. Grand Lyon Film Festival”. In February 2021, he conducted at the “Victoires de la Musique.”

Another important French film concert project came to fruition at the Musikfest Berlin and at the Festival Lumière in Lyon in 2019: Abel Gance’s seven-hour silent epic La Roue, with a score specially assembled from 117 works written by French composers between 1880 and 1920. Having reconstructed Sergei Prokofiev’s music for Eisenstein’s films Alexander Nevsky and Ivan the Terrible, Strobel conducted the first performances of his realisations at the Musikfest Berlin. In 2008 an original copy of Metropolis was discovered in Buenos Aires; two years later a fully restored version of the film was premiered at the Berlinale, with Frank Strobel conducting the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. In 2006 at Dresden’s Semperoper he conducted the Staatskapelle Dresden to accompany a reconstruction of the film of Der Rosenkavalier with Richard Strauss’s original music.

Beyond the world of film music, Frank Strobel has achieved international recognition for his first performances and revivals of works by Alfred Schnittke, Franz Schreker, Alexander von Zemlinsky and Siegfried Wagner. The great Russian composer Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998) found Frank Strobel congenial, considering him an ideal interpreter of his works. Strobel now retains the adaptation rights for Schnittke’s music. To this day, the editing rights for his compositions remain with Frank Strobel.

In 2000 Frank Strobel and Beate Warkentien established the Europäische FilmPhilharmonie, an institution dedicated to the artistic development of music and film in the concert hall. This has given rise to such ambitious projects as Matrix Live at London’s Royal Albert Hall. Of special significance in this context is Strobel’s role as an adviser to the TV station ZDF/ARTE on its programming of silent films and this has resulted in notable performances of silent films to the accompaniment of legendary musical works. and this has resulted in notable performances of silent films to the accompaniment of legendary musical works.

In his extensive discography, the first recordings of Alfred Schnittke’s film music suites in Frank Strobel’s arrangement with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra occupy a special place; so far five CDs have been released on the Capriccio label. The last CD in this series was awarded an Opus Klassik 2022.

2023/2024
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