JoAnn Falletta
serves as Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic and Virginia Symphony in the United States and Principal Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland. She has guest conducted over a hundred orchestras in North America, and many of the most prominent orchestras in Europe, Asia, South America and Africa and is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Brevard Music Center of North Carolina. Recipient of the Seaver/National Endowment for the Arts Conductors Award, winner of the Stokowski Competition, and the Toscanini, Ditson and Bruno Walter conducting awards, Falletta has also received eleven ASCAP awards and serves on the U.S. National Council on the Arts. A champion of American music, she has presented nearly five hundred works by American composers including over one hundred world premières. Her Naxos recordings include the double Grammy Award winning disc of works by John Corigliano and GRAMMY® nominated discs of works of Tyberg, Dohnányi, Fuchs, Schubert, and Respighi. For more information, www.joannfalletta.com

The Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra
(Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, RSB) dates back to the beginnings of music broadcasting in 1923. The orchestra’s chief conductors, including Sergiu Celibidache, Eugen Jochum and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, have all helped to create the ensemble’s exceptional sound. Since its foundation, important composers such as Sergey Prokofiev, Richard Strauss and Igor Stravinsky have conducted the orchestra as well as promising young conductors such as Andris Nelsons, Vasily Petrenko, Jakub Hrůša and Lahav Shani. Alongside regular tours of Asia the orchestra also appears at German and European festivals. Since completing the ten-part Wagner cycle in 2013 the orchestra has secured its place among Europe’s top concert orchestras. From 2002 to 2015 Marek Janowski was chief conductor and artistic director of the RSB. Vladimir Jurowski has been named as his successor, starting in the 2017–18 season. The RSB is part of the Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH Berlin (roc berlin).