Simone Young has been Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic since August 2005. She has conducted here a broad musical spectrum of premieres and repertoire performances ranging from Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and Strauss to Hindemith, Britten and Henze. At the State Opera and with the Hamburg Philharmonic, she has been able to achieve great successes with world premieres and several German premieres. Simone Young has made an international name for herself as a Wagner conductor: she was music director of several complete cycles of the Ring of the Nibelung at the Vienna State Opera and the State Opera Unter den Linden in Berlin. She forged her own Ring with great success at the Hamburg State Opera, conducting the complete cycle here as well. Engagements led the Sydney-born conductor to all the leading opera houses of the world, including the Vienna State Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Bavarian State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Los Angeles Opera. Alongside her extensive operatic activities, Simone Young has also made a name for herself on the concert podium. She has worked with all the leading orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Simone Young directed the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra as Principal Conductor from 1999 until 2002 and was Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Australian Opera in Sydney and Melbourne from January 2001 until December 2003. From 2007 until 2013 she also was Principal Guest Conductor of the Lisbon Gulbenkian Orchestra.

Simone Young appears on numerous recordings. For example, alongside recordings from the Hamburg State Opera such as Mathis der Maler, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung on OehmsClassics, there are also several recordings with the Hamburg Philharmonic. Among others, ten Bruckner symphonies have been issued as well as the Second and the Sixth Symphony of Gustav Mahler and the symphonies of Johannes Brahms.

Simone Young has received numerous prizes and awards. She is an honorary doctor of the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, Professor at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg, a member of the Order of Australia and a “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” as well as a recipient of the Goethe Medal. She was honoured as “Conductor of the Year” for her first opera season in Hamburg, and also received the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Prize. In 2009, together with the Hamburg Philharmonic, she made the Hanseatic City into the world’s largest concert hall – from the Michel Tower, she conducted 100 musicians at 50 locations throughout the city.

In 2012 Simone Young, the Hamburg Philharmonic and soloists of the Hamburg State Opera presented Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Mahler’s Second Symphony in Brisbane, Australia, for which Young received the Helpmann Award in the category of “Best Individual Classical Music Performance” in 2013.

Translation: David Babcock

Bruckner’s 200th anniversary: Interview with Simone Young on Symphony No. 6 (Gramophone)

Feature interview: At 200, Bruckner Is More Popular Than Ever With Conductors. Why? (The New York Times)

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Cornelius Meister, born in Hanover in 1980, became principal conductor and artistic director of the ORF Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna in September 2010.

With the RSO Vienna he has held regular concerts in the Vienna Musikverein and the Vienna Konzerthaus. Extensive tours have taken him to Japan and throughout Europe, including to Salzburg Festival. Together with the RSO Vienna, he has been present on European radio, European television, on albums and in the internet.

From 2005 to 2012, Cornelius Meister was general director of music in Heidelberg. During this time he was awarded the ‘Prize for the Best Concert Programme’ by the German Federation of Music Publishers and the ‘Young Ears’ Prize and the Prize of the German Music Council for conveying music to children and adolescents in 2007 and 2010.

In concerts, Cornelius Meister also conducts Het Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Manchester, the Washington Symphony, the Indianapolis Symphony, the Baltimore Symphony, the Orchestra dell’Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome, Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester Stockholm, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris, the Ensemble intercontemporain Paris, the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin in the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, the NDR Symphony Orchestra Hamburg and the Symphony Orchestra of Bavarian Radio.

At the age of 21, Cornelius Meister held his début at Hamburg State Opera, followed by débuts at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, the New National Opera Tokyo, the San Francisco Opera, the German Opera in Berlin, the Theater an der Wien, the Latvian National Opera in Riga (Der Ring des Nibelungen), the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, the Semper Opera in Dresden, Zurich Opera and Vienna State Opera.

Cornelius Meister studied piano and conducting with Konrad Meister, Martin Brauss and Eiji Oue in Hanover and with Dennis Russel Davies, Jorge Rotter and Karl Kamper at Salzburg Mozarteum. He also plays the cello and the French horn. As a pianist, he has held concerts in Europe and the USA and is a prizewinner of the German Music Competition and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival.

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Anne-Sophie Mutter, perhaps one of the best known of established current violinists, began learning the piano at five but took up the violin shortly afterwards, studying with Erna Honigberger (once a pupil of Carl Flesch). Mutter later continued her studies with Aida Stucki at the Winterthur Conservatory.

At thirteen she was invited by Herbert von Karajan to perform with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, thus starting a fruitful collaboration; their first recording together was Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 3 and 5 in 1978. Since then Mutter has become one of the most recorded of post-war violinists, with over eighty discs to her name. Whilst much of this has been of standard repertory, she has championed a number of more recent works, some written for her, including Henri Dutilleux’s Sur le même accord, Krzysztof Penderecki’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Wolfgang Rihm’s Gesungene Zeit. In August 2007 Mutter gave the première of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Violin Concerto No. 2 ‘In tempus praesens’ and Witold Lutosławski orchestrated his Partita for her.

