Whether playing a luxury-craving high-class prostitute, a cold-blooded agent, a white Masai or an obsessive music teacher, Nina Hoss captivates audiences in her roles with her versatility and flexibility. Her formula for success? To explore all the facets of the characters she plays. “I’m interested in why and how someone is, why the character reacts in a particular way,” she explained in an interview. As the daughter of an actress, the Stuttgart native was more or less born with a passion for the theatre. She acted in her first radio plays at the age of seven and appeared on the stage for the first time at fourteen. Nina Hoss knew early on that she wanted to pursue an acting career. After studying at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin, she was engaged as a permanent member of the ensemble at the Deutsches Theater Berlin, then later went to Berlin’s Schaubühne. Since her appearance in the title role of Bernd Eichinger’s television remake of the film Das Mädchen Rosemarie (A Girl Called Rosemary) in 1996, she has been one of Germany’s leading film and television performers. She became the favourite actress of director Christian Petzold, with whom she collaborated on highly praised films, including Barbara and Phoenix. Nina Hoss, who has received many prestigious awards, such as the German Film Award, can currently be seen in our cinemas with Cate Blanchett in the American feature film Tár.

Noah Bendix-Balgley performs on one of the few violins from the Cremonese workshop of Carlo Bergonzi – an instrument that enables him to share his “thoughts and emotions with other musicians and the audience”. Noah Bendix-Balgley’s life-long goal is to produce a sound that is not only beautiful but also expressive and connects with listeners in a meaningful way. The violinist, a native of North Carolina, was concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra from 2011 to 2015, then joined the Berliner Philharmoniker as first concertmaster. Noah Bendix-Balgley appears as a soloist with leading orchestras throughout the world – naturally, also in concerts with the Berliner Philharmoniker. An avid chamber musician, he performs in several fixed ensembles, including the trio with pianist Robert Levin and cellist Peter Wiley and the multi-genre septet Philharmonix featuring members of the Berliner Philharmoniker and the Vienna Philharmonic. Noah Bendix-Balgley is also an enthusiastic interpreter of traditional klezmer music, appearing with such world-famous klezmer ensembles as Brave Old World. He has taught klezmer workshops throughout Europe and the United States and has composed a klezmer violin concerto, Fidl-Fantazye, which will be presented in the Philharmonie Berlin in April 2023.

Violinist and conductor – Stanley Dodds is a double talent. Born in Canada, raised in Australia, trained in Austria and Switzerland and living in Berlin for more than 30 years, he has developed a cosmopolitan outlook. After his studies with Gunars Larsens at the Lucerne Conservatory, Stanley Dodds came to the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker as a scholar, then became a member of the orchestra in 1994. His work as a violinist with the Philharmoniker also aroused his interest in conducting: “From the orchestra, I observed the conductor and what was going on around me, and asked myself many questions about how and why it was working or not, and sometimes wondered if it couldn’t be done differently,” Stanley Dodds recalled in an interview. The Finnish conductor Jorma Panula, with whom Dodds took numerous courses, had a great influence on him. He also drew inspiration from his collaboration with the chief conductors of the Berliner Philharmoniker. He has been principal conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra since 2014 and also conducts several youth and amateur orchestras. In 2018 he rehearsed the BE PHIL Orchestra, in which amateur musicians from 30 countries performed – an education project of the Berliner Philharmoniker. Dodds’s guiding principle: “As I see it, my role as a conductor is to help the orchestra achieve the best possible performance in the time available.”