Artistic Team About Us

Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård is the Music Director of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, following six seasons as Principal Guest Conductor, as well as the 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), Zurich (Tonhalle Orchester Zurich), 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 New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Baltimore, St Louis, Toronto, Atlanta, Montreal, Vancouver, Houston and Seattle. He has also made highly successful tours to China, Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Highlights with the RSNO this season include Mahler’s epic Symphony No. 2, a collaboration with Dunedin Consort, and closing the season with a celebration of the music of Dmitri Shostakovich. With the Minnesota Orchestra in 2024/25, Thomas leads a diverse range of programmes, including a Nordic Composers Festival, concert performances of Puccini’s Turandot, and projects with leading soloists such as Yunchan Lim, Isabelle Faust, Julia Bullock and Bruce Liu. Other highlights for Thomas this season include his debut with Los Angeles Philharmonic, as well as returns to Deutsche Oper Berlin (Elektra), Den Norske Opera (Peer Gynt), and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Thomas will also lead a project with the Aarhus Symfoniorkester celebrating the 750th anniversary of the city of Holstebro – his home city.

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 Carl Nielsen (The Royal Danish Orchestra, Naxos Records), 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 October 2023, Thomas was a recipient of the Carl Nielsen and Anne-Marie Carl Nielsen’s Foundation award for his outstanding contribution to Danish musical life. 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.

Patrick Hahn is Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, General Music Director of Sinfonieorchester und Oper Wuppertal and Principal Guest Conductor of Münchner Rundfunkorchester of the Bayerischer Rundfunk. He is one of the most sought after and exciting conductors of his generation.

In his fourth season in Wuppertal, Patrick Hahn’s symphonic and choral programmes include Mahler’s Symphony No.5, Bruckner’s Symphony No.5, and Messiaen’s Turangalila, to name but few. The operas there this season include R. Strauss’ Salome and Mozart’s Don Giovanni.

As a guest conductor in the 2024/25 season, Patrick Hahn makes his first appearances at hr-Sinfonieorchester, Brussels Philharmonic with Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Anastasia Kobekina, RAI with Truls Mork, Semperoper Dresden conducting R. Strauss’ Intermezzo and Staatsoper Hamburg with Wagner’s Parsifal. Return visits include Deutsche Symphony Orchester Berlin with Gabriela Montero, Wiener Symphoniker and Tonhalle Orhestra Zürich. He will also take part in the Johann Strauss 2025 celebration in Vienna, celebrating the 200^th anniversary by conducting a concert performance of Der Karneval in Rom.

Previous seasons’ highlights include his successful debut at Zürich Opera House with Barrie Kosky’s new production of Die lustige Witwe and New National Theatre Tokyo with Der Fledermaus as well as debuts with Bamberg Symphony, alongside Sol Gabetta and SWR with Istvan Vardai. Patrick Hahn enjoys a regular relationship with Klangforum Wien and Wiener Symphoniker, most recently conducting Schoenberg’s Ertwartung with Dorothea Röschmann at the Vienna Musikverein. Patrick has acted as Principal Guest Conductor and Artistic Advisor for Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic between 2021/23.

Patrick Hahn’s has conducted many cornerstones of the repertoire in his time in Wuppertal, such as R. Strauss’ Eine Alpensinfonie, Bruckner’s Symphony No.4 and No.9, Mahler’s Symphony No.1 and No.2, Beethoven’s Symphony No.9, Wagner/Maazel’s Ring without Words, Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde and Tannhauser, Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, as well as rarely performed gems such as Charles Ives’ Symphony No.2, von Einem’s Capriccio, Op.2.

Patrick Hahn and Münchner Rundfunkorchester’s exploration and recordings of rarely performed repertoire such as Viktor Ullmann’s Der Kaiser von Atlantis and Alexander Zemlinsky’s Eine Florentinische Tragoedie have received critical acclaim. Other recordings include Alpha label’s Britten and Bruch’s Violin Concertos with Kerson Leong and Philharmonia Orchestra and Beethoven’s Piano Concertos No.1 and 2 with Olivier Cave and Kammerakademie Potsdam.

