Authenticity and warmth, vitality and the courage to take risks – such qualities are regularly mentioned when Julia Hagen’s playing is the topic of conversation. This 28-year-old cellist, originally from Salzburg, now living in Vienna, combines technical sovereignty with a high creative standard and a directly communicative approach to music-making. Julia Hagen is equally as convincing as a soloist with an orchestra as she is in recital with the piano or in numerous chamber music constellations, including trio concerts with Igor Levit and Renaud Capuçon at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, in London’s Wigmore Hall and at the Wiener Musikverein, as well as in her performances of Sofia Gubaidulina’s ›Canticle of the Sun‹ with the Los Angeles Master Chorale at the Salzburg Festival.

Concert highlights of the 2023/24 season include concerts with Krzysztof Urbański and the Dresdner Philharmonie followed by a European tour with Jonathan Bloxham and the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Colombia. This cellist also returns to the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Andrés Orozco-Estrada and will debut with Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, including concerts at the Philharmonie de Paris. Further debuts will take this musician on a tour of Switzerland with designated principal conductor Petr Popelka and the Wiener Symphoniker and to the Grafenegg Festival with Dennis Russell Davies and the Brno Philharmonic. She will also be giving her first performance with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen, making her debut in Bremen.

The Italian-Turkish conductor Nil Venditti has in recent years forged close relationships with many international orchestras including the Royal Northern Sinfonia and of which, from the 2024/25 season, she will be Principal Guest Conductor. Highlights of recent seasons include collaborations with the Orchestre de l’Opéra national de Paris, the Dresden Philharmonie, the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, the Irish National Opera and the Orchestra della Toscana, where Nil Venditti held the position of Principal Guest Conductor until May 2022.

Alongside her strong affinity for the core classical repertoire of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven and in addition to her commitment as an opera conductor, Nil Venditti shows an equally strong interest in contemporary programming. Her performances in recent seasons have included works by Fazıl Say, Fabien Waksman, Lepo Sumera and Caroline Shaw in particular. This conductor also uses unusual formats to attract new audiences to classical music. In June 2022, Nil Venditti conducted the Irish National Opera’s first virtual reality community opera ›Out of the Ordinary‹ which was developed for and with people from all over Ireland and which puts communities at the centre of the opera’s creative process. Nil Venditti also made her acclaimed debut with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen conducting at Musikfest Bremen and returned to the orchestra’s own ›Sommer in Lesmona‹  the following year.