Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, host and coach

Michael Tilson Thomas is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of the New World Symphony, America’s Orchestral Academy; Music Director Laureate of the San Francisco Symphony; and Conductor Laureate of the London Symphony Orchestra. In addition to these posts, he maintains an active presence guest conducting with the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.

Born in Los Angeles, Mr. Tilson Thomas is the third generation of his family to follow an artistic career. His grandparents, Boris and Bessie Thomashefsky, were founding members of the Yiddish Theater in America. His father, Ted Thomas, was a producer in the Mercury Theater Company in New York before moving to Los Angeles where he worked in films and television. His mother, Roberta Thomas, was the head of research for Columbia Pictures.

Mr. Tilson Thomas began his formal studies at the University of Southern California, where he studied piano with John Crown, and conducting and composition with Ingolf Dahl. At age 19 he was named Music Director of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra. During this same period, he was the pianist and conductor in master classes of Gregor Piatigorsky and Jascha Heifetz and worked with Stravinsky, Boulez, Stockhausen and Copland on premieres of their compositions at Los Angeles’ Monday Evening Concerts.

In 1969, after winning the Koussevitzky Prize at Tanglewood, he was appointed Assistant Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. That year he also made his New York debut with the Boston Symphony and gained international recognition after replacing Music Director William Steinberg in mid-concert. He was later appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra where he remained until 1974. He was Music Director of the Buffalo Philharmonic from 1971 to 1979 and a Principal Guest Conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1981 to 1985. His guest conducting includes appearances with the major orchestras of Europe and the United States.

Mr. Tilson Thomas is a two-time Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist, curating and conducting series at the hall from 2003 to 2005 and from 2018 to 2019. In the most recent series, he led Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America both at the hall and on tour in Asia, opened the Carnegie Hall season over two evenings with the San Francisco Symphony, conducted two programs with the Vienna Philharmonic and finished with a pair of concerts leading the New World Symphony.

A winner of eleven Grammy Awards, Mr. Tilson Thomas appears on more than 120 recordings. His discography includes The Mahler Project, a collection of the composer’s complete symphonies and works for voice and orchestra performed with the San Francisco Symphony, in addition to pioneering recordings of music by Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Steve Reich, John Cage, Ingolf Dahl, Morton Feldman, George Gershwin, John McLaughlin and Elvis Costello. His recordings span repertoire from Bach and Beethoven to Debussy and Stravinsky, and from Sarah Vaughan to Metallica.

His television work includes a series with the London Symphony Orchestra for BBC Television, broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts from 1971 to 1977 and numerous productions on PBS’s Great Performances. With the San Francisco Symphony, he created a multi-tiered media project, Keeping Score, which includes a television series, web sites, and radio programs. He received a Peabody Award for his SFS Media radio series The MTT Files.

Mr. Tilson Thomas’s compositions are published by G. Schirmer. In 1991, he and the New World Symphony were presented in a series of benefit concerts for UNICEF in the United States, featuring Audrey Hepburn as narrator of his work From the Diary of Anne Frank, which was commissioned by UNICEF. This piece has since been translated and performed in many languages worldwide. In August 1995, he led the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra in the premiere of his composition Shówa/Shoáh, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. His vocal music includes settings of poetry by Walt Whitman and Emily Dickinson, which were premiered by Thomas Hampson and Renée Fleming, respectively. In 2016, Yuja Wang premiered his piano piece You Come Here Often?.

Mr. Tilson Thomas' song cycle Four Preludes on Playthings of the Wind, a setting of Carl Sandburg’s poem, was premiered in 2016 by the New World Symphony, with Measha Brueggergosman as soloist. In 2019 the piece was recorded for Medici.tv at the New World Center and given its New York premiere as part of Mr. Tilson Thomas’s second Carnegie Hall Perspectives series. His first Perspectives series also featured performances of his own compositions, including Island Music for four marimbas and percussion; Notturno for solo flute and strings, featuring soloist Paula Robison; and new settings of poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. In 2020, he led the San Francisco Symphony in the world premiere of his six-part song cycle Meditations on Rilke, and he subsequently conducted the work at the Cleveland Orchestra. Additional compositions include Street Song for brass instruments; Agnegram, an overture for orchestra; and Urban Legend, a concerto for contrabassoon that was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony. In June 2020, SFS Media released an album of works composed by Mr. Tilson Thomas, featuring live concert recordings of From the Diary of Anne Frank, narrated by mezzo-soprano Isabel Leonard, and Meditations on Rilke, sung by mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke and bass-baritone Ryan McKinny.