Aside from his work in classical music, Patrick Hahn accompanies himself on the piano singing cabaret-songs by the Austrian satirist and composer Georg Kreisler. As a jazz pianist, he received awards from the Chicago Jazz Festival and the ‘Outstanding Soloist Award’ from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse as the best jazz pianist of the 37th Annual Jazz Festival.

American conductor Anthony Parnther is in his sixth season as Music Director of California’s San Bernardino Symphony Orchestra. As conductor of the Gateways Music Festival Orchestra, whose members hail from leading orchestras nationwide, it was Parnther who led its sold-out Carnegie Hall debut, showcasing the world premiere of I Can by five-time Grammy-winner Jon Batiste.

A master of multiple genres, Parnther has conducted many of the world’s preeminent artists, from Joshua Bell, Lynn Harrell, Jessye Norman, and Frederica von Stade to Imagine Dragons, Wu-Tang Clan, John Legend, Metro Boomin, Avenged Sevenfold, and Rihanna. The L.A. Times hailed Anthony as “The quintessential L.A. musician of our day.” Parnther’s recent conducting engagements include the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Houston Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Calgary Philharmonic, Los Angeles Opera, Music Academy of the West, Sydney Symphony in Australia, and the Chineke! Orchestra, with whom he debuted at the BBC Proms.

Dedicated to amplifying traditionally underrepresented voices, Parnther has reconstructed and performed orchestral works by Margaret Bonds, Duke Ellington, Zenobia Powell Perry, Florence Price, William Grant Still, and Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. As well as leading LA Opera’s world premiere of Tamar-kali Brown’s oratorio We Hold These Truths and Long Beach Opera’s revival of Anthony Davis’ Pulitzer Prize-winning Central Park Five, Parnther has premiered and recorded works by Jon Batiste, Kris Bowers, Chanda Dancy, Philip Herbert, Daniel Kidane, George Lewis, James Newton, George Walker, and Errollyn Wallen. For his extensive championing of works by Black, Latino, and women composers, Parnther was profiled as a “Local Hero” by Los Angeles’ KCET/TV.

As one of today’s foremost film conductors, Parnther helms recording sessions for many of the world’s top international feature films and television series, working in close collaboration with some of the most decorated media composers in the industry. On the scoring stages of Los Angeles, San Francisco, Nashville, Budapest, Glasgow, and London, he has led the scoring sessions for projects like the Oscar-winning score for Oppenheimer, Grammy-winning Encanto, Emmy-winning The Mandalorian, Avatar: The Way of Water,  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Diaries of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Ice Age: Adventures of Buck Wild, Creed III, PAW Patrol: The Mighty Movie, and League of Legends.

See Anthony Parnther conduct Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, Fright at the Museum and Ghostbusters in Concert with the RSNO in the 2025:26 Season.

Scotland-based American conductor Kellen Gray is Associate Artist of the RSNO, following his two-year tenure as Assistant Conductor (2021-2023), a post that was supported by the Solti Foundation.

Kellen has earned a reputation as a versatile and imaginative artist, celebrated for his diverse array of traditional and experimental programming, thrilling performances, and provocative multimedia concert experience curation. He is one of the foremost experts and interpreters of the music of African-diasporic composers, for whom he is a passionate advocate and champion. 

Born and raised in Rock Hill, South Carolina, Kellen’s early professional life took him on a diverse path ranging from orchestral violinist to beekeeper, before turning his full-time attention to conducting.

Kellen credits the many folk music styles of the south-eastern United States as his earliest and most impactful musical influences, and his repertoire interests to date have been fuelled by the engaged pursuit of that same spirit of cultural authenticity. This has led to a particular mastery not only of works that incorporate American folk idioms, but also in-depth explorations of heavily folk inspired European composers such as Béla Bartók, Manuel de Falla, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, amongst others.

