Founded in 1993, the Ulster Youth Orchestra plays an important role in the musical life of the smallest of the four British regions. The ensemble regularly gives concerts not only in Belfast and Derry/Londonderry, but also in the Republic of Ireland. Further invitations have taken the UYO to Scotland and to the Proms in London. Over the course of the recent years, the orchestra has commissioned 14 works from established or rising young Northern Irish composers, actively fostering the musical scene in its home region. Its members are aged 14 to 23; they are chosen during three audition days every year. The UYO members receive coaching by members of the Ulster Orchestra and the Hard Rain Soloist Ensemble for contemporary music. Apart from its rehearsal phases, the orchestra also engages in social and education projects, for example with senior citizens. After its debut in 2008, the Ulster Youth Orchestra returns to Young Euro Classic for the first time.

The Dutch conductor Jac van Steen has held many important positions, both in his homeland of the Netherlands and in Germany and Great Britain. Born in Eindhoven in 1956, van Steen was chief conductor of the Nürnberg Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2002, then general music director at the German National Theatre in Weimar. From 2008 to 2013, the conductor worked at the Dortmund Opera. Apart from his engagements at the National Symphony Orchestra of Wales, the Ulster Orchestra and the BBC Symphony Orchestra, he has a long working relationship with the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin. Further invitations have taken him further afield, for example to Sao Paolo, Kuala Lumpur, Tokyo and Johannesburg. As an opera conductor, he works regularly with various Dutch opera houses as well as the Garsington Opera, a summer festival near London. In addition, Jac van Steen teaches conducting at the Conservatory in Den Haag and gives regular master classes at the Royal College of Music in London.

The young British conductor Max Todes can already look back on a multitude of remarkable activities. At the age of 15, he discovered his interest in conducting, taking his first courses at Pro Corda, a British education programme for children and teenagers. In 2017, at the age of 16, Todes founded the first of his own ensembles, the Cavatina Orchestra, which included students of several London conservatories. Under his baton, the ensemble performed works by Sibelius, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Mozart and Beethoven. That same year, he also founded the Cavatina Opera, with which he produced Mozart’s Zauberflöte at the City of London School. Max Todes is a graduate of St. John’s College in Cambridge; he also played with the Collegium Musicum of Cambridge University as a cellist, gathering intense experience with historically informed performance practice. At the moment, he is studying conducting with Martyn Brabbins at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

The Northern Irish coloratura soprano Rebecca Murphy has made a name for herself in recent years in Great Britain and continental Europe. After studying at the University of Belfast and the Royal Conservatory in Glasgow, she joined the International Opera Studio of the Cologne Opera from 2020 to 2022, where she sang the roles of Blonde in Mozart’s Entführung aus dem Serail, Frasquita in Bizet’s Carmen and Sandman / Dew Fairy in Humperdinck’s Hänsel und Gretel. At the Garsington Opera, Rebecca Murphy appeared as Zerbinetta in Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos. The singer’s great interest, apart from opera, is contemporary music; thus, she works regularly with Irish composers such as Anselm McDonnell, Conor Mitchell and Ian Wilson. Another focus of her work is on Polish music; her recent CD Traverser features songs by McDonnell, Berlioz and Fauré, but also works by Chopin and Szymanowski.

The Northern Irish violinist and composer Sam Kane grew up with a love of classical and Irish traditional music before moving to Manchester to study violin at the Royal Northern College of Music. He was a concertmaster in the Ulster Youth Orchestra and has performed with the Ulster Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata. Today, Kane dedicates himself increasingly to composing. He won the composition prize of the Liverpool Philharmonic, leading to a performance of his work by the Ensemble 10:10 and Domingo Hindoyan. The musician has been commissioned to write works for the Buxton International Festival, the ORA Singers and the Rain Soloist Ensemble, where he was appointed “Young Artist” of the 2023/24 season. He has performed his own works at the venerable Wigmore Hall, Leighton House and St James’ Palace in London; one of his compositions for soprano and orchestra has been broadcast on Classic FM. His latest work for the Ulster Youth Orchestra is a German premiere at Young Euro Classic.

Frederik Hanssen, born in 1969 in Berlin, studied musicology and French philology in his hometown as well as in Clermont-Ferrand and Milan. From 1998 until the end of 2025, he worked as an editor for classical music at the Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel. In addition to his journalistic work, he is active in music education serving as the author of programme booklets, concert moderations, and speaker for introductory lectures. Frederik Hanssen lives with his family in Berlin and Rome.