The mezzo soprano Constance Heller was born and grew up in the picturesque town of Laufen on Bavaria’s south-eastern border with Austria. She first appeared on stage during her school years, playing lead roles in premieres of mystery plays by Cesar Bresgen, and was thenceforth eager to pursue a singing career. After leaving school, she studied singing at the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, where she attained a Master of Arts with distinction. During her studies, she made her operatic debut in the twin roles of the Muse and Nicklausse in The Tales of Hoffmann at Giessen Municipal Theatre, followed by numerous other operatic and concert performances.

Constance Heller debuted at the Berlin State Opera in the role of Anna Kennedy in Maria Stuarda in 2006 and has performed there in the operas The Magic Flute, Faust, Elektra, The Gambler and Parsifal (with Plácido Domingo in the title role). She appeared in Moses und Aron in Tokyo during the Berlin State Opera’s tour of Japan. Constance Heller also has close ties with the Dresden Semperoper, where she performed in Faust, Elektra and Wagner’s “Ring” cycle. In recent seasons, Constance Heller has sung at venues including Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Ruhrtriennale arts festival, the Esplanade Concert Hall in Singapore, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, the Philharmonie im Gasteig in Munich, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts, the Municipal Theatre of Bern, the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, the Teatro Comunale di Bologna, the Théâtre du Capitole in Toulouse, the Leipzig Opera, the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Theater Erfurt and, under a fixed contract, at the Schwerin State Theatre.

Her repertoire encompasses all the main breeches roles of the mezzo category, numerous parts in Richard Wagner’s operas, the roles of Olga, Paulina, Fenena, Ulrica, Amneris, Mignon, Dalila and Klytaemnestra as well as all the major oratorios and concert pieces. She has worked with such conductors as Jonas Alber, Alain Altinoglu, Daniel Barenboim, Michael Boder, Anthony Bramall, Johannes Debus, Asher Fisch, Claus Peter Flor, Daniel Huppert, Leo Hussain, Alexander Joel, Axel Kober, Yuri Lebedev, Kent Nagano, Julien Salemkour, Peter Schneider, Alexander Soddy, Stefan Soltesz, Christian Thielemann, Sebastian Weigle, Simone Young and Lothar Zagrosek in productions by Willy Decker, Peter Dehler, Michiel Dijkema, Dieter Dorn, Bernd Eichinger, August Everding, Barbara Frey, Nicolas Joel, Guy Joosten, Dieter Kaegi, Philipp Kochheim, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Peter Mussbach, Georg Rootering, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Keith Warner and Karsten Wiegand.
Her discography includes recordings of the operas The Gambler (Unitel/Barenboim), Moses und Aron (EuroArts/Boder) and Elektra (Opus Arte/Thielemann) on DVD as well as Thielemann’s CD Elektra (Deutsche Grammophon).

Besides music theatre, she has performed new and rediscovered works with pianist Gerold Huber in recitals and for CD release. 2016 saw the release of her album Fahrt in die Welt (travelling the world) with songs by Edmund Nick after texts by Erich Kästner.

Discography

Since her student days in New York, Hamburg and Weimar (studying with the likes of Oxana Yablonskaya, Evgeni Koroliov, Dalton Baldwin and Menachem Pressler), the German-Bulgarian pianist Mariana Popova has garnered numerous international competition prizes, such as at the Elise Meyer Piano Competition and the Köster Klassik Chamber Music Competition (Hamburg), the International Johannes Brahms Lieder Competition (Pörtschach), the Concours International de Musique de Chambre (Lyon), the  International Maria Canals Piano Competition (Barcelona) and the Summit Music Festival Piano Competition (New York). In 2018 the Lieder recording she made with soprano Narea Son was awarded the Gold Prize at the 3rd Manhattan International Music Competition.

Mariana Popovaʼs concert schedule has taken her as a Lieder accompanist, chamber musician and soloist to many European countries, to Russia, China and the USA, as well as to international festivals such as the Aarhus Festival for New Music (Denmark), Varna Summer (Bulgaria), Heures Musicales de Biot (France) and the Schwetzingen Music Festival. In a series of Hamburg Lieder recitals initiated by the pianist in 2010 to mark the bicentenary of Robert Schumannʼs birth, she performed the key art songs of Robert and his wife Clara with eight different singing partners. In the summer of 2012 Mariana Popova recorded a CD of Lieder from the Baltic nations, a commission from the German Foreign Office when Germany held the presidency of the Council of the Baltic States.

She enjoys musical partnerships with many artists including Christiane Karg, Hanna Herfurtner, Lini Gong, Judith Thielsen, Lisa Schmalz, Huiling Zhu, Yvi Jänicke, Dominik Köninger, Renate Behle, Geert Smits, Hansung Yoo, Boglárka Pecze, Julius Bekesch, Hannah Weber and Christian Quadflieg. She has made CD recordings and numerous radio and TV recordings in Bulgaria, Germany (NDR, MDR, SWR), and France (Radio France).

Moreover, collaborations with composers such as Peter Ruzicka, Hans Zender, Ernst Ludwig Leitner, Fredrik Schwenk, Elmar Lampson, Johannes Boris Borowski, Ruta Paidere and Khadija Zeynalova document her keen interest in new music.

Mariana Popova has been official accompanist at the singing master classes of Brigitte Fassbaender, Reri Grist, Angela Denoke, Margreet Honig, Christiane Iven and Robert Holl. Since 2007 she has been a lecturer for vocal accompaniment at the College of Music and Drama in Hamburg, where since 2017 she has headed a new training class for “vocal chamber music”. In 2013 Mariana Popova was a guest lecturer for Lieder interpretation at the Conservatoire in Shanghai, China.

Discography

Lini Gong is a soprano of Chinese heritage and a specialist in contemporary music.

She is a versatile singer. Her repertoire includes the great, challenging roles for coloratura soprano: she has for example sung Olympia in Tales of Hoffmann by Jacques Offenbach and Zerbinetta in Richard Strauss’s opera Ariadne auf Naxos at the theatres in Freiburg and Basel. Lini Gongʼs special passion is for modern and contemporary music. The singer has already collaborated with numerous composers – including Elmar Lampson and Krzysztof Penderecki, Wolfgang Rihm and Peter Ruzicka. Reporting on her embodiment of Death in Hector Paaraʼs opera Das geopferte Leben at the Munich Biennale in 2014, the newspaper Die Deutsche Bühne wrote: “Among the singers, who were consistently good, the almost dramatic coloratura soprano Lini Gong stands out in particular; she sings with captivating brilliance and has a phenomenal stage presence.”

Born in Zhuzhou, Hunan (China) in 1981, Lini Gong received  her training at the music boarding school in Wuhan, at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and at the College of Music and Drama in Hamburg. While preparing for her concert examination she took on a permanent engagement at the theatre in Freiburg, where over eight seasons she sang many great roles of the coloratura soprano repertoire. Lini Gong has given acclaimed performances in operas by Mozart, Rossini and Verdi. Critics praise her “glass-clear soprano voice” (Südkurier). The soprano is attested as an “eminent coloratura singer” (Badische Zeitung), and as a “nimble” Mozart singer (Opernwelt). Lini Gong gave her debut at the theatre in Freiburg in György Ligetiʼs opera Le Grand Macabre delivering an “excellent performance” as Police Chief Nekrotzar (Die Welt).

Guest appearances have taken her to the opera houses in Basel, Hamburg, Kiel, Stuttgart and Weimar. Lini Gong has worked with directors such as Calixto Bieito and Vera Nemirova. She also has close ties to conductors such as Peter Rundel, Jonathan Stockhammer and Peter Tilling, Gerhard Markson and Fabrice Bollon. She has performed with numerous orchestras, including Ensemble Resonanz, ensemble recherche and the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra. She was involved in large-scale roles at premieres at the Munich Biennale and the Schwetzingen SWR Festival; these include acclaimed performances in the operas Koma by Georg Friedrich Haas and Wilde by Hector Parra. In 2017 Lini Gong gave her debut in Hamburgʼs Elbphilharmonie in a concertante performance of Arnold Schoenbergʼs opera Moses und Aron together with the NDR Elbphilharmonie orchestra under the baton of Ingo Metzmacher.

Lini Gong has won numerous prizes, including a special prize at the 2001 “Neue Stimmen” singing competition in Gütersloh. She also won second prize at the Concours International de Musique de Chambre in Lyon. In 2007 she was awarded the Berenberg arts prize in Hamburg.

Discography

Der Geiger, Komponist, Violinpädagoge und Herausgeber Henri Marteau (1874-1934) gehört zu den tragischen Gestalten der Musikgeschichte. Er begann seine Karriere als ein u.a. von Brahms, Bruch, Gounod und Massenet ermutigtes und hoch gelobtes Wunderkind, feierte dann in ganz Europa und in den USA auf ausge­dehn­ten Kon­zerttourneen Triumphe. Als Nachfolger des deutschen „Geigen­paps­tes“ Joseph Joachim an der Berliner Musikhochschule seit 1908 war er auch der füh­rende Violinpädagoge im deutschsprachigen Raum. Aber der Sohn eines französi­schen Industriellen und einer deutschen Mutter, der französischer Staatsbürger war, wurde bei Ausbruch des 1. Weltkriegs 1914 als feindlicher Aus­länder verhaftet, mehrmals freigelassen und wieder festgenommen und durfte nach demütigenden Internierungen erst 1917 in seine Villa nach Lichtenberg in Ober­franken zurückkehren. Seine Berliner Stellung wurde ihm in entwürdigender Weise entzogen und auch nach Ende des Krieges nicht wiedergegeben. Weder als Solist noch als Pädagoge konnte er an seine Erfolge vor dem Krieg anknüpfen, schon gar nicht mit Schallplattenaufnahmen, die für ihn zu spät kamen und ihn nicht mehr im Vollbesitz seiner Fähigkeiten zeigen.

Haus Marteau

Discographie

 

Immanuel Richter (1974) received his musical training at the Zurich Conservatory under Claude Rip-pas, where he completed all his diplomas (teaching, orchestra and concert diplomas) with distinction. Already in his youth he won several prizes at various competitions. He attended master classes with Hakan Hardenberger, Pierre Thibaud, Allen Vizzutti and Maurice André, among others. Immanuel Richter has worked as a solo trumpeter in various orchestras (Zurich Opera Orchestra, St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana). For 3 years he was solo trumpeter of the “orchestra dell teatro alla Scala” in Milan, where he played under conductors such as Daniel Barenboim, Lorin Maazel, Georges Prêtre, Daniele Gatti, Riccardo Chailly, Gustavo Dudamel and many others. In summer 2009 he joined the Basel Symphony Orchestra as solo trumpeter. Numerous appearances as soloist and chamber musician. Solo trumpeter in the Gstaad Festival Orchestra (Jaap van Zweden), solo trumpeter in renowned European orchestras (Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia in Rome). Since 2008 he has taught trumpet at the Lucerne University of Music.

Discography

Hans Jürg Bättig, who lives in Zofingen, studied organ with Heinz Balli and piano with Michael Studer at the Berne Conservatory. After earning both teaching diplomas, he continued his organ training at the Stuttgart State Academy of Music and Performing Arts with Prof. Bernhard Haas in the soloist class. In addition to his instrumental training, Hans Jürg Bättig studied orchestral conducting at the Musikhochschule Luzern.
Hans Jürg Bättig worked from 2007 to 2014 as organist and choir director at the former monastery church of St. Urban. Since 2015 he has been the principal organist of the Zofingen City Church. In addition to his rich musical activities, he works as a lawyer.

Discography

The Deutsche Radio Philharmonie (German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra) shapes the musical life of an entire region – most sustainably within the catchment area of the orchestra locations Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern, but also in the border district of France as well as in Mainz, Karlsruhe and Mannheim. The Orchestra has toured Switzerland, Poland, China and Japan in recent years and is a regular guest in South Korea.

The Finn Pietari Inkinen was appointed Principal Conductor in 2017. When he began his tenure, he brought the music of Jean Sibelius and his compatriots to the fore. Pietari Inkinen is a trained violinist and in very close contact with top artists of the international violin scene. The Deutsche Radio Philharmonie has invited Pinchas Zukerman, Vadim Gluzman and the young exceptional violinist Daniel Lozakovich to participate in the 18/19 season.

Stylistic diversity is the hallmark of the programs. At the heart is the late romantic standard repertoire – with key works of Gustav Mahler, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky and Dmitrij Shostakovich highlighted in this current season of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie. Modern classics like the works of Arnold Schönberg, Anton Webern and Krzysztof Penderecki are as much a part of the performance as are the compositions by George Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein or Cole Porter from an area bordering jazz. Musical creations by less known composers such as the Symphonie brève by the Franco-German romantic composer Louis Théodore Gouvy, Erwin Schulhoff’s Suite in the New Style written in Saarbrücken in 1918 or Music for Orchestra composed by Rudi Stephan, who died in 1915 during World War I are also featured in the programs. The Deutsche Radio Philharmonie opens up new worlds of sound as an interpreter of contemporary orchestral music – with works by the Swiss David Philip Hefti, the Finn Kimmo Hakola or the Austrian Johannes Maria Staud in this current season – and as the host of the “Saarbrücker Komponistenwerkstatt””. With moderated concerts and the format “DRP-PUR” (i.e. without a conductor and guest soloist) the orchestra breaks new ground in the experience of music. The educational music program “Klassik macht Schule” designed for the younger generations is an integral part of the orchestra work.

Live in the concert hall, through the cultural programs of the Saarländischer Rundfunk (SR) and the Südwestrundfunk (SWR), on SR/SWR television, on ARTE or on CD, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie as a Radio Orchestra of the highest artistic quality makes the enormous repertoire spectrum available to the friends of classical music. The Orchestra in accessible for its audience in the digital world via live streaming and Mediathek (German media library app), via Youtube and Facebook.

The Deutsche Radio Philharmonie was created in 2007 following the merger of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken (SR) and the SWR Rundfunkorchester. The Orchestra was able to make its name under the principal conductors Karel Mark Chichon (2011 to 2017) and Christoph Poppen (2007 to 2011). The late Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, who passed away in 2017, was closely connected with the orchestra as the Principal Guest Conductor. In 2015, at the age of 92, he was appointed Conductor Emeritus.

www.drp-orchester.de

Discography

Kevin John Edusei is praised repeatedly for the drama and tension that he brings to his music-making, for his clear sense of architecture and attention to detail. A suave and elegant figure on the podium, he divides his time equally between the concert hall and opera house with a particular interest in German music from the early romantic period and early 20th century. He is Chief Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of Edusei’s symphonic engagements include the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Bamberg Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and in the United States the Colorado Symphony. In 2017 he made his debut at the BBC Proms with the Chineke! Orchestra and in the same year conducted John Adams Nixon in China at the Zaterdag Matinee at the Concertgebouw. Highlight’s for the season 2020/21 will include his debuts at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

Edusei was appointed Chief Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra in 2014. He has been applauded for introducing an eclectic range of repertoire into the MSO concert programmes and cultivating a loyal, trusting audience. In recognition of these achievements the orchestra was awarded the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Government in 2018. In 2019 Edusei led the MSO on their first tour of China and Korea.

Edusei concluded his tenure as Chief Conductor of Bern Opera House in 2019, where he led many new productions including Britten Peter Grimes, Strauss Salome, Bartók Bluebeard’s Castle, Wagner Tannhäuser, Janáček Kátya Kábanová, a cycle of the Mozart Da Ponte operas – described in the press as “rousing and brilliant” – and Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos which led the Neue Zürcher Zeitung to describe him as “the discovery of the production”. Elsewhere, Edusei has conducted at the Semperoper Dresden (Mozart Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Hindemith Cardillac), and in 2018 he made his debut at the Hamburg State Opera. He conducted Mozart Die Zauberflöte and Don Giovanni at the Volksoper Wien and Komische Oper Berlin. In 2019/20 he made his debut at the Hannover State Opera in a new production of Puccini Tosca and at English National Opera in a new production of Mozart The Marriage of Figaro.

Edusei has a varied discography, which includes recordings with the Bern Symphony Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra and Tonkünstler Orchestra, and he is currently mid-way through a cycle of the complete Schubert symphonies with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

Born in 1976 in Germany Edusei studied orchestral conducting at the Royal Conservatory The Hague and the University of the Arts Berlin with Jac van Steen and Ed Spanjaard. In 2004 he was awarded the fellowship for the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival by David Zinman, in 2007 he was a prize-winner at the Lucerne Festival conducting competition under the artistic direction of Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös, and in 2008 he won the International Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition.

Discography

The pianist Camillo Radicke received his musical education in his hometown Dresden with Regina Metzner, Amadeus Webersinke and Arkadi Zenziper.

Since winning the international piano competitions in Palma de Mallorca (Fr.Chopin) in 1990, Athens (Maria Callas) in 1992 and Vercelli (G.B.Viotti) in 1992, he has performed extensively as a soloist and chamber musician in numerous European countries, the Middle East, Cuba, South America, Japan, Korea and the United Arab Emirates.

He has appeared at numerous international festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, Ruhr Piano Festival, Beethoven Festival Bonn, Edinburgh Festival, Haydn Festival Eisenstadt, Rheingau Festival, Munich Opera Festival, Dresden Music Festival, MDR – Musiksommer and Schubertiade Schwarzenberg.

In concerts with orchestras such as the Dresden Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Stuttgart Philharmonic, the Munich Chamber Orchestra and the RAI Symphony Orchestra Turin he has performed under conductors such as Marek Janowski, Gerd Albrecht, Michel Plasson, Juri Temirkanow, Tamas Vasary, Bernhard Klee, Ludwig Güttler, Jörg Peter Weigle and Peter Schreier.

Camillo Radicke performed among others in the Milan Scala, the Metropolitan Opera New York, the Teatro Colon Buenos Aires, the City Opera Hall Tokyo, the Grand Teatro Liceu Barcelona, the Paris Opera (Palais Garnier), the Brussels Opera La Monnaie, the Teatro de la Zarzuela Madrid, the Zurich Opera, the Teatro Municipal Santiago de Chile and in the Semperoper Dresden as well as in concert halls like the Berlin Philharmonie, The Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Herkulessaal Munich, the Wigmore Hall London, the Musikverein Vienna, the Konzerthaus Vienna, the Mozarteum Salzburg, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Cité de la Musique Paris, the Sala Prestes Sao Paulo, the Konzerthaus Dortmund, the Kölner Philharmonie, the Alte Oper Frankfurt, the Leipziger Gewandhauss and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.

As a lied pianist he was and is a partner of singers such as Peter Schreier, Olaf Bär, Juliane Banse, Ruth Ziesak, Stella Doufexis, Werner Güra, Konrad Jarnot, Anke Vondung, Piotr Beczala, Marlis Petersen and René Pape.

Discography