Martyn Brabbins & Deniz Uzun

Martyn Brabbins was Music Director of English National Opera 2016-2023. An inspirational force in British music, Brabbins has had a busy opera career since his early days at the Kirov and more recently at La Scala, the Bayerische Staatsoper, and regularly in Lyon, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and Antwerp. He guests with top international orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw, San Francisco Symphony, DSO Berlin and Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, as well as the Philharmonia, BBC Symphony and most of the other leading UK orchestras. He is a popular figure at the BBC Proms, who in 2019 commissioned 14 living composers to write a birthday tribute to him. Known for his advocacy of British composers, he has conducted hundreds of world premieres across the globe. He has recorded nearly 150 CDs to date, including prize-winning discs of operas by Korngold, Birtwistle and Harvey. In 2023 he received the RPS Conductor Award for his “colossal” contribution to UK musical life.

Turkish-German mezzosoprano Deniz Uzun is a graduate of Bloomington’s Jacobs School of Music/Indiana University and was a recent winner of the Elizabeth Connel Prize 2022 and the Eva Marton Prize 2021. She was a Member of the Young Artist Program of the Bavarian State Opera where she’s been praised from the Sueddeutsche Zeitung for her “..already obvious presence. One always pays attention to her. Hearing her, her alto voice is almost a phenomenon, concise, clear and of a volume that you don’t associate with such a slender body.”

23/24 season includes a return to the Dallas Symphony as Fricka and Waltraute in the Ring Cycle – the first semi staged concert version in US history, as well as a return to the celebrated Barrie Kosky production at Komische Oper Berlin as Olga in Eugene Onegin where she jumped in 21/22 in several performances. Deniz proudly makes her role and house debut at the season opening of Teatro Lirico di Cagliari where she sings Rubria in Boito’s rarely performed Nerone. In concert she will be seen and heard with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester in Verdi’s Messa di Requiem under the baton of Franz Welser-Möst and with the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra in Mendelssohn’s Drei geistliche Gesänge under the baton of Sir Andrew Davis as well at the Cemal Resit Rey Concert Hall Istanbul in Brahm’s Liebeslieder-Walzer op.52.

Highlights in Deniz’ 22/23 season include her debut at Müpa Budapest as Waltraute in Götterdämmerung under the baton of Ádám Fischer; a return to Opernhaus Zürich to debut as Luigia in Viva La Mamma alongside Ambrogio Maestri; her role and house debut as Orlofsky in Die Fledermaus at Teatro Carlo Felice in Genova under the baton of Fabio Luisi and her role debut as Una Donna in Intolleranza 1960 as the season opening at Komische Oper Berlin.

Passionate in the Lied- and concert genre Deniz performed recently at the revived Festival Capuchos 2023 in Portugal alongside pianist David Santos with songs by Berlioz, Brahms, Korngold, Berg, Marx, A. Mahler, Montsalvage and Gershwin where she received huge recognition from the Scherzo Magazine for her “impeccable French, without the slightest hint of a German accent, this singer, whom we did not know, acts as a revelation: at ease in all registers, she knows how to put her very homogeneous voice, with a beautiful round and dark timbre to the times, at the service of expression, fine and sensitive..as a result, it is on an opera stage that we dream of hearing her now.“

In the season 2020/21 she gave three recitals accompanied by pianist Yulia Levin titled „Opera goes Folk“ with songs by Ravel, Schostakovic, Rodrigo and Kodaly as part of the Zurich Opera House’s alternative program. Highlights in previous seasons have included title roles such as Dido in Dido and Aeneas at Teatro Massimo Palermo, Carmen at Landestheater Salzburg, Zanetto in a semi staged concert series in Switzerland, Hänsel in Hänsel and Gretel, L’Enfant in L’Enfant et les Sortilèges, Ronja in Ronja die Räubertochter, Jacob in Gold! as well as Zelim in La Verità in Cimento at Opernhaus Zürich.

