Beethoven’s Violin Concerto & Tchaikovsky

Tabita Berglund is one of today’s most exciting and talented young conductors who has gained a reputation for her alert, charismatic, and inspiring style that elicits “exceptional music-making” (The Arts Desk). This season, Tabita begins her four-year tenure as principal guest conductor of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra; next season, she will hold the same title with Dresdner Philharmonie.

Season symphonic highlights include debuts with the Houston Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and Lahti Symphony Orchestra. Her inaugural weeks at Detroit included the U.S. premiere of Anna Clyne’s violin concerto, Time and Tides, with Pekka Kuusisto. Other season highlights include Tabita’s Asian debut with Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, her Salzburg Easter Festival debut together with Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, a European tour with Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, and returns to Dresdner Philharmonie, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre national de Lyon, Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich, and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra. In December, she conducted The Norwegian National Ballet in 12 performances of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

Tabita regularly collaborates with internationally renowned soloists; recent and upcoming partnerships include Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Leila Josefowicz, Truls Mørk, Cédric Tiberghien, Nicolas Altstaedt, Håkan Hardenberger, Alexander Malofeev, the Jussen brothers, and Camilla Tilling, to name a few. She champions the music of Nordic compatriots such as Thorvaldsdottir, Saariaho, Sibelius,Svendsen, and Irgens Jensen, as part of a wide-ranging repertoire.

She concluded her three-year tenure as principal guest conductor of Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra at the end of 2023-24. In August 2024, she chaired the jury for the grand finale of the Eurovision Young Musicians competition, broadcast live on television throughout Europe.

Tabita studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music, first as a cellist with Truls Mørk and later orchestral conducting with Ole Kristian Ruud. She played with the Oslo and Bergen Philharmonic orchestras and the Trondheim Soloists before focusing on conducting. Her debut CD, with Oslo Philharmonic and violinist Sonoko Miriam Welde, was released in 2021 (LAWO) and nominated for a Norwegian Grammy (Spellemann) in the 2022 Classical Music category.

HarrisonParrott represents Tabita Berglund.

Yoonshin Song was appointed as Concertmaster of the Houston Symphony in August 2019. Prior to that she has held the same position with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for seven seasons. In Europe, Yoonshin has served as guest concertmaster of the Budapest Festival Orchestra under Iván Fischer for several years, and she has led the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra under numerous top-tiered conductors, such as Sir Simon Rattle, Klaus Mäkelä, Daniel Harding, Mikhail Pletnev, and Antonio Pappano. She also served as guest concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the KBS Symphony Orchestra.

Beyond her first chair duties, Yoonshin has performed as a soloist with many orchestras around the world, including the Houston Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the New Mexico Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, the Paul Constantinescu Philharmonic Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, and the KBS Symphony Orchestra, among many others.

She has also participated as a soloist and a chamber musician in various roles in leading music festivals, including the ones in Verbier, Lucerne, Samos and Bayreuth in Europe, the Marlboro, Great Lakes, and Deer Valley in the United States.

Yoonshin has earned many prestigious prizes throughout her career, including top prize awards in the Lipizer International Violin Competition, the Lipinski and Wieniawski International Violin Competition, the Henry Marteau International Violin Competition, and first prize at the Stradivarius International Competition in the United States.

She studied under the tutelage of Donald Weilerstein at the New England Conservatory and with Robert Mann, Glenn Dicterow, and Lisa Kim at the Manhattan School of Music.