The Royal Opera House in London's Covent Garden is home to The Royal Opera and The Royal Ballet.

During his studies under Paul Kuen and Raimund Grumbach, German baritone Christian Gerhaher also attended the Opera School of the Academy of Music in Munich, and together with his regular piano partner Gerold Huber studied lied interpretation with Friedemann Berger. While completing his medical studies Christian Gerhaher perfected his vocal training in master-classes given by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and Inge Borkh. In the meantime Christian Gerhaher is himself an enthusiastic teacher and gives master-classes at Aldeburgh Festival, Yale University, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, at the Schwetzingen Festival, and in his position as honorary professor he holds workshops at the Academy of Music in Munich.

Christian Gerhaher’s exemplary lied interpretations with Gerold Huber set standards, and their recordings have been highly acclaimed. Their Schubert album Abendbilder received the Gramophone Award in 2006. In the same year Christian Gerhaher was honoured with the NDR Musikpreis at the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. 2009 he was granted the renowned German Rheingau Musikpreis and for his Schumann recording Melancholy he not only received the BBC Music Award but also the "Echo Klassik" in the category Singer of the Year followed 2010 by the MIDEM Classical Award as Singer of the Year as well as the Dutch Edison Klassiek for his recent Mahler album.

The lied duo can be heard on the stages of major international recital centres, for instance at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Cologne and Berlin Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus and Musikverein in Vienna. Christian Gerhaher is a regular guest at Schwetzingen Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Vienna Festival, Klangbogen Festival, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the London Proms, the Edinburgh and Lucerne Festivals, as well as the Aspen and Tanglewood Festivals in the USA.

The lied recitals of the current seasons are mostly dedicated to Gustav Mahler. Performances will take them to London, Amsterdam, Cologne, Madrid, Munich, Venice, Torino, Rome and they will also return to Rheingau Musik Festival.
Besides his activity giving concerts and recitals, Christian Gerhaher also performs in select opera productions, for instance, he has a close association with the Frankfurt Opera House. Under Riccardo Muti he was Papageno in a production of The Magic Flute at the Salzburg Festival in 2006 (issued by Decca as a DVD). Gerhaher has been given guest performances in the title role in Henze’s Prinz von Homburg at the Theater an der Wien, as Wolfram at the Teatro Real Madrid, at the Vienna State Opera and Munich State Opera, and at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London. He started the 2010/2011 season as the Count in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro in Munich. In future he is scheduled to sing the role of Eisenstein and Pelléas, both in Frankfurt, and Posa in Don Carlos in Toulouse. The recipient of countless awards for his lieder singing is  likewise recognized for his operatic work and was consequently elected by the magazine "Opernwelt" as "Best Singer of the Year 2010" for his portrayals of Prinz von Homburg and Wolfram in Vienna und Munich.

Christian Gerhaher has performed together with conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Herbert Blomstedt, Heinz Holliger, Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, Mariss Jansons, Bernard Haitink and Christian Thielemann in the world’s major concert halls. The music of Gustav Mahler brought him together with Riccardo Chailly (Wunderhornlieder with the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester), Daniel Harding (Das Lied von der Erde with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra), Gustavo Dudamel (Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen at La Scala Milan) and Pierre Boulez (Wunderhornlieder/Cleveland Orchestra). Other major orchestras which regularly invite Christian Gerhaher to perform include Concentus Musicus Wien, Berlin, Munich and Vienna Philharmonic, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. He also gives concerts with major orchestras outside Europe, including NHK Symphony Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra and Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
Since the beginning of his recording activity Christian Gerhaher’s CDs have been issued by Sony Music, with which he has an exclusive partnership (exceptions are stated in brackets). With his accompanist Gerold Huber, Schumann cycles, all the Schubert cycles as well as many other lied recordings have been issued, such as for example Terezín Theresienstadt with Anne Sofie von Otter (Deutsche Grammophon). Furthermore, Christian Gerhaher can be heard on CDs singing in orchestral works: Mendelssohn’s Elias with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig conducted by Herbert Blomstedt, twice Orff’s Carmina burana with the Berlin Philharmonic and Simon Rattle (EMI) and NEW with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Daniel Harding for Deutsche Grammophon, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (The Song of the Earth) with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kent Nagano and Wunderhornlieder (Cleveland Orchestra/Magdalena Kožená/Pierre Boulez). With Nikolaus Harnoncourt Christian Gerhaher has made recordings of Joseph Haydn’s two oratorios The Creation and The Seasons, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri and also the recording of the live concert performance of the Faust Scenes with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, on the orchestra’s own label RCO Live. End of 2009 the latest solo CD with Gerold Huber has been issued, a recording of songs by Gustav Mahler. 2011 Wolf´s Italian Songbook was released, together with Mojca Erdmann and Gerold Huber. 

Christian Gerhaher lives with his wife and their three children in Munich.



The 68th Annual Monterey Jazz Festival will take place at the Monterey County Fairgrounds September 26-28, 2025.

France 24, the international news channel, broadcasts 24/7 to 315 million homes around the world in French, Arabic and English. The three channels have a combined weekly viewership of 50.9 million viewers (measured in 64 of the 180 countries where the channel is broadcast). From its newsroom in Paris, France 24 gives a French perspective on global affairs through a network of 142 correspondent bureaus located in nearly every country. It is available via cable, satellite, DTT, ADSL, on mobile phones, tablets and connected TVs, as well as on YouTube in three languages. Every month, France 24’s digital platforms attract 16.3 million visits, 36.5 million video views (2015 average) and 21.4million followers on Facebook and Twitter (December 2015). 



Working with the greatest artists ever since the founding of Columbia Records in 1887.

