Beethoven’s Heroic Symphony no. 3 with Kent Nagano

Kent Nagano is considered one of today’s outstanding conductors for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. He will be the next Chief conductor and Artistic Director of the Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de España (OCNE) in Madrid starting in September 2026 and is the newly appointed Principal Artistic Partner of Filarmonica Toscanini. In addition, he is committed together with Jan Vogler as Artistic Director of the Ring project “The Wagner Cycles” of Dresdner Musikfestspiele with Dresdner Festspielorchester and Concerto Köln alongside Jan Vogler. He has been Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin since 2006, Concerto Köln since 2019, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal since 2021 and the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg since 2023 and is as patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival.

As a much sought-after guest conductor, Kent Nagano regularly works with leading international orchestras worldwide, 2025/26 season highlights include several projects with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Maggio Musicale, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Opera de Paris, and the Philharmonia Orchestra, amongst others.

A graduate of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Louise Kemény is a former Britten-Pears Young Artist. Most recent opera engagements include house debuts at Theater Basel as Agathe/Der Freischütz, at Garsington Opera as Sifare/Mitridate, at Opernhaus Zürich in a staged production of Monteverdi Madrigals, at Opéra de Lille as Helena/A Midsummer Night’s Dream as well as her returns to Händelfestspiele Karlsruhe as Seleuce/Tolemeo and to Theater Bonn in the title role of Agrippina. Between 2018 and 2020, she was an ensemble member at Oper Bonn, appearing in roles such as Pamina/Die Zauberflöte, Gretel/Hänsel und Gretel, Sophie/Der Rosenkavalier and Susanna/Le Nozze di Figaro. In concert, she has performed works like Mendelssohn’s Elijah, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Bach’s Matthäus-Passion and Weihnachtsoratorium, Handel’s Messiah, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis Orff’s Carmina Burana and Stravinsky’s Les noces, worked with conductors like Christopher Moulds, Peter Dijkstra, Risto Joost and Mark Padmore and collaborated with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Noord Nederlands Orkest, Sinfonieorchester Basel, Concerto Köln and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra.

Macedonian Canadian mezzo-soprano Ema Nikolovska obtained her Master’s in Voice at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where she also completed the Opera Course. She was a BBC New Generation Artist from 2019-2022 and in 2022 she became a recipient of the prestigious Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award. She is an Alumna of the International Opera Studio at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin where last season she made her role debut as Octavian in Der Rosenkavalier. In the 2023-2024 season she makes her debut at the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Theatre singing the lead role in George Benjamin’s Picture a Day Like This, and her house and role debut as the Fox in Janáèek’s The Cunning Little Vixen at the Canadian Opera Company.
In concert, she will sing in Scriabin’s Symphony no. 1 with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and Fabio Luisi, Mozart’s C Minor Mass (soprano 2) with Raphael Pichon in Munich, Vivier’s Wo Bist du Licht with Barbara Hannigan in Paris, Stravinsky’s Les noces with Kent Nagano in Montreal, and tours Mendelssohn’s Elias with Pygmalion ensemble and Raphael Pichon.

Internationally acclaimed tenor Andreas Conrad commands a large and diverse repertoire, with guest engagements at the Salzburg Festival and Opéra de Monte Carlo as Herodes (Salome) as well as at the Vienna State Opera as Loge (Das Rheingold). He performed at Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, Washington National Opera, Opéra national de Paris and Grand Théâtre de Genève, where he played Prince Shuisky in Boris Godunov. At the Bayreuth Festival from 2015 to 2017, he sang the role of Mime (Das Rheingold and Siegfried), in Monte Carlo in 2022, The Fool (Wozzeck) and in Valencia, the Captain (Wozzeck). In 2023, he played the Shabby Peasant in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at the Hamburgische Staatsoper under the baton of Kent Nagano. In the 2023-2024 season, he returns to the Teatro Real Madrid as Edmund in LEAR, a coproduction with the Opera national de Paris directed by Calixto Bieito conducted by Simone Young, and to the Metropolitan Opera in the legendary production of Janáček’s From the House of the Dead directed by Patrice Chéreau.

Andrew Megill is recognized as one of the leading choral conductors of his generation, known for his unusually wide-ranging repertoire, extending from early music to newly composed works. He has prepared choruses for the American Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the National Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, and he has worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jane Glover, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, and Kent Nagano. He is Director of Choral Organizations Activities at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and serves as Artistic Advisor and Director of Choral Activities for the Carmel Bach Festival and Choral Director for Music of the Baroque (Chicago). He previously taught at the University of Illinois and Westminster Choir College and has been a Guest Conductor for the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Broadcast by Public Radio International and the BBC, his work can be heard on numerous recordings, including Magnussen’s Psalm (Albany Records), Haydn’s Masses (Naxos), and works by Caleb Burhans (Cantaloupe).

Hailed as “a bass with an attitude and the goods to back it up,” by The New York Times and praised by the San Francisco Classical Voice for music that “harnesses considerable expressive power,” bass and composer Matt Boehler is known in the world of opera for his captivating, dynamic performances and his long-earned reputation as an inventive collaborative artist.

Recent seasons for Matt have included engagements at some of classical music’s most prestigious venues: The Metropolitan Opera in both Iolanta and The Nose; Théâtre Royal de La Monnaie in Daphne; Canadian Opera Company in The Magic Flute, the Kennedy Center for Bernstein’s Mass with the National Symphony Orchestra, and Santa Fe Opera as Van Helsing in the world premiere of The Lord of Cries (Corigliano/Adamo). This season, the bass debuts the role of Arkel in Des Moines Metro Opera’s Pelléas et Mélisande, sings Frére Laurent in Toledo Opera’s Roméo et Juliette, appears with West Edge Opera in the world premiere of Bulrusher, and sings Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with the Modesto Symphony.