Mirella Hagen
German soprano Mirella Hagen started her path on stage as a young artist with the Staatsoper Stuttgart, where she worked with conductors like Manfred Honeck and Marc Soustrot, singing Ännchen (Der Freischütz), Anna Kennedy (Maria Stuarda) and Blumenmädchen (Parsifal).
After years of experience singing in the ensembles of Theater Regensburg, Opera Vlaanderen, Oper Dortmund and Staatstheater Braunschweig, (Gretel, Valencienne, Pamina, Gilda, Norina, Eliza Doolittle), she began her freelance career with a wide repertoire.
In recent seasons, Mirella has appeared at Theater an der Wien (Helena, Morgana, Waldvogel, Woglinde), Semperoper Dresden (Pamina, Gretel), Bayerische Staatsoper (Waldvogel), Staatsoper Stuttgart (Pamina), Grand Théâtre Genève (Waldvogel), Opéra National de Lyon (Ciboletta), Landestheater Detmold (Susanna), Komische Oper Berlin (Širin), Oper Graz (Hanne – Jahreszeiten). With Kirill Petrenko she appeared at the Bayreuther Festspiele in the Ring-Cycle, staged by Frank Castorf as Woglinde and Waldvogel each year from 2013 – 2015. She made her debut at Elbphilharmonie shortly after its opening with Rheingold (Woglinde) under Marek Janowski and the NDR Symphony Orchestra. With Sir Simon Rattle she interpreted the Rheingold Woglinde with the BR Symphonieorchester. The performance is published on BR Klassik.
She has worked extensively with conductor Helmuth Rilling, singing various Bach Cantatas and the „Exsultate, Jubilate“ in Seoul (Korea) and Milano (Italy) and the C-Minor Mass of Mozart. With René Jacobs she worked on pieces like Falstaff (Salieri), Il ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (Monteverdi), Le nozze di Figaro (Mozart) and Orpheus (Telemann).
She has collaborated with orchestras such as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, SWR Symphonieorchester, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Freiburger Barockorchester, with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Internationale Bachakademie Stuttgart, Concentus Musicus Wien and Belgium’s B’Rock.
Concert appearances include the most known places like Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wiener Konzerthaus, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Gasteig München, Kölner Philharmonie, Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, Liceu Barcelona, Bozar Brussels, Konzerthaus Berlin, Tonhalle Zürich Seoul Arts Center, Tonhalle Zürich, Teatro Olimpico and others. She works with the finest conductors in the world, including Iván Fischer, Kirill Petrenko, Sir Simon Rattle, René Jacobs and Antonello Manacorda.
During the pandemic period she was invited to sing concerts broadcasted by Deutschlandradio Kultur and recorded various pieces like the Italian Songbook by Hugo Wolf. Since she finished her studies with Prof. Ulrike Sonntag in Stuttgart she is also singing many recitals like at the Villa Wahnfried Richard-Wagner-Museum Bayreuth and the International Hugo-Wolf-Academy Stuttgart.
Guy Braunstein
“I always remain who I am. Only the music decides my meaning.” (Guy Braunstein) A unique blend of virtuosity, restraint and creativity – this is what violinist, conductor and composer Guy Braunstein stands for. Like few others, he not only knows how to convince audiences with his music, but also how to challenge them: Whether with demanding programmes, sophisticated interpretations or his own works and arrangements – Guy Braunstein aims to surprise and reinvent. And although he can
easily be categorised in the “tradition of the great Jewish violinists such as Mischa Elman and Isaac Stern” (Telegraph), for him music lives not only from its own history, but through perpetual renewal, updating and unexpected twists and turns.
Whether as a celebrated soloist who masters the standard repertoire from Bach to Shostakovich with ease, or as a congenial chamber music partner in a wide variety of formations: Guy Braunstein is a guest at the world’s most important music centres and festivals. His musical partners include András Schiff, Zubin, Mehta, Maurizio Pollini, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Yefim Bronfman, Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Martha Argerich, Mitsuko Uchida, Christoph von Dohnányi, Lang Lang, Emmanuel Ax, Andris Nelsons and Semyon Bychkov.
Guy Braunstein is also present on the international concert stage as a conductor: he was Conductor and Artist inResidence with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and the Trondheim Symfoniorkester and works with orchestras such as the Helsinki, Rotterdam and Israel Philharmonic as well as the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
Highlights of the 2023/24 season include concerts with the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra,the Prague Chamber Soloists and the Copenhagen Phil, in which Guy Braunstein will appear as soloist and conductor. The programmes include his own works such as “Die Nacht wird immer verklärter” and the Rusalka Rhapsody as well as the violin concertos by Elgar, Delius and Haydn.
Guy Braunstein’s greatest and identity-forming passion is arranging and composing: In the romantic tradition of Paganini and Liszt, he brilliantly transcribes musical masterpieces for his own or other instruments and instrumentations and presents operas, chamber music or even songs in a completely new form. In addition to excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s “Eugene Onegin” and “Swan Lake”, he has also arranged Puccini arias and Dvořák’s opera “Rusalka”. In 2023, “Die Nacht wird immer verklärter”, an rrangement of Schönberg’s string sextet “Verklärte Nacht”, celebrated its premiere with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. The violinist is particularly fond of Beatles songs: in addition to the Six Variations on “Blackbird” and arrangements of “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Something”, Guy Braunstein also wrote the “Abbey Road Concerto”, a very virtuosic version of the Beatles’ album “Abbey Road” for solo violin and orchestra.
