Face to face

For nearly 30 years, the Swiss Youth Choir has generated enthusiasm with its freshness, musicality, and precision, through the diversity of its performances and its irresistible charm. The Swiss Youth Choir builds bridges between linguistic regions. It brings together pupils, high school students, apprentices, university students, and young professionals. Music students can also gain valuable experience and make useful contacts within the Swiss Youth Choir.

Time spent in the Swiss Youth Choir has always been a significant life experience for its members: the shared pursuit of perfection, the friendships formed across linguistic barriers and professional backgrounds, lead to incredible cohesion and impressive social skills among these young adults.

The Swiss Youth Choir unites two ensembles under one roof: the Concert Choir, with about fifty choristers aged 16 to 26, and, since 2020, the Symphonic Choir, which includes up to 100 choristers aged 16 to 30.

The Swiss Youth Choir is supported by the Federal Office of Culture (FOC) and is the only choir to receive direct support from the Swiss Choir Association (USC). Since its creation, the Swiss Youth Choir has been sponsored by the Swiss Choir Association and the Swiss Federation Europa Cantat (FSEC). The Swiss Youth Choir is a non-profit association, politically and confessionally neutral.

Choir conductor, musical mediator, provider of ideas – Nicolas Fink does not shy away from anything when it comes to developing sound and sharing a living experience of choral music. An uncompromising sonic perfection, a primacy of the fit between content and music, and a quest for the exceptional are at the heart of the Berne-born musician’s artistic work. Nicolas Fink does not confine himself to a single style of music and is eager for eclecticism.

After graduating with honors in choral conducting from the Lucerne University of Music and Performing Arts and obtaining a concert diploma as a baritone, Nicolas Fink found his vocation as a choir conductor through several stages, including a Conducting Fellowship at the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Tanglewood Music Center (2006). Radio choirs embody the ideal of his work in its purest form. His time as assistant conductor at Rundfunkchor Berlin made a significant impression; between 2010 and 2015, Nicolas Fink was able to combine the full spectrum of radio choir work, with insights into the development of new concert formats and music mediation, which had a lasting influence on him. Since then, Nicolas Fink has appeared as a guest conductor with the WDR and MDR radio choirs, the Chœur de Radio France, Vocalconsort Berlin, Coro Casa da Música Porto, Chamber Choir Ireland, Cor del Palau de la Música in Barcelona and Edvard Grieg Kor. A much sought-after partner for choir preparation, he has worked to date with more than 25 leading conductors, including Sir Simon Rattle, Valery Gergiev, Marek Janowski and Daniele Gatti. Since September 2020, he has led the WDR Rundfunkchor as Principal Conductor.

Nicolas Fink has been collaborating with the Swiss Youth Choir since 2016, and has been its artistic director since 2018.

Gli Angeli Genève was founded in 2005 by Stephan MacLeod. A variable-geometry ensemble playing on period instruments (or copies of instruments), the ensemble is made up of musicians with careers in the field of Baroque music, but who have the particularity of not only playing early music. This eclecticism guarantees the vitality of their enthusiasm. It is also a driving force behind their curiosity.

Right from the beginning of a musical adventure that for several years concentrated solely on live performances of the complete Bach Cantatas in Geneva, with three concerts per season, Gli Angeli Genève has been the setting for encounters between some of the most famous singers and instrumentalists of the international baroque scene and young graduates of the High Schools of Music of Basel, Lyon, Lausanne and Geneva. 

Internationally acclaimed since its first two recordings in 2009 and 2010, the ensemble now gives more than fifteen concerts a season in Geneva, as part of its Bach Cantatas, a series of annual concerts at Victoria Hall, the annual Haydn-Mozart festival created by the ensemble in 2021, and finally the Chambre des Anges, a new concert series inaugurated in 2022 and dedicated to chamber music.

