Martin Helmchen has established himself as one of today’s most in-demand and sought-after pianists, characterised by the originality and intensity of his interpretations, alongside his excellent tonal sensitivity and technical abilities. As a soloist, he has performed in recent years with some of the world’s most renowned orchestras on this side and the other side of the Atlantic, including the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic Orchestras, the Concertgebouworkest, the Orchestre de Paris as well as with the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the New York Philharmonic and the Cleveland Orchestra. Martin Helmchen also enjoys regular collaborations with renowned conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Manfred Honeck, Andrew Manze or Paavo Järvi and many others.

Chamber music has a special significance for the pianist. Close chamber music partners include his wife Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, Julian Prégardien, Antje Weithaas, Carolin Widmann and Frank Peter Zimmermann, with whom Helmchen will perform at recitals this autumn in London, Luxembourg and Monaco. Further highlights of the 2022/23 season included concerts with Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, with whom Helmchen presented three different projects. Martin Helmchen is also an exclusive artist with Alpha Classics. In 2020 he received the prestigious Gramophone Music Award for his recording of Ludwig van Beethoven’s complete piano concertos.

Pablo Heras-Casado enjoys an unusually varied and broad-ranging career, encompassing the great symphonic and operatic repertoire, historically informed performances, and contemporary scores. His musical character is best reflected by the quality of the long-term relationships he has nurtured with prestigious orchestras all around the world, while developing new ones each season.

During the 2019/20 season he marks his debut with Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Minnesota Orchestra, Royal Stockholm and Czech Philharmonic orchestras and Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen, while making return guest appearances with Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia Orchestra, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, NHK Symphony and Pittsburgh Symphony orchestras, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk and Verbier Festival Orchestra. He furthermore returns to The Juilliard School in New York to work with their period-instrument ensemble Juilliard415.

In the operatic field, Heras-Casado conducts Wagner’s ›Die Walküre‹ at Teatro Real in Madrid, where he is Principal Guest Conductor, continuing his first-ever complete Ring Cycle, which started with ›Das Rheingold‹ in the previous year and will span four consecutive seasons. He also returns to Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin to conduct ›Don Giovanni‹, a co-production of the opera house with the Salzburg Festival.

He enjoys a long-term collaboration with Freiburger Barockorchester with extensive touring and recording projects and is currently Director of the Granada Festival.

An extensive discography includes a developing series of recordings for the label harmonia mundi, entitled ›Die Neue Romantik‹. Selections of this series feature the music of Mendelssohn, Schumann and other Romantic composers.