Manfred Honeck

Manfred Honeck has served as music director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra since the 2008–09 season. He and the orchestra are consistently recognized for their performances and are celebrated both in Pittsburgh and abroad, performing regularly at major music capitals and festivals, among them the BBC Proms, Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Musik Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Grafenegg Festival, Carnegie Hall, and Vienna’s Musikverein. This successful collaboration has been extensively documented by Reference Recordings: their recording of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 won the 2017 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance, and they earned Grammy nominations for recordings of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 8 and the Symphonic Suite from Janáček’s opera Jenůfa, conceptualized by Mr. Honeck himself, and Bruckner’s Symphony No. 4.

Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck received his musical training at the Academy of Music in Vienna. Many years of experience as a violist in the Vienna Philharmonic and the Vienna Staatsoper Orchestra have given his conducting a distinctive stamp. He began his conducting career as assistant to Claudio Abbado and was subsequently engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was bestowed the prestigious European Conductor’s Award. Following early posts as one of three main conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra in Leipzig and as principal guest conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, he was appointed music director of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. For several years, he also served as principal guest conductor of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2007 to 2011, Manfred Honeck was music director of Stuttgart Staatsoper. His operatic guest appearances include Dresden Semperoper, Royal Opera of Copenhagen, and the Salzburg Festival.

As a guest conductor, Mr. Honeck has worked with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Rome’s Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and the Vienna Philharmonic. In the United States he has conducted the New York Philharmonic, Cleveland, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia, and Boston Symphony orchestras. He has been artistic director of the International Concerts Wolfegg in Germany for more than 20 years.

Manfred Honeck received honorary doctorates from several North American universities, and he was awarded the honorary title of professor by the Austrian Federal President.

Nikolaj Znaider

Nikolaj Znaider performs as both conductor and violin soloist with the world’s most distinguished orchestras. He has been principal guest conductor of the Mariinsky Orchestra since 2010, and was previously principal guest conductor of the Swedish Chamber Orchestra.

Following a triumphant return to the Tanglewood festival with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Juanjo Mena, Mr. Znaider’s 2017–18 season includes the continuation of his Mozart recording project with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), on which he leads Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 2 and 3 from the violin. Their recording of Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos. 4 and 5 was released on the LSO Live label in March 2018. He has a particularly strong relationship with the LSO, conducting and performing as soloist with the orchestra every season. He also appears regularly as violinist and conductor with orchestras including the Dresden Staatskapelle, The Cleveland Orchestra, and Chicago Symphony Orchestra, as well as the New York Philharmonic, with which he is making his conducting debut in these performances.

Mr. Znaider’s extensive discography includes Nielsen’s Violin Concerto with the New York Philharmonic and Alan Gilbert, Elgar’s Violin Concerto with the Dresden Staatskapelle and the late Colin Davis, award-winning recordings of the Brahms and Korngold Violin Concertos with the Vienna Philharmonic and Valery Gergiev, the Beethoven and Mendelssohn Violin Concertos with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and Zubin Mehta, Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 and Glazunov’s Violin Concerto with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Mariss Jansons, and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto on DVD with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly. Mr. Znaider has also recorded Brahms’s complete works for violin and piano with Yefim Bronfman.

Passionate about supporting the next generation of musical talent, he spent ten years as founder and artistic director of the annual Nordic Music Academy summer school, and is now president of the Nielsen Competition, which takes place every three years in Odense, Denmark.

Nikolaj Znaider plays the “Kreisler” Guarnerius “del Gesu” 1741, on extended loan to him by The Royal Danish Theater through the generosity of the VELUX Foundations, the Villum Fonden, and the Knud Højgaard Foundation.

Learn more about Nikolaj Znaider