Kent Nagano

Kent Nagano is considered one of the outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. He has been General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg since September 2015. In addition, he is very committed as Artistic Director of the Wagner Readings with Concerto Köln and the Dresden Festival Orchestra, and as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival. In 2006 he was appointed Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, in 2019 of Concerto Köln and in 2021 of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal

The 2022/23 season in Hamburg began for Kent Nagano with two open-air concerts at the Rathausmarkt. October at the Hamburg State Opera holds a new production of Wagner's Der fliegende Holländer in a staging by Michael Thalheimer. This will be followed by revivals of Beethoven's Fidelio, Wagner's Tannhäuser, Strauss' Elektra and Offenbach's Les contes d'Hoffmann, as well as in January 2023 the premiere of the new production of Schostakowitsch’s Lady Macbeth von Mzensk in a production by Angelina Nikonova and in May 2023 the premiere of the new production of Salvatore Sciarrino's Venere e Adone in a production by George Delnon. With the Philharmonic State Orchestra, he will open the 2023 International Music Festival Hamburg with a new work by U.S. conductor Sean Shepard and Beethoven's Symphony No. 8. Furthermore, during the season he conducts concerts at the Elbphilharmonie with works by Brahms, Haydn and Mahler, among others, and again Jörg Widmann's oratorio ARCHE, which was premiered in 2017 as part of the opening festival of the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, with the Children's and Youth Choir of the Hamburg State Opera, the Alsterspatzen, the Audi Youth Choir Academy and renowned soloists.

Kent Nagano's past years in Hamburg include opera productions such as Les Troyens, Lulu, the world premiere of Stilles Meer and German premiere of Lessons in Love and Violence, the "Philharmonische Akademie" at St. Michaelis, open-air concerts at the Rathausmarkt and the world premiere of Pascal Dusapin's work Waves for organ and orchestra at the Elbphilharmonie. Orchestral tours with the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg in the past years have taken Kent Nagano to Japan, Spain and South America.

As a much sought-after guest conductor, Kent Nagano has worked with the world's leading international orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique Radio France, the Orchestre de l’Opéra national in Paris, the Chicago and Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Wiener Symphoniker. Special projects were the productions of Wagner's Das Rheingold with Concerto Köln and the Bernstein opera A
quiet place at the Paris Opera.
His operatic work has included Dusapin‘s Il viaggio, dante at the Festival d‘Aix-en-Provence, Hindemith's Cardillac and Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmélites at the Opéra National de Paris and Henze’s The Bassarids and the premiere of Saariaho's L’amour de loin at the Salzburg Festival. Other world premieres he has conducted include Bernstein's A White House Cantata and the operas Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin, Three Sisters by Peter Eötvös and The Death of Klinghoffer and El Niño by John Adams.

Appearances in 2022/23 include the Teatro Massimo in Palermo, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the Vienna Musikverein, the Philharmonie in Paris and the Isarphilharmonie in Munich, among others. In addition, Kent Nagano will conduct the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester in Berlin and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.

A highlight of Kent Nagano's collaboration with the OSM as Music Director from 2006 to 2020 included the inauguration of the orchestra’s new concert hall La Maison Symphonique in September 2011, performances of the complete cycles of Beethoven and Mahler symphonies, Schoenberg's Gurrelieder, concert versions of Wagner's Tannhäuser, Tristan und Isolde and Das Rheingold, Honegger's Jeanne d'Arc au Bücher, and Messiaen's Saint François d'Assise. Tours have taken Nagano and the orchestra to Canada including the Northern Territories, Japan, South Korea, Europe (latest 2019), South America and the USA. In July 2018, Kent Nagano conducted Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion with the OSM on the occasion of the Salzburg Festival opening concert.
His recordings with the OSM on Sony Classical/Analekta include Mahler’s Orchestral Songs with Christian Gerhaher in 2013 and a complete recording of all of Beethoven’s symphonies in 2015. Decca released a recording of the North American premiere of L'Aiglon, a rarely performed opera by Honegger and Ibert in 2016, conducted by Nagano in 2015. Further releases by Decca are Danse Macabre with works by Dukas, Saint-Saens, Ives and others in 2016 and a recording of Bernstein's A quiet place in 2018 on the occasion of the composer's 100th birthday. John Adams' Common tones in simple time & harmony (Decca) was released in 2019, the Lukas Passion by Penderecki (BIS) and works by Ginastera, Bernstein and Moussa (Analekta) in 2020.

