In 2016-17, his third season as the BSO's Ray and Maria Stata Music Director, Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in fourteen wide-ranging subscription programs at Symphony Hall, repeating three of them at New York's Carnegie Hall in late February/early March, followed by two concerts in Montreal and Toronto. In the summer of 2015, following his first season as music director, his contract with the Boston Symphony Orchestra was extended through the 2021-22 season. In addition, in 2017 he becomes Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, in which capacity he will also bring the BSO and GWO together for a unique multi-dimensional alliance. Following the 2015 Tanglewood season, Maestro Nelsons and the BSO undertook a twelve-concert, eight-city tour to major European capitals as well as the Lucerne, Salzburg, and Grafenegg festivals. A second European tour, to eight cities in Germany (including the BSO's first performance in Leipzig's famed Gewandhaus), Austria, and Luxembourg, took place in May 2016.

The fifteenth music director in the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons made his BSO debut at Carnegie Hall in March 2011 with Mahler's Symphony No. 9. He made his Tanglewood debut in July 2012, leading both the BSO and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra as part of Tanglewood's 75th Anniversary Gala. His first CD with the BSO-live recordings of Wagner's Tannhäuser Overture and Sibelius's Symphony No. 2-was released in November 2014 on BSO Classics. In 2014-15, in collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon, he and the BSO initiated a multi-year recording project entitled "Shostakovich Under Stalin's Shadow," to include live performances of Shostakovich's symphonies 5 through 10 and other works composed under the life-threatening shadow of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. Released in July 2015, their first Shostakovich disc-the Symphony No. 10 and the Passacaglia from the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk-won the 2016 Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance. May 2016 brought not only the second release in this series-a two-disc set including symphonies 5, 8, and 9 and excerpts from Shostakovich's 1932 incidental music for Hamlet-but also the extension of the collaboration with Deutsche Grammophon to encompass the composer's complete symphonies and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. More recently, this past August, their disc of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 won Gramophone Magazine's Orchestral Award.

From 2008 to 2015, Andris Nelsons was critically acclaimed as music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In the next few seasons, he continues his collaborations with the Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, and the Philharmonia Orchestra. A regular guest at the Royal Opera House, Vienna State Opera, and Metropolitan Opera, he returned to the Bayreuth Festival in summer 2014 to conduct Wagner's Lohengrin, in a production directed by Hans Neuenfels, which he premiered at Bayreuth in 2010. Under a new, exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon, Mr. Nelsons will record the complete Beethoven symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic and Bruckner symphonies with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.

Born in Riga in 1978 into a family of musicians, Andris Nelsons began his career as a trumpeter in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra before studying conducting. He was principal conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie in Herford, Germany, from 2006 to 2009 and music director of the Latvian National Opera from 2003 to 2007. Mr. Nelsons is the subject of a 2013 DVD from Orfeo, a documentary film entitled "Andris Nelsons: Genius on Fire."

(September 2016)

Radu Lupu is firmly established as one of the most important musicians of his generation and is widely acknowledged as a leading interpreter of the works of Beethoven, Brahms, Mozart and Schubert. Since winning the prestigious Van Cliburn (1966) and Leeds Piano Competitions (1969), Mr. Lupu  has regularly performed as soloist and recitalist in the musical capitals and major festivals of Europe and the United States. He has appeared many times with the Berlin Philharmonic since his debut with that orchestra at the 1978 Salzburg Festival under Herbert von Karajan, and with the Vienna Philharmonic, including the opening concert of the 1986 Salzburg Festival under Riccardo Muti. He is also a frequent visitor to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and all of the major London orchestras. He has played at most notable music festivals and has been a regular guest at the Salzburg and Lucerne Festivals.

In the 2015/16 season Mr. Lupu's engagements will include performances with the Cleveland Orchestra at Teatro alla Scala in Milan and Gasteig in Munich. His first major American appearances were in 1972 with the Cleveland Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim in New York and with the Chicago Symphony led by Carlo Maria Giulini. Concerts with the New York Philharmonic soon followed and Mr. Lupu has since appeared with all of the foremost American orchestras.

