The South African soprano Golda Schultz is internationally recognised as one of the most talented and versatile artists on the classical music scene. As a radiant stage personality, this singer is equally at home in leading opera roles and as a soloist with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors. Trained at the Juilliard School in New York and in the opera studio of the Bayerischen Staatsoper, Golda Schultz now enjoys great success on both sides of the Atlantic and impresses with her captivating charisma at the Salzburg Festival as well as at the Metropolitan Opera, the Wiener Staatsoper and the Glyndebourne Festival Opera.

Opera highlights of the 2024/25 season include her role as Anne Trulove in ›The Rake’s Progress‹ at the Opéra National de Paris and Contessa Almaviva at the Bayerischen Staatsoper, as Agathe in ›Der Freischütz‹ at the Semperoper Dresden and as Pamina at the Metropolitan Opera in New York. Her most recent appearances on the concert stage include Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with Andris Nelsons and the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with Gianandrea Noseda and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra and many more. Concert highlights included her return to the BBC Proms for Fauré’s Requiem with the BBC Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stéphane Denève as well as Strauss’ ›Vier letzte Lieder‹ with Paavo Järvi and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. Golda Schultz and pianist Jonathan Ware have performed together as acclaimed concert partners at venues including the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, London’s Wigmore Hall and the festivals in Edinburgh, Aix-en-Provence and Lucerne.

Born in Vilnius to a Lithuanian musical family, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla studied choral and orchestral conducting at the University for Music and the Performing Arts in Graz, and followed this with further studies at the Bologna Conservatory, the Leipzig College of Music and finally at the Zurich College of Art. In 2009, Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla was accepted into the Conductors’ Forum of the German Music Council (DMR) and the following year she gave her opera debut, conducting ›La Traviata‹ in Osnabrück. This young conductor first attracted international attention in 2012 when she won the coveted ›Salzburg Festival Young Conductors Award‹.

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla was engaged as Assistant Conductor to the Los Angeles Philharmonic for the 2014/15 season and enjoyed overwhelming popularity with both the orchestra and audiences alike. As a result of this popularity she was soon promoted to Associate Conductor, and subsequently took over the position of Music Director of the Salzburg State Theatre for the 2015/16 season. She also received – and accepted – numerous invitations from international orchestras and opera houses in Bern, Heidelberg, Salzburg and Berlin. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla has been Music Director at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra since the begininning of the 2016/17 season, where she follows in the footsteps of conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Sakari Oramo and Andris Nelsons.