Integrity, Reliability, Professionallity!
During the years we were lucky to have the world’s leading conducting teachers coming to Berlin and giving in-depth masterclasses in orchestral and choir conducting, sharing their vast knowledge and ideas with hundreds of conductors who then later continue spreading and developing these ideas in their own professional work. We are trying to invite new teachers every year, always baring in our minds that the teacher is the most important factor in such masterclasses, and should be the main reason to apply for such masterclasses. To conclude, the most important in a masterclass are a great teacher, a great orchestra and great music. With these always in mind, we create a great atmosphere and very enriching experience to our most appreciated participants, an experience that culminates and reflects itself in our final concerts.
Lior Shambadal
Israeli conductor Lior Shambadal maintains an active career as both an artistic leader and guest artist throughout Europe, Asia, Israel, and South America. He currently serves as the Chief Conductor of the Berliner Symphoniker, a post he has held since 1997.
Maestro Shambadal has appeared with many of the world’s leading orchestras. From 2000-2003, Maestro Shambadal served as the Chief Conductor of the RTV Symphony Orchestra in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and toured with them Germany, Italy, Austria and Switzerland. In 1980, Maestro Shambadal was nominated Chief Conductor of the Haifa Symphony Orchestra, and from 1986-1993, he led the Kibbutz Chamber Orchestra in Tel Aviv, with whom he regularly toured Europe. He was the founder of the ensemble Musica Nova in Tel Aviv, and led the Mendelssohn Players in Berlin, comprised of principal players of the city’s most renowned orchestras. Maestro Shambadal regularly gives master classes throughout the world in conducting as well as in lieder interpretation for singers and orchestra. Committed to the support of young artists, he also funds annual scholarships in honor of his late relatives, violist Daniel Benyamini (former Principal Violist of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and member of the Tel Aviv Quartet) and Mishel Piastro (former concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic and assistant conductor to Arturo Toscanini) and is responsible for the selection of the annual IBM Foundation-sponsored scholarship prize every year in San Gemini.
Colin Metters
Colin Metters, is an English conductor, orchestral trainer and conducting pedagogue. He is Professor of Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music in London where he founded the Conductors’ Course in 1983. In September 2013, he retired as Head of Studies after serving in the post for 30 years. He remains as Professor of Conducting at the Academy’s Postgraduate Conductors’ Course. He has given master classes in Germany, Russia, Poland, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, China, Venezuela, Vietnam and the USA. He has worked extensively with Dirigenten Forum in Germany directing master classes and serving many times as a jury member. In 2008 he represented the UK on the jury for the 5th Prokofiev International Conducting Competition in St Petersburg.
Johannes Wildner
Johannes Wildner studied conducting, violin and musicology and has established himself as one of the foremost Austrian conductors.
His years of experience as a member of the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna State Opera Orchestra have given his conducting a distinctive stamp.
