The Hallé

About the Hallé

Now in its 165th season, the Hallé ranks among the UK’s top symphonic ensembles. With a reputation for artistic excellence, the Hallé remains determined to seek ways to enhance and refresh what it undertakes. Sir Mark Elder became Music Director in 2000.

Founded in Manchester by Sir Charles Hallé, the Hallé gave its first concert in the Free Trade Hall on 30 January 1858. The Hallé’s distinguished history of acclaimed performances includes over 70 concerts each year in The Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, around 40 concerts a year around Britain, international tours, frequent broadcasts and televised performances.

The players in the Hallé are among the finest in the world and have come from 14 countries all over the world to work in Manchester. Many teach at the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham’s School of Music and other UK wide specialist Conservatoires and schools, playing and teaching in the wider community. All are involved in the Hallé’s concerts in the UK and overseas and are central to our huge community and outreach programme.

halle.co.uk 

About Kevin John Edusei

Kevin John Edusei is praised repeatedly for the drama and tension that he brings to his music-making, for his clear sense of architecture and attention to detail.

A suave and elegant figure on the podium, he has conducted widely across Europe, dividing his time equally between the concert hall and opera house. He is Chief Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of Edusei’s 2020/21 season include his debuts with the London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and his return to the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic at the Concertgebouw.  Highlights of previous seasons include the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Bamberg Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber orchestras as well as his BBC Proms and Royal Festival Hall debuts with the Chineke! Orchestra.

Edusei was appointed Chief Conductor of the Munich Symphony Orchestra in 2014. He has been applauded for introducing an eclectic range of repertoire into the MSO concert programmes and cultivating a loyal, trusting audience, and in recognition of these achievements the orchestra was awarded the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal Government in 2018. In 2019 Edusei will lead the Munich Symphony Orchestra on their first tour of China and Korea.

As Chief Conductor at Bern Opera House, Edusei has led many new productions including Peter Grimes, Salome, Bluebeard’s Castle, Tannhäuser, Kátya Kábanová, a cycle of the Mozart Da Ponte operas – described in the press as “rousing and brilliant” – and Ariadne auf Naxos which led the Neue Zürcher Zeitung to describe him as “the discovery“ of the production. Elsewhere Edusei has conducted at the Semperoper Dresden (Mozart’s Die Entführung aus dem Serail and Hindemith’s Cardillac) and in 2018 he made his debut at the Hamburg State Opera. He has conducted Die Zauberflöte at the Volksoper Wien and Komische Oper Berlin where he has also conducted Don Giovanni. In 19/20 he makes his debut at the Hannover State Opera in a new production of Tosca and at English National Opera in a new production of The Marriage of Figaro.

Edusei has a varied discography, which includes recordings with the Bern Symphony Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra and Tonkünstler Orchestra, and he is currently mid-way through a cycle of the complete Schubert symphonies with the Munich Symphony Orchestra.

Edusei was born in Germany.  In 2004 he was awarded the fellowship for the American Academy of Conducting at the Aspen Music Festival by David Zinman, in 2007 he was a prize-winner at the Lucerne Festival conducting competition under the artistic direction of Pierre Boulez and Peter Eötvös, and in 2008 he won the International Dimitris Mitropoulos Competition.

kevinjohnedusei.com

About Nelson Goerner

Nelson Goerner is one of today’s greatest classical pianists. He is heralded for his performances of the highest art and poetry, while at the same time possessing exhilarating and masterful conviction.

Nelson Goerner has performed with many of today’s major orchestras including the Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie, Hallé Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia and NHK Symphony Orchestra, and with several of today’s leading conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Philippe Herreweghe, Neeme Järvi, Sir Mark Elder, Paavo Järvi, Vassily Sinaisky, Jonathan Nott, Fabio Luisi and Esa-Pekka Salonen. His festival appearances include today’s most prestigious engagements, including Salzburg Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron, La Grange de Meslay, Edinburgh International Festival, Festival de Verbier, La Folle Journée (Nantes and Tokyo), Schleswig-Holstein, Warsaw’s ‘Chopin and his Europe’ and the BBC Proms.

A keen chamber musician, Nelson Goerner has collaborated with artists such as Martha Argerich (in repertoire for two pianos), Janine Jansen, Steven Isserlis and Gary Hoffman. The 2019-20 season will include a series of duo recitals with Sol Gabetta in Italy and Renaud Capuçon in Switzerland.
Nelson Goerner has a strong relationship with the Mozarteum Argentino in Buenos Aires and enjoys a long association with the Chopin Institute in Warsaw, where he is a member of the artistic advisory committee. He has released several albums of unusual repertoire on the Institute’s own record label, the latest, in 2019, featuring works by Godowski and Paderewski, including the latter’s monumental Variations and Fugue op.23. His recording of the Chopin Ballades and Nocturnes was recognised with a Diapason d’Or.

Nelson Goerner was born in San Pedro, Argentina, in 1969. After studying in Argentina with Jorge Garrubba, Juan Carlos Arabian and Carmen Scalcione, he was awarded First Prize in the Franz Liszt Competition in Buenos Aires in 1986. This led to a scholarship to work with Maria Tipo at the Geneva Conservatoire, and in 1990 Nelson Goerner won the First Prize at the Geneva Competition