One can hardly imagine a better occasion for celebration: We congratulate Dmitry Liss on his 60th birthday and on his 25th anniversary as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 1995, he has been shaping the orchestra, which is based in Ekaterinburg on the border between Europe and Asia, into an excellent and versatile ensemble and has established its role as a musical ambassador with international charisma....

From October 28, Anssi Karttunen can be heard with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Joshua Weilerstein in a special streamed concert: The British premiere of Magnus Lindberg's 2nd Cello Concerto is on the program. Anssi Karttunen was supposed to play the work with the LPO three and a half years ago, but the concert was cancelled due to the terrorist attack on Westminster Bridge....

A "Séance between Nick Cave and Franz Schubert" is held by Ensemble Resonanz, actor Charly Hübner and a top-class jazz trio when they reinterpret the Winterreise, with the help of songs by the Australian rock poet. "How does it work together? Fantastic," was the verdict of Deutschlandfunk Kultur on the dive into human abysses entitled The Mercy Seat, which has now been released on CD....

Having just returned from his performances with the Orchestre National de Pays de la Loire as soloist in Michael Jarrell's Violin Concerto, Ilya Gringolts will continue to perform the latest music in October and November: On 15 October, he will premiere a work by Beat Furrer with the Munich Chamber Orchestra at the Prinzregententheater, embedded into a tour with the MKO to the Cologne Philharmonic, Ravensburg and Weiden. Two further new violin concertos are scheduled for November....

We congratulate Titus Engel on being named Conductor of the Year by Opernwelt magazine! "He learned to make music democratically at an early age, and he also appreciates the cultivated discourse. From this, as well as from his in-depth reading of the musical text, he gains his polished interpretations, which lead the listener to the essence of the respective work and even a bit further," the jury's statement said....

We are very pleased to begin working with the cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker, whose playing has been described by DIE ZEIT as "heartbreakingly sad and somnambulistically beautiful". Her special intensity of expression can be experienced several times in the coming weeks, both with orchestra and in chamber music format:...

With the beginning of the current 2020/21 season, Michael Wendeberg has taken up his new post as chief conductor of the opera at the Bühnen Halle. He had already been the first Kapellmeister at the opera house since 2016. This season he will conduct the premieres of Janáčeks Jenůfa and Wagner's Tristan und Isolde....

Six years after its opening, the Konzerthaus Blaibach is confronting the difficult conditions under which concert life currently stands with a diverse musical series of 115 concerts. Through the end of November, Maximilian Hornung, Claire Huangci, Ilya Gringolts, Gabor Vosteen, Mahan Esfahani, das GrauSchumacher Piano Duo und Yeree Suh, among others, will be guests in the Bavarian Forest....

For the new album now released on the Ondine label with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Hannu Lintu, Anssi Karttunen has recorded a cello concerto by his close friend Peter Lieberson (1946-2011). The Six Realms for cello and orchestra takes its title from a central teaching of Buddhism, the six realms in the cycle of rebirth....