Mr. Tilson Thomas is an Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, was Musical America’s Musician of the Year and Conductor of the Year, was Gramophone magazine’s Artist of the Year and has been profiled on CBS’s 60 Minutes and ABC’s Nightline. He has been awarded the National Medal of Arts, has been inducted into the California Hall of Fame and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and was a 2019 recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.

Christian Tetzlaff, violin

An artist known for his musical integrity, technical assurance and intelligent, compelling interpretations, Christian Tetzlaff has for many years been internationally recognized as one of the most sought-after violinists and exciting musicians on the classical music scene.

Concerts with Mr. Tetzlaff often turn into an existential experience for both the interpreter and the audience; suddenly familiar works appear in a completely new light. From the outset of his career, he has performed and recorded a broad spectrum of the repertoire, ranging from Bach's unaccompanied sonatas and partitas to 19th-century masterworks by Mendelssohn, Beethoven and Brahms; and from 20th-century concertos by Bartók, Berg and Shostakovich to world premieres of contemporary works such as the Jorg Widmann Violin Concerto. A dedicated chamber musician, he frequently collaborates with distinguished artists including Leif Ove Andsnes and Lars Vogt, and is the founder of the Tetzlaff Quartet, which he formed in 1994 with violinist Elisabeth Kufferath, violist Hanna Weinmeister and his sister, cellist Tanja Tetzlaff.

Mr. Tetzlaff works regularly with the world's leading orchestras, collaborating with conductors including Christoph Eschenbach, Andris Nelsons, Antonio Pappano, Robin Ticciati, Vladimir Jurowski, Paavo Järvi and Manfred Honeck. In North America, he performs with the orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Minnesota and Montreal, among many others, as well as with major European ensembles including the Berlin and Vienna philharmonics, London Symphony and London Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Dresden Staatskappelle and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. He also appears at the world’s most prominent summer music festivals, including Verbier, Salzburg, Tanglewood, Edinburgh, The Proms and New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival.

During the 2018-19 season, Mr. Tetzlaff returns to Tanglewood to work with the Boston Symphony under Thomas Adès, as well as to the Cleveland and National Arts Centre orchestras and the Detroit, New World and Toronto symphonies. He is the featured soloist on a U.S. tour with the San Francisco Symphony and Michael Tilson Thomas, with performances in Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston and Seattle; and tours with his trio partners, Tanja Tetzlaff and Lars Vogt, to Los Angeles, San Francisco, Vancouver, New York, Washington, D.C. and Denver. Internationally, he tours Vietnam with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and appears with the London Symphony, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Munich Philharmonic and Helsinki Philharmonic; and is Artist in Residence at London’s Wigmore Hall.

Mr. Tetzlaff has received numerous awards for his many recordings, including the Diapason d’or in July 2018, the Midem Classical Award in 2017 and the German Record Critics’ Award in 2015. Most recently, his recording of the Bartók Violin Concertos with the Helsinki Philharmonic and Hannu Lintu was chosen as the Gramophone Concerto Recording of the Year. Of special significance is his recording of the unaccompanied Bach Sonatas and Partitas, which he recorded for the third time in 2017 for Ondine.

Music occupied a central place in Mr. Tetzlaff’s family and his three siblings are all professional musicians. Born in Hamburg in 1966, he did not begin intensive study of the violin until making his concert debut playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto at the age of 14 and attributes the establishment of his musical outlook to his teacher at the conservatory in Lübeck, Uwe-Martin Haiberg, for whom musical interpretation was the key to violin technique, rather than the other way around.

Mr. Tetzlaff currently performs on a violin modeled after a Guarneri del Gesu made by German violin maker Peter Greiner.

Jeannette Sorrell, conductor and harpsichord

Award-winning harpsichordist and conductor ​Jeannette Sorrell ​has been credited by the BBC Music Magazine for forging​ “a vibrant, life-affirming approach to the remaking of early music… a seductive vision of musical authenticity.”​ She takes her inspiration from the 17th-century concept of ​Affekt​, in which the goal of the musician is to move the emotions of the listeners. Ms. Sorrell makes use of Baroque dramatic devices, including rhetoric and harmonic tension and release, to bring Baroque repertoire to life in a highly personal and communicative way.   

Ms. Sorrell’s recent and upcoming guest conducting engagements include Handel’s Messiah in her Kennedy Center debut with the National Symphony in December 2017, as well as returns to the New World and Utah symphonies and debuts with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and at the Grand Teton Festival. She has previously led the Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Opera Theatre of St. Louis with the St. Louis Symphony, Handel & Haydn Society (Boston) and the symphony orchestras of Jacksonville, Omaha, North Carolina, and Grand Rapids.

