Fabio Luisi, conductor

GRAMMY^® Award winner Fabio Luisi launched his tenure as Louise W. & Edmund J. Kahn Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra (DSO) at the start of the 2020/21 season. In January 2021, the DSO and Luisi announced an extension of the Music Director contract through the 2028/29 season. A maestro of major international standing, the Italian conductor is set to embark on his fifth season as Principal Conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and in September 2022 will assume the role of Principal Conductor of the NHK Symphony Orchestra in Tokyo. He previously served for six seasons as Principal Conductor of the Metropolitan Opera and nine seasons as General Music Director of the Zurich Opera.

Fabio Luisi’s 2021/22 programs in Dallas and for the DSO’s NEXT STAGE Digital Concert Series will feature performances of the music of beloved classical composers, a continued examination of American music, and a full opera-in-concert. Luisi will open the Texas Instruments Classical Series with Aaron Copland’s Organ Symphony, The Mystic Trumpeter by American composer Frederick Converse, and Brahms’s Symphony No. 1, which will be recorded for a future album release of all of Brahms’s symphonies. He will lead his first DSO Gala on September 25 with a performance of Strauss’s Don Juan and the Dallas premiere of John Williams’s Violin Concerto No. 2, with Anne-Sophie Mutter making her DSO debut as soloist. In the fall, Luisi will conduct Richard Strauss’s Aus Italien and Metamorphosen, lead the Dallas Symphony Chorus in Mozart’s Requiem and welcome Renée Fleming in American composer Kevin Puts’s The Brightness of Light. Six concerts in 2022 will feature a wide range of expression and a diverse group of composers. Luisi will return in January with performances of Adolphus Hailstork’s Epitaph for a Man Who Dreamed and the Symphony No. 4 by Franz Schmidt, a composer whose works the conductor has long championed and extensively recorded. In April, the DSO will mount Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin with an internationally renowned cast, and in May Luisi will present the Dallas premiere of Bruce Adolphe’s Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt! (This Kiss to the Whole World!) along with Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

Beyond Dallas this season, Luisi will return to conduct the NHK Orchestra (Tokyo) and the Philadelphia Orchestra, and he will lead the New Year’s Concert in Venice, to be broadcast worldwide. Luisi will conduct Strauss’s Eine Alpensinfonie with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in December and will accompany the same orchestra on tour. In July 2022, Luisi will return to the Festspiele at the Munich Bayerische Staatsoper for a production of Verdi’s Macbeth with Anna Netrebko as Lady Macbeth. With the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Luisi will embark on a recording cycle of Carl Nielsen’s symphonies for the renowned Deutsche Grammophon label.

The conductor received his first GRAMMY^® Award in March 2013 for his leadership of the last two operas of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, when Deutsche Grammophon’s DVD release of the full cycle, recorded live at the Met, was named Best Opera Recording of 2012. In February 2015, the Philharmonia Zurich launched its Philharmonia Records label with three Luisi recordings: Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique; a double album surveying Wagner’s Preludes and Interludes, and a DVD of Verdi’s Rigoletto. Subsequent releases include a survey of Rachmaninov’s Four Piano Concertos and Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini with soloist Lise de la Salle, and a rare recording of the original version of Bruckner’s monumental Symphony No. 8. Luisi’s extensive discography also includes rare Verdi operas (Jérusalem, Alzira and Aroldo), Salieri’s La locandiera, Bellini’s I puritani and I Capuleti e i Montecchi with Anna Netrebko and Elīna Garanča for Deutsche Grammophon, and the symphonic repertoire of Honegger, Respighi and Liszt. He has recorded all the symphonies and the oratorio Das Buch mit sieben Siegeln by neglected Austrian composer Franz Schmidt, several works by Richard Strauss for Sony Classical, and an award-winning account of Bruckner’s Ninth Symphony with the Staatskapelle Dresden.

