French sound magic with Juanjo Mena

Mena, who conducted his first choir at the age of 16, initially studied at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid with Carmelo Bernaola and Enrique García Asensio, and later became a student of Sergiu Celibidache. “I learned from him how to shape music, create sound colours, and make a space in which you don’t talk about music, but feel it.” He began his conducting career in 1999 as head of the Bilbao Symphony Orchestra. He received international acclaim as Principal Guest Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and as Chief Guest Conductor of the Orchestra del Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. From 2011, he took over the BBC Philharmonic for seven seasons, touring Europe and Asia with the orchestra. Today, Juanjo Mena conducts all the leading orchestras – including the Berliner Philharmoniker, with whom he made his debut at the end of May 2016 with a Spanish-French programme.

In this role, she frequently performs as a soloist with the orchestra, drawing a sound from her 47 strings that Berlin’s daily newspaper Der Tagesspiegel described as “so atmospherically dense, with such fine dynamic shadings, that you would never have expected them from this plucked instrument”. In addition, the Grenoble-born musician, who teaches at the Karajan Academy and the Berlin University of the Arts, performs internationally as a soloist with eminent chamber music ensembles and orchestras, as well as frequently giving solo recitals. Marie-Pierre Langlamet studied with Elizabeth Fontan-Binoche at the Nice Conservatory and later attended masterclasses with Jacqueline Borot and Lily Laskine. After early competition successes, she took up her first position as principal harpist in the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Nice at the age of 17. Following further studies at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she was appointed assistant principal harpist in the orchestra of the Metropolitan Opera New York in 1988.

Its outstanding ability and versatility make the Rundfunkchor Berlin, founded in 1925, a favourite partner of major orchestras and conductors. In “sing-along concerts”, enthusiastic amateurs are also frequently invited to make music together with the choir. The Rundfunkchor Berlin has performed regularly with the Berliner Philharmoniker since the early 1990s. Collaborative projects have included staged performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St Matthew Passion and St John Passion with Sir Simon Rattle and Peter Sellars which won widespread critical and popular acclaim. The partnership has continued under Chief Conductor Kirill Petrenko, beginning with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony when he took office in August 2019, and later including concert performances of Tchaikovsky’s operas Mazeppa and Jolanthe, as well as Felix Mendelssohn’s oratorio Elijah. The Rundfunkchor Berlin last sang with the Berliner Philharmoniker in January 2024 under Kirill Petrenko’s direction in a concert performance of Arnold Schoenberg’s Die Jakobsleiter.