At the Bayerische Staatsoper, where he was General Music Director from 2006 to 2013, Kent Nagano commissioned new operas such as Babylon by Jörg Widmann, Das Gehege by Wolfgang Rihm and Alice in Wonderland by Unsuk Chin. New productions included Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos and Die Frau ohne Schatten, Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites, Messiaen’s Saint François d'Assise, Berg’s Wozzeck, George Benjamin's Written on skin and Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen. Tours took Nagano and the Bavarian State Orchestra through Europe and Japan. In addition to Bruckner's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 7 (Sony), Kent Nagano has released several opera performances with the Bavarian State Orchestra on DVD: Unsuk Chin's opera Alice in Wonderland (2008) and Mussorgsky's Chowanschtschina (2009) with unitel classica/medici arts, Dialogue des Carmélites with Bel Air Classiques (2011) and Lohengrin (2010) with Decca.

Another very important period in Nagano’s career was his time as Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin from 2000-2006. He performed Schönberg’s Moses und Aron with the orchestra (in collaboration with Los Angeles Opera), and took them to the Salzburg Festival to perform both Zemlinsky’s Der König Kandaules and Schreker’s Die Gezeichneten as well as to the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with Parsifal and Lohengrin in productions by Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Recordings with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin for Harmonia Mundi include repertoire as diverse as Bernstein’s Mass, Bruckner’s Symphonies Nos. 3 & 6, Beethoven’s Christus am Ölberge, Wolf’s Mörike-Lieder, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8, Schönberg’s Die Jakobsleiter and Friede auf Erden, as well as Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Schönberg’s Variationen für Orchester Op. 31. In June 2006, at the end of his tenure with the orchestra, Kent Nagano was given the title Honorary Conductor by members of the orchestra, only the second recipient of this honour in their 60-year history. To this day he maintains a close friendship with the orchestra.
In October 2019, Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama expanded their joint recordings of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 0 E-flat Major WoO 4, a nearly unknown youthful work by the composer, and his Rondo for Piano and Orchestra WoO 6 with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. The complete edition of Beethoven’s piano concerti was released on the Berlin Classics label.

Nagano has worked with labels such as BIS, Decca, Sony Classical, FARAO Classics and Analekta for many years, but he has also recorded CDs with Berlin Classics, Erato, Teldec, Pentatone, Deutsche Grammophon and Harmonia Mundi. He was awarded Grammys for his recordings of Busoni’s Doktor Faust with Opéra National de Lyon, Prokofjew’s Peter and the Wolf with the Russian National Orchestra and Saariaho’s L’amour de Loin with the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin.

To celebrate Kent Nagano's 70th birthday in 2021, a 3-CD box set of works by Olivier Messiaen was released in October on the BR Klassik label. The release includes live recordings of the works Poèmes pour Mi, Chronochromie and La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ from concerts with Kent Nagano and the Symphonieorchester und Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, demonstrating Nagano's close familiarity with Messiaen's musical language in a special way.

In September 2021, Kent Nagano published his second book with Berlin Verlag. In "10 Lessons of my Life", he recalls ten very personal encounters in his life from which he learned important lessons, not only for his career. Among them are the Icelandic pop artist Björk, Frank Zappa, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez and the Nobel Prize winner in physics Donald Glaser.
In 2015 Kent Nagano published "Erwarten Sie Wunder!" also in Berlin Verlag, a passionate appeal for the relevance of classical music in today's world. In 2019 the book was published in English by the Canadian McGill-Queen's University Press under the title ″Classical Music - Expect the Unexpected" and in 2015 under "Sonnez, merveilles!" in French by Éditions du Boréal.

