Closing concert of the 36th Jewish Culture Days Berlin

Violinist and conductor Guy Braunstein has been playing the violin from the age of six. He studied in his native Israel and later in America under the guideness of Chaim Taub and Pinchas Zukerman.
Starting at a young age and over the years He has been touring as a soloist with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle,Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Semyon Bychkov, Claudio abbado and Andris Nelsons, to name a few, with orchestras such as Boston Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Tonhalle orchestra Zürich, Philharmonia orchestra and many others.
Mr. Braunstein plays recitals and chamber Music regularly with partners like Yefim Bronfman, Emmanuel Ax, Yuja wang, Lang Lang ,Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich and many more.
In the last decade, Guy has been engaged a lot as a conductor. He has been working on a vast repertoire as a high acclaimed guest conductor and as a principal guest with the Hamburg Symphony orchestra and Trondheim Symphony orchestra, Among the soloists that performed under him: Magdalena Kozena, Daniel Barenboim, Radu Lupu and others.
One of his greatest passions is transcribing,arranging and orchestrating master works and presenting them in a different formation, in 2019 Guy’s released his Tchaikovsky CD featuring his own arrangements alongside the violin concerto.
Both as a violinst and a conductor, Mr Braunstein has been able to bring to the concert stage a whole new world of repertoire of the great composers, In versions that have never been heard before. These additions for the literature has been met with great enthusiasm among orchestras, musicians and audiences alike.
Between the years 2000-2013 Guy has been the first concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
From 2003-2007 he was a Professor of musik in UDK (university of the arts) in Berlin.
In 2006 he took the post of  artistic director of the Rolandseck festival, which he led until 2016.
In the present Mr Braunstein is the music director of the “ClasClas” festival in Galicia, Spain.
Guy Braunstein plays a rare violin, built in 1679 by Francesco Ruggeiri In Cremona, Italy.

The brilliant coloratura soprano Sofie Asplund has this summer appeared as Arianna in Vivaldi’s Il Giustino at the Drottningholm Palace Theatre. Sofie has begun the season at the Royal Swedish Opera where she has sung Zerbinetta in Ariadne auf Naxos. The spring will include another Strauss opera; Die schweigsame Frau at the Göteborg Opera with Sofie as Aminta, which will be followed by Musetta in La Bohème on the same stage.

The previous season Sofie sung the role of The Foster Sister in the opera Herr Arnes Penningar/Sir Arne’s Treasure by Gösta Nystroem at the Göteborg Opera. The season also included two world premieres both at Alandica in Åland; the title role in Lisbeta, a role especially written for Ms. Asplund by Karólina Eiriksdóttirs, and the opera Djävulsdansen i Skarpans where she sung the role of Agatha Sipelius.

Sofie has previously appeared as Susanna and Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro, Olga Sukarev in Giordano’s Fedora and Oscar in Un ballo in Maschera at the Royal Opera in Stockholm. She has sung Erste Magd in Daphne at Staatsoper Hamburg and at the Opera in Basel. At the Malmö Opera, Sofie Asplund has sung Oscar, Sophie in Der Rosenkavalier and Pousette in Manon. She has appeared as Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Vixen in The cunning little vixen at the Läckö castle and as Carolina in Il matrimonio segreto at the Drottningholm Court Theatre. At the Vadstena Academy, Sofie has sung Lydia in Pride and Prejudice and Laura in Star Cross’d lovers. She has also sung Eurydice in Orphée aux Enfers by Offenbach in a staged concert in Uppsala together with the Drottningholm barock ensemble.

Sofie Asplund’s concert repertoire include Mozart’s Requiem, the Coronation Mass, Exultate Jubilate and Mass in C minor. She has sung Bach’s Magnificat, St John’s passion and St. Matthew passion, The Creation by Haydn, Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater, Orff’s Carmina Burana, Les Illuminations by Britten, Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem and God in Disguise by Lars-Erik Larsson.