The ensemble is equally in demand in Switzerland and abroad for performances not only of Bach, but also Tallis, Josquin, Schein, Schütz, Johann Christoph Bach, Weckmann, Buxtehude, Rosenmüller, Haydn, Mozart and others. In recent seasons, Gli Angeli Genève has been in residence at the Utrecht Festival and the Thuringer Bachwochen, and has performed in Basel, Zurich, Lucerne, Barcelona, Nürnberg, Bremen, Stuttgart, Brussels, Milan, Wroclaw, Paris, Ottawa, Vancouver, Amsterdam and The Hague. Gli Angeli Genève is a regular guest at the Saintes and Utrecht Festivals, the Bremen Musikfest and the Vancouver Bach Festival. The ensemble made its debut in 2019 at Lucerne’s KKL, and was invited in 2023 to the MA Festival in Bruges, the Besançon Festival and Vézelay. On the occasion of the Haydn-Mozart Festival, Gli Angeli Genève collaborates with guest conductors and artists: Michel Corboz in 2021, Kristian Bezuidenhout in 2022, Philippe Herreweghe in 2023, and Leonardo García Alarcón in 2024.

Gli Angeli Genève’s first recording for Claves Records, Musiques sacrées du XVIIe siècle à Wroclaw, won the 2019 ICMA award for best Baroque vocal recording of the year, and Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion has been enthusiastically received by audiences and critics alike, in Switzerland and around the world.

The ensemble’s discography also includes Bach’s Mass in B, nominated at ICMA 2022, Bach’s Cantatas for Bass, and Antoine Reicha’s rare Symphonies Concertantes, with soloists Christophe Coin, Davit Melkonyan, Chouchane Siranossian and Alexis Kossenko. Released in October 2022, Mozart’s Concertos for flute and orchestra, with Alexis Kossenko (flute) and Valeria Kafelnikov (harp) have been nominated for an ICMA 2023 award in the “Concerto” category. Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion, released in April 2023, and Josquin Desprez’s Malheur me bat, published by Aparté in September 2023, have already won rave reviews from the press and public alike.

Gli Angeli Genève benefits from a regional support agreement with the City of Geneva, the Republic and Canton of Geneva and the Théâtre du Crochetan.

Stephan MacLeod was born in Geneva and studied singing in his native city, in Cologne and then in Lausanne. His concert career began during his studies in Germany with a fruitful collaboration with Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln. Since then, he has sung regularly with conductors such as Leonhardt, Herreweghe, Savall, Suzuki, Kuijken, Corboz, Brüggen, Kossenko, Pierlot, Luks, Mortensen, Harding, Junghänel, Rademann, Pichon, Van Immerseel, Coin, Rilling, Van Nevel and Bernius. He is founder and conductor of the Ensemble Gli Angeli Genève, which gives around thirty concerts a year throughout the world, and is regularly invited to conduct other ensembles (OSR, Philharmonie Zuidnerderland, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, etc.). More than 100 CDs, many of them critically acclaimed, document his work. He was singing teacher at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne from 2013 to 2023, and teaches at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève since last September.

Born in Prague, Hana trained at the Prague Conservatory in Jiří Kotouč’s class, before continuing her studies with Poppy Holden, Peter Kooij, Monika Mauch and Howard Crook. Today, she is recognized as a leading specialist in the performance of baroque, renaissance and medieval music. She performs with ensembles and orchestras all over the world, including Collegium Vocale Gent, Bach Collegium Japan, Sette Voci, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Arpeggiata, Gli Angeli Genève, La Fenice, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Tafelmusik, Collegium 1704, Collegium Marianum, Musica Florea, L’Armonia Sonora, among others. She collaborates regularly with the world-renowned horn player Bruce Dickey, with whom she recorded the CD “Breathtaking”, the programme of which continues to tour the world. Hana appears on over thirty CDs, including the famous Bach cantata series with the Bach Collegium Japan. She also plays the Gothic and Romanesque harps and presents concerts in which she accompanies herself on this instrument.

Was born in Poland, where she studied violin and piano before turning to singing, which she studied with Wojtek Drabowicz in Poznan and then at the Weimar Conservatoire. She attended masterclasses with Evelyn Tubb and Barbara Schlick, and made her debut at the Poznan Opera in Aurora by E.T.A Hoffmann.

