Junge Deutsche Philharmonie performs Dvořák’s Eighth

Jonathan Nott is seen at rehearsals communicating his musical ideas with clear gestures and images. At these intensive rehearsals, every melodic and rhythmic phrase is honed, with Nott always discovering something new, a never-ending process. Born south-east of Birmingham, he studied musicology at Cambridge, singing and flute in Manchester, and conducting in London. He is known for his energetic and transparent readings: “Consistent logic and clear structures” are just as important to him as freeing some melodies from the “fat and schmaltz” of performance history. This approach may have its origins in Nott’s decades-long exploration of musical Modernism. He was director of the Ensemble intercontemporain, founded by Pierre Boulez in Paris, and chief conductor of the Bamberg Symphony, with whom he premiered works by Jörg Widmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Mantovani and Mark-Anthony Turnage. You can train your ear to “enjoy” the unfamiliar “frequency mixes” of contemporary music, says the internationally sought-after conductor. Jonathan Nott is music director of the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, musical and artistic director of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and principal conductor and artistic advisor of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. He also makes regular guest appearances with the world’s leading symphony orchestras.

Stefan Dohr is blessed with both a “thundering tone that resounds valley-wide” (Berliner Zeitung) and a breathtakingly “delicate piano that sounds as if from afar” (Badische Zeitung). As an acclaimed soloist, chamber musician and principal horn of the Berliner Philharmoniker, he is a mainstay of the international horn scene. In the orchestra, he has a special task: on the one hand, the horn player is a “quasi mediator between the instrumental groups, on the other hand, a soloist in Mahler and Bruckner symphonies, for example”. In addition to the Classical and Romantic repertoire, Stefan Dohr loves contemporary music, as evidenced by his participation in the world premieres of Toshio Hosokawa’s Moment of Blossoming and Hans Abrahamsen’s Horn Concerto together with the Berliner Philharmoniker. His virtuosity and thirst for discovery have also inspired other composers to write new works for him, and explore the possibilities of the horn in new ways. Born in Münster, he studied in Essen and Cologne and was principal horn with the Frankfurter Opern- and Museumsorchester, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin before joining the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1993. He teaches not only at the Karajan Academy, but also at the Sibelius Academy Helsinki, the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin and the Royal College of Music in London.