Sofie Asplund has also appeared in musical theatre roles including Maria in West Side Story and Christine in The Phantom of the Opera, which she has performed at the Finland National Opera and at the Göteborg Opera.

Sofie Asplund graduated from the Royal College of Opera in Stockholm in 2013. She has been engaged as a guest soloist at the Göteborg Opera, where she made her praised debut as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro. On the same stage, Sofie has performed her first Gretel in Hänsel und Gretel, Gilda in Rigoletto and Erste magd in a concert version of Daphne and Maria in West Side Story.

In 2018 Sofie Asplund was the first winner of the new singing competition the Schymberg Award. Sofie Asplund has been awarded the Sten A Olsson culture scholarship of 2018 and the Rosenborg-Gehrmansscholarship of 2015. In 2013 she was recipient of both Anders Wall and Birgit Nilsson scholarships. Sofie has also received scholarships from the Royal Music Academy of Sweden and the Drottningholm Court Theatre.

Danish tenor Peter Lodahl studied at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus and at the Royal Opera Academy in Copenhagen. Upon completion of his vocal education he took on his first engagement at the Kiel Opera where his first roles included Decio in Vivaldi’s Ottone in villa, Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni, Lord Percy in Anna Bolena, Rinuccio in Dianni Schicchi, Cassio in Otello and Don Alfredo in Eduard Künneke’s Lady Hamilton.

He then moved on to the Komische Oper in Berlin to further expand his repertory with roles such as Tamino in Die Zauberflöte, Belmonte in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Ferrando in Così fan tutte, Alfredo in La Traviata, Lenski in Eugene Onegin and Rodolfo in La Bohème.

He received the nomination for the “Young Artist Of The Year” award by the opera magazine Opernwelt and less than two years later he joined the ensemble of the opera company of his home country, the Royal Danish Opera, where he won over audiences and critics alike as Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Ferrando (Così fan tutte), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Edgardo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Alfredo (La Traviata), Duke (Rigoletto), Romeo (Roméo et Juliette), Alfred (Die Fledermaus), Fenton (Falstaff), Rodolfo (La Bohème) and An Artist / A Negro in Lulu.

Further successes include Nerone in Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppeawith the Royal Swedish Opera Stockholm, Tamino at the Berlin State Opera, Don Ottavio at Hamburg’s State Opera, Ein Jüngling in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten with Den Norske Opera in Oslo, Fenton in Verdi’s Falstaff at the Göteborg Opera as well as the title role in Mozart’s Mitridate at the Drottningholms Slottsteater.

On the concert podium he appeared in Stuttgart’s Liederhalle with soprano Diana Damrau and he enjoys a frequent collaboration with
 conductors such as Giancarlo Andretta, Michael Boder, Anthony Bramall, Frans Brüggen, Dan Ettinger, Simon Gaudenz, Paul Goodwin, Michael Hofstetter, Manfred Honeck, Konrad Junghänel, Patrick Lange, Shao-Chia Lü, Kazushi Ono, Pier Giorgio Morandi, Günter Neuhold, Marc Piollet, Christoph Poppen, Markus Poschner, Carlo Rizzi, Henrik Schäfer, Michael Schønwandt, Peter Schreier, Andreas Spering, Carl St. Clair, Andreas Stoehr and Arnold Östman.

Being a versatile concert soloist, Peter Lodahl’s concert repertory includes Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, St John and St Matthew Passion, a wide selection of Cantatas, Mozart’s Reuqiem, Missa Brevis and Mass in C minor, Handel’s Messiah, Jephta and Joshua, Haydn’s Creation and The Seasons as well as his Missa in tempore belli and Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn’s Die erste Walpurgisnacht, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, Mahler’s Las Lied von der Erde and Bartok’s Cantata Profana.