Aleksandra is active in the world of oratorio, singing under the direction of Herreweghe, van Veldhoven, MacLeod, Corboz, Duxbury, Luks, Reuss, Antonini, Sempé, Parrott, Weimann, Spering, Neumann and Fischer, and frequently works with Gli Angeli Genève, Collegium Vocale Gent, Collegium 1704, Arte dei Suonatori, the Polish Radio Orchestra and the Wrocław Baroque Orchestra.

She has performed at numerous European and international festivals, including Musikfest Bremen, Bachwoche Stuttgart, Festival de Saintes, Oude Muziek Utrecht, Thüringer Bachwochen, Lumine Voice Festival of Lofoten, Vratislavia Cantans, Chopin and his Europe and Early Music Vancouver.

Praised by The Times for his “ethereal tone and beautiful control”,  Alex Potter is one of the leading countertenors on the European musical scene. He was lucky enough to have a mother who sang to him as a child and a father who bought him history books, so of course ended up singing Early music. Besides singing, he loves cooking, being outdoors and anything to do with history. He lives in the Lüneburger Heide and is an embarrassing father to two teenage daughters.

Valerio Contaldo studied singing with Gary Magby in Lausanne. He was a finalist in the Leipzig Bach Competition in 2008, and his solo career has increasingly developed ever since. 

His highly eclectic oratorio repertoire includes the most important works of sacred music. He has performed in concert at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musikverein, the Beaune and Ambronay Festivals, Salzburg’s Mozartwoche, the Folles Journées in Nantes, Bilbao, Warsaw and Tokyo, and in opera at the Paris Opéra, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées, the Teatro La Fenice in Venice, and the Edinburgh and Aix-en-Provence Festivals.

He is one of the world’s leading interpreters of the title role in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo, which he has sung in Barcelona, Adelaide, Shanghai and Beijing, as well as in Brussels, Rotterdam, Cologne, Strasbourg, at the Festival de Saint-Denis, and on tour in South America. The recording of this work with Cappella Mediterranea (Alarcón), released by Alpha in 2021, was enthusiastically received by the critics (Choc Classica, Diamant Opéra Magazine, etc.).

He sings in concert and on disc under conductors such as Corboz, Garrido, Garcia Alarcón, Alessandrini, Bernardini, Minkowski and Pierlot.

Stephan MacLeod was born in Geneva and studied singing in his native city, in Cologne and then in Lausanne. His concert career began during his studies in Germany with a fruitful collaboration with Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln. Since then, he has sung regularly with conductors such as Leonhardt, Herreweghe, Savall, Suzuki, Kuijken, Corboz, Brüggen, Kossenko, Pierlot, Luks, Mortensen, Harding, Junghänel, Rademann, Pichon, Van Immerseel, Coin, Rilling, Van Nevel and Bernius. He is founder and conductor of the Ensemble Gli Angeli Genève, which gives around thirty concerts a year throughout the world, and is regularly invited to conduct other ensembles (OSR, Philharmonie Zuidnerderland, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, etc.). More than 100 CDs, many of them critically acclaimed, document his work. He was singing teacher at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne from 2013 to 2023, and teaches at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève since last September.

The Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne (EVL) was founded in 1961 by Michel Corboz, who successfully led it for over fifty years. As an outstanding professional vocal ensemble, the EVL holds its own amongst the best groups on the national and international scene, all the while maintaining strong roots in Switzerland. Artistically, it is a chamber choir comprised of a variable configuration of professional singers and, depending on the work being performed, young artists in training. Its repertoire ranges from the 16th to the 21st century, with a focus on French music, Swiss composers, and contemporary creations.

Today, the Ensemble is under the direction of Pierre-Fabien Roubaty, artistic and musical director, and Daniel Reuss, principal guest conductor. In recent years, the EVL has sung under the baton of world-renowned conductors such as Raphaël Pichon, Leonardo García Alarcón, Jonathan Nott, Arie van Beek, and Marc Kissóczy.

The reach of the EVL extends well beyond national borders, with invitations to perform on international stages. Over the past ten years, it has participated in numerous prestigious festivals such as La Folle Journée de Nantes, La Roque d’Anthéron, the Festival de Pâques (Aix-en-Provence), the Chapelle Royale de Versailles, and the Gstaad Menuhin Festival. Additionally, the EVL regularly collaborates with renowned Swiss and international orchestras.

