Young Philharmonic Orchestra Jerusalem Weimar

© Marco Borggreve

Michael Sanderling, born and educated in Berlin, turned to conducting after a successful career as a cellist. At the age of 20, he was appointed solo cellist at the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig under Kurt Masur in 1987; later he held the same position at the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin (until 2006). In 2000, the youngest son of the legendary conductor Kurt Sanderling made his conducting debut with the Berlin Chamber Orchestra. Since the 2011/12 season, the 48-year-old conductor has been chief conductor of the Dresden Philharmonic, an engagement recently prolonged until 2019. From 2006 to 2010 Michael Sanderling was music director of the German String Philharmonic. Furthermore, he has worked with the radio orchestras in Stuttgart, Munich, Cologne, Hamburg, Leipzig and Hanover; other recent invitations include appearances in Zurich, London, Toronto and Tokyo. In 2010 the conductor founded the Skyline Symphony in Frankfurt, an orchestra which unites musicians from European orchestras to offer accessible music for a younger audience on the campus of the Goethe University.  

© Guido Werner

Alexey Stadler is from St. Petersburg, where he received his first cello lessons at the age of four. Even during his student days, Alexey Stadler won various prizes and national awards, such as “Young Talent” (2008, 2009 and 2010) and “Russia’s Hope” (2008, 2009). He attended master classes with Natalia Gutman, David Geringas and Frans Helmerson. Today, the 24-year-old studies at the Music Academy Franz Liszt in Weimar with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. The cellist can already look back on a multitude of high-carat invitations: thus, he appeared as a soloist with the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Czech Radio Orchestra and the London Chamber Orchestra under Vladimir Ashkenazy. As a chamber musician, Stadler has been invited to the Verbier Festival, the Heidelberger Frühling and the Kronberg Academy, where he performed with Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet and Christian Tetzlaff. Stadler plays a 19^th-century cello which formerly belonged to the Russian Tsar Nicholas II.