Mutter plays two Stradivarius violins (the ‘Emiliani’ of 1703, and the ‘Lord Dunn-Raven’ of 1710) as well as a Regazzi instrument of 2005. Having made a number of experiments in her youth she plays without a shoulder rest and wears the same design of sleeveless dress by John Galliano for most of her performances, finding this most comfortable. Like several other artists before her, Mutter has strong humanitarian interests, especially in alleviating medical and social problems, and often gives benefit concerts.

In her recordings Mutter is a strong-willed and passionate player, with a notable depth and sensuousness of sound. This results in strong, muscular performances of classical repertoire such as Mozart’s K. 218 Concerto (1981) (although the no-compromise post-Romantic sound world may strike some listeners as stylistically anachronistic), and a carefully considered 1988 Tchaikovsky Concerto (which testifies to the deep artistic sympathies shared with Karajan) in a steady, but full-blooded interpretation. Mutter’s playing of such established repertoire is thought of by many as beyond reproach, but one should not ignore her outstanding performances of more recent music. Her Penderecki Violin Concerto No. 2 (1997) is captivating in its white-hot intensity from the very first note, whilst Stravinsky’s Concerto (1988)—often played in a rather laconic manner—is articulated with an almost desperate passion. Arguably, Lutosławski’s Partita, especially in this 1988 version orchestrated especially for Mutter, is rather saccharine (Lutosławski’s stark, ascetic structures working better perhaps with the percussive tones of the piano); but Rihm’s Gesungene Zeit (1992) is performed with an excellent sense of architecture and direction, whilst Berg’s seminal Concerto (also 1992) has great poignancy. In all this music Mutter’s playing has much more to it than a pretty and pleasing tone: there is a sense of profound understanding, and a deeply-felt emotional connection, running through the playing—which is technically superlative. A lighter work, perhaps showing Mutter’s less serious side, is Previn’s Tango, Song and Dance (2003) which she ‘dances’ beautifully with the composer (her then husband) at the piano.

Mutter’s place in the glittering pantheon of players is assured, but it is her contribution to and advocacy of twentieth-century music that is perhaps her most extraordinary achievement.

© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Milsom (A–Z of String Players, Naxos 8.558081-84)

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Simone Young has been Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic since August 2005. She has conducted here a broad musical spectrum of premieres and repertoire performances ranging from Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner and Strauss to Hindemith, Britten and Henze. At the State Opera and with the Hamburg Philharmonic, she has been able to achieve great successes with world premieres and several German premieres. Simone Young has made an international name for herself as a Wagner conductor: she was music director of several complete cycles of the Ring of the Nibelung at the Vienna State Opera and the State Opera Unter den Linden in Berlin. She forged her own Ring with great success at the Hamburg State Opera, conducting the complete cycle here as well. Engagements led the Sydney-born conductor to all the leading opera houses of the world, including the Vienna State Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Bavarian State Opera, the Metropolitan Opera in New York and the Los Angeles Opera. Alongside her extensive operatic activities, Simone Young has also made a name for herself on the concert podium. She has worked with all the leading orchestras, including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Simone Young directed the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra as Principal Conductor from 1999 until 2002 and was Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Australian Opera in Sydney and Melbourne from January 2001 until December 2003. From 2007 until 2013 she also was Principal Guest Conductor of the Lisbon Gulbenkian Orchestra.

Simone Young appears on numerous recordings. For example, alongside recordings from the Hamburg State Opera such as Mathis der Maler, Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, Siegfried and Götterdämmerung on OehmsClassics, there are also several recordings with the Hamburg Philharmonic. Among others, ten Bruckner symphonies have been issued as well as the Second and the Sixth Symphony of Gustav Mahler and the symphonies of Johannes Brahms.

Simone Young has received numerous prizes and awards. She is an honorary doctor of the Universities of Sydney and Melbourne, Professor at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hamburg, a member of the Order of Australia and a “Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres” as well as a recipient of the Goethe Medal. She was honoured as “Conductor of the Year” for her first opera season in Hamburg, and also received the Schleswig-Holstein Brahms Prize. In 2009, together with the Hamburg Philharmonic, she made the Hanseatic City into the world’s largest concert hall – from the Michel Tower, she conducted 100 musicians at 50 locations throughout the city.

In 2012 Simone Young, the Hamburg Philharmonic and soloists of the Hamburg State Opera presented Wagner’s Das Rheingold and Mahler’s Second Symphony in Brisbane, Australia, for which Young received the Helpmann Award in the category of “Best Individual Classical Music Performance” in 2013.

Translation: David Babcock

Bruckner’s 200th anniversary: Interview with Simone Young on Symphony No. 6 (Gramophone)

Feature interview: At 200, Bruckner Is More Popular Than Ever With Conductors. Why? (The New York Times)

View Artist Discography