Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
The orchestra was founded by the legendary Ernest Ansermet in 1918, who directed it until 1967. It performs primarily in Geneva and Lausanne and regularly collaborates in productions at the Geneva Grande Théâtre. Since 2002, the ensemble’s artistic and musical director has been the Israeli musician, Pinchas Steinberg. The orchestra’s international reputation was also cemented by the work of such conductors as Paul Kletzki (1967–1970), Wolfgang Sawallisch (1970–1980), Horst Stein (1980–1985), Armin Jordan (1985-1997) and Fabio Luisi (1997-2002). The orchestra has enjoyed fruitful relationships with many of the major 20th century composers (Benjamin Britten, Claude Debussy, Heinz Holliger, Arthur Honegger, Frank Martin, Darius Milhaud, Igor Stravinsky) and gave many of their works world premiere in Geneva. In the 2000/2001 and 2001/2002 seasons, the orchestra and the Radio Suisse Romande (a Swiss French language station) jointly presented 10 world premiere performances, demonstrating their commitment to contemporary music. The Orchestra de la Suisse Romande has recorded for many leading international record labels.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard
Pierre-Laurent Aimard is one of the most popular living French pianists. He has been widely heralded for his championing of 20th century piano music, in particular the work of Olivier Messiaen and György Ligeti. He was born in Lyon in 1957 and completed his studies at the Paris Conservatoire. His teachers included Messiaen’s wife, the pianist Yvonne Loriod. In 1973 he won the international Olivier Messiaen competition. In 1977 Pierre Boulez invited him as a soloist with the Ensemble InterContemporain. He worked with this ensemble for eighteen years, during which he studied and performed much of the major 20th century repertoire. He enjoys a close relationship with such composers as Boulez, Stockhausen, Ligeti and Kurtág. He made a highly successful recording of Ligeti’s piano concerto with the Asko Ensemble in 2001. In 2000 he recorded the seminal Messiaen piano work, Vingt Regards sur l’Enfant Jesus, and was showered with critical appraise. Pierre-Laurent Aimard has performed in Budapest frequently in recent years and his concerts have always been keenly anticipated and received.

Péter Eötvös
Péter Eötvös began his dual career as conductor and composer while a colleague of Stockhausen and Boulez. From 1978 to 1991 he was the artistic director of the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris. From 1985 to 1988 he was the principal guest conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He was also resident principal conductor of the Budapest Festival Orchestra from 1992 to 1995, and resident guest conductor of the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra. He is presently the resident conductor of the Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra and a Professor at the Cologne Music College. In 1991 he founded the International Eötvös Institute to help the further studies of young conductors and composers. In recognition of his work, Péter Eötvös was awarded the Budapest Bartók-Pásztory-Prize in 1997 and in 2002 the Kossuth Prize. In 2004 he accepted the “Cannes Classical Award” and the “Pro Europa Composition Prize.” In 2003 he was bequeathed the “Commandeur l’Ordre des l’Arts et des Lettres” state award from the French Ministry of Culture. Since 1997 he has been a member of the Berliner Akademie der Künste, since 1998 a member of the Budapest Széchenyi Academy of Literature and the Arts, and since 1999 a fellow of the Dresden Sächsische Akademie der Künste. His compositions have been performed all over the world. His first opera, “Three Sisters” won the French critics award in 1998, as well as the “Prix Claude-Rostand”, “Victoires de la Musique Classsique et du Jazz 1999” (Paris) and “Prix Caecillia” (Brussels.) His next opera, “Le Balcon” was premiered at the 2002 Aix-en-Provence festival, while “Angels in America” was premiered at the Paris Chatelet Theatre in 2004 and has been regularly performed in a number of European opera houses since then. His compositions have been published by Editio Musica in Budapest, Salabert in Paris, Ricordi in Munich and by Schott Music. His recordings are available on BMC, DGG, ECM, EMI, Gramophon AB BIS and Kairos Vienna.

Lang Lang, who was born in Shanghai in 1982, is one of the brightest stars in the firmament of new pianists. According to the critic of the Times, he has „fingers of gold”. His admirers believe that Lang Lang’s talent and personality equip him to be an ambassador for the ideals of classical music, an artist capable of bringing the values of musical culture to the younger generation. He is the first Chinese pianist to have played with the Berlin Philharmonic and the „Big Five” major American orchestras.
He won his first prize in 1987, at the tender age of five, in a local piano competition. He subsequently won competition prizes in Beijing, then Germany (Fourth International Youth Piano Competition) and Japan (International Tchaikovsky Youth Music Competition.) In 1991, he was admitted to the Beijing Music Academy where his professor was Zhao Ping-Guo. In 1995 he performed all of Chopin’s piano etudes at the Beijing Concert Hall. In 1997 he continued his studies under Gary Graffmann at the Curtis Institute (Philadelphia), which he completed in 2002. In 1999 he replaced an indisposed artist at the last minute, thus “saving” a concert by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in bravura style (Ravinia Festival, Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto in B flat minor). In 2001 he made his Carnegie Hall debut before a packed audience, playing Grieg’s A minor piano concerto with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and conductor Yuri Temirkanov. He then performed in Beijing with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Wolfgang Sawallisch. That same year, he drew another full house at the London Albert Hall. In 2002 Lang Lang won the Leonard Bernstein Prize. In recent years, he has worked with such conductors as Lorin Maazel, Franz Welser-Möst, Zubin Mehta, Michael Tilson Thomas and Mariss Jansons. In 2003 he made a recording for Deutsche Grammophon with Daniel Barenboim and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and in 2004 released a CD and DVD of a Carnegie Hall concert.

Iván Fischer
Iván Fischer was born in Budapest in 1951. He studied first piano and violin, later cello and composition in Budapest. He graduated from the famous Viennese conductor’s class of Hans Swarowsky, before working for two years as an assistant to Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
His international career was launched when he won the 1976 Rupert Foundation London Conductors Competition. After numerous international successes, he returned to Hungary in 1983 and jointly founded the Budapest Festival Orchestra with Zoltán Kocsis. He introduced new intensive rehearsal practises, placing great emphasis on chamber music and encouraging the creativity of individual orchestra members.
Iván Fischer regularly works with the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Orchestra de Paris, the Munich and Israeli Philharmonics and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment as a guest conductor. He has also conducted a cycle of Mozart operas at the Vienna State Opera House and directed a number of productions at the Zurich, London, Paris, Brussels, Stockholm and Budapest opera houses. He was formerly the music director of the British Northern Symphonia and the Kent Opera, and the first guest conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
From 2000 to 2003, Iván Fischer worked as music director of the Lyon National Opera House, but throughout, he retained his post as music director of the Budapest Festival Orchestra. His recordings of Bartók and Liszt won the Gramophone, Diapason d’Or, Telerama, Arte, MUM and Erasmus prizes.
He also won the Golden Commemorative Medal of the President of the Hungarian Republic, as well as Davos World Economic Forum’s Crystal Prize in recognition for his work developing international cultural relations.

Danish Radio Sinfonietta
The Danish Radio Sinfonietta is Denmark’s only professional chamber orchestra and is one of the best known representatives of Danish music life. The ensemble was founded in 1939 and its chief conductor is Ádám Fischer. They have made countless radio and CD recordings and play a leading role in Denmark’s music life, where they are regarded as its finest Mozart orchestra.
The orchestra will present a cycle of lesser known Mozart operas as part of its contribution to the Mozart Anniversary (Mitridate, re di Ponto; Lucio Silla; Il Re Pastore; Idomeneo; La Clemenza di Tito).