Founder and conductor of Apollo’s Fire, Ms. Sorrell has built one of the largest audiences of any North American Baroque orchestras, with performances across America and Europe including the Tanglewood, Aldeburgh, BBC Proms and Aspen festivals, Metropolitan Museum in New York, Library of Congress and London’s Wigmore Hall.  

Ms. Sorrell and Apollo’s Fire record for the British label AVIE RECORDS and have released 24 commercial CDs, of which seven have been bestsellers on the Billboard Classical chart. Her recordings include the complete ​Brandenburg Concertos​ and ​harpsichord concertos​ (with Ms. Sorrell as harpsichord soloist and director), which was praised by the The Times of London as “a swaggering version… brilliantly played by Sorrell.”  Her other bestsellers with Apollo’s Fire include two crossover/folk programs, Sacrum Mysterium:  A Celtic Christmas Vespers​ and ​Come to the River: An Early American Gathering.  For the research and production of the latter disc, she received an American Masterpieces grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, one of two she has been awarded by the NEA.  

Ms. Sorrell’s other awards include an honorary doctorate from Case Western University, Bodky Award from the Cambridge Society of Early Music and Noah Greenberg Award from the American Musicological Society. Passionate about guiding the next generation of performers, Ms. Sorrell has led many Baroque projects for Oberlin Conservatory and the Cleveland Institute of Music. She has also developed a highly successful Young Artist Apprentice Program to provide pre-professional training for talented period-instrument students under the auspices of Apollo’s Fire.  

Born in the U.S. of Swiss and American parents, Ms. Sorrell was one of the youngest students ever accepted to the prestigious conducting courses of the Aspen and Tanglewood music festivals, studying conducting under Robert Spano, Roger Norrington and Leonard Bernstein, and harpsichord with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam. She holds an artist diploma from Oberlin Conservatory, whereupon graduation she was invited to join the faculty of the Oberlin Baroque Performance Institute. 

Bernard Labadie, conductor

Bernard Labadie has established himself worldwide as one of the preeminent conductors of the Baroque and Classical repertoire, a reputation closely tied to his work with Les Violons du Roy (for which he served as Music Director from its inception until 2014) and La Chapelle de Québec. With these two ensembles he has regularly toured Canada, the U.S. and Europe, in major venues and festivals such as Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Walt Disney Concert Hall, Kennedy Center, The Barbican, The Concertgebouw and the Salzburg Festival, among others. He begins a four-year term as Principal Conductor of the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in the 2018-19 season.

In 2017-18 Mr. Labadie led the Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall as its designated principal conductor. Also in 2017-18 he was guest conductor of the Baltimore Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, St. Louis Symphony, Toronto Symphony and the National Arts Centre Orchestra (Ottawa). Internationally, his season included conducting the Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Finnish Radio Orchestra, Academy for Early Music Berlin (in Hamburg) and Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra.

Since his triumphant debut with the Minnesota Orchestra, Mr. Labadie has become a regular presence on the podiums of the major North American orchestras, including the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Colorado, Detroit, Houston, Montreal, St. Louis, San Francisco and Toronto symphonies; the Cleveland and Philadelphia orchestras; the Los Angeles and New York philharmonics; and the Handel & Haydn Society.

International audiences in past seasons have seen and heard Mr. Labadie conduct the Bavarian Radio Symphony, National Orchestra of France, Academy of Ancient Music, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, BBC Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony, Orchestra of the Collegium Vocale Ghent, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, WDR Symphony Orchestra (Cologne) and Zurich Chamber Orchestra.

On the opera podium, Mr. Labadie has served tenures as artistic director of L’Opéra de Québec and L’Opéra de Montréal. He made his Metropolitan Opera debut with Mozart’s The Magic Flute, a work which he also led at the Cincinnati Opera. Other operatic highlights include Handel’s Orlando with Glimmerglass Opera, Mozart’s Così fan tutte at the Mostly Mozart Festival, Mozart’s Lucio Silla with Santa Fe Opera and concert versions of Handel’s Theodora and Samson. In 2017 he made his long-awaited debut with the Canadian Opera Company, conducting The Magic Flute.

Mr. Labadie’s extensive discography includes many critically acclaimed recordings on Dorian, ATMA and Virgin Classics labels, including Handel’s Apollo e Dafne and a collaborative recording of Mozart’s Requiem with Les Violons du Roy and La Chapelle de Québec, both of which received Canada’s Juno Award. Other recordings include C.P.E. Bach’s complete cello concertos with Truls Mørk and Les Violons du Roy; J.S. Bach’s complete piano concertos with Alexandre Tharaud, both on Virgin Classics; and Haydn’s piano concertos with Marc-André Hamelin as soloist, released by Hyperion.

