After having studied with JanVeth and David Hollestelle, the Rotterdam-born bass-baritone Robert Holl won the first prize at the international singing contest in ’s-Hertogenbosch in 1971.Then he studied with Hans Hotter in München and in 1972 he won the ARD contest.
From 1973 to 1975 he was a member of the Bavarian State Opera in München.After a period of intensive concert activities the artist regained his interest in opera productions and he was a guest at the Viennese State Opera, the Brussels Opera and the Zürich Opera House, where he sang parts like Speaker and Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Gremin (Eugen Onegin), Basilio (Il Barbiere di Siviglia), La Roche (Capriccio), Assur (Semiramide), Alfonso (Così fan tutte), Amfortas (Parsifal) and Robert (Schubert’s Des Teufels Lustschloß).
In the summer of 1996 Robert Holl made his debut at the Bayreuther Festspielen, as Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. He has worked with famous conductors, like Abbado, Barenboim, Bernstein, Chailly, Frühbeck de Burgos, Giulini, Haitink, Harnoncourt, Jochum, Karajan, Leinsdorf, Prêtre and Stein, as well as with almost all the great orchestras of Europe and the US. He was also active as a singer of lieder (the emphasis on German and Russian repertoire), with partners like Rudolf Jansen, Oleg Maisenberg and András Schiff.
Lieder nights often lead the musician to the great music centres of Europe, as well as Israel and the United States. Robert Holl is a regular guest at great international festivals in Europe. On the invitation of Svatoslav Richter he took part in the ‘Moskovian Winters’ and the festival of Tours several times.
He leads various masterclasses and has made numerous television and gramaphone recor- dings with famous conductors. Some of his own compositions (lieder and works for piano) have been recorded on CD. Robert Holl is the artistic leader of the Schubertiaden in the Netherlands and Austria, as well as of the ‘Week of Romantic Music’, which has been held at Grafenegg Castle every two years since 1986.
Because of great merit for the Austrian music life Robert Holl was awarded by the Austrian Gouvernment in October 1990 the honorary title of ‘Wiener Kammersänger’. In 1997 he became honorary member of the Company of Music Friends in Vienna.

Slovenian mezzosoprano Barbara Kozelj has firmly established herself as a charismatic and hugely versatile artist. Her voice and performances have been described as "thrillingly beautiful," "deep and powerful," "breathtaking," "deeply expressive," and "straight to the heart." Equally at home in opera, concert, and recital repertoire, her performances have brought her to leading international stages and continue to captivate audiences around the world.

Recent opera engagements include Octavian (Der Rosenkavalier) and Mélisande (Pelleas et Mélisande) with Taiwan National Symphony Orchestra and Jun Märkl in Taipei, Brangäne (Tristan und Isolde) at Leipzig Oper, Wagner22 and at Teatro de la Maestranza in Sevilla, Judith (Bluebeard’s Castle) with NJO and Antony Hermus and Penelope (Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria) with the Academy of Ancient Music and Richard Egarr at London’s Barbican Hall.

Barbara is in great demand as a concert soloist. After her debut with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and her Carnegie Hall debut her carreer has taken flight. Her recent highlights include Berg's Sieben frühe Lieder with Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Respighi's Il Tramonto with Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife conducted by Antony Hermus, Canteloube's Chants d’Auvergne with Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and Bas Wiegers in Ljubljana and Ligeti's Requiem with Orquesta y Coro Nacionales de Espagna and David Afkham.

This season, she return to Wigmore hall for the performances of Mahler Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Zemlinsky 6 Songs to Poems by Maurice Maeterlinck and Schönberg Pierrot Lunaire with Klangforum Wien and Vimbayi Kaziboni, and to perform her beloved Mahler Das Lied von der Erde with Camerata RCO (members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra) later this year. Future concerts also include Winterreise with Nino Gvetadze in Amsterdam, Frauenliebe und Leben with Richard Egarr in Namur, Haydn Ariadna a Naxos with Shunske Sato and Mathew Passsion with Phion and Residentie Orchestra.

Barbara has collaborated with conductors including Iván Fischer, Jaap van Zweden, Jun Märkl, Henrik Nánási, Stefan Soltesz, Richard Egarr, Neeme Järvi, David Afkham, Paul McCreesh, Kenneth Montgomery, Reinbert de Leeuw, Bas Wiegers, Antony Hermus, Otto Tausk and with orchestras including the Royal Concertgebouw orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra, Academy of Ancient Music, Gabrieli Consort and Players, Athen’s State Orchestra, Orquestra Simfonica de Barcelona, Orquesta y coro nacionales de Espagna, St Luke’s orchestra, Slovenian Philharmonic, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and most of the Dutch orchestras.

Her versatility has also attracted the attention of many composers who have written works speciffically for her. She has sung world premieres of compositions written by Thomas Beijer, Jan van de Putte, Max Knigge and Oscar Bettison. She has a strong affinity with Lieder, regularly performing recitals with Julius Drake, Thomas Beijer, Phyllis Ferwerda and Nino Gvetadze.