Ádám Fischer
Conductor Ádám Fischer was born in Budapest in 1949 and studied composition and conducting there, before continuing his studies at the Vienna Music College. His international career was launched when he won the Milan competition in 1973. Since then he has been a regular guest at the world’s leading opera houses (Wiener Staatsoper, La Scala Milan, Met etc.) and festivals (Salzburg, Bregenz, Maggio Musicale etc.). His recordings, such as the complete Haydn symphonies, are also widely admired. For five years, he was the music director of the Kassel State Theatre and in Autumn 2000, was appointed director of the opera company of the Mannheim National Theatre. He is also a regular guest at the Bayreuth Festival. Ádám Fischer is the spiritus rector and artistic director of the Austrian-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra and Danish Radio Sinfonietta, and also inspired the series of events in homage to Gustav Mahler.

English Concert
The English Concert is one of the most distinguished English early music ensembles and was founded by Trevor Pinnock in 1973. It rapidly became one of the best known orchestras in the world. Its repertoire extends from chamber music to opera. In 2003, after three decades of work, Trevor Pinnock decided to pass on his post of artistic director to the world famous virtuoso violinist Andrew Manze. “Directing the English Concert is a great honour for me. I have admired the ensemble and its leader for many years and it was pivotal experience for me hearing music for the first time played by this ensemble on original instruments. I am very much looking forward to working together with them in the future,” said Andrew Manze.

Andrew Manze
Violinist, conductor and chamber musician Andrew Manze possesses a repertoire that extends from the 17th to 19th centuries. Besides his career as a performer, he also teaches and publishes. He studied first in Cambridge, then at the London Royal Academy and the Royal Academy of Hague. He was concert master of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and the joint director of the Academy of Ancient Music. As a chamber musician, he was a member of the Romanesca Trio and since 1984, has regularly performed with harpsichordist Richard Egarr. As a soloist, he has performed in over 30 countries and worked as a guest conductor, worked with the Berlin Deutsche Symphonie Orchester and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. He has recorded for the Harmonia Mundi label (Bach, Biber, Schmelzer, Vivaldi and Handel), and won numerous awards (Gramophone, Edison, Cannes Classical Awards, Premio Internazionale del Disco Vivaldi Antica Italiana, Diapason d’Or, German Record Critic’s Prize). He is the Artistic Director of the European Union’s Baroque Orchestra. He is a welcome guest at international master classes and a member of the Royal Academy of Music.

Hungary’s finest non-professional choirs bearing the name Béla Bartók, and the ELTE University Concert Orchestra present a unique concert. Alongside choral works – among them the folk songs with piano accompaniment - they will also perform the arrangement for orchestra of the Romanian Dances, the First Rhapsody, and a premiere: a Suite transcribed from Bartók’s 44 violin duos. The musicians wish to pay tribute to a musical giant with this concert.

Alexander Sladkovsky
Principal conductor of the St. Petersburg Capella Symphony Orchestra and Associate Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra. Previously he held the position of principal conductor in the State Opera and Ballet Theatre of the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He appears as a guest conductor with major Russian orchestras (St. Petersburg Philharmonic, State Symphony of Russia, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra). He is regularly found on the podium for the Musical Olympus and Musical Spring festivals in St. Petersburg, Moscow’s Arts Square International Winter Festival, and the Young Euro Classics Festival in Berlin. In 1999 he won the International Prokofiev Competition. Since 2002 he has served as Principal Conductor of the Youth Philharmonic of Russia. In 2003 he conducted the official concert for the 300th anniversary of St. Petersburg. In the same year he won the title of Russia’s Best Conductor.

Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra
The Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra boasts a unique history among current Hungarian orchestras. It was founded as long ago as 1853 when its first resident conductor was Ferenc Erkel. He was succeeded by Sándor Erkel, István Kerner, János Richter, Ernõ Dohnányi, János Ferencsik and András Kórodi. In 1990, Erich Bergel took over the helm, and in 1997, American conductor Rico Saccani arrived. Comprising of the finest instrumental musicians from the Opera House orchestra, besides stage work, the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra is a concert orchestra which in its time has worked with such names as Liszt, Mahler, Richard Strauss, Saint-Saëns, Bartók and Kodály. In autumn 2000, the orchestra enjoyed successful tours of Germany and Japan. In 2003, they celebrated their 150th anniversary.

Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia
The Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia was Italy’s first orchestra created to play primarily the symphonic repertoire. Since its inception in the early 20th century, it has given over 14000 concerts and worked with such names as Mahler, Debussy, Strauss, Stravinsky, Hindemith, Toscanini, De Sabata and Karajan. Its chief conductors have included Bernardino Molinari, Franco Ferrara, Fernando Previtali, Igor Markevitch, Thomas Schippers, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Daniele Gatti. From 1983 to 1990, the orchestra’s honorary president was Leonard Bernstein. In recent years, the orchestra has been led by Myung-Whun Chung, who will be succeeded for the 2005-2006 season by Antonio Pappano. The orchestra regularly performs at all the major Italian festivals and is a welcome guest in the concert halls of Europe and the Far East.

Antonio Pappano
Conductor Antonio Pappano was born in London in 1959 to Italian parents. He studied piano, composition and conducting in the United States. From the outset of his career, he committed himself to opera and theatre. He worked at the New York City Opera, in Barcelona (Gran Teatro del Liceu), the Frankfurt Opera, at the Chicago Lyric Opera, and was an assistant to Daniel Barenboim at the Bayreuth Festival (Tristan and Isolde, Parsifal, Ring). In 1987 he made his debut at the Oslo Opera (Puccini: La Boheme), where in 1990 he was appointed music director. During this period of his career, Antonio Pappano conducted at Covent Garden, the English National Opera and San Francisco, as well working with the orchestras of the Théâtre du Châtelet and the Berlin State Opera. At the age of 32 he was appointed music director of the Belgian Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie. In 1993 he made his acclaimed debut at the Vienna State Opera, when he replaced an indisposed Christoph von Dohnányi at the last moment in a new production of Siegfried. In 1997 he made his debut at the New York Metropolitan Opera and that same year, became first guest conductor of the Israeli Philharmonic. In 1999 he conducted at Bayreuth for the first time in his own right: a production of Lohengrin. In 1999 Antonio Pappano was nominated music director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, a post he has held since September 2002, the youngest musician ever to do so.

Christian Tetzlaff
Christian Tetzlaff is one of the most celebrated violinists of recent decades. He is equally at home in the classical, romantic and 20th century literatures. His remarkable technique and stage persona has brought him world wide recognition for his performances of Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Berg, Ligeti, Bartók and Stravinsky.
Christian Tetzlaff was born in Hamburg in 1966 and studied piano and violin. He gave his first performance of the Beethoven violin concerto at the age of 14 and began concentrating exclusively on violin once he entered the Lübeck Conservatoire, where his teacher was Uwe-Martin Haiberg. He undertook further studies in America in 1985-86. In the past decade, he has worked with many leading orchestras (Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Toyko, the major London orchestras, and in the United States, the Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia and New York symphony orchestras) and star conductors (Pierre Boulez, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, James Levine, Michael Tilson-Thomas and Franz Welser-Möst). As a chamber musician he has performed with Leif Ove Andsnes, Sabine Meyer, Lars Vogt, Tabea Zimmerman and Heinrich Schiff.

Maxim Vengerov
Maxim Vengerov, one of the world’s leading violinists, was born in Novosibirsk in Siberia in 1974. He began playing the violin at the age of four and within a few months, was playing publicly. He later studied with the legendary teacher Zakhar Bron, and at the age of ten, won the Junior Wieniawski competition in Poland. He was barely into his teens when he performed with such ensembles as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic or the Soviet State Orchestra. In 1995 he made a CD of Prokofiev and Shostakovich violin concertos which won the Gramophone “Best Record of the Year” and “Best Concerto Recording” awards. It was also nominated for a Grammy award in two categories.
Maxim Vengerov regularly performs in Europe, the United States, the Far East and Australia.
In 2003 he studied the viola and made a CD recording of Walton’s Viola Concerto. He is no less in demand for his master classes and teaching.
In 2005 Maxim Vengerov decided to take a year off touring and occupied himself by studying jazz improvisation as well as learning new repertoire pieces, among them a work written especially for him by Benjamin Jusupov.

Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra
The story of the Mozarteum Orchestra began in 1841 when some citizens of Salzburg and Mozart’s widow Constanze, founded the Cathedral Music Society and the Mozarteum. In 1920 the ensemble received added impetus when Bernhard Paumgartner invited it to make its debut at the Salzburg Festival, and later, the ensemble worked with such conductors as Karl Böhm, Hans Knappertsbusch, Clemens Krauss, Josef Krips and Paul Hindemith. More recently, it has collaborated with such household names as Riccardo Muti and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.
Today, the orchestra belongs to the city and province of Salzburg, employs 91 full time musicians and gives over 130 concerts annually. The most intense period of the season coincides with the Salzburg Festival, needless to say, but during the theatre season, the orchestra is also busy at the Salzburg Theatre. During its international tours, the orchestra has performed at the major European, American and Far East venues. Over the past ten years, the orchestra has released over 25 recordings. These included the celebrated collected Mozart symphonies on the Capriccio label, based on the new Mozart complete edition.

Ivor Bolton
English conductor Ivor Bolton completed his studies at Cambridge University, the Royal College of Music and the London International Opera Studio. He was a founder of the St. James Baroque Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Glyndebourne Touring Opera and the English Touring Opera. He enjoys a close relationship with the Bavarian State Opera where he has conducted works by Handel, Monteverdi and Gluck.
Ivor Bolton has conducted at Covent Garden, the Bologna Teatro Comunale, the San Francisco Opera, the Australian Opera, the Paris Opera, the Berlin Deutsche Oper, and in Florence, Geneva, Leipzig and Brussels. He has worked with all of England’s leading opera companies and orchestras. In 2004 he conducted a number of operas and orchestral concerts at the Salzburg Festival and was appointed chief conductor of the Mozarteum Orchestra.

Lars Vogt
German pianist Lars Vogt was born in 1970. In 1990 he won second prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition and is regarded as one of the leading performers of his generation. Over the past decade, he has given numerous solo and concerto performances in Europe, Asia and North America. He is an exclusive EMI recording artist and has released 15 CDs, including concertos by Schumann, Grieg and Beethoven, partnered by the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle who described Lars Vogt as “one of the finest musicians I have ever been able to work with”. His solo recordings featured compositions by Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Schumann, Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky. He also recorded the second piece from Hindemith’s Kammermusik series with Claudio Abbado. In the 2003/2004 season Lars Vogt was appointed the resident pianist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. As a chamber musician, he has partnered the likes of Christian Tetzlaff, Boris Pergamenschikov, Heinrich Schiff, Truls Mørk, and the world famous actor Klaus-Maria Brandauer.