Born in Genoa in 1959, Luisi began piano studies at the age of four and received his diploma from the Conservatorio Niccolò Paganini in 1978. He later studied conducting with Milan Horvat at the University for Music and Performing Arts in Graz. Named both Cavaliere della Repubblica Italiana and Commendatore della Stella d’Italia for his role in promoting Italian culture abroad, in 2014 he was awarded the Grifo d’Oro, the highest honor given by the city of Genoa, for his contributions to the city’s cultural legacy. Off the podium, Luisi is an accomplished composer whose Saint Bonaventure Mass received its world premiere at New York’s St. Bonaventure University, followed by its New York City premiere in the MetLiveArts series, with the Buffalo Philharmonic and Chorus. As reported by the New York Times, CBS Sunday Morning and elsewhere, he is also a passionate maker of perfumes, which he produces in a one-person operation, FLPARFUMS.COM.

James Ehnes, violin

James Ehnes has established himself as one of the most sought-after violinists on the international stage. Gifted with a rare combination of stunning virtuosity, serene lyricism and an unfaltering musicality, Ehnes is a favourite guest of many of the world’s most respected conductors including Ashkenazy, Alsop, Sir Andrew Davis, Denève, Elder, Ivan Fischer, Gardner, Paavo Järvi, Mena, Noseda, Robertson and Runnicles. Ehnes’s long list of orchestras includes, amongst others, the Boston, Chicago, London, NHK and Vienna Symphony Orchestras, the Los Angeles, New York, Munich and Czech Philharmonic Orchestras, and the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Philharmonia and DSO Berlin orchestras.

Recent and future orchestral highlights include the MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall with Noseda, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig with Shelley, Orchestre National de France with Gardner, San Francisco Symphony with Janowski, Frankfurt Radio Symphony with Orozco-Estrada, Hong Kong Philharmonic with van Zweden and Gothenburg Symphony with Nagano, as well as his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra at the Lincoln Center in spring 2019 and a residency with the Minnesota Orchestra throughout 2017/18. In 2017, Ehnes premiered the Aaron-Jay Kernis Violin Concerto with the Toronto, Seattle and Dallas Symphony Orchestras, and gave further performances of the piece with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Ehnes was awarded the 2017 Royal Philharmonic Society Award in the Instrumentalist category.

Alongside his concerto work, James Ehnes maintains a busy recital schedule. He performs regularly at the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Symphony Center Chicago, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Ravinia, Montreux, Chaise-Dieu, the White Nights Festival in St Petersburg, Verbier Festival, Festival de Pâques in Aix, and in 2009 he made a sensational debut at the Salzburg Festival performing the Paganini Caprices. In 2016, Ehnes undertook a cross-Canada recital tour, performing in each of the country’s provinces and territories, to celebrate his 40th birthday.

As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with leading artists such as Andsnes, Capucon, Lortie, Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Tamestit, Vogler and Yuja Wang. In 2010, he formally established the Ehnes Quartet, with whom he has performed in Europe at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Auditorium du Louvre in Paris and Théâtre du Jeu de Paume in Aix, amongst others. Ehnes is the Artistic Director of the Seattle Chamber Music Society.

Ehnes has an extensive discography and has won many awards for his recordings including a Gramophone Award for his live recording of the Elgar Concerto with Sir Andrew Davis and the Philharmonia Orchestra. His recording of the Korngold, Barber and Walton violin concertos won a Grammy Award for ‘Best Instrumental Soloist Performance’ and a JUNO award for ‘Best Classical Album of the Year’. His recording of the Paganini Caprices earned him universal praise, with Diapason writing of the disc, “Ehnes confirms the predictions of Erick Friedman, eminent student of Heifetz: ‘there is only one like him born every hundred years’.” Ehnes’s recent recording of the Bartók Concerti was nominated for a Gramophone Award in the Concerto category. Recent releases include sonatas by Beethoven, Debussy, Elgar and Respighi, and concertos by Britten, Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Walton, as well as the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Andrew Manze, which was released in October 2017 (Onyx Classics).

Ehnes began violin studies at the age of four, became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin aged nine, made his orchestral debut with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal aged 13 and graduated from The Juilliard School in 1997, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2010 was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada.

James Ehnes plays the “Marsick” Stradivarius of 1715.

Photo: Benjamin Ealovega