National Youth Orchestra of the USA

© Pablo Castagnola

Intendant Konzerthaus Berlin

Prof. Dr. Sebastian Nordmann, born in Kiel in 1971, studied musicology and modern history first at the Ruprecht Karls University Heidelberg, then at Berlin’s Free University and Technical University. Right after his Master’s degree, he wrote his doctoral thesis under the auspices of Prof. Dr. Christian Martin Schmidt on The Influence of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival on the Musical Landscape of Schleswig-Holstein. While still a student, Sebastian Nordmann gathered practical experience in the cultural sector, working at the Edinburgh Festival, the Culture Department of Bayer AG, as orchestra manager of the Schleswig-Holstein State Youth Orchestra and assistant to the Intendant (Artistic Director) of the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. After completing his doctorate, he worked for the strategic consultancy The Boston Consulting Group in Berlin for two years. From October 2002 to December 2008 he was Intendant and managing director of the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. From 2008 to 2013 he taught music management / career planning as a professor at the Rostock Academy of Music and Theatre. Since September 2009 Sebastian Nordmann has been Intendant of the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin. Since spring of 2016 he has also been Artistic Director of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Music Academy Competition. 

© Musacchio & Ianniello EMI Classics

The British conductor Sir Antonio Pappano is equally successful in the opera house and on the concert stage. Since 2002 he has been the music director of the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London; at the same time he has held the position of chief conductor of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome since 2005. Born to Italian parents in London in 1959, his career took him to Chicago, Frankfurt and Bayreuth (where he assisted Daniel Barenboim) to Oslo, where he became chief conductor of the Norwegian Opera in 1990, followed by the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels in 1992. Ever since, Pappano has performed with all the major orchestras in North American and Europe, including both the Berlin Philharmonic and the Staatskapelle Berlin this past season. His opera repertoire is immense, ranging from the masterpieces of Verdi, Puccini and Wagner to Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Szymanowski’s King Roger and Birtwistle’s The Minotaur. Most recently, his CD production of Verdi’s Aida with Anja Harteros and Jonas Kaufmann in the main roles won broad acclaim. As a pianist, Pappano regularly accompanies song recitals by singers such as Joyce DiDonato, Ian Bostridge and Gerald Finley.

(c) CEMA Oleg Rostovtsev

Born in the Czech city of Brno, mezzo-soprano Magdalena Kožená trained as a singer and pianist at the conservatory of her hometown and later at the music academy in Bratislava. On the concert platform, she has collaborated with many of the world’s leading conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bernhard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, James Levine, Sir Roger Norrington und Sir Simon Rattle. Also an acclaimed artist in period performance, she has been heard with the English baroque Soloists, the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Il Giardino Armonico, and Les Musiciens du Louvre, among others. In 2003 she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival as Zerlina in Don Giovanni, returning there in 2013 as Idamante in Idomeneo. Her operatic repertoire includes the roles of Cherubino, Mélisande, Octavian, Carmen and the title roles of Charpentier’s Medée and Martinů’s Juliette, which she has sung at the Metropolitan Opera, the Royal Opera House, in Baden-Baden and Glyndebourne as well as Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden. For her services to French music, Magdalena Kožená was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2003.

We are most grateful to Ms. Kožená for replacing Dame Sarah Connolly, who has unfortunately been taken ill, at short notice!