Carnegie Hall

One of today’s most sought-after conductors, Sir Antonio Pappano has been music director of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia since 2005; he has also been music director of the Royal Opera, Covent Garden, since 2002. Acclaimed for his charismatic leadership and inspirational performances in both symphonic and operatic repertoire, he was nurtured as a pianist, répétiteur, and assistant conductor at many of the most important opera houses in Europe and North America, including the Bayreuth Festival, where he was a musical assistant to Daniel Barenboim, and the Lyric Opera of Chicago.

Mr. Pappano made debuts at the Vienna State Opera in 1993, at the Metropolitan Opera in 1997, and at the Bayreuth Festival in 1999. He has conducted many of the world’s major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic; the Chicago, Boston, and London symphony orchestras; the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; the Philadelphia and Cleveland orchestras; the Berliner Philharmoniker; and the Vienna Philharmonic and Royal Concertgebouw orchestras. He has worked at the San Francisco Opera, Théâtre du Châtelet, and Staatsoper Berlin, and recently made operatic debuts at the Salzburg Festival (Don Carlo) and Teatro alla Scala (Les Troyens).

Highlights of the 2018–2019 season and beyond include Wagner’s complete Ring cycle, as well as productions of Wagner’s Tannhäuser and Verdi’s La forza del destino and Otello at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Mr. Pappano also performs with the Staatskapelle Berlin, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and appears at London’s Wigmore Hall as a pianist with baritone Matthias Goerne.

Mr. Pappano records exclusively for Warner Classics. His discography features numerous complete operas, as well as many orchestral recordings with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and other ensembles. As a pianist, Mr. Pappano appears as an accompanist with some of the most celebrated singers, including Joyce DiDonato, Gerald Finley, and Ian Bostridge. He has also partnered on recordings that include operatic recitals with Nina Stemme, Plácido Domingo, Anna Netrebko, and Jonas Kaufmann; chamber recitals with Ms. DiDonato, Mr. Bostridge, and Barbara Bonney; and concerto performances with Leif Ove Andsnes, Maxim Vengerov, Janine Jansen, Jan Lisiecki, and Beatrice Rana.

Sir Antonio Pappano by Musacchio & Ianniello / EMI Classics

Joyce DiDonato entrances audiences across the globe. The winner of multiple Grammy Awards and the 2018 Laurence Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, Ms. DiDonato has soared to the top of the industry as both a performer and a fierce advocate for the arts. She has gained international prominence performing the operas of Handel and Mozart and the bel canto roles of Rossini and Donizetti, as well as through her wide-ranging and acclaimed discography.

Much in demand on the concert and recital stage, Ms. DiDonato has recently held residencies at Carnegie Hall and at London’s Barbican Centre, appeared as guest soloist at the BBC Proms, and toured extensively to the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. Recent highlights include performances with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, the Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Riccardo Muti, and extensive touring with Il Pomo d’Oro under Maxim Emelyanychev, as well as recitals with the Brentano String Quartet at Wigmore Hall and with Antonio Pappano at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

The 2018–2019 season sees Ms. DiDonato’s first staged performance of Didon in Les Troyens at the Vienna State Opera, as well as Sesto at the Metropolitan Opera and Agrippina in concert with Il Pomo d’Oro. She also performs at the BBC Proms, in Hamburg with the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, at Carnegie Hall with The Philadelphia Orchestra under Mr. Nézet-Séguin, and with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Mr. Muti, the Accademia Santa Cecilia Orchestra under Mr. Pappano, and Il Pomo d’Oro under Mr. Emelyanychev on a tour to Moscow and Asia.

Ms. DiDonato is an exclusive recording artist with Erato / Warner Classics. Her most recent release, Les Troyens, won the Opera Award at the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Awards and the complete opera recording category at the 2018 International Opera Awards, and is nominated in the opera category at this year’s Gramophone Awards.

Joyce DiDonato by Simon Pauly

Magdalena Kožená was born in the Czech city of Brno and studied voice and piano at the Brno Conservatory; she later studied at Bratislava’s Academy of Performing Arts with Eva Blahová. She has been awarded several major prizes in the Czech Republic and internationally, notably at the Sixth International Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 1995.

Ms. Kožená has worked with many of the world’s leading conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Pierre Boulez, Gustavo Dudamel, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Mariss Jansons, Sir Charles Mackerras, and Sir Roger Norrington. Her list of distinguished recital partners includes pianists Daniel Barenboim, Yefim Bronfman, Malcolm Martineau, Sir András Schiff, and Mitsuko Uchida. She has performed at such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and the Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, and Salzburg festivals.

Ms. Kožená has cultivated her facility with historical performance practices in collaboration with outstanding period-instrument ensembles, including the English Baroque Soloists, Gabrieli Consort and Players, Il Giardino Armonico, Les Musiciens du Louvre, La Cetra Barockorchester Basel, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Venice Baroque Orchestra, and Le Concert d’Astrée. She is also in demand as a soloist with the Berlin, Vienna, and Czech philharmonics; The Cleveland Orchestra; The Philadelphia Orchestra; and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

Recent highlights include the Héroïnes Baroques tour with Emmanuelle Haïm and Le Concert d’Astrée in early 2018, and a 2017 European tour of a program that joined the roots of flamenco with the music of the Spanish Baroque era. On the latter tour, she was joined by Spanish Baroque ensemble Private Musicke and flamenco dancer Antonio el Pipa with his Compañía de Flamenco, performing at Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and venues in Madrid and Barcelona.

Magdalena Kožená by CEMA / Oleg Rostovtsev

Highly acclaimed for her passionate intensity and remarkable vocal beauty, multiple Grammy Award winner Isabel Leonard continues to thrill audiences both in the opera house and on the concert stage.

In repertoire that spans Vivaldi to Mozart to Nico Muhly, Ms. Leonard has graced the stages of the Metropolitan Opera, Vienna State Opera, Paris Opera, Salzburg Festival, Bavarian State Opera, Carnegie Hall, Glyndebourne Festival, Teatro Comunale di Bologna, Lyric Opera of Chicago, and San Francisco Opera. She has starred in such roles as Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Angelina (La Cenerentola), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro), Dorabella (Così fan tutte), Charlotte (Werther), Blanche de la Force (Dialogues des Carmélites), Costanza (Griselda), Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier), the title role in La Périchole, and Sesto in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito and Handel’s Giulio Cesare.

Ms. Leonard has appeared with some of the foremost conductors of her time, including James Levine, Valery Gergiev, Charles Dutoit, Gustavo Dudamel, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yannick Nézét-Seguin, Franz Welser-Möst, Plácido Domingo, Edward Gardner, Edo de Waart, James Conlon, Michele Mariotti, Harry Bicket, Andris Nelsons, and Michael Tilson Thomas. She has performed with The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony, among others. She most recently won Grammy Awards (Best Opera Recording) for Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges recorded with Seiji Ozawa on Decca, and Thomas Adès’s The Tempest with the Metropolitan Opera on Deutsche Grammophon. She is in constant demand as a recitalist and is on the Carnegie Hall Board of Trustees.

Ms. Leonard is the recipient of the Richard Tucker Award. She has also joined supporters of the Prostate Cancer Foundation to lend her voice in honor of her father, who died from the disease when she was in college.