Christina Landshamer is a versatile artist who, as recitalist as well as with her varied concert and opera repertoire, is in international demand. Her collaborations with renowned conductors such as Herbert Blomstedt, Manfred Honeck, Alan Gilbert, Marek Janowski and many others regularly result in concerts with major international orchestras – from the Berlin Philharmonic to the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra to the Orchestre de Paris. In The States, this soprano has also appeared with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with the Pittsburgh Symphony and the Montreal Symphony Orchestras.

Christina Landshamer has given opera performances at the Komische Oper Berlin, at the Theater an der Wien with Nikolaus Harnoncourt and also with Sir Simon Rattle at the Salzburg Festspiele. At the Nationaloper Amsterdam, she has sung ›Pamina‹ in Simon McBurney’s ›Zauberflöte‹ and ›Woglinde‹ in Wagner’s ›Rheingold‹ at the Bayerischen Staatsoper with Kirill Petrenko conducting. She has also performed in a spectacular La-Fura-dels-Baus production of Haydn’s ›Schöpfung‹ in Paris as well as at the Mostly Mozart Festival in New York. With her warm, lyric soprano voice, Christina Landshamer is as welcome as a Lieder singer at the Schwarzenberg Schubertiade as she is in London, New York or Tokyo.

She has over 50 CD and DVD recordings to her name and was called to take up a professorship for Vocal Studies at the Trossingen College of Music in 2021.

Founded by Helmuth Rilling in 1954, the Gächinger Kantorei has enjoyed the sponsorship of the International Bach Academy Stuttgart since 1981 and is today considered one of the world’s most outstanding concert choirs. During its long history which spans more than 60 years, the choir has performed hundreds of concerts, made countless guest appearances, Radio and CD recordings and can lay claim to inestimable influence through its various notable credentials, for example its collaborations with renowned guest conductors and orchestras, including Masaaki Suzuki, Krzysztof Penderecki and Sir Roger Norrington as well as the Vienna Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Israel Philharmonic.

During the 2016/17 season, the Bach Academy’s vocal and instrumental ensembles underwent a fundamental change and have since been performing under the one shared name of ›Gaechinger Cantorey‹. The deliberately archaic spelling unites the choir – which Academy Director Hans-Christoph Rademann has been gradually reforming since his appointment in 2013 – with the newly-formed Baroque orchestra. Based on the historical traditions of the Bach era and with its roots in live performance history, the Gaechinger Cantorey stands for a holistic musical approach and the aesthetic sound-ideal of the Baroque. This authentic sound is achieved today through the use of Baroque instruments and musicians who are experts in Baroque performance practices, as well as choirs whose singers are as talented as ›Ripienists‹ (ensemble singers) as they are ›Concertistas‹ (soloists).

The Estonian conductor and Grammy Award winner Paavo Järvi has served as Artistic Director of the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen since 2004. One of the many highlights of this long standing collaboration was the widely acclaimed Beethoven cycle, whose performances were celebrated by critics around the world and honoured with numerous awards, including the Echo Klassik for “Conductor of the Year.” The Beethoven project was followed by an intensive exploration of the symphonic works of Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms; both cycles likewise received multiple distinctions. Since autumn 2021, the orchestra has turned its focus to Joseph Haydn’s twelve London Symphonies, followed in 2024 by an in depth engagement with the symphonies of Franz Schubert.

Since the 2019/20 season, Paavo Järvi has also served as Music Director of the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich. Starting with the 2028/29 season, Järvi will assume the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the founder and Artistic Director of the Estonian Festival Orchestra and the Pärnu Music Festival, which he established in 2011. As a guest conductor, he regularly appears with leading orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the New York and Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In 2015, Paavo Järvi was named Artist of the Year by both Gramophone magazine (UK) and Diapason (France). This was followed in 2019 by the Opus Klassik award for Conductor of the Year. Further honours include a Grammy Award for his recording of Sibelius’ Cantatas with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and the title Commandeur de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, awarded by the French Ministry of Culture. In recognition of his commitment to promoting the music of Jean Sibelius, he received the Sibelius Medal in 2015, and in 2012 he was awarded the Hindemith Prize for Art and Humanity. For his dedication to Estonian culture, Paavo Järvi was awarded the Order of the White Star by the President of Estonia in 2013, and in 2024 he received the Bremen Senate Medal for Art and Science.

Gerhild Romberger was born in the Emsland. After studying music for schools at theAcademy of Music in Detmold, she studied with Mitsuko Shirai and Hartmut Höll.

As a passionate concert-singer her extremely extensive repertoire encompasses allthe major contralto and mezzo-soprano parts in the oratorio and concert repertoirefrom the Baroque to the Classical and Romantic periods to the 20thcentury music.

Significant steps in Gerhild Romberger´s career in recent years were concerts with Manfred Honeck, the Berlin Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel, with the LosAngeles Philharmonic under Herbert Blomstedt and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester under Riccardo Chailly. Furthermore, she performed with the Vienna and Bamberg Symphony Orchestras under Daniel Harding or at La Scalaunder Franz Welser-Möst.

Highlights of the current season include a concert tour with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Beethoven´s 9th Symphony under the baton of Andris Nelsons as wellas Mahler´s 3rd Symphony with Concertgebouworkest in Amsterdam. Furthermore, she can be heard with Mahler´s ›Kindertotenlieder‹ and the Budapest Festival Orchestra and with Schumann´s ›Das Paradies und Die Peri‹ at Hamburg´s Elbphilharmonie.