The foundation for her musical development was established in Slovenia, where she graduated from the Academy of Music in Ljubljana. She later continued her studies and graduated from the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. She was a member of The New Opera Academy and the Dutch Opera Studio. Barbara has been coached by Marcos Bajuk, Irena Baar, Phyllis Ferwerda, Meinard Kraak, Ann Murray, Graciela Araya, Anne Sofie von Otter and continues to study with Sasja Hunnego, who has been her mentor and vocal coach throughout her carreer.

The Netherlands Radio Choir is the largest professional choir in the Netherlands. Since its founding in 1946, the choir has performed a broad repertoire ranging from Baroque to contemporary music and has been synonymous with top-level music performed with passion. It works in various sizes and formations, depending on the music concerned and the conductor.
First official chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Choir was Kenneth Montgomery. After him came Robin Gritton, Martin Wright, Simon Halsey, Celso Antunes and Gijs Leenaars. As from the 2015-2016 season Klaas Stok is chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Choir. Michael Gläser has been its permanent guest conductor since September 2010.
The Netherlands Radio Choir has worked with guest conductors such as Marcus Creed and Peter Dijkstra, with early music specialists as Frans Brüggen, Philippe Herreweghe and Ton Koopman, and in the symphonic choral repertoire with Jaap van Zweden, James Gaffigan, Markus Stenz and Sir Simon Rattle, among others.
The choir often performs with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra in public radio concert series, and it is regularly invited to perform with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra.
Since the early 1980s, the Netherlands Radio Choir has been a frequent guest in the Saturday Matinee series of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In these concerts the choir has regularly performed pre- mieres and works by contemporary composers such as Ligeti, Boulez, Birtwistle, Kagel, Reich, Wagemans, Adès, Adams and Vleggaar. Most concerts of the Netherlands Radio Choir are live broadcasted by Radio 4. On CD the Netherlands Radio Choir excels in a broad repertoire including music by Keuris, MacMillan, Mahler, Poulenc, Rossini and Wagner.

After studying singing with Ulf Bästlein, Berthold Schmid, Guido Baehr and Wolfgang Millgramm at the Folkwang Hochschule in Essen, where he passed his concert exam with distinction in 2007, bassbaritone Thilo Dahlmann was a member of the International Opera Studio at the Zurich Opera House. He received important impulses there from the baritone Roland Hermann. Master classes with Charles Spencer, Michael Volle and Rudolf Piernay completed his artistic development, as did his collaboration with Carol Meyer-Bruetting.
He was awarded first prize at the North Rhine-Westphalia State Singing Competition. In 2013 he was awarded the Lied Prize of the Schleswig-Holstein Ministry of Culture and the Nikolaus Bruhns Singer Prize.
At Zurich Opera House he sang numerous smaller roles under conductors such as Franz Welser-Möst, Nello Santi and Philippe Jordan. Guest contracts have also taken him to the Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf, the Wuppertaler Bühnen and the Theater Koblenz. His staged interpretation of the song cycle "Notturno" by Othmar Schoeck at the Theater Sankt Gallen received a broad and enthusiastic response from audiences and critics. Concert performances of Mozart's "Don Giovanni", "Parsifal" by Richard Wagner and Schreker's "Die Gezeichneten" took him to the Concertgebouw Amsterdam.
Above all, however, Thilo Dahlmann is active as a concert and lieder singer. If his repertoire ranges from early Baroque vocal music to numerous world premieres, the focus of his repertoire is on Bach, Handel and the great Romantic oratorio roles. These have led him under conductors such as Thomas Hengelbrock, Pieter Jan Leusink, Michael Alexander Willens, Jaap van Zweden, Christophe Rousset, Daniel Reuss, Frieder Bernius, Peter Neumann, Richard Mailänder, Hansjörg Albrecht, Christophe Rousset, Christoph and Andreas Spering in concert halls such as the Paris, Cologne and Essen Philharmonie, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden.
He has sung a wide repertoire of lieder with pianists such as Hedayet Djeddikar, Götz Payer, Ulrich Rademacher, Charles Spencer and Doriana Tchakarova.

He has been a guest at the Folle Journée in Nantes, Bilbao and Tokyo, the Halle Handel Festival, the Nuremberg Gluck Festival, the Leipzig Bach Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Aix-en-Provence Easter Festival and the Salzburg Festival, as well as at the opening concert of the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.
Radio (WDR; hr, SWR, NDR, France Musique, NHK, MDR) and television (Arte, ZDF, Mezzo-TV) recordings complement his artistic activities, as do CD and DVD recordings (Carus, cpo, querstand, DECCA). Accompanied by Charles Spencer, he recorded a solo debut CD with Schubert Lieder, which was released by the Viennese label Capriccio. Most recently, the Dutch label Challenge released a highly acclaimed CD of Thilo Dahlmann together with pianist Hedayet Djeddikar, on which they recorded songs by Johannes Brahms and Norbert Glanzberg.
In addition to his artistic activities, Thilo Dahlmann is professor of singing at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts and has taught at the Music Universities in Cologne, Frankfurt and Graz.