After positions as Chief Conductor of Prague State Opera and First Permanent Conductor of Leipzig Opera, Johannes Wildner was the General Music Director of the New Philharmonic Orchestra of Westphalia (Germany) for ten years from 1997. He served as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Concert Orchestra in London from 2010-2014. From 2014 he has also been the Director of the Austrian Opera Festival OPER BURG GARS and was appointed Professor of Conducting at the Vienna University of Music. He has regularly appeared as a guest conductor in major opera houses such as the Tokyo New National Theatre, the Teatro Carlo Felice Genova, the Arena di Verona, Leipzig, Graz, Salzburg, Prague and Zagreb State Opera, and with orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Palermo, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Tokyo Philharmonic, the MDR Symphony, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Vienna Symphony, the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bergen Philharmonic, the China Philharmonic, the Hong Kong Philharmonic and the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. (read more)
Grzegorz Nowak
Grzegorz Nowak is the Permanent Associate Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) in London, promoted to this position in January 2015 after serving for seven years as the Orchestra’s Principal Associate Conductor. He has led the RPO on tours to Switzerland, Turkey and Armenia, as well as giving numerous concerts throughout the UK. His RPO recordings include Mendelssohn’s ‘Scottish’ and ‘Italian’ Symphonies, Shostakovich’s Symphony No.5, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Dvořák’s Symphonies Nos.6–9, all of the symphonies of Schumann and the complete symphonies and major orchestral works of Brahms and Tchaikovsky. (read more)
Kenneth Kiesler
Director of orchestras and professor of conducting at the University of Michigan, since 1995, Kiesler is one of the most sought after and highly regarded teachers and mentors of conductors worldwide. He is the founder and director of the renowned Conductors Retreat at Medomak, now in its 17th year. Since 2006, at the invitation of music director Pinchas Zukerman, he has been director of the Conductors Programme of Canada’s National Arts Centre. For five years beginning in 2006, he was director of the Vendome International Academy of Orchestral Conducting in France. Kiesler leads masterclasses and courses for the Philharmonisches Kammer Orchester Berlin and Deutsches Musikrat in Germany, and annually at the Waterville Valley Music Center in New Hampshire. His students have won many of the world’s major international competitions, such as the Maazel/Vilar, Eduardo Mata, and Nicolai Malko Competitions, and hold positions with major orchestras, opera companies, and music schools. (read more)
Michail Jurowski
Born in Moscow in 1945, Michail Jurowski is the son of the composer Vladimir Jurowski and grandson of the conductor David Block. His sons Vladimir and Dmitri are also internationally renowned conductors. Michail Jurowski grew up in the circle of internationally acclaimed artists of the former Soviet Union such as Ojstrach, Rostropovitch, Kogan, Gilels, and Chatchaturjan. Dmitri Shostakovich was a close family friend, and he and Michail not only spoke often but would also play four-hand piano pieces together. Such experiences had a huge influence on the young musician and it is therefore no coincidence that today Michail Jurowski is one of the leading interpreters of Shostakovich’s music. In 2012 Michail Jurowski was awarded the third International Shostakovich Prize by the Shostakovich Gohrisch Foundation. (read more)
Lutz Köhler
Lutz Köhler studied bassoon, piano, composition, and conducting at the Academy of Music and Theater in Hannover, where he subsequently spent 25 years as a professor and temporarily held the position of Vice President. In 1999 he accepted an appointment at the University of the Arts in Berlin to offer a class in conducting as well as to lead the University’s symphony orchestra. Recently he assumed an additional professorship in conducting at the Escuela Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona. The educational focus of Lutz Köhler’s activities has brought him into contact with numerous youth orchestras: For more than a quarter century he served as one of the directors of the European Community Youth Orchestra, with which he maintains a connection as honorary musical advisor; in addition he was Principal Guest Conductor of the Orchestra of the Royal Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow. He is further dedicated to cultivating up-and-coming musical talent through his work as an advisor and jury member for the International Music Competition of the ARD broadcast network. Lutz Köhler has conducted such leading German orchestras as the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the Radio Symphony Orchestras of Frankfurt and Saarbrücken, and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared as guest artist at the Festivals in Dresden, Berlin, and Gstaad, as well as in Aldeburgh, Seville, and Miami. He has been invited to perform with the Berlin University of the Arts Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow and Edinburgh and at the Vienna Konzerthaus. Lutz Köhler gives master classes around the world; many of his students have won prizes at prestigious competitions and hold prominent positions in today’s musical life. Köhler also regularly collaborates with brass ensembles, in particular with Hessian Radio Brass Ensemble, with whom he has recorded ten CDs. (read more)
Yoav Talmi
As he begins the new season, 2013-2014, Yoav Talmi continues his worldwide activity holding three titles – Music Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra in Tel Aviv, Conductor Emeritus of the Quebec Symphony in Canada and Head of Orchestral-Conducting Department at the University of Tel Aviv Buchmann-Mehta School Of Music, In collaboration with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In the past he has served as Artistic Director of the Quebec Symphony in Canada, Chief Conductor of the Hamurg Symphony, Principal Guest Gonductor of the Munich Philharmonic, Music Director of the San Diego Symphony, Music Director of the Arnhem Philharmonic (The Netherlands) and Music Director of the Israel Chamber Orchestra and the New Israeli Opera.