Erdődy Chamber Orchestra
The Erdődy Chamber Orchestra was formed in 1994 from young musicians from the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Hungarian Radio Orchestra as well as Music Academy students. The orchestra primarily programmes ecclesiastical works, paying particular attention to 18th century works with a Hungarian connection which are mostly unpublished and largely forgotten. They have now acquired a unique repertoire. The ensemble is named after Count János Erdődy, who in the late 1700s maintained his own orchestra in Pozsony (now Bratislava) of a similar size and whose former mansion currently houses the Musicology Institute of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in the Buda Castle District. The orchestra’s founder and artistic director is violinist Zsolt Szefcsik and its work is aided by the researches of the musicologist Zoltán Farkas. The ensemble’s first CD (1997) premiered two superb works the orchestra discovered by G. Druschetzky, a composer who lived in Buda. Their second CD (1999) was dedicated to unpublished works by Michael Haydn, found in manuscript form in the National Széchényi Library. In 2000 the CD was given the distinguished “Choc” award by the French La Monde de la Musique publication. In that same year the Ministry of National Cultural Heritage asked the orchestra to participate in the Hungarian National Evening which opened the jubilee year of International Church Music Concert in Rome.
The orchestra is also keen to promote new compositions and commissions works from living Hungarian composers, such as György Orbán whose Stabat Mater they premiered. To mark the orchestra’s five year anniversary in 1999, they released a CD of concert recordings entitled “Hungarian musical rarities 1740-1840” . The CD contained a three language CD-ROM supplement which provided source information for the works and composers featuring on the disc. The Erdődy Chamber Orchestra’s fourth CD appeared in 2001 and featured the first ever recording of two major works by J. N. Hummel: in June 2001 this also won the Le Monde de la Musique “Choc” award. In September 2001 the orchestra gave a highly successful concert at the Ile de France Festival which was part of the French Hungarian Year series, and it was broadcast by French radio. In 2002 the ensemble won the Gramofon “Hungarian Classical Music Prize”. 2003 was a very productive year for the Erdődy Chamber Orchestra which saw them record four CDs of material: J. M. Sperger’s horn concertos with Miklós Nagy, the Pleyel Violin Concerto with Vilmos Szabadi, György Orbán’s Stabat Mater as well as works by Polish and Hungarian composers published by the Warsaw DUX company.

Basel Chamber Orchestra
The Basel Chamber Orchestra is one of the leading ensembles in Europe. Its reputation, international renown and unquestionable importance in the history of music is due to the legendary Paul Sacher (1906-1999). Sacher worked with the orchestra from 1926 to 1987 as both orchestral leader and conductor, and commissioned works from living composers such as Béla Bartók, Paul Hindemith, Ernst Krenek, Igor Stravinsky: the majority of these works have established themselves as 20th century classics. Throughout Paul Sacher’s life, he enjoyed an active relationship with modern music and musicians. Luciano Berio, Elliot Carter, Cristóbal Halffter, Hans Werner Henze, Heinz Holliger, Wolfgang Rihm – one could add to this list at length – were all persuaded to write works for Sacher’s orchestra.
The ensemble gave its debut concert in 1927 and the programme featured works by Handel, Bach and Mozart, in addition to a world premiere: Rudolf Moser’s suite for orchestra and cello. Sacher consciously turned to the Baroque and Classical in addition to the contemporary repertoire because he believed that a deep understanding of early music opened the way to properly interpreting modern works. This philosophy has since characterised the work of the orchestra. Its members are at home in both ancient and modern instrumental performing techniques. They have no resident conductor and the musicians themselves decide on the orchestra’s profile, the nature of guest soloists and the repertoire. They have worked with the likes of Giovanni Antonini, Philippe Herreweghe, David Stern, Paul Goodwin. Their guests have included Barbara Bonney, Thomas Zehetmaier, Gidon Kremer, Pieter Wispelwey, Steven Isserlis, Robert Levin, Andreas Steier, Wolfgang Meyer and Reinhold Friedrich.

Christopher Hogwood
Christopher Hogwood is a conductor, musical scholar, keyboard performer and one of the leading figures in the historical performance movement. For decades, his name was indivisible from that of the Academy of Ancient Music and together, they made countless recordings from the Baroque-Classical era. However, he is also especially attracted to the neo-Baroque and neo-Classical trends of 20th century music, as well as one of the most important representatives of recent Czech music, Bohuslav Martinu. (In 1999, he was presented with the Prague Martinu Foundation Medal.) He has written numerous articles and books on musical history, primarily concerning the art of Handel, Mozart and Haydn. He is an honorary professor at Cambridge University and a guest teacher at the Royal Academy of Music.