He further appeared at New York’s Alice Tully Hall in Stravinsky’s Pulcinella, in Mozart’s Requiem with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Bach’s St John Pasison with Aalborg Symphony Orchestra and in concert with the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in Frankfurt and Kaiserslautern.

Peter gave his debut with Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels performing Leukippos in Strauss’s Daphne besides taking part in productions of Der Rosenkavalier and Les vêpres siciliennes in Copenhagen, followed by a New Year’s Concert with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra and another concert featuring Donizetti’s seldom performed Requiem with the Copenhagen Philharmonic.

After appearing as Lenski in Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin at the Copenhagen Opera Festival, Peter Lodahl’s engagements in the season 2015/2016 included a new production of Wagner’s Das Liebesverbot at Madrid’s Teatro Real, his highly-acclaimed rendering of the role of Jay Gatsby in the European Premiere of Harbison’s ”The Great Gatsby” at Dresden’s Semperoper, as well as a new production of Strauss’s Daphne at the Hamburg State Opera. In Hamburg, Peter furthermore appeared as Artist/Negro in Berg’s Lulu and went on performing Das Liebesverbot at the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires. Particularly noteworthy is his rendering of the title role in Enjott Schneider’s Marco Polo, a newly composed opera sung in Chinese and explicitly written for the two opera houses in Guangzhou and Beijing.

These appearances were further completed by several concert projects including the world premiere of Thomas Agerfeldt Olesen’s Juleoratoriumwith the Århus Sinfonietta and Verdi’s Messa da Requiem with the Noord Nederlands Orkest. In the frame of the Grafenegg Academy 2018 Peter performed the role of “Der Offizier” in a semi-staged version of Ernst Krenek’s one-act opera Der Diktator opposite Christopher Maltman in the title role.

Without doubt one the most challenging and exciting projects is represented by Christian Jost’s world premiere of Dichterliebe recomposed at the Konzerthaus Berlin based on Schumann’s famous song cycle, with the composer himself conducting the Berlin-based Horenstein Ensemble. A recording of the concert has recently been released by Deutsche Grammophon.

Violinist and conductor Guy Braunstein has been playing the violin from the age of six. He studied in his native Israel and later in America under the guideness of Chaim Taub and Pinchas Zukerman.
Starting at a young age and over the years He has been touring as a soloist with conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle,Zubin Mehta, Daniel Barenboim, Semyon Bychkov, Claudio abbado and Andris Nelsons, to name a few, with orchestras such as Boston Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Tonhalle orchestra Zürich, Philharmonia orchestra and many others.
Mr. Braunstein plays recitals and chamber Music regularly with partners like Yefim Bronfman, Emmanuel Ax, Yuja wang, Lang Lang ,Maurizio Pollini, Martha Argerich and many more.
In the last decade, Guy has been engaged a lot as a conductor. He has been working on a vast repertoire as a high acclaimed guest conductor and as a principal guest with the Hamburg Symphony orchestra and Trondheim Symphony orchestra, Among the soloists that performed under him: Magdalena Kozena, Daniel Barenboim, Radu Lupu and others.
One of his greatest passions is transcribing,arranging and orchestrating master works and presenting them in a different formation, in 2019 Guy’s released his Tchaikovsky CD featuring his own arrangements alongside the violin concerto.
Both as a violinst and a conductor, Mr Braunstein has been able to bring to the concert stage a whole new world of repertoire of the great composers, In versions that have never been heard before. These additions for the literature has been met with great enthusiasm among orchestras, musicians and audiences alike.
Between the years 2000-2013 Guy has been the first concertmaster of the Berliner Philharmoniker.
From 2003-2007 he was a Professor of musik in UDK (university of the arts) in Berlin.
In 2006 he took the post of  artistic director of the Rolandseck festival, which he led until 2016.
In the present Mr Braunstein is the music director of the “ClasClas” festival in Galicia, Spain.
Guy Braunstein plays a rare violin, built in 1679 by Francesco Ruggeiri In Cremona, Italy.