Yo-Yo Ma, Glenn Gould, Il Volo, Jonas kaufmann, Igor Levit, Alexis Ffrench, Eugene Ormandy, Leonard Bernstein, Khatia Buniatishvili, Joshua Bell, Arthur Rubinstein, Murray Perahia, Bruno Walter, Teodor Currentzis, Vladimir Horowitz, Dirk Maassen, Christian Gerhaher, Leif Ove Andsnes, Arcadi Volodos, Lavinia Meijer...and many more!

#classical #neoclassical

Winner of the Queen Elisabeth (2009) and Yehudi Menuhin Competitions (2008), Ray Chen is among the most compelling young violinists today.   “Ray has proven himself to be a very pure musician with great qualities such as a beautiful youthful tone, vitality and lightness.   He has all the skills of a truly musical interpreter,” said the great Maxim Vengerov.
Ray has released two critically acclaimed albums on Sony: a recital program “Virtuoso” of works by Bach, Tartini, Franck, and Wieniawski, and the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky concertos with Swedish Radio Orchestra and Daniel Harding.   Following the success of these recordings, Ray was profiled by The Strad and Gramophone magazines as “the one to watch”.   “Virtuoso” was distinguished with the prestigious ECHO Klassik award.   He is currently working on his third, all-Mozart album with Christoph Eschenbach and the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, slated for release later this year.
Ray continues to win the admiration of fans and fellow musicians worldwide.   In 2012, he became the youngest soloist ever to perform in the televised Nobel Prize Concert for the Nobel Laureates and the Swedish Royal Family.   His Carnegie Hall debut with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and Sakari Oramo, as well as his sold-out Musikverein concert with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly were met with standing ovations.   Since the 2012- 13 season, Ray has been invited to join Konzerthaus Dortmund's series “Junge Wilde,” which presents young and groundbreaking artists in Germany.   Later this season, Ray will make his San Francisco recital debut at the SF Jazz Center. He also looks forward to his upcoming recital tour of Australia and his debuts with the Orchestre National de France and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Followed by over 500,000 people on SoundCloud, Ray Chen looks to expand the classical music audience by increasing its appeal to the young generation via all available social media platforms.   He is the first ever classical musician to be invited to write a regular blog about his life as a touring soloist for the largest Italian publishing house, RCS Rizzoli (Corriere della Sera, Gazzetta dello Sport, Max).   In his unstinting efforts to break down barriers between classical music, fashion and pop culture, he is supported by Giorgio Armani and was recently featured in Vogue magazine.
Born in Taiwan and raised in Australia, Ray was accepted to the Curtis Institute of Music at age 15, where he studied with Aaron Rosand and was supported by Young Concert Artists.   He plays the 1702 "Lord Newlands" Stradivarius violin on loan from the Nippon Music Foundation.

No one could have imagined at that time what to expect - like Xavier de Maistre himself, when he decided to change the face of the harp 16 years ago. Today he plays pieces like "Moldau" by Smetana in breathtaking precision and presents masterful pieces of music that are usually played by an entire orchestra.

Meanwhile, a worldwide audience listens to his virtuosity and enjoys the unprecedented sounds. Pieces, that no harpist played before, or even thought about - like the Haydn piano concertos. Not only that makes him one of the most extraordinary musicians, even masters of this time.

Xavier de Maistre began to study harp with 9 years. Like many other famous musicians, all started with love - but in this case not as expected the love to his harp. It was rather the love for his former teacher, who offered extra harp lessons. Early, it turned out that Xavier has a great talent and no wonder he started with 25 years to play for the Vienna Philharmonic. Before that he played 3 years for the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and in 1998 Xavier won the first prize of the "USA International Harp Competition“, the major harp competitions in the world. But since Xavier´s family is not from a traditional harp-playing dynasty they put great importance to a solid education. So Xavier started his study of politics at the „Institut des Sciences Politiques“ in Paris and spent 1 year in London at the „London School of Economics ", when he finally decided to prefer music to the political studies. For a musician, he achieved very early what all harpists dream of – a position in one of the best orchestras in the world, the Vienna Philharmonic.

However Xavier de Maistre was about to go on. To see this point as the highlight of the career, which would definitely be a great honor for most of the harpists, and aslo for Xavier, but it was also a kind of sad moment. He achieved the ultimate goal of a harpist at age 25. Through his countless appearances and his keen ambition he has always wants to refute the long-existing bias of the harp - played in the background by angel-like women. Thanks to his his quick anticipation, intelligence and tremendous skill, he has played many pieces as a soloist with the harp and delighted thousands of listeners. Finally, he succeeds to establish the harp as an independent instrument. During his career, many great conductors such as Riccardo Muti, Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Andre Previn, and Daniele Gatti became curious on him and his passion and asked him to play with them. A long series of concerts follows, convincing the audience that Xavier de Maistre is undoubtedly the master of his instrument. Not for nothing, beside famous conductors, also the most successful singers like Barbara Bonney, Kathleen Battle and Diana Damrau played with him. Likewise, of course, the long list of world-renowned opera houses which he had already visited: Theatre des Champs Elysees Paris, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Musikverein Vienna, Tokyo Opera City, Lincoln Center New York, Salzburg Festival, La Scala Milan and many others.

No wonder, Xavier´s enthusiasm and his gift to play will not put an end to this success story. Awarded with the Echo Klassik Award 2009 for his album "Nuit d'Etoiles" as "Instrumentalist of the Year" (Sony Music) he reaps the fruits of his labor.

For more than 9 years Xavier de Maistre is working as a professor at the Musikhochschule Hamburg and now also teaches at the Julliard School in New York, at the Toho University in Tokyo and in London at Trinity College. After 11 years with the Vienna Philharmonic Xavier leaves his position in order to devote himself to his international solo career - a step that no harpist has done before.

Kari M. Kirk is following