Live Spectacular Shostakovich Fri 6 – Sat 7 June

Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård is the Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, following six seasons as Principal Guest Conductor. The 2023:24 season also sees Thomas start his tenure as Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra. Between 2012 and 2018, he served as Principal Conductor of BBC National Orchestra of Wales (BBC NOW), after stepping down as Principal Conductor and Musical Advisor of the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

He has appeared with many notable orchestras in leading European centres, such as Berlin (including Berliner Philharmoniker, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Konzerthausorchester Berlin), Munich (Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk), Leipzig (Gewandhausorchester), Paris (Orchestre National de France), London (London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, London Symphony and Philharmonia Orchestra), Amsterdam and Rotterdam (Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Netherlands Philharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic) and is a familiar figure in Scandinavia, with such orchestras as Oslo Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony and Helsinki Philharmonic. North American appearances to date have included the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore, St Louis, Toronto, Atlanta, Montreal, Vancouver, Houston and Seattle. He has made highly successful tours to China, Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

The 2023:24 season marks the beginning of Thomas’ tenure as Music Director of the Minnesota Orchestra. With the RSNO this season, in addition to their subscription series, Thomas will lead the orchestra’s residency at the Grosses Festspielhaus in Salzburg, joined by Lise de la Salle, as well as an extensive European tour with Ray Chen. This season sees Thomas make his return to the London Symphony Orchestra, as well as his debut with the New York Philharmonic, where he will perform the US premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s Keyframes for a Hippogriff. Thomas also makes regular guest appearances throughout Scandinavia this season, debuting with Iceland Symphony and the Bergen International Festival, where he leads a full staging of Ibsen’s Peer Gynt to Grieg’s complete incidental music. Return visits include Bergen Philharmonic, a joint collaboration with Aalborg and Aarhus Symfoniorkesters, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, celebrating his receipt of the Carl Nielsen and Anne-Marie Carl Nielsen’s Foundation award for his outstanding contribution to Danish musical life.

As part of the 2015 anniversary celebrations of both Sibelius and Nielsen, he conducted a wide variety of their works with many leading orchestras. A passionate supporter of the music of Carl Nielsen, his performances with the Swedish Radio Symphony of his Symphony No. 5 was praised as “equal of the great pioneers of Nielsen interpretation… It’s hard to imagine a finer performance of this remarkable symphony.” (Dagens Nyheter); and in 2019 participated in a special concert to celebrate Nielsen’s works with the Royal Danish Academy of Music Copenhagen.

Following his acclaimed debut for Royal Danish Opera (Kafka’s Trial), he has since returned regularly to conduct a broad repertoire, including Die Walküre, which won the 2022 Reumert Award for Best Opera Production, Elektra, Le nozze di Figaro, Il barbiere di Siviglia, La bohème, Cunning Little Vixen, Il viaggio a Reims; and has also made short concert tours with the Royal Danish Orchestra. He has also enjoyed successful collaborations with Norwegian Opera and Royal Swedish Opera. His Stockholm productions of Tosca and Turandot (both with Nina Stemme) led to his Bayerische Staatsoper debut, conducting main season and Opera Festival performances of Turandot with her and he most recently returned to for the Opera’s Akademiekonzert series. He made his Deutsche Oper Berlin debut with the World premiere of Scartazzini’s Edward II and has since returned for Berlioz’s Romeo and Juliet.

His discography covers a broad range of contemporary and mainstream repertoire, including Poul Ruders (Arhus Symphony, Norwegian Radio, Royal Danish Opera (Kafka’s Trial) for Da Capo and Bridge Records); Sibelius symphonies and tone poems with BBC NOW and Prokofiev and Richard Strauss with RSNO for Linn Records; Lutoslawski and Dutilleux concertos with ‘cellist Johannes Moser and Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Berlin (Pentatone); and Vilde Frang’s celebrated debut recording (WDR Koln for EMI).

In January 2022, Thomas was decorated with a prestigious Royal Order of Chivalry – the Order of Dannebrog (Ridder af Dannebrogordenen) by Her Majesty Margrethe II, Queen of Denmark.

