Vasily Petrenko is Music Director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, a position he assumed in 2021, and which ignited a partnership that has been praised by audiences and critics worldwide. The same year, he became Conductor Laureate of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra following his hugely acclaimed 15-year tenure as their Chief Conductor from 2006–2021. He is the Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, and has also served as Chief Conductor of the European Union Youth Orchestra (2015–2024), Chief Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra (2013–2020), and Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (2009–2013). He stood down as Artistic Director of the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Evgeny Svetlanov” in 2022, having been their Principal Guest Conductor from 2016 and Artistic Director from 2020.

He has worked with many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Bavarian Radio Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia (Rome), Orchestre National de France, Czech Philharmonic, and NHK Symphony orchestras, and in North America has led the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, and the San Francisco, Boston, and Chicago Symphony orchestras. Equally at home in the opera house, and with more than 30 operas in his repertoire, Vasily has conducted widely on the operatic stage.

Vasily Petrenko has established a strongly defined profile as a recording artist. Amongst a wide discography, his Shostakovich, Rachmaninov, and Elgar symphony cycles with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra have garnered worldwide acclaim. With the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, he has released cycles of Scriabin’s symphonies and Strauss’s tone poems, and an ongoing series of the symphonies of Prokofiev and Myaskovsky. In autumn 2025, he launched a new partnership between the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the Harmonia Mundi label. He was Gramophone Artist of the Year (2017) and Classical BRIT Male Artist of the Year (2010), and holds honorary degrees from Liverpool’s three universities. In 2024, Vasily launched a new academy for young conductors, co-organized by the Primavera Foundation Armenia and the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra.

Conductor, Composer, and Producer Anthony J. Maglione is Director of Choral Studies at the University of Houston and Director of the Houston Symphony Chorus. He joins the Moores School of Music faculty from William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri, where he was the Director of Choral Studies and held the Robert H. McKee Chair of Music. Choirs under his direction have appeared at state, regional, and national conventions, released internationally-distributed commercial recordings, and have twice been named “Runner Up” for the American Prize in Choral Performance, College/University Division. A frequent collaborator, he has prepared choirs for performances with the American Spiritual Ensemble, Boston Camerata, The Canadian Brass, Joyce DiDonato, Kansas City Chamber Orchestra, Kansas City Civic Orchestra, The King’s Singers, Kings Return, and the Mark Morris Dance Group.

An often-performed and commissioned composer with a growing national reputation, Maglione’s music has appeared at state, regional, and national-level conventions, on TV, in video games, and has been recorded on Albany Records, Centaur Records, GIA Choral Works, and Gothic Records. Several of his choral works are published on James Jordan’s “Evoking Sound” choral series through GIA Publications as well as “The Amanda Quist Signature Choral Series” on Gentry Publications. In 2018, Maglione’s cantata for soloists, choir, and orchestra, The Wedding of Solomon, premiered at the American Guild of Organists National Convention. The Miami University Men’s Glee Club premiered Maglione’s On Life at the 2019 National ACDA Conference. In early 2020, Verdigris Ensemble premiered his extended dramatic work Dust Bowl as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project in Dallas, Texas. Dust Bowl was recently revised and performed again in 2024 at the Wyly Theatre in Dallas through funding in-part from the National Endowment of the Arts. From 2023 to 2025, Maglione served as Composer-In-Residence with Te Deum, a professional choir based in Kansas City.

As a producer, Maglione lends his ears to recording projects around the country and recently received national attention through his production work with Sam Brukhman and Verdigris Ensemble on Betty’s Notebook  by composer Nicholas Reeves. This ground-breaking, programmable art music is the first of its kind and the first to be sold using blockchain technology.

As a tenor, Maglione has appeared with renowned organizations such as Artefact Ensemble, Cappella Romana, Kansas City Baroque Consortium, Kantorei KC, The Same Stream, The St. Tikhon Choir, Sunflower Baroque, and Spire Chamber Ensemble.

A sought-after clinician and frequent guest conductor, Maglione teaches workshops and has conducted All-State and honor choirs in California, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. He holds degrees from Westminster Choir College of Rider University, East Carolina University, and the University of California, Los Angeles.

The Houston Symphony Chorus is the official choral unit of the Houston Symphony and consists of highly skilled and talented volunteer singers. Over the years, members of this historic ensemble have learned and performed the world’s great choral orchestral masterworks under the batons of Juraj Valčuha, Andrés Orozco Estrada, Hans Graf, Christoph Eschenbach, Robert Shaw, and Helmuth Rilling, among many others.

In addition, the Chorus enjoys participating in the Houston Symphony’s popular programming under the batons of conductors such as Steven Reineke and Michael Krajewski. Recently, the ensemble sang the closing subscription concerts with the Prague Symphony Orchestra in the Czech Republic. Singers are selected for specific programs for which they have indicated interest. A singer might choose to perform in all 45 concerts, as was the case in a recent season, or might elect to participate in a single series. The Houston Symphony Chorus holds auditions by appointment and welcomes inquiries from interested singers.

Described as “pristine, lyrical, and intelligent (The New York Times) and “a musician of unusual refinement and imagination (Boston Globe), Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki looks back on a career spanning a decade and a half on the world’s greatest stages. He works closely with the foremost conductors and orchestras of our time, performing more than 100 concerts a year.

The 2025–26 Season sees him returning to Rotterdam Philharmonic, Vienna Symphony, Finnish Radio Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Gulbenkian Orchestra, and Radio-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, as well as San Francisco Symphony and Houston Symphony, among others.

In August 2025, he concluded the renowned Seoul International Music Festival at the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea with a Beethoven concert and a solo recital with his highly acclaimed Preludes program, which was recently released by Deutsche Grammophon. A further 30 piano recitals take him across Europe and North America, including the Philharmonie Berlin, Vienna Konzerthaus, Palau Barcelona, Koerner Hall Toronto, and the National Arts Centre Ottawa. Continuing his collaboration with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, which he led from the piano in a tour of several Beethoven cycles in the previous season, he will perform another Beethoven cycle at the Enescu and Merano Festivals.

Recent return invitations include the New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, and Staatskapelle Dresden. He made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in spring 2024. Lisiecki is a fixture at major summer festivals across Europe and North America, has performed at the Salzburg Festival, and recently made his third appearance at the BBC Proms. His previous recital program was celebrated in more than 50 cities around the globe.

Jan Lisiecki was offered an exclusive recording contract by Deutsche Grammophon at the age of 15. Since then, he has recorded nine albums which have received the JUNO Award, ECHO Klassik, Gramophone Critics’ Choice, Diapason d’Or, and Edison Klassiek.

At 18, he received both the Leonard Bernstein Award and Gramophone’s Young Artist Award, becoming the youngest ever recipient of the latter. He was named UNICEF Ambassador to Canada in 2012.