The EVL’s extensive discography has garnered international acclaim. Its recording of Monteverdi’s Vespers won the Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros. Some thirty other award-winning albums include the three famous Requiems by Mozart (Choc du Monde de la Musique, 1999), Fauré (Choc de l’Année 2007 du Monde de la Musique) and Gounod (Choc de Classica 2011). Its latest opus, Arthur Honegger’s Le Roi David (1921 version) was released in 2017.

In 2023, EVL and OCL recorded Mozart’s Requiem under the direction of John Nelson. This is EVL’s 116th recording.

Louise Foor, a Belgian soprano, will perform on the stages of the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, La Monnaie in Brussels, and the Opera of Metz in the upcoming season. Her recent debut as Leila in G. Bizet’s “Les pêcheurs de perles” in Bordeaux received excellent critics.  Last season she also debuted at such venues as the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie De Munt, the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg, and the Grand Théâtre in Geneva.

In 2020 Louise made her debut at the Opera in Liège and she has joined the “MM Laureate” of La Monnaie/De Munt in Brussels. She also became resident artist at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Waterloo. In September 2020, she won the first prize at the international competition “Virgilijus Noreika” in Vilnius (Lithuania).

In 2017, Louise received her bachelor’s degree in voice from the IMEP School of Music (Belgium). In the same year, she won the “best young” prize at the international competition “Hariclea Darclée” in Romania. In 2017 she also became a student at the HfM Hanns Eisler Berlin in the class of Anna Samuil. In 2018 she made other international competitions in Germany (Immling), Austria (Graz) and Italy (Portofino), where she won many prizes.

Gerhild Romberger was born in the Emsland. After studying music for schools at the Academy of Music in Detmold, she studied with Mitsuko Shirai and Hartmut Höll.

As a passionate concert-singer her extremely extensive repertoire encompasses all the major contralto and mezzo-soprano parts in the oratorio and concert repertoire from the Baroque to the Classical and Romantic periods to the 20th century music.

Significant steps in Gerhild Romberger´s career in recent years were concerts with Manfred Honeck, the Berlin Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Herbert Blomstedt and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester under Riccardo Chailly. Furthermore, she performed with the Vienna and Bamberg Symphony Orchestras under Daniel Harding or at La Scala under Franz Welser-Möst.

Highlights of the current season include a concert tour with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Beethoven´s 9th Symphony under the baton of Andris Nelsons as well as Mahler´s 3rd Symphony with Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam. Furthermore, she can be heard with Mahler´s Kindertotenlieder and the Budapest Festival Orchestra and with Schumann´s Paradies und Peri at Hamburg´s Elbphilharmonie.

Jason Bridges is establishing himself as an internationally recognized tenor. Born in Pennsylvania, Jason has been based in Geneva, Switzerland for over a decade. He began his musical training at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY and continued his education at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland in Glasgow on the MMus Opera Masters program where he was awarded the International Scholarship for Opera Singers.

Jason was a member of the Atelier Lyrique de l’Opéra National de Paris where he was awarded the Prix AROP as the young artist program’s outstanding male voice for the 2005-2006 season.  Jason was also a member of the soloist’s ensemble at the Wiener Staatsoper in Vienna, Austria where he performed notable roles such as Der junge Seeman in Tristan und Isolde, Leopold in La Juive, Froh in Das Rheingold and Antonio in the European premiere of Thomas Ades’ The Tempest. 

Jason has been seen in opera houses and concert halls throughout Europe and North America.  Operatic roles include the title roles in both Candide and Albert Herring,  Ferrando in Cosi Fan Tutte,  Pylade in Iphigénie en Tauride, Renaud in Armide, Tamino in The Magic Flute, Rinuccio in Gianni Schicchi, Hussar in Stravinsky’s Mavra, Andres in Wozzeck, Des Grieux in Massenet’s Manon, Nemorino in L’elisir d’more, Edgardo in Lucia di Lammermoor, Lyonel in Martha, Prince Sou-Chong in Das Land des Lächelns and Armand in Boulevard Solitude.