Born in California, Nagano maintains close connections with his home state and was Music Director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra from 1978-2009. His first major successes came with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1984, when Messiaen appointed him assistant to conductor Seiji Ozawa for the premiere of his opera Saint François d'Assise. Nagano’s success in America led to European appointments: Music Director of Opéra National de Lyon (1988-1998) and Music Director of the Hallé Orchestra (1991-2000). Kent Nagano became the first Music Director of Los Angeles Opera in 2003 having already held the position of Principal Conductor for two years.

Kent Nagano was awarded an honorary doctorate from McGill University in Montréal in 2005, an honorary doctorate from the Université de Montréal in 2006, and an honorary doctorate from San Francisco State University in 2018.

close

Kate Lindsey

"One cannot overpraise Lindsey’s ability to characterize strongly while retaining beauty of tone when the music calls for such.” (SFCV)
Mezzo-soprano Kate Lindsey is one of the most promising voices of her generation and appears regularly in the world’s most prestigious opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Vienna State Opera, the Salzburg Festival, Glyndebourne Opera Festival, in Aix-en-Provence, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and the Bavarian State Opera.
Kate Lindsey once again shows her great diversity in the season 2021/22 with a wide selection of new role debuts and new productions. At the Maggio Musicale in Firenze the mezzo-soprano kicks off the season jumping in last minute for the houses new production of Cosi fan tutte (Dorabella) before she takes on the role of Nerone - one of her signature roles at the Vienna State Opera - in the revival of the acclaimed and praised Salzburg production of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea. She then takes on her role debut of Donna Elvira at Vienna State Opera’s new production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni. At the London Coliseum the mezzo takes on the lead role Offred in the houses’ new production of Paul Ruder’s The Handmaid’s Tale and performs as Orphée at the Washington Concert Opera. At Vienna State Opera she takes on the lead role of La Musica and La Speranza in the operas’ premiere of L’Orfeo in the under the baton of Pablo Heras-Casado. Kate Lindsey finishes her season at the Salzburg Festival taking on the lead role of Dido in a concert version of Dido and Aeneas alongside musicAeterna under the baton of Teodor Currentzis.
Kate Lindsey is recording exclusively for Outhere Music France and has so far released 3 solo albums: Thousands of Miles (2017) with works by Kurt Weill, Korngold; Arianna (2020) with works by Scarlatti, Händel and her third album and second baroque recital album Tiranno (2021) concentrating on the character of Nero including pieces of Scarletti, Handel and Monteverdi.

close

Jóhann Kristinsson

Origin:
Iceland

Studies:
Akademie für Gesang und vokale Kunst in Reykjavik bei Bergþór Pálsson (2009-2013); Masters at Hochschule für Musik „Hanns Eisler“ with Prof. Scot Weir (2015); lessons with KS Prof. Thomas Quasthoff, Prof. Wolfram Rieger and Prof. Júlia Várady

Master class:
with Thomas Quasthoff, Júlia Várady, Thomas Hampson, Graham Johnson, Deborah
Polaski, Giacomo Aragall, et al.

Prizes:
Winner Stella Maris Vocal Competition (2019), Icelandic Music Award in the category “Most Promising Young Artist”, nominated for “Singer of the Year” and “Musical Event of the Year” (2018), 3rd Prize and audience award at the competition ”Das Lied” in Heidelberg (2017), Finalist International Robert-Schumann-Wettbewerb für Klavier und Gesang Zwickau (2016)

Important parts:
Eugen Onegin (Eugen Onegin), Miriways (Miriways), Christiano (Un Ballo in Maschera), Fiorillo (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), Morales (Carmen), Il Barone Douphol (La Traviata), Il Commissario Imperiale (Madama Butterfly), Zweiter Handwerksbursch (Wozzeck), Hiroto (Stilles Meer), Marullo (Rigoletto), Un Sergente degli Arcieri (Manon Lescaut), Rupert/Jäger/Königssohn (Schneewittchen), Happy (La Fanciulla del West), et al.