A passionate champion for African-diasporic composers, Kellen was the Founder & Curator of Charleston Symphony’s Project Aurora: a programming and performance initiative aiming to illustrate the importance of African-American arts and culture as equally valuable to its European equivalent. Additionally, he serves as Assistant Editor & Conductor Liaison for the African Diaspora Music Project, after extensive research at The Center for Black Music Research (CBMR) at Columbia College Chicago.

Kellen’s discography to date comprises two celebrated releases – African American Voices and African American Voices II, made with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra – showcasing music by Margaret Bonds, William Dawson, William Grant Still, Coleridge Taylor Perkinson, Florence Price, and George Walker. Both records have met with the highest critical acclaim, including receiving an elusive 5-star review from the prestigious Diapason magazine.

Kellen’s appointment as Associate Artist of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra – the first position of its kind for the orchestra – marks an unprecedented but organic development following his highly successful tenure as the orchestra’s Assistant Conductor (2021-2023). Previous positions in Kellen’s formative years as a conductor included successful tenures with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra (Associate Conductor, 2018-2023), Chicago Sinfonietta (Conducting Fellow & Assistant Conductor, 2016-2018), and Valdosta Symphony Orchestra (Assistant Conductor, 2014-2016).

Recent and forthcoming guest conducting highlights include engagements with such orchestras as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony, Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra (Washington), Philharmonia Orchestra (London), Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, and Seattle Opera, amongst others.

Derrick Morgan is a young Glasgow-based conductor. Born in the Scottish Borders, he is currently the Assistant Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, where he works closely with Music Director Thomas Søndergård and Principal Guest Conductor Patrick Hahn. He was also the inaugural Foundation Conductor of the Orpheus Sinfonia’s Foundation programme based in central London.

As an assistant conductor, he has had the privilege of working with many of the world’s greatest conductors, such as the late Sir Andrew Davis, John Wilson, Karina Canellakis, Andrey Boreyko, Joana Carneiro, and Sir James MacMillan. As a conductor, he has worked with a variety of ensembles and orchestras, including the RSNO, BBC Scottish Symphony, Norwegian Radio, Hebrides Ensemble, Red Note Ensemble, Assembly Project, and the BBC Singers.

His first season at the RSNO saw him record and perform for various audiences across different locations around Scotland. In the recording studio, he has been working with the RSNO’s new partner, Charanga, to create materials for schools and recorded ‘Flower of Scotland’ in an arrangement by Christopher Gough for Euro 2024, which received thousands of views and was repeatedly broadcast on Classic FM. On the concert platform, he has conducted and presented all five of the RSNO’s popular Viennese Galas with soprano Emma Morwood. He also made his Season debut with the orchestra in Dundee, stepping in for an indisposed Stephanie Childress, along with matinee performances presented by Gillian Moore.

In his role as Foundation Conductor of Orpheus Sinfonia he assisted, performed and presented alongside their Artistic Director Thomas Carroll and Principal Guest Conductor Oliver Gooch. In August 2024 he was immediately re-invited by Orpheus Sinfonia to give the European premiere of Zou Ye’s Symphony ‘Kukai’ alongside the Scherzo Ensemble and Choir of the Chinese Central Conservatory of Music. The success of this London performance has led to being invited to give the New Zealand premiere in January 2025.

Education and audience engagement hold particular interest for Derrick. With the RSNO, he is the lead artist for their partnership with Sistema Scotland’s programme, ‘Big Noise’. He serves as the central contact between the two national institutions and prepares the young people of Big Noise for their side-by-side performances with the RSNO, in a new commission by Lisa Robertson. As part of the partnership, he will also deliver CPD to tutors at all five centres. Leading in digital delivery, the RSNO and Charanga’s partnership has seen Derrick record several backing tracks with the orchestra, to be distributed to two million children across Charanga’s platform. In the new Season, he will deliver these songs live in mass ‘come and sing’ programmes for primary schools across Scotland.

Prior to the RSNO, Derrick was Assistant Artistic Director of the RPS-nominated Nevis Ensemble, where he worked with many communities across Scotland, from care centres and schools to hospitals and prisons. Later, he was also involved in training the Nevis Ensemble Fellows. In all of his work, Derrick aims to focus on audience engagement and is an engaging presenter who has conducted concerts and pre-concert talks for various audiences.

