Bettina Schimmer

Winner of the chamber music prize of the German Record Critics’ Award 2021, the Linos Piano Trio returns this year to Cologne to Linos Festival 2022 — “Time”. In three concerts, Linos Festival explores the sense of the past and present in music (Time Machine), music’s healing powers in times of crisis (End of Time), and musical nostalgia (Memories). Two family concerts welcome children to experience a journey into the timeline of chamber music from Hildegard to Messiaen.

The 2021/22 season of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester with its new principal conductor Michael Sanderling is focussed on the large, late Romantic repertoire, top-class soloists and (un)expected programmes.

The Molyvos International Music Festival (MIMF) is a unique project in the North Aegean region that brings together the greatest international young talents for a four-day celebration of world- class classical music. The motto of the 2019 edition was "Dia-logos".

As an international award-winning violinist, graduated conductor, chamber musician and former concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic, he persuades audiences today both as a soloist and on the conductor’s podium with his affinity for various genres and repertoires and is therefore considered one of the most versatile artists of his generation. In 2021 Fedor Rudin released his album "Heritage" with the pianist Boris Kusnezow on Orchid Classics. The program includes works written by composers of different generations in the middle of the last century - Sergei Prokofiev, Dmitri Shostakovich and his known grandfather Edison Denisov. The listener will find well-known, regularly performed works, among previously unperformed and even unpublished works.

What happens when a pianist specialising in contemporary classical music joins three avantgarde musicians and they compose in real time? When modern piano pieces are structurally thought ahead and hence played by a trio with vibraphone, drums and bass?

The three brothers Mark, Erik and Ken Schumann have been playing together since their earliest childhood – meanwhile violist Veit Hertenstein completes the quartet. Those who experience the quartet in performance often remark on the strong connection between its members. The four musicians enjoy the way they communicate without words: how a single look suffices to convey how a particular member wants to play a particular passage. Although the individual personalities clearly manifest themselves, a common space arises in every musical work in a process of spiritual metamorphosis.

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.

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 ensemble was founded by young musicians in Augsburg in 1990. It is characterised by the strong integration and artistic energy of each one of its members, as expressed in its expert playing without a conductor, and by its unusual concert programmes. In 2022 an album with the complete works for string orchestra by the Israeli composer Paul Ben-Haim will be released on CAvi-music, followed by tours in July and October 2022 and an education programme.