In 2016 Mr. Labadie received the Samuel de Champlain award in Paris. The Canadian government appointed him as an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2005 and his home province named him a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Québec in 2006.

James Gaffigan, conductor

Hailed for his natural ease and compelling musicianship, James Gaffigan is considered one of the most outstanding American conductors working today. He has attracted international attention for his prowess both as a conductor of opera and symphony orchestras.

James Gaffigan is Chief Conductor of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester and Principal Guest Conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also Music Director Designate of the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra. Since becoming Chief Conductor in Lucerne nine seasons ago, he has made a significant impact on the orchestra’s profile, both at home and abroad, thanks to their successful concerts, international tours and recordings.

Gaffigan is in high demand working with leading orchestras and opera companies throughout North America, Europe and Asia. The 2020/21 season features debuts with the Paris Opera and Philharmonia Orchestra of London plus returns to the New York Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra in D.C. and Bayerische Staatsoper. He leads his final season as Chief Conductor in Lucerne that commences with a South American tour and culminates in an Asia tour with Rudolf Buchbinder as soloist.

Recent symphonic highlights include appearances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Orchestre de Paris, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Staatskapelle Dresden, Vienna Symphony, Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, Tokyo Metropolitan and Seoul Philharmonic.

In North America, Gaffigan works with top orchestras including the Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, Toronto Symphony, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and Los Angeles Philharmonic.

A regular at the Metropolitan Opera and Bayerische Staatsoper, Gaffigan is equally at home in the opera house and conducts at the Zürich Opera, Vienna Staatsoper, Staatsoper Hamburg, Dutch National Opera, Glyndebourne Festival, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Santa Fe Opera.

James Gaffigan was First Prize winner of the 2004 Sir Georg Solti International Conducting Competition. In 2009, he completed a three-year tenure as Associate Conductor of the San Francisco Symphony, a position created for him by Michael Tilson Thomas. Prior to that, he was Assistant Conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra, where he worked with Music Director Franz Welser Möst.

Passionate about music education and a product of the New York City public school system, James Gaffigan grew up in Staten Island and studied at the LaGuardia High School of Music and Art before pursuing his conducting studies.

Jeffrey Kahane, piano

Equally at home at the keyboard or on the podium, Jeffrey Kahane has established an international reputation as a truly versatile artist, recognized by audiences around the world for his mastery of a diverse repertoire ranging from Bach, Mozart and Beethoven to Gershwin, Golijov and John Adams.

Mr. Kahane regularly appears as a soloist with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chicago and San Francisco symphonies, among many others. He is also a popular artist at all of the major U.S. summer festivals, including Aspen, Blossom, Caramoor, Mostly Mozart and Ravinia. In 2016 he was appointed Music Director of the Sarasota Music Festival.

Mr. Kahane made his conducting debut at the Oregon Bach Festival in 1988. Since then, he has guest conducted many of the major U.S. orchestras including the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Indianapolis and New World symphonies, among others. In 2017 Mr. Kahane completed his 20th and final season as Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), where he is now the orchestra’s Conductor Laureate. He also served as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony from 2005 through 2010, and for 10 seasons was Music Director of the Santa Rosa Symphony, where he is also now Conductor Laureate. He has received much recognition for his innovative programming and commitment to education and community involvement with all three orchestras and received ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming for his work in both Los Angeles and Denver.

Mr. Kahane’s recent and upcoming engagements include a play/conduct for the fourth time with the New York Philharmonic, as well as play/conducts with the Houston, Indianapolis, Vancouver, Milwaukee, Colorado, San Diego, San Antonio and Phoenix symphonies; concerto appearances with the Toronto, Cincinnati, New World, New Jersey, Oregon and Utah symphonies; and appearances at the Aspen, Britt, Oregon Bach and Tippet Rise festivals, as well as with the Chicago Symphony at Ravinia and with New York’s Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. 

Mr. Kahane has also recently conducted two productions of Kurt Weill’s operas: the first, a rare production of Weill’s last Broadway opera, Lost in the Stars, during his final LACO season; and the second, a fully staged production of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with the Hamburg Symphony in 2018.

A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Mr. Kahane's early piano studies were with Howard Weisel and Jakob Gimpel. First-prize winner at the 1983 Rubinstein Competition and a finalist at the 1981 Van Cliburn Competition, he was also the recipient of a 1983 Avery Fisher Career Grant. An avid linguist who reads widely in a number of ancient and modern languages, Mr. Kahane received a master’s degree in classics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2011. He is currently Professor of Keyboard Studies at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music.

Mr. Kahane resides in Los Angeles with his wife, Martha, a clinical psychologist in private practice. They have two children: Gabriel, a composer, pianist and singer/songwriter, and Annie, a dancer and poet.