His horn playing is a joy, according to ›BBC Music Magazine‹ and ›The Times‹ praises Ben Goldscheider as simply »superb«. This London-born horn player has performed recitals and concerts in major venues across Europe, from the Concertgebouw to Vienna’s Musikverein, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and London’s Wigmore Hall. In 2022, this soloist made his BBC Proms concert debut with Kazuki Yamada and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared as soloist with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Britten Sinfonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. Ben Goldscheider is also a dedicated chamber musician and has worked with Daniel Barenboim, Martha Argerich, Sergei Babyan, Elena Bashkirova, Sunwook Kim and Michael Volle at festivals in Verbier, Salzburg, Jerusalem, Berlin and Buenos Aires.

Goldscheider is a member of the Boulez Ensemble and principal horn of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. He studied with with Radek Baborák at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin where he graduated in 2020 with distinction. In the 2023/24 season, several world premieres of newly commissioned works for horn are on his programme, including the Horn Concerto by Huw Watkins, which he will perform in his debut with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen.

In recent years, Duncan Ward has established himself as one of the most exciting and versatile conductors of his generation, whose lively interpretations of the classical repertoire are praised as much as his interpretations of 20th century masterpieces. Duncan Ward has been Chief Conductor of Philzuid since 2021. In addition to concerts in the Netherlands, the 2026/27 sees Duncan return to the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Osaka Philharmonic and Kioi Hall Chamber Orchestra, and debut with the Tampere Philharmonic, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Norwegian Radio Orchestra and Warsaw Philharmonic.

Highlights of the previous three seasons have included debuts with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, WDR Sinfonieorchester and NDR Radiophilharmonie; alongside returns to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, London Symphony Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony, Gürzenich-Orchester, Orchestre Philharmonique du
Luxembourg, Musikkollegium Winterthur and Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen.

Duncan made his North American debut conducting ›Die Zauberflöte‹ at The Metropolitan Opera in 2022.

Recent opera credits have included ›A Midsummer Night’s Dream‹ for Opernhaus Zürich, ›Turn of the Screw‹ for English National Opera, ›Così fan tutte‹ for Opéra National de Lyon, ›Death in Venice‹ for Stuttgart Staatsoper, ›Peter Grimes‹ for Oper Köln and ›Bluthochzeit‹ for Oper Frankfurt.

Duncan’s passion for a wide range of repertoire has seen him work with leading specialist ensembles ranging from Les Siècles and Balthasar Neumann Orchestra to Ensemble Modern and Ensemble intercontemporain. He studied Indian classical music with Ravi Shankar as a result of his charitable work in Europe and Asia.