Jason has also created roles in several world premiere operas including Cyrille in Phillipe Boesmans’ Yvonne, Princess de Bourgogne for the Opéra National de Paris, Lorenzo in André Tchaikowsky’s The Merchant of Venice at the Bregenzer Festspiele, and Edgar Allen Poe in Usher House by Gordon Getty for Welsh National Opera and San Francisco Opera.

Most recently, he has performed the roles of Lensky in Eugene Onegin for Welsh National Opera, Lysander in Midsummer Night’s Dream and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni for the Israeli National Opera and Alfredo in La Traviata for Edmonton Opera.

Vincent Thévenaz is professor of organ and improvisation at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Geneva, titular organist and carilloneur of the Saint-Pierre Cathedral in Geneva. His concerts have led him to many European countries, as well as Argentina, Uruguay, Canada and India. Having benefited from a complete training (organ, piano, classical and jazz improvisation, musicology, musical theory, direction, singing, French and Russian letters), he aspires to make known and appreciated the many different facets of the organ: as a soloist, with other instruments, sometimes classical (violin, flute), sometimes quirky (Alpine horn, percussion), as well as with an ensemble. He also plays different keyboard instruments, such as harmonium, Hammond or theatre organ, and carillon. Passionate about improvisation, he devotes himself to it on the piano as much as the organ, in concert or to accompany silent films.

In 2009-2010 he interpreted Bach’s integral organ oeuvre in 14 concerts, met with a resounding success. His duo with the saxophonist Vincent Barras, entitled “W”, proposes an original repertoire immortalised in two CDs. He has recorded two CDs for the Sony label with the Gli Angeli Ensemble of Geneva (Stephan MacLeod), acclaimed by critics. He also collaborates with many ensembles and conductors (Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ensemble Contrechamps, Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne, the Scharoun Ensemble of the Berlin Philharmonic, Valery Gergiev, Heinz Holliger, Michel Corboz, Lawrence Foster, Antonio Pappano, etc). In 2005 he founded the Orchestre Buissonnier, an ensemble of young musicians, which he regularly conducts.
www.thevenaz.org

After studying at the Geneva Conservatory of Music and the University of Paris VIII, Philippe Albèra taught music history and analysis while working as a music critic for several newspapers in Geneva and Paris. In 1977, he founded Contrechamps to bring 20th-century music to Geneva, where it was virtually non-existent. From the initial concerts, mixed with theater, cinema and dance, the Contrechamps ensemble and the Contrechamps review (published by L’Âge d’Homme) were born, followed by a publishing house (in 1991) after 12 thematic issues. In 1992, he founded the Archipel festival in Geneva. From 1984 to 1998, he was coordinator of a contemporary art venue, Salle Patino, while working with the Festival d’Automne à Paris and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under the direction of Armin Jordan. He also co-directed the magazine Dissonance for several years, contributing numerous articles. Author of several essays and lectures, he has edited many composers’ writings and published two books: Le son et le sens, a collection of essays, and Le Parti pris des sons, on the music of Stefano Gervasoni.

Born in Porto Cesareo (Italy), Giovanni Fanizza is active as a conductor in Italy and across Europe (Switzerland, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Bulgaria). In 2024, he was selected to participate in the Gstaad Conducting Academy with Johannes Schlaefli and Jaap van Zweden. He began studying conducting with Marc Kissoczy, Francesco Bossaglia, and Arturo Tamayo at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana (Lugano) and, at the same time, took courses with renowned conductors such as Nicolas Pasquet, Ekhart Wycik, Colin Metters, Donato Renzetti, Matteo Beltrami, and Christoph König.

In the summer of 2022, he served as assistant conductor at the Saluzzo Opera Academy for the productions of Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea and Mozart’s Don Giovanni, collaborating with directors Noa Naamat and Susan Stone. His passion for opera led him to closely observe the work of Carmen Santoro as a vocal coach, allowing him to deepen his knowledge of the Italian “bel canto” tradition.

