Bettina Schimmer

From 13 - 18 January 2025, the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester invites to the fourth edition of its piano festival «Le Piano Symphonique». Piano music enthusiasts from all over the world can once again look forward to great artists from the international piano elite at «Le Piano Symphonique» 2025 in Lucerne.

This year's anniversary edition of the Molyvos International Music Festival on the Greek island of Lesvos will take place from 12 - 19 August 2025 under the motto CHAOS - ΧΆΟΣ and marks the 11th anniversary of the festival.

Ιn 2026 the Mozart Gesellschaft Dortmund will celebrate its seventieth anniversary and is among the cultural institutions in Dortmund with the greatest tradition. As a member of the “Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg” the past decades have made the Mozart Gesellschaft Dortmund through its promotion of young artists and its successful concerts into the most important organisation of its type in the German speaking world.

For the first time, a work by Richard Wagner can be experienced at the Opera in the Quarry in summer 2025: The Flying Dutchman. From 9 July to 23 August, the impressive St. Margarethen quarry, one of the most spectacular and beautiful open-air stages in Europe, will be transformed into a dramatic coastal landscape - the setting for an eerily romantic seafaring drama full of longing, storms and redemption.

It is a rare stroke of luck when siblings achieve a comparable professional mastery on their instruments and then also represent international top level in playing chamber music. One such stroke of luck is the Quatuor Tchalik, founded in 2013 with Gabriel (1st violin), Louise (2nd violin), Sarah (viola) and Marc Tchalik (violoncello). And there is even a family-option to play as a piano quintet with brother and pianist Dania which is regularly used. Since 2018 at the latest, as double-awarded prize winners at the Salzburg Mozart Competition, the four have been playing in the top league of the European string quartet scene. Growing up in a Russian-French household with Ukrainian roots, the siblings have been making music together from an early age.

Miroslav Srnka's international breakthrough came in 2016 when his opera "South Pole" was premiered at the Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich under Kirill Petrenko, in a production by Hans Neuenfels that featured Rolando Villazón and Thomas Hampson in the title roles. Several of Srnka's works will be premiered in the season 2022/23: The Berliner Philharmoniker will perform the orchestral work "Superorganisms" for the first time conducted by Kirill Petrenko in February 2023, before it has its Asian premiere in Tokyo with the NHK Symphony Orchestra under Ryan Wigglesworth in June 2023.

Intelligent clarity and an in-depth and always curious musicality characterize Markus Stenz' work. Worldwide much valued, he has held a number of high-profile positions with international orchestras and opera houses including Principal Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (2012-2019), Principal Guest of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (2015-2019), Conductor-In-Residence of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra (2016-2019). He was General Music Director of the City of Cologne and Gürzenich-Kapellmeister for 11 years.

Considered to be one of the most exceptionally gifted pianists of his generation in Poland, Szymon Nehring is the only Pole to have won the first prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Competition in Tel Aviv (2017). During the 2024/25 season, a new minimalistic recording will be released, as well as the Frirst Volume of a Chopin Solo Works Cycle for the Chopin Institute in Warsaw, a project meant to last several seasons.

Doriana Tchakarova is an internationally successful pianist, winner of numerous competitions and her album recordings have been honoured with major awards. She is currently a lecturer in vocal accompaniment at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts and a sought-after accompanist at masterclasses and international commpetitions.

Sarah Wegener approaches every role with captivating intensity. She has enthralled listeners with the warmth and richness of her voice in performances such as Strauss’ Orchestral songs under Mariss Jansons and Vladimir Jurowski in Munich, London, and Hamburg, Mahler’s 8th Symphony under Kirill Petrenko in Bregenz, Eliahu Inbal in Hamburg, and Kent Nagano in Montreal, as well as in her War and Peace programme shaped around works by Handel and Purcell, which she also presented at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. Her “marvellously radiant voice, as powerful as it is rich in colour” (FAZ) distinguishes her as a lieder singer of the highest order, as illustrated on her highly praised CDs "Into the Deepest Sea" and "Zueignung". A recording of songs arranged by B.A. Zimmermann with the WDR Symphony Orchestra is due to be released at WERGO in October 2022.

Brimful of energy, Antje Weithaas’ brings her compelling musical intelligence and technical mastery to every detail of the music. Her charisma and stage presence are captivating, but never overshadow the works themselves.

The young German soprano Eva Zalenga is a two-time winner of the German Music Competition 2023 and the SWR Young Opera Stars 2023 and was honoured with the Emmerich Smola Award and the Orchestra Prize of the German Radio Philharmonic. As the winner of the Vienna International Music Competition 2023, she performed at the Musikverein in Vienna. Other celebrated highlights were her debut in Denmark at the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen as Sophie (Werther) and at the Deutsche Oper Berlin as Adele (Die Fledermaus). She will receive the Zonta Culture Award in 2025.