David Marlow has been the Chief Conductor of the Vogtland Philharmonie since 2014. From 2010 to 2015, he was Musical Assistant to Andris Nelsons at the Bayreuth Festival. On Nelson’s behalf, he took over the rehearsals for Lohengrin with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at short notice in December 2015. The overwhelmingly positive resonance from the orchestra has led to further engagements in the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Ireland.

To kick off the 2016/2017 season, Marlow debuted with the Ulster Orchestra Belfast and Rotterdam’s Philharmonisch Orkest, where he rehearsed all three concert programmes for the Gergiev Festival dedicated to the music of Prokofiev. Upcoming engagements include the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and Het Gelders Orkest as well as continued collaborations with the WDR Sinfonieorchester, the Jenaer Philharmonie and the Duisburger Philharmoniker.

His career as Kepellmeister led him first to Aachen and later to Chemnitz. From 2010 to 2013, David Marlow was the chorus master of the WDR Rundfunkchor. Over the last few years, Marlow has intensified his focus on symphonic music. As chief and guest conductor, he has performed many principal works from the classical and romantic repertoire as well as modern works. In the field of contemporary music, David Marlow has recently conducted such works as Con brio by Jörg Widmann, Industrial by Moritz Eggert and Takemitsu’s From me flows what you call time in addition to the German premieres of the operas Pinocchio by Jonathan Dove, Selma Jezkova by Paul Rouders as well as Ludger Vollmer’s Lola rennt.

David Marlow is also passionate about music education, and since 2014 has been involved in the »Werkbetrachtungen« for WDR3 radio listeners. One music education project with children, adolescents and adults in 2013 led him to work with the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra together with musicians from the WDR and BR Sinfonieorchester and the Ensemble Modern.

Thomas Hampson, America’s foremost baritone, has received international honors for his artistry and cultural leadership. Long recognized as one of the most innovative musicians of our time, his operatic repertoire is over 80 roles, and his discography comprises more than 170 albums, including multiple nominations and winners of the Grammy Award, Edison Award, and the Grand Prix du Disque. This season, Thomas makes highly anticipated role debut as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte at Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, under the baton of Zubin Mehta. In future seasons, he will create the role of Jan Vermeer in the world premiere of Stefan Wirth’s Girl with a Pearl Earring at Opernhaus Zürich.

Notable engagements on the concert stage include opening the Oslo Philharmonic’s season in August 2020 with their new Chief Conductor, Klaus Mäkela. At the Pierre Boulez Saal, he returns as Artistic Curator for the ›Schubert Week‹ with the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. Hampson also debuts a new series part of his long-term project ›Song of America‹ entitled ›A Celebration of Black Music.‹ The three-concert series features Hampson and numerous guest singers performing songs and works largely by black American composers as part of the digital Hamburg International Music Festival.