Deniz is a former member of the ensemble of Opernhaus Zürich (2016-21) and Komische Oper Berlin (2022/23) where her roles included Sonyetka in LadyMacbeth from Mzensk, Krista in Sec Makropulos, Bradamante in Alcina, Emilia in Otello, Olga in Eugene Onegin, Ino in Semele, Page in Salome, Lucilla in Scala di Seta, Meg Page in Falstaff and Third Lady in Magic Flute.

In the past Deniz has performed a wide range of repertoire for Mezzosoprano and Contralto such as Florence Pike in Albert Herring at Bayerische Staatsoper, a Liederabend with Tobias Truniger at Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg with Srnka and Mozart songs, Rachmaninov songs as part of the ballet Anna Karenina at Tel Aviv Opera, Lola in Cavalleria Rusticana at the Jurmala Music Festival in Latvia, Isabella in L’Italiana in Algeri, Ruggiero in Alcina and Gertrude in Hänsel and Gretel with Indiana University Opera and Ballet, Annina in La Traviata and Isabella in Italiana in Algeri for children at Baden Baden Festspielhaus, Beethoven 9 with Danish Radio Symphony, Cyprus Symphony Orchestra and Irish National Symphony Orchestra, Page in Salome with Dallas Symphony, Third Maid in Elektra at Salzburger Festspiele and Isaura in Tancredi at Festival de Beaune.

Throughout the course of her career Deniz has worked with conductors such as Fabio Luisi, Ádám Fischer, Franz Welser-Möst, Nello Santi, Simone Young, Oksana Lyniv, Kirill Petrenko, Vladimir Jurowski, Jakup Hrůša, Jérémie Rhorer, Vasily Petrenko, Markus Poschner, Gianandrea Noseda and William Christie, as well as with directors Barrie Kosky, Calixto Bieito, Robert Carsen, Andreas Homoki, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Nina Russi and Marie-Ève Signeyrole.

With around 60 concerts annually, numerous CDs and three Grammys, Rundfunkchor Berlin is one of the world’s foremost choruses. Its wide-ranging repertoire, flexible and richly nuanced sound, flawless precision and enthralling delivery have made it the chosen partner of the major orchestras and conductors in its home city but also internationally, where it functions as a musical ambassador for Berlin in the great concert halls of the world. It is so much more than just a concert and studio chorus.

Along with its symphonic choral central repertoire, Rundfunkchor Berlin is constantly forging new paths by means of projects that burst the bounds of the classical concert format and allow choral music to interact with other art forms. The choreographic realization of the Brahms Requiem as “human requiem” by Jochen Sandig with Sasha Waltz & Guests represents a milestone. Following acclaimed performances in Brussels, Taipei and Hong Kong, the work was performed during the 2016-17 season in Berlin, New York and South America. In Christian Jost’s LOVER, a music-theatre piece premiered in 2014 in Berlin’s Kraftwerk, Western symphonic choral music meets a traditional Asian percussion ensemble. In its most recent project, “cosmic lights”, in 2016, Rundfunkchor Berlin presented a multimedia programme based on celestial phenomena including the Northern Lights.

Rundfunkchor Berlin is constantly developing new and unusual ways of experiencing choral music and stimulating choruses all over the world to follow its lead. In formats such as the Sing-Along Concert in the Berlin Philharmonie, the Liederbörse (Song Exchange) for Berlin’s school choirs and the project Hand in Hand, it is working intensively with committed amateur choirs. With its International Master Class for choral conducting and the Academy and Schola for young singers, it is fostering the next generation of professionals. And to help make singing an intrinsic component of the primary school day, it created the initiative SING! in 2011.

Founded in 1925, the chorus celebrated its 90th anniversary in 2015. Since its inception, it has been shaped by conductors like Helmut Koch, Dietrich Knothe (1982-93), Robin Gritton (1994-2001) and Simon Halsey (2001-15). At the beginning of 2015-16 season, Gijs Leenaars assumed the position of Principal Conductor and Artistic Director. Simon Halsey retains his ties to Rundfunkchor Berlin as Conductor Laureate and Guest Conductor. Rundfunkchor Berlin is an ensemble of Rundfunk Orchester und Chöre GmbH Berlin and is sponsored by Deutschlandradio, the German Federal Republic, the state of Berlin and Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg.