Christian Benda is a conductor, composer and cellist, descended from the eighteenth-century Benda family of composers. He performs worldwide both as a soloist and a conductor. [1] [2] His numerous recordings include many classical standards such as Mozart, Rossini and Schubert overtures (notably, particularly distinguished performances of Boccherini cello sonatas, with his brother accompanying on the fortepiano, for the Naxos label) as well as the compositions of his ancestors Georg Anton (Jiří Antonín) Benda, František Benda and Jan Jiří Benda. [3] (Another ancestor of his was the conductor Hans von Benda, who was particularly active between the 1930s and the 1950s.) He serves as chief Conductor and artistic director of the Prague Sinfonia. [4]
Between 2012 and 2014 he recorded a four-volume cycle of Gioacchino Rossini's complete operatic overtures for Naxos Records with the Prague Sinfonia Orchestra.
He was a Climate Ally in the "Tck Tck Tck: Time for Climate Justice" campaign. [5]
Carl Philipp Stamitz was a German composer of partial Czech ancestry. He was the most prominent representative of the second generation of the Mannheim School.
Franz von Suppé, born Francesco Ezechiele Ermenegildo de Suppé was an Austrian composer of light operas and other theatre music. He came from the Kingdom of Dalmatia, Austro-Hungarian Empire. A composer and conductor of the Romantic period, he is notable for his four dozen operettas, including the first operetta to a German libretto. Some of them remain in the repertory, particularly in German-speaking countries, and he composed a substantial quantity of church music, but he is now chiefly known for his overtures, which remain popular in the concert hall and on record. Among the best-known are Poet and Peasant, Light Cavalry, Morning, Noon, and Night in Vienna and Pique Dame.
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies was an English composer and conductor, who in 2004 was made Master of the Queen's Music.
Simon Gjoni was an Albanian conductor, and composer of many popular pieces for piano and orchestra.
Johann Christian Innocenz Bonaventura Cannabich, was a German violinist, composer, and Kapellmeister of the Classical era. A composer of some 200 works, he continued the legacy of Johann Stamitz and helped turn the Mannheim orchestra into what Charles Burney described as "the most complete and best disciplined in Europe.". The orchestra was particularly noted for the carefully graduated crescendos and diminuendos characteristic of the Mannheim school. Together with Stamitz and the other composers of the Mannheim court, he helped develop the orchestral texture that paved the way for the orchestral treatment of the First Viennese School.
Jakobín, or The Jacobin, is an operatic pastoral comedy in three acts by Antonín Dvořák, his Opus 84. Its Czech libretto by Marie Červinková-Riegrová employs characters from Alois Jirásek's story At the Ducal Court but in a plot of her devising. The opera's first performance took place on 9 February 1889 at the National Theatre in Prague with Adolf Čech conducting; it was however revised by both librettist and composer and premiered again, under Čech, on 19 June 1898, with notable adjustments to the last act, in the version that has since been standard.
Franz Benda was a Bohemian violinist and composer, who worked for much of his life at the court of Frederick the Great.
Gianluigi Gelmetti OMRI, was an Italian-Monégasque conductor and composer.
Georg Anton Benda was a composer, violinist and Kapellmeister of the classical period from the Kingdom of Bohemia.
Mozart Camargo Guarnieri was a Brazilian composer.
Ariadne auf Naxos is a duodrama in one act by Czech composer Georg Benda with a German libretto by Johann Christian Brandes. It was commissioned by Abel Seyler, whose theatrical company arrived in Gotha in 1774. The opera's first performance was at the Schloss Friedenstein, Gotha, on 27 January 1775.
Pygmalion is a monodrama in one act by composer Georg Benda with a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter. The opera's first performance was at the Ekhof Theatre, the court theatre in Gotha, on 20 September 1779. Pygmalion was the fourth of the five theatrical collaborations of Benda and Gotter. Gotter based his text on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 1762 play Pygmalion. Benda's melodrama is unusual as it has no singing roles. Two of the three characters, Pygmalion and Galatea, are spoken roles; the other, Venus, is silently acted on stage.
Medea is a melodrama in one act with five scenes by Bohemian composer Georg Benda with a German libretto by Friedrich Wilhelm Gotter. The work was first performed in Leipzig at the Theater am Rannstädtertor on 1 May 1775.
David Porcelijn is a Dutch composer and conductor.
Lawrence Brownlee is an American operatic tenor particularly associated with the bel canto repertoire. Describing his voice, Speight Jenkins, general director of the Seattle Opera, said: "There are other singers that sing this repertory very well, but I don't think anyone else has quite as beautiful a sound and as rounded a tone," and praise his "incredible top notes", adding about his high F (F5) in "Credeasi, misera": "With him it's not a scream, it's a beautiful sound." Mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato adds: "He is always in service of the music. His natural instrument is just incredibly beautiful. The word 'honey' comes to mind. He also has technical prowess and agility."
Marzio Conti is an Italian conductor and flautist.
Salvatore Di Vittorio is an Italian composer and conductor. He is the music director and Conductor of the Chamber Orchestra of New York. He has been recognized by Luigi Verdi as a "lyrical musical spirit, respectful of the ancient Italian tradition… an emerging leading interpreter of the music of Ottorino Respighi".
Álvaro Cassuto is a Portuguese composer and conductor.
Dismas Hataš was a Bohemian composer and violinist of the early classical period.
Michael Spyres is an American operatic baritenor. He is particularly associated with the bel canto repertoire, especially the works of Rossini, and heroic roles in French grand opera.