ZHANG Guoyong is a renowned Chinese conductor and music educator. He graduated from the Conducting Department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in 1983 and was awarded the doctorate in music by the Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory in 1997. He successively studied with the Chinese conductor and music educator Prof. HUANG Xiaotong and the world-renowned master conductor Rozhdestvensky. He is Professor and Head of the Conducting Department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Principal Conductor of the Shanghai Opera House and Music Director of the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra.

During ZHANG’s many years of artistic career, he has conducted classical works covering operas, ballets, and symphonic choruses in cooperation with many famous opera houses and symphony orchestras at home and abroad. He is particularly adept at conducting Russian works. He is recognized as one of the best interpreters of Shostakovich’s symphonies in China.

ZHANG’s conducting style is clean, natural and soulful with a passion complemented by a profound rationality, resulting in a strong artistic tension appealing to the audiences. With his keen ear, excellent skills, effective rehearsal methods and comprehensive grasp of the structure of the works, he impresses orchestras and audiences every time he appears on the stage.

In recent years, he has acted as China’s cultural ambassador in many major international cultural exchange events, representing the country in the Year of Culture activities co-hosted with the U.S., Russia, Germany, Italy, France and Latin America.

In 2014, ZHANG conducted the critically acclaimed HD opera film Carmen and Rickshaw Boy produced by the NCPA. In 2015, he was invited by the NCPA to participate in the Italian tour of Chinese operas. In the next year, he conducted the China Philharmonic Orchestra in its successful Russian debut, receiving wide acclaim.

In 2016, he was invited to be a member of the jury of the 8^th Cadaqués Orchestra International Conducting Competition in Spain.

ZHANG’s mentor Rozhdestvensky once told music critics excitedly, “I gave ZHANG Guoyong the highest marks ever awarded by the conducting department of Tchaikovsky Moscow State Conservatory. He could find his place in any orchestra in the world.”

ZHANG is Vice-Chairman of the Shanghai Musicians Association and Vice-Chairman of the China Musicians Association.

Leonidas Kavakos 

Leonidas Kavakos is recognized across the world as a violinist and artist of rare quality, acclaimed for his matchless technique, his captivating artistry and his superb musicianship as well as for the integrity of his playing. He works with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors and plays as recitalist in the world’s premier recital halls and festivals. He is an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classical.

The three important mentors in his life have been Stelios Kafantaris, Josef Gingold, and Ferenc Rados, with whom he still works. By the age of 21, Leonidas Kavakos had already won three major competitions: the Sibelius Competition in 1985, and the Paganini and Naumburg competitions in 1988. This success led to him recording the original Sibelius Violin Concerto (1903/4), the first recording of this work in history, and which won Gramophone Concerto of the Year Award in 1991.

Kavakos is now an exclusive recording artist with Sony Classics. His latest recording, to be released worldwide in October 2019 in anticipation of the 250^th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020, is the Beethoven Violin Concerto which he conducted and played with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, coupled with the Beethoven Septet played with members of the orchestra. In the anniversary year, Kavakos will both play and play/conduct the Beethoven Violin Concerto with orchestras across Europe and the USA. He will also play the complete Beethoven Sonata cycle in Shanghai and Guangzhou, Milan and Rome, and a number of single Beethoven recitals in various cities including London’s Wigmore Hall, Barcelona, Parma and Copenhagen.

In 2007, for his recording of the complete Beethoven Sonatas with Enrico Pace, Kavakos was named Echo Klassik Instrumentalist of the year. In 2014, Kavakos was awarded Gramophone Artist of the Year.

Further accolades came in 2017 when Kavakos was awarded the prestigious Leonie Sonning Prize – Denmark’s highest musical honour, given annually to an internationally recognised composer, conductor, instrumentalist or singer. Previous winners include Daniel Barenboim, Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Alfred Brendel, Benjamin Britten, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Yehudi Menuhin, Simon Rattle, Mstislav Rostropovich, Arthur Rubenstein and Dmitri Shostakovich.

August 2019 was a full and rewarding month: after the Verbier Festival where he appeared in recital with Evgent Kissin and conducted the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra in a programme in which he played Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Antoine Tamestit, he joined YoYo Ma and Emanuel Ax at the Tanglewood Music Festival for a programme of Beethoven Piano trios, in a duo recital with Ax of Beethoven Sonatas, and in an orchestral concert with the Boston Symphony in which he played and conducted Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Dvořák Symphony No. 7.

Kavakos was also invited as Artiste Etoile at the Lucerne Festival where he appeared with the Lucerne Festival Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Mariinsky Orchestra with Valery Gergiev, Vienna Philharmonic with Andrés Orozco-Estrada, and in recital with Yuja Wang.

In the 2019/20 season, in addition to concerts with major orchestras in Europe and the United States, Kavakos will once again join Yo-yo Ma and Emanuel Ax for three programmes in Carnegie Hall comprising Beethoven trios and sonatas. He will undertake two Asian tours, first as soloist with the Singapore Symphony and Seoul Philharmonic and in recital in the NCPA Beijing, and then in the spring he performs with the Hong Kong Philharmonic and Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, prior to playing Beethoven Sonata Cycles in Shanghai and Guangzhou with Enrico Pace.

In recent years, Kavakos has succeeded in building a strong profile as a conductor and has conducted the London Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Houston Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Gürzenich Orchester, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Filarmonica Teatro La Fenice, and the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. In the forthcoming season he will return to two orchestras where he has developed close ties as both violinist and conductor: L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. This season he also play/conducts the Czech Philharmonic, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI.

Born and brought up in a musical family in Athens, Kavakos curates an annual violin and chamber-music masterclass in Athens, which attracts violinists and ensembles from all over the world and reflects his deep commitment to the handing on of musical knowledge and traditions. Part of this tradition is the art of violin and bow-making, which Kavakos regards as a great mystery and to this day, an undisclosed secret. He plays the "Willemotte" Stradivarius violin of 1734 and owns modern violins made by F. Leonhard, S. P. Greiner, E. Haahti and D. Bagué.