Antonello Manacorda & Maximilian Hornung

An Italian with a strong affinity for the German repertoire. A “melodist by nature” (Der Tagesspiegel), who knows how to convincingly transfer the attention to detail of stylistically informed interpretation practice to the large apparatus. A true orchestral practitioner, moreover, whose artistic creative power is combined with the need for a musical style based on partnership. Antonello Manacorda’s versatility as a conductor lies in the wealth of his musical and cultural influences: Born in Turin into an Italian-French family, educated in Amsterdam and at home in Berlin for many years, Manacorda was a founding member and long-time concertmaster of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, founded by Claudio Abbado, before studying conducting with the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula. Today, Antonello Manacorda can be heard just as frequently in opera productions at the world’s most important opera houses as he can on the podium of leading symphony orchestras. His work centres on the Kammerakademie Potsdam, which he has been Artistic Director of since 2010 and with which he has made a number of award-winning recordings. Antonello Manacorda will retire as Chief Conductor of the ensemble at the end of the 2024/25 season, although he will remain associated with it as Honorary Conductor. Opera productions will take Antonello Manacorda to the Stuttgart State Opera (Il trovatore), the Royal Opera House Covent Garden (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), the Zurich Opera (Nozze di Figaro) and the Opéra National de Paris (Pelléas et Mélisande) in the current and upcoming seasons.

In the field of symphonic music, Antonello Manacorda will be a guest conductor with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in the 2024/2025 season. Together with the Kammerakademie Potsdam, he will perform a concert version of Weber’s Freischütz in Potsdam, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden and the Berlin Philharmonie.

In recent years Maximilian Hornung has established himself as one of the leading cellists of his generation. As a soloist, he performs with renowned orchestras such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Orchestre National de France, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under conductors such as Daniel Harding, Yannick Nézét-Séguin, Mariss Jansons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, David Zinman, Pablo Heras-Casado, Semyon Bychkov, Bernard Haitink, Manfred Honeck, Antonello Manacorda, John Storgårds , Michael Francis, Mario Venzago, Jonathan Nott, Andrew Manze, Krzysztof Urbański and Robin Ticciati.

His chamber music partners include Anne-Sophie Mutter, Antje Weithaas, Hélène Grimaud, Daniil Trifonov, Christian Tetzlaff, Lisa Batiashvili, François Leleux, Joshua Bell, Yefim Bronfman, Herbert Schuch, Lars Vogt, Hisako Kawamura, Jörg Widmann and Tabea Zimmermann. He has performed with the Arcanto Quartet and the Cuarteto Casals and has been invited to numerous festivals, including Salzburg, Schwetzingen, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Rheingau, Lucerne, Verbier, Lockenhaus, Ravinia and Hong Kong. He is a regular guest on stages such as the Philharmonies in Berlin, Cologne and Essen, the Vienna Musikverein, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and London’s Wigmore Hall. He will perform with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB) for the first time in 2022.