Schoenberg’s “Erwartung” and Rachmaninoff’s Third with Eun Sun Kim

"Freedom," says Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim, " is integral to any interpretation of music. The score serves as a guide, helping the conductor understand the composer’s intentions. It is essential for the conductor to follow the composer in this regard. But the musicians, circumstances and mood change with each performance." With interpretations of "astonishing vibrancy and assurance "(San Francisco Chronicle), Eun Sun Kim, who graduated with honours from the Musikhochschule Stuttgart, has conducted herself into the international top league. The former assistant to Simone Young and Bertrand de Billy also assisted Kirill Petrenko during his Lyon production of Tristan und Isolde. She has enjoyed success at the opera houses of New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington and Houston, and was appointed future chief conductor of the San Francisco Opera following her debut there. In 2021/22 she became the first woman to head an opera house in the USA. Musical theatre is central to her career, and her schedule has inclueded guest appearances at La Scala, Milan and the state operas of Vienna and Berlin. She was a “star”, wrote the New York Times after her Met debut, “who lead the performance with great sensitivity and flexibility." Eun Sun Kim was born in Seoul and initially studied composition before turning to conducting. She has since attracted the attention of major symphony orchestras – a noteworthy career is reaching its next phase.

Ausrine Stundyte performed Schönberg's Erwartung most recently at the Bavarian State Opera in Munich and in Parma. These concerts mark  her debut with the Berliner Philharmoniker. The soprano studied at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre in her home town of Vilnius, and at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Academy of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. Her honours include a special prize from the Chambre Professionnelle des Directeurs d'Opéra in Paris. Guest engagements have taken her to the opera houses of Venice, Vienna, Ghent, Antwerp, Madrid and Zurich, where she has worked with conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Kent Nagano, and Antonio Pappano, and stage directors like Calixto Bieito, Robert Carsen and Peter Konwitschny. She appearanced at the Salzburg Festival in 2020 as Elektra and in 2022 as Judit in Bluebeard's Castle. Several major role debuts are on the programme for Ausrine Stundyte in the coming season: Nastassya Filippovna Barashkova in Weinberg's Idiot at the Salzburg Festival, Silvana in Respighi's La Fiamma at the Deutsche Oper Berlin and Färberin in Die Frau ohne Schatten in Amsterdam.