That same year, he was selected to participate in the 18th Conducting Course promoted by the Divertimento Ensemble, an opportunity that enabled him to expand his knowledge of contemporary repertoire and to work with Sandro Gorli and Stefano Gervasoni.

In 2021, Giovanni founded the “Vitae Aeternae” Art Festival, an event that promotes concerts and cultural experiences in his native country. He is currently studying conducting with Laurent Gay at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva.

He has also studied composition with Nadir Vassena and Michael Zink at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana and accordion (Bayan) with Germano Scurti, professor and mentor, at the “Tito Schipa” Conservatory in Lecce, where he graduated with top honors. Giovanni is a prize-winner in national and international competitions, particularly with the bayan trio “Lecce Accordion Project,” with which he released the album Gogol in 2019, dedicated to the promotion of literature specifically written for the bayan.

Originally from Valais, Laurine Moulin began her musical journey in the organ class of Chantal Ebener in Martigny. She continued her musical education with Brigitte Fournier at the Sion Conservatory and Jean-Luc Waeber at the Fribourg Conservatory before being admitted to the HEM (Haute École de Musique) in Clémence Tilquin’s class, where she completed her bachelor’s degree. Her passion for creativity and contemporary music led her to the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden and the Mozarteum in Salzburg to pursue the International Master of New Music.

On stage, she has performed roles such as the First Witch (Dido & Aeneas), the Japanese Woman (Don Quichotte chez la Duchesse), Antigone in a Neapolitan pastiche under the direction of Florence Malgoire, Lucia (I Due Timidi), and Sister Blanche in Dialogues of the Carmelites—a performance blending opera, theater, and video creation at SPOT in Sion. In concert, she is engaged by various choirs and vocal ensembles in Valais. She has performed Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Charpentier’s Messe de Minuit, Vivaldi’s Gloria, Mozart’s Spatzenmesse, and Handel’s Nisi Dominus. She also collaborates with Canadian guitarist and composer Sebastian Robles, whose album La Nuit et l’Azur was released in June 2024.

Laurine has sung with the all-female ensemble Polhymnia (conducted by Franck Marcon) as well as the ensemble Entresilences (conducted by Iris Thion-Poncet). She is also involved with the ensemble Fontana Cantabile (conducted by Jean Gautier-Pignonblanc). Wishing to develop her skills in this field, she obtained her choral conducting diploma in 2022.

A composer passionate about expression, she wrote the music for the show Face à toi-même for a vocal octet and brass quartet, which premiered in March 2024. La Prière du Pèlerin de la Montagne, an excerpt from this show, has been performed by numerous choirs in Valais. In August 2024, La Messe du Pèlerin was broadcast on Espace 2, recorded live at the Grand-Saint-Bernard hospice.

Founded in 1942 by Victor Desarzens, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (OCL) has become one of the most sought-after chamber orchestras in Europe. After six years under the artistic direction of American conductor Joshua Weilerstein, the OCL is now led by the celebrated French violinist Renaud Capuçon. Comprising some forty musicians, the Orchestra’s vast repertoire ranges from early Baroque to contemporary works.

The OCL was soon invited to perform abroad, in the most renowned concert halls and festivals. It took part in the second Aix-en-Provence Festival and several editions of the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. His tours of Germany and the United States have been resounding successes, as have his concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the BBC Proms in London, the Wiener Konzerthaus and the Berliner Philharmoniker. In the 2023-2024 season, the OCL will perform in Madrid, Barcelona and, for the first time, at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Throughout its existence, the OCL has performed with leading soloists. These include Clara Haskil, Alfred Cortot, Walter Gieseking, Edwin Fischer, Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu, Martha Argerich, Nikolai Lugansky, Daniel Barenboim and Frank Peter Zimmermann. The OCL has also always attracted the most interesting conductors of their time, including Paul Hindemith, Günter Wand, Christoph Eschenbach, Ton Koopman, Jeffrey Tate, Bertrand de Billy, Simone Young and Daniel Harding.

