Beethoven’s Heroic Symphony no. 3 with Kent Nagano ^2023-2024

Kent Nagano is acclaimed as an outstanding conductor for both operatic and orchestral repertoire. He has been General Music Director of the Hamburg State Opera and Chief Conductor of the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Hamburg since September 2015. In addition, he serves as Artistic Director of the Wagner Readings, a project that aims to revisit Wagner’s Tetralogy from a performance practice perspective, in collaboration with the Concerto Köln Chamber Orchestra and the Dresden Festival Orchestra. Kent Nagano is a patron of the Herrenchiemsee Festival, and was appointed Honorary Conductor of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (2006), of the Concerto Köln (2019), and of the OSM (2021).

The many highlights of Kent Nagano’s collaboration with the OSM as Music Director from 2006 to 2020 include the inauguration of the Orchestra’s new concert hall, the Maison symphonique de Montréal in September 2011. Nagano and the OSM have toured in Canada including Northern Quebec, and internationally in Japan, South Korea, Europe (latest tour in 2019), Latin America and the USA. In July 2018, Kent Nagano conducted Krzysztof Penderecki’s St. Luke Passion with the OSM on the occasion of the Salzburg Festival opening concert.

Maestro Nagano’s recent recording releases include a 3-CD box set of works by Olivier Messiaen (BR Klassik label, 2021). He also published his second book, 10 Lessons of my Life (Berlin Verlag, 2021) in which he recalls ten highly personal encounters in his life, each bringing important lessons that transcend his career path. Previously, in 2015 Kent Nagano published Erwarten Sie Wunder! (Berlin Verlag), a passionate appeal for the relevance of classical music in today’s world. This book was also published in English (Expect the Unexpected, McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019) and in French (Sonnez, Merveilles, Éditions du Boréal, 2015).

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.

The chorusmaster chair is generously sponsored by Mrs. Ann Birks, in loving memory of Barry Drummond Birks.

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, Alan Gilbert, Kurt Masur, and Kent Nagano. He is Director of Choral Activities at the University of Illinois and serves as Associate Conductor and Director of Choral Activities of the Carmel Bach Festival, as well as Artistic Director of the ensemble Fuma Sacra. He taught at 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 those of 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.