Supporting and promoting contemporary music is another significant aspect of Derrick’s career. He has conducted numerous new works in both public and educational contexts. He has collaborated with the Assembly Project and Red Note Ensemble, presenting student works and adjudicating composition competitions at the University of Edinburgh. His interest in contemporary music led him to give the Scottish Premiere of Jonathan Dove’s ‘Mansfield Park’ with Edinburgh Studio Opera in 2016.

Derrick studied Musicology at the University of Edinburgh and conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, where he received prizes for his achievements in conducting. He studied conducting under the guidance of Martyn Brabbins and Garry Walker whilst benefiting from the expertise of guest tutors, including Mark Wigglesworth, Kevin John Edusei, Ilan Volkov, and James Lowe. In 2017, he became the youngest participant of the Orkney Conductors’ Course as part of the St Magnus International Festival. During this course, Derrick studied with the late Alexander Vedernikov, Charles Peebles, and Sofi Jeanin.

The RSNO Assistant Conductorship is a two-year post and benefits from the support of the Solti Foundation.

Ellie Slorach is the RSNO’s Engagement Conductor.

Alongside her work at the RSNO, Ellie is the Founder and Artistic Director of Kantos Chamber Choir and works across the UK and internationally with orchestras and choirs.

In the 2023-24 season, Ellie makes her debut with the Royal Northern Sinfonia at Sage Gateshead and with New Adventures’ production of Edward Scissorhands at Sadler’s Wells. She returns to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Singers, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North and Manchester Camerata.

Specialising in concerts for schools and young people, Ellie has worked with orchestras including The Hallé and the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège, where she was the Assistant Conductor to Gergely Madaras in 2021-22. She is often invited to work with youth and student orchestras and choirs, including having been Musical Director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra. 

Ellie regularly works on opera productions; she conducted Northern Opera Group’s production of Handel’s ‘Silla’ in 2022 and returns as Musical Director for their headline production of ‘Sherlock’ in 2024 at the Leeds Opera Festival. She was co-Musical Director for the Royal Opera House’s production of Lost & Found at St Pancras International station in 2022 and was the Assistant Conductor for Opera Holland Park’s Rigoletto in June 2023.

In 2015, Ellie founded Kantos Chamber Choir; this trailblazing vocal ensemble is at the cutting edge of choral singing in the UK. Kantos performs unique and innovative concerts, devised by Ellie, to sell-out audiences, in venues ranging from nightclubs to concert halls. The choir regularly perform and record with orchestras including the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic, on labels including Decca Classics.

Ellie studied Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music having previously studied Music at the University of Manchester. 

Stephen Doughty has been Chorus Director of the RSNO Chorus since the start of the 2022:23 Season. Since his arrival the Chorus has seen an influx of new members, and an abundance of varied and critically acclaimed performances, including Verdi’s Requiem, Britten’s War Requiem, Bruckner’s E Minor Mass and the Scottish premiere of Sir James MacMillan’s Christmas Oratorio. He has also directed the Chorus in new and imaginative programmes in their own right, including Rheinberger’s glorious Mass in E flat for double choir, and concerts with percussion and organ featuring Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, the European premiere of McIntyre’s Missa Brevis and Ives’ final major choral work, Psalm 90.  Stephen’s previous 12-year tenure as Chorus Master of Belfast Philharmonic Choir included a number of world premieres, most significantly James Whitbourn’s The Seven Heavens and Philip Hammond’s Requiem for the Lost Souls of the Titanic, performed exactly 100 years since the liner went down, and further European premieres of both Stuart Scott’s Requiem Brevis, which saw the 100-strong choir separated into eight choirs spaced around the audience, and Christopher Marshall’s Earthsong.

Stephen particularly enjoys working with amateur singers, not least leading regular singing days frequently involving up to 800 amateur singers. He was Musical Director of Edinburgh Bach Choir for 7 years and has enjoyed the directing the Garleton Singers for over 30 years, performing with them recently at the Lammermuir Festival.