The OCL boasts an extensive discography: from the complete operas of Haydn in the 1970s-1980s conducted by Antal Dorati to the Beethoven and Mozart concertos with Christian Zacharias, not to mention recordings dedicated to Schoenberg and Webern (with Heinz Holliger) and Spohr and Weber (with Paul Meyer).

The Iranian conductor Hossein Pishkar won the prestigious Deutscher Dirigentenpreis in an international competition staged in cooperation with Cologne’s leading musical institutions and Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in 2017. In the same year he also won the Ernst-von-Schuch-Preis, presented annually in collaboration with the Dirigentenforum.

Hossein Pishkar conducts, as guest conductor, the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Danish Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Orchestra Giovanile Luigi Cherubini, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra, Slovenska filharmonija, Staatsorchester Stuttgart and WDR-Sinfonieorchester. At the Royal Danish Opera he conducted the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet (director: Barrie Kosky), Verdi’s Aida (director: Annabel Arden), Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito (director: Jetske Mijnssen) and Shostakovich’s The Nose (director: Àlex Ollé), at the Staatsoper Stuttgart Die Zauberflöte (director: Barrie Kosky) and at the Ravenna Festival Rigoletto (director: Cristina Mazzavillani Muti).

Before moving to Düsseldorf to study conducting with Rüdiger Bohn at the Robert Schumann Hochschule, Hossein Pishkar studied composition and piano in Teheran, where he was born in 1988. In Iran he has conducted the Teheran Youth Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Teheran Music School. He began playing traditional Persian music as a young child and has won many prizes as a player of the tar, the fretted stringed instrument of Persian culture.

Johan Reuter studied at the Royal Academy of Music and the Academy of the Royal Theatre in his hometown of Copenhagen. He frequented masterclasses of Ernst Haefliger, Anthony Rolfe-Johnson and Richard Trimborn. Since 1996 he has been a soloist of the Royal Theatre in Copenhagen, where he sings a large repertoire.

In the 2022-23 season Reuter took on the role of Orest from Elektra at the Royal Theatre Copenhagen, Barak from Die Frau ohne Schatten at San Francisco Opera and Friedrich von Telramund from Lohengrin at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich, among others.

He starred in the new production of Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg as Hans Sachs at the Deutsche Oper Berlin. Johan was part of the exciting line-up to celebrate the Centennial of San Francisco Opera, making his first appearance on the West Coast with Die Frau ohne Schatten.

Highlights from the past seasons include Dead Man Walking, Un ballo in maschera, Cavalleria rusticana/I pagliacci, Scarpia in Tosca [all marking his debut in the roles] in Copenhagen, Barak in Die Frau ohne Schatten in London, New York, Berlin, Zürich and Amsterdam, the title role of Nabucco at the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Braunfels’ Jeanne d’Arc at the Salzburger Festspiele, Vec Makropulos at the Met and the Salzburger Festspiele, Wotan in Das Rheingold in Munich and Budapest.

He created the role of Theseus in the world première of Harrison Birthwistle’s The Minotaur at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden where he has also appeared in Elektra, Salome, Wozzeck and The Tsar’s Bride. Der fliegende Holländer in Madrid, Berlin and Copenhagen, Le nozze di Figaro at Theater an der Wien and Deutsche Oper Berlin, Macbeth in Lisbon, From the House of the Dead in Paris and Madrid and Così fan tutte in Hamburg. Recent concert appearances include Haydn’s Schöpfung and Die Jahreszeiten, Mahler’s 8th Symphony, Rückert-lieder and Das klagende Lied, Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, Brahm’s Vier ernste Gesänge, Ein deutsches Requiem, Mozart’s Requiem, Berlioz’s Romeo et Juliette, Peer Gynt and Michelangelo sonnets by Chostakovich.

He has given song recitals in Copenhagen, Hannover, Frankfurt, Bergen and Madrid. Johan Reuter recorded Tristan und Isolde under Janowski, Kunzen’s Holger Danske, Nielsen’s Maskarade under Ulf Schirmer (Gramophone Award), Schubert’s Winterreise in Danish as well as solo albums with arias by the young Giuseppe Verdi and songs by Richard Strauss, Carl Nielsen and Hakon Børresen.