Mr. Lupu has made more than 20 recordings for London/Decca, including the complete Beethoven concertos with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, the complete Mozart violin and piano sonatas with Szymon Goldberg, Grieg and Schumann Concertos, Debussy and Franck Violin and Piano Sonatas with Kyung Wha Chung, and numerous solo recordings of Beethoven, Brahms and Schubert. His most recent London/Decca releases are of Schubert's Sonatas, D. 960 and 664, which won a Grammy® Award in 1995, and of Schumann's "Kinderszenen," "Kreisleriana" and "Humoresque," which won an Edison Award in 1995. He has also made two records with pianist Murray Perahia (Sony Classical) and two albums of Schubert Lieder with soprano Barbara Hendricks (EMI). In 1998, for Teldec, he joined Daniel Barenboim for a disc of Schubert works for piano, four hands. In 2001 Decca re-released a 2-CD set of Schubert's music for violin and piano, featuring Mr. Lupu together with Szymon Goldberg.   

Born in Romania in l945, Mr. Lupu began studying the piano at the age of 6 with Lia Busuioseanu. He made his public debut with a complete program of his own music at l2, continuing his studies for several years with Florica Muzicescu and Cella Delavrance. In l96l he won a scholarship to the Moscow State Conservatory where he studied with Galina Eghyazarova, Heinrich Neuhaus and his son, Stanislav Neuhaus. During his seven years at the Moscow Conservatory he won first prize in the l967 Enescu International Competition in addition to the Van Cliburn and Leeds International competitions. In 1989 and again in 2006, he was awarded the prestigious "Abbiati" prize given by the Italian Critics' Association. He is also the recipient of the 2006 Premio Internazionale Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli award.

Morris Robinson is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the most interesting and sought after basses performing today.

A graduate of the Metropolitan Opera Lindemann Young Artist Development Program, Mr. Robinson made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in their production of Fidelio.  He has since appeared there as Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte(both in the original production and in the children's English version), Ferrando in Il Trovatore,    the King in Aida, and in roles in Nabucco, Tannhäuser, and the new productions of Les Troyens  and Salome.  He has also appeared at the San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Dallas Opera, Houston Grand Opera, Boston Lyric Opera,  Pittsburgh Opera, Opera Philadelphia, Seattle Opera, Los Angeles Opera, Cincinnati Opera, Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Theater of St. Louis, Vancouver Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, Opera Australia, and the Aix-en-Provence Festival. His many roles include Sarastro in Die Zauberflöte, Osmin in Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Ramfis in Aida,  Zaccaria in Nabucco,  Sparafucile in Rigoletto, Commendatore in Don Giovanni,  Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos,  Timur inTurandot, the Bonze in Madama Butterfly,  Padre Guardiano in La Forza del Destino,  Ferrando in Il Trovatore,  and Fasolt in Das Rheingold. 

Also a prolific concert singer, Mr. Robinson has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, National Symphony Orchestra, Houston Symphony, L'Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Ft. Worth Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Met Chamber Orchestra, Nashville Symphony Orchestra, São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, New England String Ensemble, and at the Ravinia, Mostly Mozart, Tanglewood, Cincinnati May, Verbier, and Aspen Music Festivals. He also appeared in Carnegie Hall as part of Jessye Norman's HONOR!  Festival. In recital he has been presented by Spivey Hall in Atlanta, the Savannah Music Festival, the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. 

Mr. Robinson's first album, Going Home,  was released on the Decca label. He also appears as Joe in the newly released DVD of the San Francisco Opera production of Show Boat.

This season, Mr. Robinson returns to the Los Angeles Opera as Oroveso in Norma  and the Dallas Opera as Joe inShow Boat.  He also appears in concert with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, Milwaukee Symphony, and Baltimore Symphony, and as the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's 2015-2016 Artist in Residence, he appears in several concerts and recitals throughout the season. And in the fall of 2016, he makes his debut at the Teatro alla Scala in the title role of Porgy and Bess  conducted by Nikolaus Harnoncourt

An Atlanta native, Mr. Robinson is a graduate of The Citadel and received his musical training from the Boston University Opera Institute.