Stephen plays harpsichord/organ continuo and orchestral piano and has given frequent organ recitals, including several on the grand Mulholland Organ in the Ulster Hall, Belfast. He is also in demand as an arranger and orchestrator, with a large portfolio of work particularly for young voices. He has produced a plethora of arrangements of the music of pianist Christopher Norton, including two publications of piano duets and a suite for wind sextet, and has received commissions from Children’s Classic Concerts, the Ulster Orchestra and the RSNO. Commissions from the BBC have seen his work being performed on BBC Alba and at the Last Night of the Proms, and his pieces feature on several recordings, including with the RSNO Chorus.

Finally, Stephen is an Examiner for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music.

Patrick Barrett is a conductor specialising in choral music and opera. He is currently Chorus Director of the RSNO Youth Choruses, Royal Opera House Youth Opera Company, Irish Youth Training Choir and the award-winning Farnham Youth Choirs.

Recent work has included conducting the RSNO Youth Chorus alongside soloists Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Benjamin Grosvenor and Nicola Benedetti in the Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s All-Star Gala performances, and preparing them for the recording of Jonathan Dove’s Gaspard’s Christmas, which is available on all streaming services. Over the summer, he led FYC to success at the Hull International Choral Competition and the International Choir Competition in Provence, winning the Youth Choirs of Equal Voices and Children’s Choir categories respectively, and will be competing with them in the World Choir Games 2024 in New Zealand. In the past year, he has also premiered a number of new works including Jonathan Brigg’s The Sapling with the ROH Youth Opera Company and pieces by Emma O’Halloran and DJ and producer R.Kitt with IYTC. This summer, he took up the position of Guest Conductor with the National Youth Choir of Great Britain’s Girls’ Choir and has been invited back for 2024.

Much of Patrick’s work revolves around championing young people within choral music and, for the past two years, he has been invited to address the annual conference of the Post Primary Music Teachers Association in Ireland. His work in this area began as a Trainee Music Leader with Spitalfields Music between 2015-16 and he is now firmly established as a music educator, having delivered projects for organisations including the BBC Singers, Sonoro, The Sixteen, Wigmore Hall, Aldeburgh Young Musicians, and Ark Schools.

In opera, Patrick works with many of the UK’s major companies including the Royal Opera House, English National Opera and Garsington Opera. For the ROH, he is the Musical Director of the Youth Opera Company, preparing them for main stage performances of Verdi’s Otello under Sir Antonio Pappano and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel under Sebastian Weigle, and conducting them in the world premieres of specially commissioned works including Lewis Murphy’s A Different Story in the Linbury Theatre. He is also a regular leader on their Create and Sing programme, working with secondary school teachers to stage specially-devised operas in classrooms across the country. For the ENO, he has prepared the children’s chorus for Janáček’s The Cunning Little Vixen under Martyn Brabbins and Bizet’s Carmen under Kerem Hasan. For Garsington Opera, he has worked on a specially-commissioned community opera called Dalia by Roxanna Panufnik as the Youth Chorus Director.

Patrick was previously the conductor of the University of Birmingham’s Upper Voices Choir and Brockham Choral Society.

The head of a musical dynasty, Neeme Järvi is one of today’s most respected maestros. He conducts many of the world’s most prominent orchestras and works alongside soloists of the highest calibre. A prolific recording artist, he has amassed a discography of over 450 recordings.

Over his long and highly successful career he has held positions with orchestras across the world. He is currently Chief Conductor of the Residentie Orkest, Artistic Director of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and Conductor Laureate and Artistic Advisor of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. He became Artistic Director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in January 2011. He also holds the titles of Music Director Emeritus of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor Emeritus of the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Conductor Laureate of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Recent and future seasons include engagements with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Wiener Symphoniker, as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra among others in the USA. This season he continues his regular relationships with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (for the start of a Tchaikovsky ballet cycle project) and the RSNO (for a number of continued recording and concert projects). He looks forward a return to the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra for an exciting project culminating in a concert to celebrate his 75th birthday. He will also make appearances with the Orquesta Nacional de España and the London Philharmonic and BBC Symphony Orchestras. Soloist collaborations include Janine Jansen, Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Vadim Repin, Evgeny Kissin, Lang Lang, Yefim Bronfman, Truls Mørk and Frank-Peter Zimmermann.

