His horn playing is a joy, according to ›BBC Music Magazine‹ and ›The Times‹ praises Ben Goldscheider as simply »superb«. This London-born horn player has performed recitals and concerts in major venues across Europe, from the Concertgebouw to Vienna’s Musikverein, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and London’s Wigmore Hall. In 2022, this soloist made his BBC Proms concert debut with Kazuki Yamada and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He has also appeared as soloist with the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Britten Sinfonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. Ben Goldscheider is also a dedicated chamber musician and has worked with Daniel Barenboim, Martha Argerich, Sergei Babyan, Elena Bashkirova, Sunwook Kim and Michael Volle at festivals in Verbier, Salzburg, Jerusalem, Berlin and Buenos Aires.

Goldscheider is a member of the Boulez Ensemble and principal horn of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. He studied with with Radek Baborák at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin where he graduated in 2020 with distinction. In the 2023/24 season, several world premieres of newly commissioned works for horn are on his programme, including the Horn Concerto by Huw Watkins, which he will perform in his debut with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen.

Duncan Ward has been Chief Conductor of the Philzuid since 2021. Highlights of recent seasons have included his conducting engagements at the opening ceremony of the Salzburg Festival with the Mozarteum Orchestra which was broadcast live on television, his debut with the Staatskapelle Dresden and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra. In autumn 2022, this British conductor gave his Metropolitan Opera debut with Mozart’s ›Die Zauberflöte‹. The season before, he gave his debut at the Opéra national du Rhin in Strasbourg with a new production of ›Così fan tutte‹. Duncan Ward will return to the London Symphony Orchestra for two projects in the 2023/24 season. Other symphonic highlights include collaborations with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg and the Kammerakademie Potsdam.

Duncan Ward has a passion for a very broad repertoire and as well as working with period instrument specialists such as the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, he also enjoys working with contemporary music ensembles such as the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Duncan Ward has been closely associated with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen for many years. For example, he conducted the orchestra at the Schleswig-Holstein and the Swiss Klosters Festivals in summer 2021. Ward has also been involved in many international social projects since his youth, including in India and South Africa.