Ian Bostridge

Ian Bostridge’s extraordinary international career has taken him to the foremost concert halls, orchestras and opera houses in the world. Synonymous with the works of Schubert and Britten, his recital career has taken him to the Salzburg, Edinburgh, Munich, Vienna, Aldeburgh and Schwarzenberg Schubertiade Festivals and to the main stages of Carnegie Hall, the Bayerische Staatsoper, La Monnaie and Teatro alla Scala. In opera, Ian has received particular praise for his interpretation of Aschenbach Death in Venice at the Deutsche Oper & Peter Quint The Turn of the Screw for Teatro alla Scala. His recordings have won all the major international record prizes and been nominated for 15 Grammys.

Ian has held artistic residencies at the Vienna Konzerthaus and Schwarzenberg Schubertiade, the Barbican, the Luxembourg Philharmonie, the Wigmore Hall and Hamburg Laeiszhalle. Ian has also participated in a Carte-Blanche series with Thomas Quasthoff at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and a Perspectives series at Carnegie Hall and the inaugural Artistic Residency with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra. Ian has worked with the Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Chicago, Boston, London and BBC Symphony orchestras, the London, New York, Los Angeles Philharmonic orchestras, the Rotterdam Philharmonisch Orkest, Accademia di Santa Cecilia and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Colin Davis, Sir Andrew Davis, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Antonio Pappano, Riccardo Muti, Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniel Barenboim, Daniel Harding and Donald Runnicles.

Highlights of the 23/24 season include artistic residencies for the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and as Duo Artist in Residence at LIED Basel with Julius Drake. His plans include Les Nuits d'Eté with Orchestre de Chambre du Luxembourg cond. Corinna Niemeyer, St Matthew Passion with Musikkollegium Winterthur cond. Roberto González-Monjas, with Capella Cracoviensis and with Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra cond. Jarosław Thiel, Les Illuminations with City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra cond. Madaras, Mendelssohn’s Lobgesang with Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León cond. Koncz and Evangelist St John Passion with Orchestre national d'Auvergne cond. Henri Chalet, alongside performances with Camerata Bern, the Oberon Trio at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Les Talens Lyriques with Christophe Rousset at Trifolion Echternach and Compagnia di Punto at the Elbphilharmonie.  Elsewhere, Ian undertakes a Japanese concert tour with the Sapporo Symphony Orchestra cond. Matthias Bamert, a Korean concert tour of Les Illuminations with the Sejong soloists and repeats his ‘Tormento d’amore’ programme on tour with Capella Neapolitana. Recitals for this season include appearances at the Wigmore Hall with Andreas Haefliger & Dame Imogen Cooper, the Fundação Centro Cultural de Belém with Luís Duarte, the Herbst Theatre and Music and Beyond Festival in Ottawa with Wenwen Du, Shanghai Symphony Hall, Juliusz Sowacki Theatre Krakow & the Beethovenhaus Bonn with Saskia Giorgini, the Settimane Musicali di Ascona Festival with Dame Imogen Cooper, as well as the Stadtkirch Brugg, Theatre Royal Bath, Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti Rome, LIED Basel & on tour in Japan with long-time collaborator, Julius Drake.

His many recordings have won all the major international record prizes and been nominated for 15 Grammys. His recording for Pentatone of Schubert’s Winterreise with Thomas Adès won the Vocal Recording of the Year 2020 in the International Classical Music Awards. Recent recordings include Respighi Songs and Die schöne Mullerin with Saskia Giorgini for Pentatone, Tormento d’Amore, Shakespeare songs (Grammy Award, 2017) and Requiem: The Pity of War with Pappano for Warner Classics, as well as Berlioz’s Les Nuits d'Eté, Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Debussy’s Le Livre de Baudelaire arr. John Adams with Ludovic Morlot and the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The 22/23 season season saw the release Ian’s latest two albums through Pentatone: The Folly of Desire with Brad Mehldau and Schwanengesang with Lars Vogt.

His book Schubert's Winter Journey: Anatomy of an Obsession was published by Faber and Faber in the UK and Knopf in the USA in 2014, and his most recent book Song and Self was published in 2023. He was made a CBE in the 2004 New Year’s Honours. 

