Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Music Director / hr-Sinfonieorchester

Andr?s Orozco-Estrada, born in Colombia and trained in Vienna, is one of the most sought after conductors of his generation. From the beginning of the 2014/15 season, he will take up the positions of Music Director of the Houston Symphony and Chief Conductor of the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra. From September 2015 Andrés will also take up the position of Principal Guest Conductor with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Orozco-Estrada first came to international attention in 2004, when he took over a concert with the Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich at the Vienna Musikverein – celebrated by the Viennese press as a “wonder from Vienna”. Numerous engagements with many international orchestras followed and since then Orozco-Estrada has developed a highly successful musical partnership with the Tonk?nstler Orchestra, one of the most important institutions of traditional Austrian musical culture. Since the beginning of the 2009/10 season, Orozco-Estrada has been the Music Director of the Tonkünstler Orchestra, a position that he will relinquish in the summer of 2015. This Orchestra holds subscription series at the Vienna Musikverein and is Orchestra-in-Residence at the Grafenegg Festival. Between 2009 and 2013 Orozco-Estrada was also Principal Conductor at the Orquesta Sinfónica de Euskadi (Basque National Orchestra).
Orozco-Estrada has already worked with some of the world’s leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, Norddeutscher Rundfunk in Hamburg (NDR) and the Orchestre National de France. Following his debut with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in autumn 2010, Orozco- Estrada was hailed ‘a brilliant stand-in’ (Wiener Zeitung) for Esa-Pekka Salonen and celebrated as an ’eminent talent’ (Die Presse). In November 2012, Orozco-Estrada stepped in once again at short notice to replace Riccardo Muti with the Vienna Philharmonic in the Musikverein and proved to be a “stand-in worth his weight in gold” (Kurier) and “an inspired master of communication” (Standard). During the 13/14 season he has made debuts with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and St Louis Symphony Orchestras and also made his conducting debut at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera with a production of Don Giovanni. Highlights of the 14/15 season include his return to the Orchestra National de France, the Santa Cecilia Orchestra, Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic. He will also make important debut with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw and Oslo Philharmonic Orchestras.
Born in 1977 in Medell?n (Colombia), Andrés Orozco-Estrada began his musical studies on the violin and had his first conducting lessons at the age of 15. In 1997, he moved to Vienna where he joined the conducting class of Uroš Lajovic, pupil of the legendary Hans
Swarowsky, at the renowned Vienna Music Academy and completed his degree with distinction by conducting the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra at the Vienna Musikverein. The emphasis of his artistic work lies in the Romantic repertoire and Viennese classics. At the same time, Orozco-Estrada shows a keen interest in contemporary music and regularly performs premieres of Austrian composers as well as compositions of Spanish and South American origin. Orozco-Estrada currently lives in Vienna.
http://orozcoestrada.com

Ryu Goto has established himself as a significant voice in classical music, with a large and growing public in Asia, North America and Europe. Ryu’s career began at age seven when he made his debut at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo, Japan, playing Paganini’s Violin Concerto No.1. Since then, Ryu has appeared as a soloist with many of the world’s leading orchestras, ensembles including National Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Symphoniker, Sydney Symphony, Orchestre national de Lyon, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Hamburger Symphoniker and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with conductors including Lorin Maazel, Tan Dun, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fabio Luisi, Leonard Slatkin, Kent Nagano, Myung-Whun Chung and Jonathan Nott. Ryu has already performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, Tokyo Suntory Hall, Sydney Opera House, Shanghai Grand Theater, Taipei National Concert Hall, Vienna Musikverein, Munich’s Herkulessaal and the Philharmonic Hall Gasteig.
Ryu’s philanthropic work includes working with student musicians throughout the world, mentoring their development, conducting master classes in conjunction with the world’s top institutions. Efforts include the ‘Ryu Goto Excellence In Music Initiative Scholarship’ with the NYC Department of Education, as well as collaborations with institutions like the Juilliard School and the Harvard Bach Society Orchestra. He does extensive musical outreach in developing countries in Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa.
Ryu’s features in media are numerous including his own documentary ‘Ryu Goto’s Odyssey’, a chronicle of his career and personal life from 1996-2006. He is endorsed by airweave and also serves as spokesperson for the East Japan Railway Company with regular coverage on TV, radio and in print.
Ryu records for Deutsche Grammophon in collaboration with Universal Classics Japan. In May 2011 he graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Physics and is currently studying the violin with Prof. Ana Chumachenco. He is a member of US-Japan Council, and has accepted an award from the Japanese American Bar Association as a Japanese-American leader. He holds a 3rd degree black belt from the Japan Karate Association. He performs on the Stradivarius 1722 violin ‘Jupiter’ on loan to him from Nippon Music Foundation.

German-Japanese pianist Alice Sara Ott has gained critical acclaim for her performances at major concert halls worldwide and has established herself as one of the most exciting musical talents of today. The Guardian commented on her recent performance with the London Symphony Orchestra that she “gave the kind of gawp-inducing bravura performance of which legends are made.”
Recently Alice has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra (Vladimir Ashkenazy), Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra (Neeme J?rvi) and Chamber Orchestra of Europe (Thomas Dausgaard). She has also toured with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra (Hannu Lintu), Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (Vasily Petrenko) and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Myung-Whun Chung).
Highlights of the 2014/15 season include debut appearances with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra (Krzysztof Urbański), Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Pablo Heras-Casado), Toronto Symphony Orchestra (Cristian Macelaru) and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse (Thomas Søndergård). She also returns to the London Symphony Orchestra (Gianandrea Noseda) and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks (Esa-Pekka Salonen) and tours with NHK Symphony Orchestra (John Storgards).
Previously Alice has appeared with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra (Sakari Oramo), San Francisco Symphony (Pablo Heras-Casado), Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Robin Ticciati), hr-Sinfonieorchester (Paavo Järvi) and Münchner Philharmoniker (Lorin Maazel).
Following a series of successful duo recital tours with fellow pianist Francesco Tristano in Japan, South Korea and Australia, in the autumn they begin a tour of Europe which includes performances in the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Stuttgart’s Liederhalle, Philharmonie Luxembourg and London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall. To coincide with the tour, Alice and Tristano release their first CD together, Scandale, a duo programme recorded by Deutsche Grammophon.
Alice has recorded exclusively for DG since 2008. Her highly successful debut recording of Liszt’s Douze Études d’exécution transcendante was quickly followed by an album of Chopin’s complete waltzes, which entered the German and US Classical iTunes charts at No.1 and won Alice the ECHO Klassik Young Artist of the Year Award.
Alice’s debut concerto album-works by Tchaikovsky and Liszt with the Münchner Philharmoniker and Thomas Hengelbrock was named Editor’s Choice in both International Piano and Classic FM magazines. January 2013 saw the release of a live recording of her recital at St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre from the 2012 White Nights Festival, which included Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. In spring 2013 she joined up with violinist Lisa Batiashvili to record a CD of works by Clara Schumann.