Stages:
Hamburgische Staatsoper, Pierre Boulez Saal, Heidelberger Frühling, Oxford Lieder Festival, Dresdner Musikfestspiele, Icelandic Opera, et al.

Cooperation with directors:
Vera Nemirova, Birgit Kajtna, Holger Liebig, et al.

Cooperation with conductors:
Herbert Blomstedt, Kent Nagano, Stefano Ranzani, Roberto Rizzi-Brignoli, Christoph Gedschold, Carlo Rizzari, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Josep Caballé-Domenech, et al.

close

Veronika Eberle

Veronika Eberle’s exceptional talent and the poise and maturity of her musicianship have been recognised by many of the world’s finest orchestras, venues and festivals, as well as by some of the most eminent conductors.Sir Simon Rattle’s introduction of Veronika aged just 16 to a packed Salzburg Festpielhaus at the 2006 Salzburg Easter Festival in a performance of the Beethoven concerto with the Berliner Philharmoniker, brought her to international attention.
Key orchestra collaborations since then include the London Symphony (Rattle, Haitink), Concertgebouw (Holliger), New York Philharmonic (Gilbert), Montreal Symphony (Nagano), Munich Philharmonic and Gewandhaus Orchestras (Langree), Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Janowski), Hessischer Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester (P.Järvi), Bamberger Symphoniker (Ticciati, Nott), Tonhalle Orchester Zurich (M.Sanderling), NHK Symphony (Kout, Stenz, Norrington), Bayerischer Rundfunk Munich (Nézet-Séguin) and Rotterdam Philharmonic (Rattle, Gaffigan, Nézet-Seguin).
Recent concerto highlights have included debuts with the Philadelphia, San Francisco Symphony and Philharmonia Orchestras as well as with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Yannick Nézet-Séguin), Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Harding), Luxembourg Philharmonic (Manze) and Orchestre National de Lille. Veronika also toured Australia making debut performances with the Auckland Philharmonia, Tasmani Symphony and West Australian Symphony Orchestras as well as with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. The 2020/21 season saw the world premiere performances of a new Violin Concerto by Toshio Hosokawa which Veronika presented with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra (Nagano), Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (Liebrich) and Tonkunstler Orchestra at Grafenegg Festival (Hosokawa). In 21/22 further performances will take place with the NHK and Hiroshima Symphony orchestras in Japan and the Hong Kong Sinfonietta.
European concerto highlights this season include with the Brussels Philharmonic (Kazushi Ono), Swedish Chamber Orchestra (Fischer), Kammerorchester Basel (Bard), NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra Hamburg (Stutzmann) as well as the Oslo Philharmonic (Manze), Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Viotti), Orchestra Verdi Milan (Gamzou) and RAI Symphony Orchestra (Chauhan). Performances in the USA include with the San Diego (Payare) and Utah Symphony Orchestras (Fischer). Chamber music projects include performances at the Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg) with Alban Gerhardt and Markus Becker and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus with Anna Prohaska, Alisa Welerstein and Iddo Bar-Shai amongst others.
Born in Donauwörth Southern Germany, she started violin lessons at the age of six and four years later became a junior student at the Richard Strauss Konservatorium in Munich with Olga Voitova. After studying privately with Christoph Poppen for a year, she joined the Hochschule in Munich, where she studied with Ana Chumachenco 2001-2012.
Veronika has benefited from the support of a number of prestigious organisations, including the Nippon Foundation, the Borletti-Buitoni Trust (Fellowship in 2008), the Orpheum Stiftung zur Förderung Junger Solisten (Zurich), the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben (Hamburg) and the Jürgen-Ponto Stiftung (Frankfurt). She was a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist 2011-2013 and was a Dortmund Konzerthaus ‘Junge Wilde’ artist 2010-2012.
Veronika Eberle plays on a violin made by the Italian violin maker Antonio Giacomo Stradivari in 1693, which was made available to her on generous loan by the Reinhold Würth Musikstiftung gGmbH.

