The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an English orchestra, founded in 1893 and originally based in Bournemouth. With a remit to serve the South and South West of England, the BSO is administratively based in the adjacent town of Poole, since 1979. The orchestra is resident at Lighthouse in Poole, with other major concert series given at Portsmouth Guildhall, the Great Hall of Exeter University and Bristol Beacon. Shorter series are also given in Bournemouth and Basingstoke.
The Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, commonly abbreviated as HKPO or HKPhil, is a symphony orchestra based in Hong Kong. First established in 1947 as an amateur orchestra under the name Sino-British Orchestra (中英管弦樂團), it was renamed the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 1957 and became a professional orchestra in 1974 under the funding of the government.
Esa-Pekka Salonen is a Finnish conductor and composer. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra in London and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2024, he announced his resignation from the San Francisco Symphony upon the expiration of his contract in 2025.
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a British composer and conductor. Of mixed-race descent, Coleridge-Taylor achieved such success that he was referred to by white musicians in New York City as the "African Mahler" when he had three tours of the United States in the early 1900s. He was particularly known for his three cantatas on the epic 1855 poem The Song of Hiawatha by American Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Coleridge-Taylor premiered the first section in 1898, when he was 23. He married an Englishwoman, Jessie Walmisley, and both their children had musical careers. Their son, Hiawatha, adapted his father's music for a variety of performances. Their daughter, Avril Coleridge-Taylor, became a composer-conductor.
James Ehnes, is a Canadian concert violinist and violist.
Shlomo Mintz is a Russian-born Israeli violinist and conductor. He regularly appears with orchestras and conductors on the international scene and is heard in recitals and chamber music concerts around the world.
Loris Haykasi Tjeknavorian is an Iranian Armenian composer and conductor. He has appeared internationally as a conductor, serving as the principal conductor of the Armenian Philharmonic Orchestra from 1989 to 1998 and later from 1999 to 2000. As a composer Tjeknavorian has written 6 operas, 5 symphonies, choral works, chamber music, ballet music, piano and vocal works, concerti for piano, violin, guitar, cello and pipa, as well as music for documentary and feature films. Among his best known works are the opera Rostam and Sohrab, based on the story of Rostam and Sohrab from Ferdowsi's Shahnameh, and the ballet Simorgh.
The Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra is a Norwegian orchestra based in Bergen. Its principal concert venue is the Grieg Hall.
The KwaZulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra (KZNPO) is a professional orchestra based in Durban, South Africa. It was founded in 1983 under the name Natal Philharmonic Orchestra (NPO).
Leonidas Kavakos is a Greek violinist and conductor. He has won several international violin competition prizes, including the Sibelius, Paganini, Naumburg, and Indianapolis competitions. He is an Onassis Foundation scholar. He has also recorded for record labels such as Sony/BMG and BIS. As a conductor, he was an artistic director of the Camerata Salzburg and has been a guest conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra and Boston Symphony Orchestra.
James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey is an American Grammy Award-winning cello soloist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has appeared in recital and with major orchestras internationally. He is a professor of cello and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bailey’s extensive recording catalogue are released on TELARC, Avie, Steinway and Sons, Octave, Delos, Albany, Sono Luminus, Naxos, Azica, Concord, EuroArts, ASV, Oxingale and Zenph Studios.
The North Carolina Symphony (NCS) is an American orchestra based in Raleigh, North Carolina, with sixty-six full-time musicians. The orchestra performs in Meymandi Concert Hall and performs occasionally with the Carolina Ballet and the Opera Company of North Carolina. In 2017–18, the organization celebrated its 85th anniversary season. Concert series are also performed across North Carolina in the cities of Chapel Hill, Cary, Southern Pines, New Bern, Wilmington, and Fayetteville, among others.
Gavin Sutherland is a conductor, composer/arranger, pianist and musicologist. He is currently Principal Guest Conductor for English National Ballet.
Geoffrey Moull is a Canadian professional conductor. He was principal conductor of the Bielefeld Philharmonic Orchestra and music director of the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra.
Victoria Ellen Bond is an American conductor and composer in New York City.
Kenji Bunch is an American composer and violist. Bunch currently serves as the artistic director of Fear No Music and teaches at Portland State University, Reed College, and for the Portland Youth Philharmonic. He is also the director of MYSfits, the most advanced string ensemble of the Metropolitan Youth Symphony.
Kenneth Alwyn Wetherell was a British conductor, composer, and writer. Described by BBC Radio 3 as "one of the great British musical directors", Alwyn was known for his many recordings, including with the London Symphony Orchestra on Decca's first stereophonic recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture. He was also known for his long association with BBC Radio 2's orchestral live music programme Friday Night is Music Night, appearing for thirty years as a conductor and presenter, and for his contribution to British musical theatre as a prolific musical director in the 1950s and 1960s. He was a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music and married the actress Mary Law in 1960. His website and the first volume of his memoirs A Baton in the Ballet and Other Places were both published in 2015. The second volume Is Anyone Watching? was published in 2017.
The Mexico City Philharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra of international rank founded and underwritten by the government of Mexico. The home venue is the Silvestre Revueltas Hall at the Ollín Yoliztli Cultural Center in Tlalpan, Mexico City, which opened in 1979.
The Chicago Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois, governed by the Chicago Philharmonic Society. Founded in 1988 by principals of the Lyric Opera Orchestra of Chicago, it is a musician-governed, non-profit organization consisting of nearly 200 classical music performers from the Chicago area. Since 2013, the Artistic Director and Principal Conductor has been Scott Speck.
Joburg Ballet is a ballet dance company based within the Joburg Theatre, Johannesburg, South Africa. Joburg Ballet was formerly known as the South African Ballet Theatre (SABT). The company was formed in 2001 by six dancers who were retrenched by PACT Ballet. The company has been invited to perform in Russia in 2006 and has had exchange programmes with the Royal Swedish Ballet, the Royal Danish Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, the Paris Opera and the San Francisco Ballet.
