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.

The 1984 Frankfurt-born singer received his musical education with the Limburg Cathedral Choir and at the Conservatory of Freiburg. The young tenor has received a lot of attention particularly for his interpretations of J.S. Bach’s Evangelist roles.

Among his numerous acclaimed appearances in the course of the 2015/2016 season, Julian Prégardien’s rendition of Hylas in ›Les Troyens‹ (Berlioz) caused a sensation at the opening night of the Hamburg Staatsoper under the baton of Kent Nagano. In July 2017, the young tenor will give his debut performance at Bayerische Staatsoper in Munich in the title role of Carl Maria von Weber’s Oberon.

Concert appearances during the 2016/17 season will include concerts with Bach’s St Matthew Passion with René Jacobs, Haydn’s Lord Nelson Mass with András Schiff and Handel arias with Berlin’s Akademie für Alte Musik. He will return to the Salzburger Festspiele with Ádám Fischer.

At Dresden Musikfestspiele and other venues, Julian is scheduled to appear in a special Monteverdi project along with his father Christoph Prégardien and Anima Eterna Brugge conducted by Jos van Immerseel.

Julian Prégardien is also one of the renowned soloists featured in a major project co-hosted by the Schubertiade in Hohenems/Schwarzenberg (Austria) and by London Wigmore Hall, consisting in the complete performance of all Schubert lieder in a series of recitals held between 2015 and 2017.

Konstantin Wolff made his opera debut in 2005 at the Opera National de Lyon as Mercurio in Monteverdi’s ›L’incoronazione di Poppea‹ under William Christie’s baton. He studied at the University of Music in Karlsruhe and won first prize in the Mendelssohn Competition of the Prussian Cultural Institution in Berlin and was chosen as an Elite Scholar of the German People (Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes). Since then his opera repertoire has has been focusing more and more on Handel and Mozart, having performed opera roles by these two composers in Zurich, Brussels, at the Theater an der Wien and in Aix-en-Provence.

As a concert singer, Konstantin has regularly been working with leading ensembles for Baroque music, such as Concerto Köln, Les Arts Florissants and La Scintilla and has been invited by renowned symphony orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig or the Vienna Symphony Orchestra. Konstantin Wolff has had the pleasure to work with conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Ton Koopman, Jéremy Rohrer, Marc Minkowski, Sir Simon Rattle and Claudio Abbado.

Konstantin Wolff has given many recitals, for example at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg; and he also performs contemporary productions. His artistic work is reflected in a colourful list of CD and DVD recordings highlighted by Mozart’s Magic Flute (speaker) with René Jacobs and Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with conductor Riccardo Chailly.

Peter Dijkstra, born in the Netherlands in 1978, studied choral conducting,orchestral conducting and voice at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and graduated summa cum laude. He subsequently followed masterclasses with Marcus Creed, Jorma Panula and Eric Ericson. Peter Dijkstra has been awarded the Kersjes-van-de-Groenekan prize for young orchestral conductors and the Eric Ericson Award – awards which launched his international career.

Since 2005, Peter Dijkstra has been Artistic Director of the Bavarian Radio Choir in Munich and in September 2007 was appointed as Music Director of the Swedish Radio Choir. In the Netherlands, Peter Dijkstra has for some time been the first guest conductor of the Netherlands Kamerkoor and makes regular guest appearances with other high-calibre vocal ensembles, such as the RIAS Chamber Choir Berlin, the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, the Collegium Vocale Gent and the BBC Singers.

Peter Dijkstra has studied a broad repertoire, from early music to newly composed works, from a-capella works to opera, and is also a sought-after guest conductor with orchestras.

CD recordings featuring Peter Dijkstra as conductor have won many prestigious prizes, for example an ECHO Klassik for his Fauré Requiem in 2012 and two Diaposon d’Ors for the albums ›Strauss – Wagner – Mahler‹ and ›Nordic Sounds
Vol. 1‹.

