Live Sibelius Seven & Nordic Music Days Fri 1 – Sat 2 November

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.

“But performing music out of intimacy also characterises Isabelle Faust’s playing. The exploration of depths and beauty on the basis of an almost eternal breath is enchanting and affects the audience. She shows how rich simplicity can be.” Maximilian Maier, Münchner Merkur, May 2022.

Isabelle Faust captivates her audience with her compelling interpretations. She dives deep into every piece considering the musical historical context, historically appropriate instruments and the greatest possible authenticity according to a contemporary state of knowledge. Thus, she manages to constantly illuminate and passionately perform the repertoire of a wide variety of composers.

After winning the renowned Leopold Mozart Competition and the Paganini Competition at a very young age, she soon gave regular performances with the world’s major orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Les Siècles and the Baroque Orchestra Freiburg.

This led to close and sustained cooperation with conductors like Andris Nelsons, Giovanni Antonini, François-Xavier Roth, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Daniel Harding, Philippe Herreweghe, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Klaus Mäkelä and Robin Ticciati.

Isabelle Faust’s vast artistic curosity includes all eras and forms of instrumental cooperation. Thus she never considers music as an end in itself but rather advances the piece’s essence in a devoted, subtle and conscientious way. In addition to big symphonic violin concertos this includes for instance Schubert’s octet with historical instruments as well as Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat” with Dominique Horwitz or Kurtág’s “Kafka Fragments”. With great commitment she renders an outstanding service to the performance of contemporary music, recent world premieres include works by Péter Eötvös, Brett Dean, Ondřej Adámek and Rune Glerup.

Recent highlights include concerts with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Baroque Orchestra Freiburg, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, as well as tours with Il Giardino Armonico, the English Baroque Solists, AKAMUS Berlin, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestre des Champs-Elysées.

Chamber music engagements comprise collaborations with Sol Gabetta, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Antoine Tamestit, Jörg Widmann, Alexander Melnikov and Pierre-Laurent Aimard. This exciting season is completed by solo concerts and Kurtág’s “Kafka Fragments” with Anna Prohaska at the Musikverein Vienna.

Numerous recordings have been unanimously praised by critics and awarded the Diapason d’or, the Grammophone Award, the Choc de l’année and other prizes. The most recent recordings include Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto under the baton of Daniel Harding and with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, as well as Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Alexander Melnikov, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Pablo Heras-Casado and the Freiburger Barockorchester. Isabelle Faust presented further popular recordings among others of the Sonatas and Partitas for violin solo by Johann Sebastian Bach as well as violin concertos by Ludwig van Beethoven and Alban Berg under the direction of Claudio Abbado. She shares a long-standing chamber music partnership with the pianist Alexander Melnikov. Among others, joint recordings with sonatas for piano and violin by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven and Johannes Brahms have been released.

Hildur Elísa is an artist, musician and composer interested in storytelling and creating engulfing experiences within spaces, often inspired by the mundanity of everyday life. In her works, she uses relational aesthetics and methods of institutional critique to interrupt and criticise normative narrative and show her subjects from a new angle.

Through a variety of media – performance, moving image, installation and music – Hildur Elísa employs normalised human behaviours and experiences in a critical way, displacing them into an artistic context. By placing these mundane, everyday happenings in unconventional and absurd scenes, she aims to challenge our understanding of our heavily constructed social reality, reflecting on our own ability to create new meaning and to forge our own reality – always asking ‘why’ and ‘what if’.

Hildur Elísa’s creative process is a balance between caprice and compulsive research. She is particularly interested in how we experience everything that happens around us, what of those experiences we have in common and where we differ and strives to create works that force the viewer to create their own meaning.

Hildur Elísa holds a diploma in classical clarinet from the Reykjavík College of Music and a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Art from the Iceland University of the Arts. During her studies at the IUA she went on exchange in the Kunst und Vermittlung department at Hochschule Luzern in Switzerland, where her work Konzert für Spielzeug und Schwimmbad was chosen by curator Michael Sutter to be exhibited at the HSLU exemplary exhibition, K+. After graduating, she interned with artist, musician and composer Lina Lapelytė in Vilnius, Lithuania. Her works have been selected for festivals such as Gaudeamus Muziekweek, Grachten Festival, November Music, LungA, Plan-B Art Festival, Platform Nord, Tokyo Biennale and Ung Nordisk Musik, and have been performed by, among others, Juho Myllylä, K!art – Ensemble for New Music and Performance Art, Jónas Ásgeir Ásgeirsson and Antti Tolvi. Besides making her own work, she has served as a board member of the Association of Icelandic Artists, is currently vice chair of Ung Nordisk Musik Iceland and co-founded Associate Gallery with Ástríður Jónsdóttir and Joe Keys. Hildur Elísa is currently enrolled in Re:master Opera, a temporary master’s program at Sandberg Institute supported by the Dutch National Opera and Opera Forward Festival.