The New York Philharmonic, officially the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York, Inc., globally known as New York Philharmonic Orchestra (NYPO) or New York Philharmonic-Symphony Orchestra, is a symphony orchestra based in New York City. It is one of the leading American orchestras popularly called the "Big Five". The Philharmonic's home is David Geffen Hall, at New York's Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, the BSO performs most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is an American orchestra based in Los Angeles, California. Colloquially referred to as the LA Phil, the orchestra has a regular season of concerts from October through June at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, and a summer season at the Hollywood Bowl from July through September. Gustavo Dudamel is the current music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen is conductor laureate, Zubin Mehta is conductor emeritus, and Susanna Mälkki is principal guest conductor. John Adams is the orchestra's current composer-in-residence.
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra is a Swedish symphony orchestra based in Gothenburg. The GSO is resident at the Gothenburg Concert Hall at Götaplatsen. The orchestra received the title of the National Orchestra of Sweden in 1997.
Sir Alan Charles MacLaurin Mackerras was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan. He was long associated with the English National Opera and Welsh National Opera and was the first Australian chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. He also specialized in Czech music as a whole, producing many recordings for the Czech label Supraphon.
The Orpheus Chamber Orchestra is a classical music chamber orchestra based in New York City. They have won several Grammy Awards, and are known for their collaborative leadership style in which the musicians, not a conductor, interpret the score.
David Eric Robertson is an American conductor. He was chief conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and was formerly music director of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra from 2005 until 2018. He is Director of Orchestral Studies at Juilliard.
Bramwell Tovey was a British conductor and composer.
Elisabeth Batiashvili, professionally known as Lisa Batiashvili, is a prominent Georgian violinist active across Europe and the United States. A former New York Philharmonic artist-in-residence, she is acclaimed for her "natural elegance, silky sound and the meticulous grace of her articulation". Batiashvili makes frequent appearances at high-profile international events; she was the violin soloist at the 2018 Nobel Prize concert.
Gustavo Adolfo Dudamel Ramírez is a Venezuelan conductor and violinist. He is currently music director of the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. He is scheduled to become Music and Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026.
Douglas Boyd is a British oboist and conductor.
Matthias Bamert is a Swiss conductor and composer.
Danzón No. 2 is an orchestral composition by Mexican composer Arturo Márquez. Along with Carlos Chávez's Sinfonia India and Silvestre Revueltas' Sensemaya, Danzón No. 2 is one of the most popular and most frequently performed orchestral Mexican contemporary classical music compositions. Danzón No. 2 gained great popularity worldwide when the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela under Gustavo Dudamel included it on their programme for their 2007 European and American tour.
Anne Akiko Meyers is an American violinist. She has been called “the Wonder Woman of commissioning” by The Strad.
The Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition is one of the most important music competitions of its kind worldwide and is held in Bamberg, Germany. Conductors no older than 35 years may enter.
Blair Alston Mercer Tindall was an American oboist, performer, producer, speaker, and journalist. After spending years as a classical musician, she wrote the 2005 memoir Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music, which was later adapted into a television series.
El Sistema is a publicly financed, voluntary sector, music-education program, founded in Venezuela in 1975 by Venezuelan educator, musician, and activist José Antonio Abreu. It later adopted the motto "Music for Social Change." El Sistema-inspired programs provide what the International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies describes as "free classical music education that promotes human opportunity and development for impoverished children." El Sistema has inspired similar programmes in more than 60 other countries. By 2015, according to official figures, El Sistema included more than 400 music centers and 700,000 young musicians. The original program in Venezuela involves four after-school hours of musical training and rehearsal each week, plus additional work on the weekends.
Daníel Bjarnason is an Icelandic composer and conductor. He has garnered widespread acclaim for his debut album, Processions (2010), with TimeOut NY writing he "create(s) a sound that comes eerily close to defining classical music's undefinable brave new world".
Philippe Tondre is a French-British classical oboist. He has served as Principal Oboist of the Philadelphia Orchestra since 2020, and a professor of Oboe at the Curtis Institute of Music since 2022.
Lois Wann was an American oboist who was one of the well-known American oboists of the 20th century. She performed as a soloist in chamber music and concertos, specializing in early music but also playing contemporary works. Several contemporary composers wrote pieces for her, including Darius Milhaud. Reviews of Wann's concerts often highlighted her technique and musicianship. As an orchestral musician, she was an early example both of a woman who played the oboe in a professional American orchestra and of a woman principal in a professional orchestra. She spent much of her career in New York, where she was a noted teacher of the oboe, at the Juilliard School and elsewhere.
