Diego Masson  

Gearóid Grant  

Gearóid Grant was born in Dublin and graduated with a B Mus degree from University College Dublin. Since then he has combined a freelance career as conductor with a career in music education. He is one of the outstanding personalities in his generation in the musical and cultural life of Ireland. He has conducted all the principal orchestras in Ireland, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, the Irish Chamber Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland. Gearóid devised and continues to present and conduct the acclaimed series “Music in the Classroom” which introduces music to 30,000 Irish children annually, with 24 performances at the National Concert Hall in Dublin and in major venues around Ireland. The programme is developed in conjunction with RTE, “The Irish Times” and the Department of Education. Gearóid Grant has toured in England with the Irish Chamber Orchestra.
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Matthias Bamert   

Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra Matthias Bamert combines this position with a busy schedule of guest conducting engagements around the world. In Europe he has been invited to guest conduct orchestras such as the Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de France, Salzburg Mozarteum Orchestra, Netherlands Chamber, Residentie Orkest The Hague, MDR Leipzig, Konzerthaus Orchester Berlin, Helsinki, Oslo and St Petersburg Philharmonic, Madrid RTVE, Orquesta Nacional de Espana and Barcelona Opera Liceu, amongst others. In North America he works regularly with Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Houston, Montreal, Toronto and St Louis Symphony and this season he returns to the Cleveland Orchestra and Seattle Symphony and also conducts the Minnesota Orchestra.
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Eri Klas  

The Estonian conductor Eri Klas was born in Tallinn into a musical family. His father was a cellist and his mother a well known pianist and teacher who became his first teacher. He graduated from the Tallinn Music College as a violinist, percussionist and choral conductor. At the Leningrad Conservatory Klas studied conducting with Nikolai Rabinovich. He subsequently worked with the Estonian Radio Orchestra. The moulding of the young musician was highly influenced and supported by the great pianist and conductor, David Oistrach, whom Klas considers his spiritual father in music. Eri Klas made his conducting debut in 1964 when he conducted Bernstein's West Side Story at the Estonia Opera House in Tallinn. He has been associated with this Opera House ever since, and became its music director in 1975.
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Atso Almila  

Atso Almila was born in 1953 in Helsinki, Finland, and presently lives in Kuopio. He studied trombone and orchestral conducting with Professor Jorma Panula in the Sibelius Academy of Helsinki, graduating in orchestral conducting in 1979.
Almila has been the conductor of some outstanding Finnish choirs, and was the musical director of the National Theatre of Finland between 1982 and 1995. He was principal conductor of the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra between 1987-1989 and teaches orchestral conducting in the Sibelius Academy of Helsinki. From 1995-2000 he was principal conductor of the Joensuu Orchestra, and from 1995-2000 the artistic director of the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra with whom he toured in Japan in 1997. He has toured with the Sibelius–Academy symphony to Birmingham and major Scandinavian cities. Other visits abroad to mainly Swedish, Estonian and Swiss orchestras, both symphonic and wind..
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Takuo Yuasa  

Currently the Principal Guest Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra in Northern Ireland, the highly regarded Japanese conductor Takuo Yuasa regularly performs throughout Europe and the Far East. He has held positions as Principal Conductor of the Gumma Symphony Orchestra in Japan, Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and his success with the Ulster Orchestra in Belfast has already seen one extension of his contract there until 2003. He has a most successful recording career and he is an exclusive Naxos Artist for whom he has recorded with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and in Budapest, as well as with the Ulster Orchestra, in the last twelve months.
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William Eddins  

William Eddins is the Resident Conductor of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (the first in its 112-year history), the Principal Guest Conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and a frequent guest conductor of major orchestras throughout the world. Recent engagements include the New York Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, as well as the symphony orchestras of San Francisco, Minnesota, Cincinnati, Atlanta, New Jersey, Detroit, Dallas, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Houston, San Antonio, Colorado, as well as the Los Angeles, Jacksonville and Tulsa Philharmonics.
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En Shao  

En Shao was born in 1954 in Tinjin in China and started to play the piano at the age of four and the violin at the age of five. In 1966 he was forced to stop his music studies for four years due to the Cultural Revolution. Gradually however he was able to develop his musical studies and by the age of 18 was working as a composer, pianist and percussionist with a local orchestra. He studied at the Beijing Centre Music Conservatory and after his graduation became second Principal Conductor of the Chinese Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra, a post he held for five years and was also Principal Guest Conductor of the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of China and the National Youth Orchestra of China.
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Alexander Anissimov  

Alexander Anissimov attended the Glinka School in St Petersburg as a boy. This renowned school, founded by Peter the Great, has a long tradition particularly for choral work. Alexander studied piano and organ and having started as a boy, he sang for fifteen years. He entered St Petersburg Conservatory to study conducting with Elizaveta Kudravtseva and later moved on to Moscow Conservatory where he studied orchestral and opera conducting under Leo Ginzburg and Gennady Roshdestvensky. After graduation he worked for five years in the Maly Theatre of Opera and Ballet in St Petersburg, and during these years he began to build up his extensive repertoire.
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Roberto Benzi  

Born in Marseilles, it was in Paris under the guidance of very distinguished teachers that Roberto Benzi consolidated his talent and soon surpassed his teachers. He studied conducting under Andre Cluytens and this was a turning point in his life. He made his debut in the summer of 1948 in France and from this point his professional career as a conductor took off. The number of orchestras, theatres and festivals who have invited him since his debut as a young conductor is impressive. They include the Orchestre National de France, l'Orchestre de Paris, the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, l'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wiener Symphoniker, Czech Philharmonic, and many others.
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Andrey Boreyko  

Since the 1998/99 season Andrey Boreyko has been chief conductor of the Jenaer Philharmonie as well as Principal Guest Conductor of the Vancouver Symphony and Associate Principal Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra. Born in St. Petersburg in 1957, he studied at the cityís conservatory conducting with Elisabeta Kudriavzeva and Alexander Dmitriev and composition. In 1987 he won the Grzegorz Fitelberg Competition in Katowice and in 1989 the Kirill Kondrashin Competition in Amsterdam. Following an engagement as conductor at the Musical Theatre of his home town he became in 1987 Permanent Conductor of the theatre and the Symphony Orchestra in Ulyanovsk, in 1989 he was appointed Musical Director in Yekaterinenburg. From 1992 - 1995 he held the same position in Poznan as a result of a competition.
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