Hannu Lintu is one of Finland’s most sought-after conductors and is rapidly creating an international career. He has been artistic director and chief conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra 2009–2013, and also principal guest conductor of the RTE National Symphony Orchestra in Dublin. Before assuming the new rôle of chief conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra in 2013, he was the orchestra’s chief guest conductor in 2012. Hannu Lintu was previously chief conductor of the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra and artistic director of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. He is a regular guest conductor with the Avanti! Chamber Orchestra in Finland and was artistic director of the orchestra’s Summer Sounds Festival in 2005.

Hannu Lintu studied the cello, the piano, and subsequently conducting with Jorma Panula at the Sibelius Academy. He participated in masterclasses with Myung-Whun Chung at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, Italy, and won first prize in the Nordic Conducting Competition in Bergen in 1994. He has appeared with the Cincinnati Symphony, Indianapolis Symphony, St Louis Symphony, Toronto Symphony, City of Birmingham Symphony and Dallas Symphony orchestras, the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Orquesta Sinfonica de RTVE, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Seoul Philharmonic and Royal Flemish Philharmonic orchestras. He has also conducted a cycle of the complete Beethoven Symphonies with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.

Daniel Müller-Schott is one of the most sought-after cellists in the world and can be heard on all the great international concert stages. For many years he has been enchanting audiences as an ambassador for classical music in the 21st century. The New York Times refers to his ‘intensive expressiveness’ and describes him as a ‘fearless player with technique to burn’.

Müller-Schott guests with international leading orchestras—in the US with the orchestras in New York, Boston, Cleveland, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Los Angeles; in Europe the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Bayrisches Staatsorchester and Münchner Philharmoniker, the Radio Orchestras from Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Leipzig and Hamburg, Copenhagen and Paris, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, the London Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestra, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Spanish National Orchestra as well as in Australia with the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and in Asia with Tokyo’s NHK Symphony Orchestra, Taiwan’s National Symphony Orchestra (NSO) and Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. He has appeared worldwide in concert with such renowned conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Thomas Dausgaard, Christoph Eschenbach, Iván Fischer, Alan Gilbert, Gustavo Gimeno, Bernard Haitink, Neeme Järvi, Karina Canellakis, Dmitrij Kitajenko, Susanna Mälkki, Andris Nelsons, Gianandrea Noseda, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Kirill Petrenko, Michael Sanderling and Krzysztof Urbański. Many years of musical collaboration linked him with Kurt Masur, Lorin Maazel, Yakov Kreizberg and Sir André Previn.

In addition to performances of the great cello concertos, Daniel Müller-Schott has a special interest in discovering unknown works and extending the cello repertoire, including his own transcriptions and through cooperation with contemporary composers. Sir André Previn and Peter Ruzicka have dedicated cello concertos to him, which were premiered under the direction of the composers with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

Daniel Müller-Schott receives Opus Klassik 2020 solo recording award

Baiba Skride’s natural approach to her music-making has endeared her to some of today’s most important conductors and orchestras worldwide. She is consistently invited for her refreshing interpretations, her sensitivity and delight in the music. The list of prestigious orchestras with whom she has worked include the Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouworkest, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra and NHK Symphony. Notable conductors she collaborates with include Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, Edward Gardner, Susanna Mälkki, Andris Nelsons, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Andris Poga, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Tugan Sokhiev, John Storgårds and Juraj Valcuha.

Skride was born into a musical Latvian family in Riga where she began her studies, transferring in 1995 to the Conservatory of Music and Theatre in Rostock. In 2001 she won the first prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Baiba Skride plays the Yfrah Neaman Stradivarius kindly loaned to her by the Neaman family through the Beare’s International Violin Society.