close

Hamburger Chöre

close

Chor der KlangVerwaltung

close

Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg

The Philharmonic State Orchestra is Hamburg’s largest and oldest orchestra, looking back on many years of musical history. When the “Philharmonic Orchestra” and the “Orchestra of the Hamburg Municipal Theatre” merged in 1934, two tradition-steeped orchestras combined. Philharmonic concerts have been performed in Hamburg since 1828, artists such as Clara Schumann, Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms being regular guests of the Philharmonic Society. The history of the opera company goes back even further: Hamburg has been home to musical theatre since 1678, even if a regular opera or theatre orchestra was only formed later. To this day, the Philharmonic State Orchestra has embodied the sound of the Hansa City, a concert and opera orchestra in one.

During its long history, the orchestra encountered great artist personalities. Apart from composers of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, such as Telemann, Tchaikovsky, Strauss, Mahler, Prokofiev and Stravinsky, since the 20th century chief conductors such as Karl Muck, Joseph Keilberth, Eugen Jochum, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Horst Stein, Aldo Ceccato, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gerd Albrecht, Ingo Metzmacher and Simone Young have shaped the orchestra’s sound. Renowned conductors of the pre-war era such as Otto Klemperer, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm and Hans Schmidt-Isserstedt gave brilliant performances, as did outstanding conductors of our times: suffice it to mention Christian Thielemann, Semyon Bychkov, Kirill Petrenko, Sir Neville Marriner, Valery Gergiev and Sir Roger Norrington.

Starting with the 2015/2016 season, Kent Nagano has taken on the position of Hamburg’s General Music Director and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonic State Orchestra and the Hamburg State Opera. In his first season Kent Nagano initiated a new project, the Philharmonic Academy, focusing on experimentation and chamber music. In 2016 Nagano and the Philharmonic undertook a successful three-week concert tour in South America, a tour of Spain followed in 2019. Since 2017 Kent Nagano and the Philharmonic State Orchestra have continued the traditional Philharmonic Concerts at the new Elbphilharmonie, for which they commissioned Jörg Widmann to compose the oratorio ARCHE, which was given its world premiere during the hall’s opening festivities. The concert recording has been released at ECM.

The Philharmonic State Orchestra offers approximately 35 concerts per season and performs more than 240 performances per year at the Hamburg State Opera and the Hamburg Ballet John Neumeier, making it Hamburg’s busiest orchestra. The stylistic bandwidth covered by the 140 musicians, ranging from historically informed performance practice to contemporary works and including concert, opera and ballet repertoire, is unique throughout Germany. Chamber Music has a long tradition at the Philharmonic State Orchestra: what began in 1929 with a concert series for chamber orchestra has been continued since 1968 by a series of chamber music only.

In 2008 Simone Young and the Philharmonic State Orchestra won the Brahms Award of the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Society. The orchestra has recorded the complete Ring by Wagner as well as the complete symphonies of Johannes Brahms and Anton Bruckner – the latter in the rarely-performed original versions – as well as works by Mahler, Hindemith and Berg, and has released DVDs of opera and ballet productions by Hosokawa, Offenbach, Reimann, Auerbach, J.S. Bach, Puccini, Poulenc and Weber.

The members of the Philharmonic State Orchestra feel equally beholden to Hamburg’s musical tradition and responsible for the city’s artistic future. Since 1978 the musicians have been participating in education programmes in Hamburg’s schools. Today, the orchestra maintains a broad education programme, including school and kindergarten visits, patronage for music projects, introductory events for children and family concerts. The orchestra’s own academy prepares young musicians for their professional careers. The Philharmonic’s musicians thereby make an equally enjoyable and valuable contribution to tomorrow’s music education in the music metropolis of Hamburg.

close