Simone Young & Christian Tetzlaff

Australian conductor Simone Young is numbered among the most important conductors of our time. Since 2022, she has served as Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, where she is currently conducting, among other projects, a concert performance cycle of Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen. In 2024, she made her debut at the Bayreuth Festival with this monumental work and returned in summer 2025 to conduct two further complete cycles.

Following the acclaimed new production of György Kurtág’s Fin de partie at the Vienna State Opera, she will return in autumn 2025 to lead the revival. She will then conduct Wagner’s Lohengrin at the Staatsoper Unter den Linden in Berlin. Subsequently, she will complete David McVicar’s new Ring des Nibelungen production at La Scala in Milan, conducting Götterdämmerung and the full cycle.

Simone Young also leaves a strong mark in the symphonic repertoire and will conduct in the 25/26 season the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the WDR Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, and, during a U.S. tour, the National Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.

From 2005 to 2015, she was Artistic Director of the Hamburg State Opera and General Music Director of the Hamburg Philharmonic, where she conducted an exceptionally broad repertoire ranging from Mozart, Verdi, Puccini, Wagner, and Strauss to Hindemith, Britten, and Henze, as well as numerous world and national premieres. Earlier positions included Chief Conductor of the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra (1998–2002) and Artistic Director of Opera Australia in Sydney and Melbourne (2001–2003).

From the beginning of her career, Simone Young gained international recognition as a leading interpreter of Wagner and Strauss. She conducted full Ring cycles at the Vienna State Opera, the Berlin State Opera, and in a new production at the Hamburg State Opera. Her engagements have taken her to the world’s most prestigious houses, including the Vienna State Opera (debut 1993), the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London, the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Berlin State Opera, the Bavarian State Opera, the Semperoper Dresden, the Zurich Opera, and, for the first time in 2023, to La Scala with a new production of Peter Grimes (directed by Robert Carsen).

In addition to her extensive operatic work, she is in high demand on the concert stage. She has conducted leading orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Washington Symphony Orchestra, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Orchestre de Paris, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestre National de France, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the Oslo Philharmonic, and various orchestras in Australia among others.

Simone Young is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, an honorary doctorate from the universities of Sydney and Melbourne, and is a Member of the Order of Australia and Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in France. She has also been awarded the Goethe Medal and the Brahms Prize of Schleswig-Holstein. In April 2022, she was awarded honorary membership of the Vienna State Opera.

Numerous CD and DVD recordings document Simone Young’s artistic achievements.

“In every aspect of his expression, Tetzlaff strives for the maximum… It couldn’t be more intense.” – Süddeutsche Zeitung
Violinist Christian Tetzlaff is highly acclaimed for his expressive, sensitive, and personal interpretations. His individual approach to the score, in which he always seeks the emotional and structural depth of the composition, has earned him a loyal following over the years, who often describe his performances as an existential experience. Since his spectacular debut with Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto in 1988 in Berlin, Munich, and Cleveland, he has performed with leading orchestras of the highest caliber, including the Berlin, Vienna, and New York Philharmonic Orchestras, the Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and many others. His extensive repertoire ranges from Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas to lesser-known concertos by Giovanni Battista Viotti and Joseph Joachim to contemporary works by György Ligeti, Jörg Widmann, and Thomas Ades. In 2023, he took over as artistic director of the SPANNUNGEN Festival in Heimbach, Germany.

During the 2025/26 season, Tetzlaff will appear several times as artist-in-residence with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing violin concertos by Berg, Suk, and Dvořák, as well as chamber music with Vladimir Jurowski. In February 2026, he will give the world premiere of Ondrej Adamek’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in Paris, followed by national premieres in Switzerland and the Czech Republic.

Other highlights of the season include duo concerts with Leif-Ove Andsnes, solo recitals in Berlin, Oslo, and London, and concerts with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Symphony Orchestra, the Helsinki Philharmonic, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra.
Tetzlaff works with many of the leading conductors, including Herbert Blomstedt, Karina Canellakis, Maxim Emelyanychev, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniele Gatti, Daniel Harding, Manfred Honeck, Jakub Hrůša, Marie Jacquot, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Cristian Măcelaru, Andris Nelsons, Gianandrea Noseda, Sakari Oramo, Sir Antonio Pappano, Kirill Petrenko, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, John Storgårds, Robin Ticciati, and Juraj Valčuha.

Chamber music is an integral part of his career. In 1994, he founded the Tetzlaff Quartet together with his sister, cellist Tanja Tetzlaff. The ensemble tours every season and will perform in Germany and the UK in 2025/26. The Tetzlaff Quartet was awarded the Diapason d’or l’année in 2015 for its recording of Berg’s Lyric Suite and Mendelssohn. Christian and Tanja Tetzlaff also perform regularly as a trio with pianist Kiveli Dörken.
His extensive discography, mainly on the Ondine label, has been honored with the German Record Critics’ Annual Prize, several Diapason d’or awards, and the Midem Classical Award. Recent highlights include Sibelius with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Nick Collon, and Brahms’ piano quartets, the last recordings of the late Lars Vogt. Elgar and Adès’ violin concertos with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and John Storgårds will be released in fall 2025. He has recorded Bach’s works for solo violin three times, most recently in 2017.
Christian Tetzlaff plays a violin made by luthier Peter Greiner. He teaches at the Kronberg Academy and lives in Berlin with his wife, photographer Giorgia Bertazzi, and their three children.