Highlights of an impressive discography include critically acclaimed complete symphony cycles of Prokofiev, Sibelius, Nielsen and Brahms. Neeme Järvi has also championed less widely known composers such as Wilhelm Stenhammar, Hugo Alfvén and Niels Gade, and composers from his native Estonia including Rudolf Tobias, Eduard Tubin and Arvo Pärt. He has recorded with Chandos, Deutsche Grammophon, BIS and EMI amongst others.

Järvi’s most recent discs with Chandos are a Wagner/de Vlieger series with the RSNO, a recording of Mahler Symphony No7 with the Residentie Orkest (which was awarded the International Record Prize ‘Toblacher Komponierhäuschen’), and a series of Johan Halvorsen’s orchestral works with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra.

Throughout his career, Neeme Järvi has been honoured with many international awards and accolades. In Estonia these include an honorary doctorate from the Music Academy of Estonia in Tallinn, and the Order of the National Coat of Arms from the President of the Republic of Estonia, Mr Lennart Meri. The Mayor of Tallinn presented Maestro Järvi with the city’s first-ever ceremonial sash and coat of arms insignia, and he has been named one of the ‘Estonians of the Century’. Neeme Järvi holds an honorary doctorate of Humane Letters from Detroit’s Wayne State University and the University of Michigan, as well as honorary doctorates from the University of Aberdeen and the Royal Swedish Academy of Music. He has also received the Commander of the North Star Order from King Karl Gustav XVI of Sweden.

Alexander Lazarev is one of Russia’s foremost conductors. He studied with Leo Ginsbourg at the Moscow Conservatory graduating with first class honours. In 1971 he won first prize in the Soviet Union’s national competition for conductors, and the following year went on to win first prize and gold medal at the Karajan Competition in Berlin.

From 1987 to 1995 Lazarev was Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Bolshoi Theatre, the first person for over thirty years to hold both positions concurrently. His leadership marked a period of intensive activity with the Bolshoi Opera undertaking an unprecedented programme of prestigious foreign tours including Tokyo (1989), La Scala, Milan (1989), the Edinburgh Festival (1990 and 1991) and the Metropolitan Opera in New York (1991). Several of the Theatre’s most successful productions including Glinka’s A Life for the Tsar, Tchaikovsky’s The Maid of Orleans and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mlada were filmed for video, and the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra made a number of highly acclaimed recordings for Erato including such milestones of the Russian symphonic repertoire as Rachmaninov Symphony No.2 and Shostakovich Symphony No.8.

From 1992 to 1995 he was Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and from 1997 to 2005 Principal Conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra where his conducting of the complete cycle of Shostakovich symphonies was a high point of his tenure. In recent years he has worked as a regular guest with the Philharmonia Orchestra and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, appearing with them in London, Paris and Vienna. Other orchestras he has conducted include the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestre National de France, Oslo Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, NHK Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Montreal Symphony and London Philharmonic, and he has appeared with opera companies such as the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie, Arena di Verona, Opéra  Bastille, Grand Théâtre de Genève, Bavarian State Opera and Netherlands Opera.

His repertoire is particularly enterprising in its scope, ranging from the eighteenth century to the avant-garde. In 1978 he founded the Ensemble of Soloists of the Bolshoi Theatre whose most important aim was the programming and wide dissemination of contemporary music by both Soviet and foreign composers.

Alexander Lazarev is a prolific recording artist, appearing on such labels as Erato, Melodiya, Virgin Classics, Sony Classical, Hyperion, BMG, BIS and Linn Records.

From 2008 to 2016 he was Principal Conductor of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra and he now holds the position of Conductor Laureate. His work with the orchestra is extensively represented on Octavia Records; following the success of their complete cycles of the symphonies by Prokofiev, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich, they are now embarking on a Glazunov cycle.