Maestro Talmi was recently chosen as a 2013 winner of the Israeli Prime Minister’s Prize For Composres.
Talmi’s long and impressive guest conducting career spans several continents. His European engagements include all the major London orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, the Symphony Orchestras of Vienna and Prague, the Philharmonic Orchestras of St. Petersburg, Oslo, Stockholm, Warsaw and Israel, the Orchestre National de France, Zurich’s Tonhalle, Rome’s Santa Cecilia, and numerous radio orchestras in Israel, France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Poland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Finland and Sweden. He has also made several appearances with the NHK Symphony and the New Philharmonic Orchestras in Japan. In North America, he has appeared with the orchestras of Pittsburgh, Detroit, St. Louis, Houston, Dallas, Indianapolis, Montreal, Vancouver, Rochester and Seattle, as well as the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa) and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall.
Yoav Talmi’s summer activities include the Aspen Music Festival, Casals Festival in Puerto Rico, Bergen Festival in Norway, Chautauqua Festival (NY), Helsinki Festival, Houston’s Mostly Mozart Festival, Jerusalem Festival, Montreal’s Lanaudière Festival and the Waterloo Festival in New Jersey. (read more)
Mark Laycock
Mark Laycock made his conducting début at age 21 with the Philadelphia
Orchestra, returning to the podium of that great orchestra on several occasions over the ensuing years. He has conducted more than 2.000 works with a
wide array of orchestras and opera companies in Europe and Asia, as
well as in Israel, North America, Central and South America, with orchestras of London, Paris, Berlin, Zurich, Moscow, Kiev, Montréal, Mexico City, Seoul, and Taipei, among others. Maestro Laycock has conducted the English Chamber Orchestra on numerous occasions in London and in the United States, and also appears regularly with the Wiener KammerOrchester, Orquesta Sinfónica Naçional de Costa Rica, and the Georges Enescu Philharmonic in Bucharest.
In 2013 he conducted a highly acclaimed return to The Philadelphia Orchestra after an absence of nearly twenty years. His performance with the Wiener KammerOrchester and the Westminster Symphonic Choir of the Beethoven 9th Symphony was filmed by PBS for national telecast for its “Great Performances” series in the USA, and was recorded by Naxos Records for commercial CD release. His performance of Mendelssohn’s rarely performed Symphony No. 2 (“Lobgesang”) with the combined forces of Opera New Jersey and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra excited an enthusiastic review in The New York Times. (read more)
Roberto Paternostro
Roberto Paternostro was born in Vienna where he studied at the Music University under Hans Swarowsky. Further studies under György Ligeti and Christoph von Dohnányi in Hamburg. 1978 to 1984 he was assistant of Herbert von Karajan in Berlin.
Performances include appearances at the Bayerischen Staatsoper in Munich (Macbeth, Eugen Onegin), Deutsche Staatsoper in Berlin (Falstaff), Semperoper in Dresden (La Boheme), Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Liceu in Barcelona, Volksoper in Vienna as well as the opera houses of Madrid, Genua, Parma, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Seville, Budapest etc.
From 1991 to 2000 he was General Music Director of the Württembergische Philharmonie, from 1997 to 2007 General Music Director of the State Theatre in Kassel(Germany) where his new productions with works of Richard Wagner (Tristan, Ring des Nibelungen, Parsifal, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin), Verdi (Otello, Macbeth, Simone Boccanegra, La Traviata, Don Carlos, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Maskenball), Puccini and Richard Strauss (Elektra, Rosenkavalier, Ariadne) brought much public attention. (read more)