Nathalie Stutzmann, conductor

Nathalie Stutzmann has just been announced as Atlanta Symphony’s Music Director from the start of the 2022/23 season, becoming only the second woman in history to lead a major American orchestra after Marin Alsop. In addition, this season she begins her position as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new Principal Guest Conductor. The three-year tenure will involve a regular presence in the orchestra’s subscription series in Philadelphia and at its Summer festivals in Vail and Saratoga. Finally, Nathalie is also entering the fourth season of a highly successful tenure as Chief Conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, a tenure which has just been extended by a further two seasons, to the end of 22/23.

Nathalie Stutzmann is considered one of the most outstanding musical personalities of our time. Charismatic musicianship, combined with unique rigour, energy and fantasy, characterise her style. A rich variety of strands form the core of her repertoire: Central European and Russian romanticism is a strong focus — ranging from Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Dvorak through to the larger symphonic forces of Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner and Strauss — as well as French 19th century repertoire and impressionism. Highlights from her partnership with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra include acclaimed performances of Bruckner’s Symphony No. 7, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 6 and a complete cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies.

Nathalie was also Principal Guest Conductor of the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland 2017-2020. Her sold-out performances with the RTE NSO in Dublin attracted outstanding accolades from the press, with particular praise for her performances of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, and Mahler’s complete Das Knaben Wunderhorn.

As a guest conductor, Nathalie will begin the season 21/ 22 with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Other guest conducting highlights this season and the next include performances with the London Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Hamburg NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Helsinki Radio Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, San Francisco Symphony…

Having also established a strong reputation as an opera conductor, she was scheduled to make her Metropolitan Opera debut this fall (cancelled due to Covid-19) and has led celebrated productions of Wagner’s Tannhäuser in Monte Carlo and Boito’s Mefistofele in Provence. She will conduct a new production of Tchaikovsky’s Queen of Spades in Brussels’ La Monnaie next year.

Nathalie started her studies at a very young age in piano, bassoon, cello and studied conducting with the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula. She was mentored by Seiji Ozawa and Sir Simon Rattle who says that “Nathalie is the real thing. So much love, intensity and sheer technique. We need more conductors like her”.

Also one of today’s most esteemed contraltos, she has done more than 80 recordings and received the most prestigious awards. Her newest album released in January 2021, Contralto, was awarded of Scherzo’s ‘Exceptional’ seal, Opera Magazine’s Diamant d’Or and radio RTL’s Classique d’Or. She is an exclusive recording artist of Warner Classics/Erato.

Nathalie was named “Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur”, France’s highest honor, and “Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres” by the French government.

Daniel Lozakovich, violin

Violinist Daniel Lozakovich’s majestic music-making has left critics and audiences spellbound. “Perfect mastery. An exceptional talent,” observed Le Figaro after a performance in Verbier Festival, while the Boston Globe praised the “poise, tonal purity, and technique to spare” of his debut with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons at the Tanglewood Festival in July 2017.

Daniel was born in Stockholm in 2001 and began playing the violin when he was almost seven. He made his solo debut two years later with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov in Moscow. Since the first performance Daniel has a major influence by Vladimir Spivakov and playes Daniel collaborates with some of the world’s eminent conductors, including Ádám Fischer, Semyon Bychkov, Neeme Järvi,  Esa Pekka Salonen, Andris Nelsons, Robin Ticciati, Marc Albrecht, Klaus Mäkelä, Vasily Petrenko, Tugan Sokhiev, Giancarlo Guerrero, Nathalie Stutzman, Leonard Slatkin and Lorenzo Viotti.

Daniel has a close collaboration with Valery Gergiev, with whom he maintains a strong artistic partnership since their first collaboration during the New Year’s concert 2015 at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow. Returning to the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra to perform the Beethoven Violin Concerto in the closing concert of the XV Moscow Easter Festival and later at the Stars of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, at the Festival de Saint-Denis, also the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm’s Berwaldhallen, the Rotterdam Gergiev Festival and at the Septembre Musical Montreux Festival with Prokofiev concerto No 2. Daniel opened the Münchner Philharmoniker festival, MPHIL 360°, alongside Valery Gergiev and the Münchner Philharmoniker with Mozart’s Concerto No. 5 and has since been reinvited with a series of performances in the 2019/20 season, in Munich and in Amsterdam, with the Beethoven Concerto.

He signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon in June 2016, soon after his 15th birthday. The deal made him the youngest member of DG’s family of artists. It also reinforced his status as a one-in-a-million virtuoso blessed with an entrancing range of expression and musicianship. Lozakovich’s first recording for Deutsche Grammophon, with the Kammerorchester des Symphonieorchesters des Bayerischen Rundfunks, was released in June 2018 and featured Bach’s two concerti for violin and orchestra (BWV 1041 and 1042), and the Partita No. 2 in D minor (BWV 1004) for solo violin. The outstanding success of this debut album was marked in the music charts, the album reaching number 1 on the French Amazon overall charts and number 1 in the classical album charts in Germany

“None but the Lonely Heart”, Lozakovich’s second album for the Yellow Label, was released in October 2019. Dedicated to the music of Tchaikovsky, it includes the Violin Concerto, recorded live with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia and Vladimir Spivakov, the Méditation for violin and orchestra and arrangements of two vocal works, Lensky’s Aria from Eugene Onegin and the song from which the album takes its name: the Romance, Op.6 No.6, “None but the lonely heart”.

Lozakovich performs with such orchestras as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, the Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin and many more.

Recent highlights include New York debut at the Mostly Mozart Festival with Louis Langrée, as well as tours to Japan and Asia with Valery Gergiev and a Japan tour with the hr-Sinfonieorchester Frankfurt under the baton of Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

A remarkable 2019/20 season sees Lozakovich return to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in their subscription series with Andris Nelsons, the Orchestre National de France with Neeme Järvi, debuting with the Cleveland Orchestra with Klaus Mäkelä, St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra with Yuri Temirkanov, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London with Vasily Petrenko, a tour with the Orchestre de Paris with Christoph Eschenbach and an invitation by Esa-Pekka Salonen to the subscription series of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

A highly-regarded recitalist, he has made appearances at Les Grandes Voix – Les Grands Solistes in Salle Gaveau, Fondation Louis Vuitton, Tonhalle Zurich, Victoria Hall Geneva, Conservatorio Giuseppe Verdi di Milano, Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, Salle Gaveau, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie and Mariinsky Theatre.

A regular at international music festivals, including the Verbier Festival, the Riga Jurmala Music Festival, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, Sommets musicaux de Gstaad, Gergiev Festival Rotterdam, Baltic Sea Festival, White Nights Festival, Festival de Pâques – Aix-en-Provence, Tanglewood Music Festival, Blossom Music Festival, Pacific Music Festival, Corinthian Summer Music Festival in Austria, Colmar Festival, Festival de Saint-Denis and many more.

As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with such artists as Emanuel Ax, Ivry Gitlis, Sergei Babayan, Martin Fröst, Renaud Capuçon, Alexander Romanovsky, Maxim Vengerov, Shlomo Mintz and Denis Matsuev.

Awarded many prizes including 1st prize at the 2016 Vladimir Spivakov International Violin Competition and “The Young Artist of the Year 2017” award at the Festival of the Nations, “Premio Batuta” in Mexico, and the “Excelentia Award” under the honorary presidency of Queen Sofia of Spain.

Lozakovich studies at the Karlsruhe University of Music with Professor Josef Rissin since 2012, and from 2015 has been mentored by Eduard Wulfson in Geneva. Daniel had also studied with Mikhail Kazinik, Natalja Beshulya and Gerhard Schulz.

Daniel Lozakovich plays the “ex-Baron Rothschild” Stradivari on generous loan on behalf of the owner by Reuning & Son, Boston, and Eduard Wulfson, and plays the Stradivarius “Le Reynier” (1727), generously loaned by LVMH.