Christina Landshamer is a versatile artist who, as recitalist as well as with her varied concert and opera repertoire, is in international demand. Her collaborations with renowned conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Manfred Honeck, Alan Gilbert, Marek Janowski and many others regularly result in concerts with major international orchestras – from the Berlin Philharmonic to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra to the Orchestre de Paris. In The States, this soprano has also appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Montreal Symphony Orchestras.

Christina Landshamer has given opera performances at the Komische Oper Berlin, at the Theater an der Wien with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and also with Sir Simon Rattle at the Salzburg Festspiele. At the Nationaloper Amsterdam, she has sung ›Pamina‹ in Simon McBurney’s ›Zauberflöte‹ and ›Woglinde‹ in Wagner’s ›Rheingold‹ at the Bayerischen Staatsoper with Kirill Petrenko conducting. She has also performed in a spectacular La-Fura-dels-Baus production of Haydn’s ›Schöpfung‹ in Paris as well as at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. With her warm, lyric soprano voice, Christina Landshamer is as welcome as a Lieder singer at the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade as she is in London, New York or Tokyo.

She has over 50 CD and DVD recordings to her name and was called to take up a professorship for Vocal Studies at the Trossingen College of Music in 2021.

Founded by Helmuth Rilling in 1954, the Gächinger Kantorei has enjoyed the sponsorship of the International Bach Academy Stuttgart since 1981 and is today considered one of the world’s most outstanding concert choirs. During its long history which spans more than 60 years, the choir has performed hundreds of concerts, made countless guest appearances, Radio and CD recordings and can lay claim to inestimable influence through its various notable credentials, for example its collaborations with renowned guest conductors and orchestras, including Masaaki Suzuki, Krzysztof Penderecki and Sir Roger Norrington as well as the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic.

During the 2016/17 season, the Bach Academy’s vocal and instrumental ensembles underwent a fundamental change and have since been performing under the one shared name of ›Gaechinger Cantorey‹. The deliberately archaic spelling unites the choir – which Academy Director Hans-Christoph Rademann has been gradually reforming since his appointment in 2013 – with the newly-formed Baroque orchestra. Based on the historical traditions of the Bach era and with its roots in live performance history, the Gaechinger Cantorey stands for a holistic musical approach and the aesthetic sound-ideal of the Baroque. This authentic sound is achieved today through the use of Baroque instruments and musicians who are experts in Baroque performance practices, as well as choirs whose singers are as talented as ›Ripienists‹ (ensemble singers) as they are ›Concertistas‹ (soloists).

Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has been Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen since 2004. One of the many highlights of this collaboration has been the acclaimed, globally celebrated performances of the Beethoven cycle, for which Järvi received numerous awards including the ›Echo Klassik Conductor of the Year‹ award and the prestigious annual ›German Record Critics‹’ award. Their Beethoven project was followed by an intensive exploration of the symphonic works of Schumann and Brahms; both cycles also received numerous awards. Since autumn 2021, the focus has been on Joseph Haydn’s twelve London symphonies, and since 2024, an intensive exploration of Franz Schubert’s symphonies.

Paavo Järvi has been Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich since the start of the 2019/2020 season. He is also the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Pärnu Music Festival, which he established in 2011. He regularly appears as a guest conductor with major orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the London Philharmonia Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, he was named ›Artist of the Year‹ by both the British magazine Gramophone and the French magazine Diapason. This was followed in 2019 by the Opus Klassik award for ›Conductor of the Year‹. Other awards include a Grammy Award for his recording of Sibelius’ Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the title ›Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres‹, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In 2015, Paavo Järvi also received the Sibelius Medal in recognition of his work in bringing this Finnish composer’s music to a wider audience, and in 2012 he received the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. As a committed supporter of Estonian culture, Paavo Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013.

Gerhild Romberger completed her vocal studies with Heiner Eckels at the Detmold College of Music, where she obtained her Concert Exam. Further vocal performance courses with Mitsuko Shirai and Hartmut Höll rounded her studies. She has been Professor of Vocal Studies at Detmold College of Music since 2003.

Her artistic focus lies in concert performance. Her wide repertoire encompasses all the great alto and mezzo roles of the oratorio and concert literature, from the Baroque to the 20th century. Her work with Andris Nelsons and Gustavo Dudamel and the Berlin and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras, with Herbert Blomstedt and the Los Angeles Symphony Orchestra, Riccardo Chailly and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra as well as concerts with Manfred Honeck have been important milestones of her career in recent years.

In the 2018/19 season, Gerhild Romberger dedicated herself to the music of Mahler, giving concerts featuring ›Lied von der Erde‹ in Monte Carlo, Mahler’s 2nd Symphony at the Accademia Nationale di Santa Cecilia in Rome with the Berlin Philharmonic as well as his 3rd Symphony with the Stavanger Orchestra. Further to this, she returned to Hamburg and the Elbphilharmonie to perform Ligeti’s ›Requiem‹ and another performance of Mahler’s 2nd Symphony with Kent Nagano, before closing the season with Dvorak’s Stabat Mater and the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino in Florence. Her CD recording of Mahler’s 3rd Symphony with Bernard Haitink the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra was awarded ›Recording of the year‹ in 2018 by the BBC Music Magazine.