Anglo-French mezzo-soprano Anna Stéphany was born in the North East of England, and studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. In 2018 Anna made her debut solo recording alongside the Labyrinth Ensemble on Alpha Classics featuring works by Luciano Berio, Falla and Ravel. She was a member of the ensemble at Zürich Opera House between 2012-15 where she made her debut in rols of operas by Mozart, Offenbach, Verdi, Monteverdi and many more.
On the concert stage Anna has performed with some of the world’s finest orchestras. Recent appearances include the BBC Proms with the London Philharmonic Orchestra / Jurowsky, with the Royal Liverpool Orchestra, Bremer Philharmoniker, Gabrieli Consort, Handel & Haydn Society, Philharmonia Orchestra / Esa-Pekka Salonen, with William Christie und the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Balthasar Neumann / Thomas Hengelbrock etc.

The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra gave its first concert on 7 October 1945, led by its founder and ‘first conductor‘ Albert van Raalte, on Radio “Herrijzend Nederland”. Initially the orchestra spent most of its time in studios working on a large number of recordings for the public broadcasting system. The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic featured prominently in the Saturday Matinee as soon as the series started in 1961, and has continued to give frequent live performances ever since. The celebrated Saturday Matinee has hosted many legendary concerts. Illustrious soloists such as Kathleen Ferrier, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Clara Haskil and Jean-Pierre Rampal have shared the stage with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 2004, the three classical orchestral formations of the broadcasting 15 system were transformed into two: the present Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic. In 2006, these two orchestras, the Netherlands Radio Choir and the Metropole Orchestra joined the Dutch public broadcasting organisation NPO.
The Radio Philharmonic Orchestra has been conducted by great names such as Bernard Haitink, Jean Fournet, Hans Vonk, Sergiu Comissiona and Edo de Waart. Jaap van Zweden was named its chief conductor in September 2005. The orchestra has also worked with numerous famed guest conductors such as Leopold Stokowski, Kirill Kondrashin, Antál Dorati, Riccardo Muti, Kurt Masur and Valery Gergiev. Soon after its founding, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic found itself foremost in Dutch musical life in the number of performances and the diversity of its repertoire, with a predilection for Dutch and contemporary works in its programming. It has honed another facet of its striking profile with a great many opera concertante performances. The orchestra has an extensive discography, ranging from legendary LPs recorded in the 1970s under such conductors as Leopold Stokowski and Antal Doráti to Jean Fournet’s much-lauded renderings of French repertoire. Under Edo de Waart, not only did it release its legendary Wagner interpretations, but also the complete orchestral works of Rachmaninov. CDs with work by contemporary composers such as Jonathan Harvey, Klas Torstensson, Jan van Vlijmen and Stravinsky have garnered prizes and much acclaim.

Born in Amsterdam in 1960, Jaap Van Zweden began his musical career as a violinist, becoming at nineteen the youngest ever concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In 1997, van Zweden made his decision to conduct full time, played his last concert as a violinist with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and was named the chief conductor of the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra where he remained until 2003. In 2000, he added the music directorship of the Residentie Orchestra of The Hague to his credits, a post he held until 2005.
Jaap van Zweden began his third season as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in September 2010. His commitment to the orchestra was recently extended through the 2015-2016 season. Under his direction, the orchestra is enhancing its programming and community outreach, continuing to champion new composers, and raising its national profile with an annual residency in Vail, CO and a 2011 appearance at Carnegie Hall in the inaugural Spring for Music Festival. Concurrently with his post in Dallas, van Zweden’s other titled positions include chief conductor and artistic director of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra (2005-2012), and chief conductor of the Royal Flemish Philharmonic Orchestra of Belgium (2008-2012).
Under van Zweden’s leadership, the DSO has established an ongoing residency at the Bravo! Vail Valley Music Festival through the summer of 2012, and debuted five world premiere works over two seasons as part of the DSO’s Texas Instruments Classical Series. Throughout the past seasons, the orchestra, under van Zweden's leadership, has received lavish praise from notable media including The New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Musical America, The Financial Times, BBC Music Magazine, The Dallas Morning News and many others. In a December 2009 article in The LA Times, Mark Swed named van Zweden one of the”Faces to Watch“ in 2010, noting van Zweden “knows how to generate tense, tactile excitement in all kinds of music.” Van Zweden has also become a highly sought-after guest artist since the DSO introduced him to US audiences in 2007. During the 2010-2011 season, van Zweden debuts with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, San Paulo Symphony, Zurich’s Tonhalle Orchestra and the Monte Carlo Philharmonic. He makes his much-anticipated fourth guest appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and returns to guest conduct with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Saint Louis Symphony and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
He also has guested with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre National du Capital de Toulouse, Munich Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Hong Kong Philharmonic and Tokyo Philharmonic, among others.