Daniel Müller-Schott is one of the most sought-after cellists in the world and can be heard on all the great international concert stages. For many years he has been enchanting audiences as an ambassador for classical music in the 21^st century and as a bridge builder between music, literature, and the visual arts. Daniel Müller-Schott attaches great importance to discussion concerts and performances in unusual places, such as recently in a Hamburg club together with musicians of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra. The New York Times refers to his “intensive expressiveness” and describes him as a “fearless player with technique to burn”.

Daniel Müller-Schott guests with international leading orchestras; in the US with the orchestras in New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles; in Europe the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Bayrisches Staatsorchester and Münchner Philharmoniker, the Radio Orchestras from Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Leipzig, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Prague and Paris, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich and Zurcher Kammerorchester, Oslo Philharmonic, the London Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Spanish National Orchestra as well as in Australia with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and in Asia with Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra.

Daniel Müller-Schott has appeared worldwide in concert with such renowned conductors as Marc Albrecht, Karina Canellakis, Thomas Dausgaard, Christoph Eschenbach, Iván Fischer, Alan Gilbert, Gustavo Gimeno, Manfred Honeck, Neeme Järvi, Cristian Măcelaru, Susanna Mälkki, Juanjo Mena, Andris Nelsons, Gianandrea Noseda, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Kirill Petrenko, Vasily Petrenko, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Alexander Shelly, Dalia Stasevska and Krzysztof Urbański. A long-standing collaboration connected him with Yakov Kreizberg, Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel and Sir André Previn.

Daniel Müller-Schott performs with great passion not only the great cello concertos from the baroque to the modern. The discovery of unknown works, the expansion of the cello repertoire, for example through his own arrangements, as well as the collaboration with the composers of our time, also have a permanent place in his concerts. George Alexander Albrecht, Sir André Previn and Peter Ruzicka have dedicated Cello Concertos to him.

To create a higher intensity of perception between music, visual arts and literature is Daniel Müller-Schott’s artistic credo. He often writes and gives introductions about the background of the music and the composers. At his festival in Vevey, Daniel Müller-Schott initiated for the first time a Bach project with dance for a visual realization of the music. The cellist developed a great affinity for the fine arts, particularly for 19th-century French painting.

Highlights in Daniel Müller-Schott‘s seaon 2023 / 24 are in late summer his live TV appearance at the summer concert of the NRW state government, concerts with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana / Krzysztof Urbański, Rotterdam Philharmonic / Andres Orozco-Estrada, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn / Dirk Kaftan, Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra / Elias Grandy and Seoul Philharmonic / Jaap van Zweden during one of his Asian tours, where Daniel Müller-Schott will again perform with Taiwan Philharmonic / Jun Märkl. Other Asian tours are on Daniel Müller-Schott’s schedule: a recital and chamber music tour to Korea and Taiwan. In a trio with Julia Fischer and Yulianna Avdeeva, Daniel Müller-Schott will tour Europe in early summer next year. In May 2024, the 3rd edition of his Swiss festival “Vevey Spring Classic – Mentoring the Future of Classic” will take place.

International music festivals regularly invite Daniel Müller-Schott. In his chamber music concerts, Daniel Müller-Schott collaborates inter alia with Kit Armstrong, Renaud Capuçon, Veronika Eberle, Julia Fischer, Janine Jansen, Igor Levit, Sabine Meyer, Nils Mönkemeyer, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Francesco Piemontesi, Emmanuel Tjeknavorian, Simon Trpčeski and with the Modigliani and Aris Quartet.

Daniel Müller-Schott has been involved for many years in the project “Rhapsody in School”.

In a career spanning more than twenty-five years, Daniel Müller-Schott has produced an extensive discography that has won him international awards. It includes, among others, compositions by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart, Haydn, Schumann, Grieg, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Schubert, Khachaturian, Shostakovich, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Walton, Britten Dvořák, Lalo, Honegger and Saint-Saëns.

Daniel Müller-Schott studied under Walter Nothas, Heinrich Schiff and Steven Isserlis. He was supported personally by Anne-Sophie Mutter and received, among other things, the Aida Stucki Prize as well as a year of private tuition under Mstislaw Rostropovich. At the age of fifteen, Daniel Müller-Schott won the first prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 1992 in Moscow.

Daniel Müller-Schott plays the “Ex Shapiro” Matteo Goffriller cello, made in Venice in 1727.