Julius Drake

Julius Drake, described by The New Yorker magazine as the ‘collaborative pianist nonpareil’, lives in London and enjoys an international reputation as one of the finest instrumentalists in his field, collaborating with many of the world’s leading artists, both in recital and on disc. He appears regularly at all the major festivals and music centres: the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Munich, Schubertiade, and Salzburg Music Festivals; Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, New York; The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; the Philharmonie, Berlin; the Châtelet and Musée du Louvre, Paris; La Scala, Milan; Teatro de la Zarzuela, Madrid; Musikverein and Konzerthaus, Vienna; and Wigmore Hall and the BBC Proms, London. Director of the Perth International Chamber Music Festival in Australia from 2000 to 2003, Julius was also musical director of Deborah Warner’s staging of Janáček’s ‘The Diary of One Who Disappeared’, which toured to Munich, London, Dublin, Amsterdam, and New York. Since 2009, Julius has been Artistic Director of the Machynlleth Festival in Wales.

Julius’s passionate interest in song has led to invitations to devise song series for Wigmore Hall, London; The Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam; the 92nd Y, New York; and the Pierre Boulez Saal, Berlin. His annual series of song recitals – Julius Drake and Friends – in the historic Middle Temple Hall in London, has featured recitals with many outstanding vocal artists including Sir Thomas Allen, Olaf Bär, Ian Bostridge, Dame Sarah Connolly, Alice Coote, Lucy Crowe, Angelika Kirchschlager, Iestyn Davies, Veronique Gens, Sergei Leiferkus, Dame Felicity Lott, Simon Keenlyside, Christopher Maltman, Mark Padmore, and Sir Willard White. Julius is frequently invited to perform at international chamber music festivals – most recently, Stiftung Schleswig-Holstein, Lübeck; West Cork, Ireland and Oxford, England.

Julius holds a Professorship at Graz University in Austria for Music and the Performing Arts, where he has a class for song pianists. He is also a Professor of Collaborative Piano at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He is regularly invited to give masterclasses worldwide; in Aldeburgh, Brussels, Utrecht, Cincinnati, New York, Toronto, Minneapolis, Ann Arbor, Vienna, and annually at the Schubert Institute in Baden bei Wien.

Julius’ many recordings include a widely acclaimed series with Gerald Finley for Hyperion Records (from which ‘Songs by Samuel Barber’, ‘Schumann: Dichterliebe & other Heine Settings’ and ‘Britten: Songs & Proverbs of William Blake’ won the 2007, 2009 and 2011 Gramophone Awards); award winning recordings with Ian Bostridge and Alice Coote for EMI; several recorded recitals for Wigmore Hall Live with artists including Joyce DiDonato, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Christopher Maltman and Matthew Polenzani; recordings of French Sonatas for Virgin Classics with Nicholas Daniel; Kodaly and Schoeck cello and piano sonatas with Natalie Clein and Christian Poltéra for Hyperion Records and BIS Records; Tchaikovsky and Mahler songs with Christianne Stotijn for Onyx Classics; English song with Bejun Mehta for Harmonia Mundi; and Schubert’s ‘Poetisches Tagebuch’ with Christoph Prégardien, which won the Jahrespreis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik in 2016.

Julius’ most recent CDs have been widely critically acclaimed and include Janáček’s ‘The Diary of One Who Disappeared’ with tenor Nicky Spence and mezzo-soprano Václava Housková, winner of a 2020 Gramophone Award and a 2020 BBC Music Magazine Award; ‘Paradise Lost’ with the soprano Anna Prohaska; and Volume 6 of the Liszt Complete Songs (Hyperion Records) with the soprano Julia Kleiter. The second CD in this Liszt series with Angelika Kirchschlager won the BBC Music Magazine Award in 2012.

Concerts this season include three recitals in the series ‘Lied und Lyrik’ in the Boulez Saal Berlin; recital tours in the USA with Matthew Polenzani, Japan with Ian Bostridge, and European tours with Gerald Finley and Anna Prohaska.

Other highlights include Oxford International Lieder Festival with Christine Rice; the Aldeburgh Festival with Andrè Schuen; the Wigmore Hall, London with Brindley Sherratt; l’Athénée, Paris, Middle Temple Hall, London with Alan Clayton; and in Stuttgart with Günther Groissböck, as well as performances in Bath, Brugg, Basel and Rome with Ian Bostridge.