Peter Dijkstra is honorary member of the Royal Swedish Music Academy and in The Netherlands he was awarded the Golden Violin in 2013, an award for internationally exposed Dutch musicians. Most recently he was also awarded the Eugen Jochum Prize 2014 for young conductors.

Anke Vondung was born in Speyer and studied at the Music Conservatory in Mannheim under the guidance of Professor Rudolf Piernay.

In 1997, she won 2nd prize in the International Competition in Graz and one year later participated in an international opera project of the European Opera Center directed by Brigitte Fassbaender.

She also won first prize at the Robert Saar Singing Competition in Bad Kissingen and the international Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition in Vienna, third prize at the international ARD Music Competition in Munich (the 1st prize was not awarded) and first prize at the National Singing Competition in the category “Concert”. In 1999, she received first prize at the Mendelssohn Bartholdy Competition, a scholarship sponsored by the German Federal President and a scholarship from the Ravinia Festival in Chicago.

Anke Vondung sang numerous great parts in her field at the Tyrol Regional Theatre in Innsbruck, the Théatre Chatelet in Paris, the State Opera in Munich, the Salzburg Festival, the Mozart Festival Weeks in Salzburg, the Grand Theatre de Geneve and the Glyndebourne Festival.

In December 2006, she successfully filled in for the part of ›Octavian‹ in the premier of the ›Rosenkavalier‹ at the Opéra de Bastille in Paris, a role which she would perform at the Berlin State Opera a few months later. In October 2007, she gave her successful debut as Cherubino (Le Nozze di Figaro) at the Metropolitan Opera New York. In June 2008, she sang at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and in autumn 2009 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the USA under James Levine. Future engagements will take her on concert tours through numerous European countries, the US and Canada.

In addition to her work as opera singer, Anke Vondung dedicates herself to concert and Lied performances. She has been working with conductors such as Sir Roger Norrington, Philippe Herreweghe, Kent Nagano, James Levine, Alexander Shelley and Lothar Zagrossek.

The Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks was founded in 1946 as the first of Bavarian Broadcasting’s musical ensembles. Its artistic upswing initially ran parallel to the development of the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Principal Conductor of which has been Mariss Jansons since 2003.

In 2005, Peter Dijkstra was appointed artistic director. An avowed “anti-specialist” he has presented a wide variety of programmes. The musical focus lies on contemporary vocal music as well as collaborations with period ensembles. Because of its special sound quality and stylistic versatility, which ranges through every aspect of choral singing from the mediæval motet to contemporary works, from oratorio to grand opera, the ensemble enjoys the highest reputation throughout the world.

This has brought the chorus regularly to Japan and festivals in Bonn, Bremen, Lucerne and Salzburg, as well as to collaborations with top European orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam or the Bavarian State Philharmonic. In the recent past, the chorus has concerted with such distinguished conductors as Claudio Abbado, Giovanni Antonini, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Herbert Blomstedt, Bernard Haitink, Daniel Harding, Riccardo Muti and Christian Thielemann.

Markus Fein studied Applied Cultural Studies at the University of Lüneburg and Musicology and Art History at the universities of Hamburg and Vienna. He completed his PhD thesis at the University of Hamburg. In 2001, he became Artistic Director of the ›Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker‹. Parallel to this, he also directed the Wolfgang Rihm Festival ›Im Atelier der Klänge‹ and the ›Experiment Geschwindigkeit‹ Festival in Göttingen.

From 2006 to 2011, Markus Fein was Director of the ›Niedersächsischen Musiktage‹. In 2010/11, he was Artistic Advisor and Head of Programming/Dramaturgy with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.

Markus Fein has taught at the universities in Lüneburg and Hamburg, at the Musikhochschule Hamburg, the seminar centre of the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste and the Musikhochschule Detmold. He has published articles and essays, as well as the monograph ›Im Sog der Klänge. Gespräche mit dem Komponisten Jörg Widmann‹.

Dr Markus Fein has been Festival Director of the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since the beginning of 2014. For many years, he has been actively engaged in developing new concert formats and dialogue forums aimed at promoting a better understanding of music.