Daniel Hope
Violin
The violinist Daniel Hope has toured the world as a virtuoso soloist for 30 years and is celebrated for his musical versatility as well as his dedication to humanitarian causes. Winner of the 2015 European Cultural Prize for Music, whose previous recipients include Daniel Barenboim and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Daniel Hope appears as soloist with the world’s major orchestras and conductors, also directing many ensembles from the violin. Since the start of the 2016/17 season Hope is Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra – and from the 2018/19 Season also Music Director of the New Century Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco.
In 2019 he became Artistic Director of the Frauenkirche Cathedral in Dresden, and from 2020 he will assume the role of President of the Beethovenhaus Bonn, an honorary position following in the footsteps of Kurt Masur and Joseph Joachim.
Daniel Hope was raised in London at Highgate School and the Royal Academy of Music, studying the violin with Zakhar Bron, Itzhak Rashkovsky and Felix Andrievsky. The youngest ever member of the Beaux Arts Trio with whom he performed over 400 times during its final six seasons, today Daniel Hope appears at all the world’s greatest halls and festivals: from Carnegie Hall to the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, from Salzburg to Schleswig-Holstein and from Aspen to the BBC Proms and Tanglewood. He has worked with conductors including Kurt Masur, Valery Gergiev and Christian Thielemann, and with the world’s greatest symphony orchestras including Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Paris, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo. Devoted to contemporary music, Hope has commissioned over thirty works, enjoying close contact with composers such as Alfred Schnittke, Toru Takemitsu, Harrison Birtwistle, Sofia Gubaidulina, György Kurtág, Peter Maxwell-Davies and Mark-Anthony Turnage.
Daniel Hope is one of the world’s most prolific classical recording artists, with over 25 albums to his name. His recordings have won the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, the Diapason d’Or of the Year, the Edison Classical Award, the Prix Caecilia, the ECHO-Klassik Award and numerous Grammy nominations. His album of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Octet with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe was named one of the best of the year by the New York Times. His recording of Alban Berg’s Concerto was voted Grammophone Magazine’s “top choice of all available recordings”. His recording of Max Richter's Vivaldi Recomposed, which reached No. 1 in over 22 countries is, with 250,000 copies sold, one of the most successful classical recordings of recent times. Hope has been an exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007.
In 2017 the documentary film “Daniel Hope – The Sound of Life” was screened in European cinemas as well as in Movie Theatres in Australia and North America.
Daniel Hope has penned four bestselling books published in Germany by the Rowohlt publishing company. He contributes regularly to the Wall Street Journal and has written scripts for collaborative performances with the actors Klaus Maria Brandauer and Mia Farrow. In Germany he presents a weekly radio show for the WDR3 Channel and curates, since the 2016/17 season his own salon “Hope@9pm”, a music and talk event with guests from culture and politics at the Konzerthaus Berlin.
Daniel Hope plays the 1742 “ex-Lipínski” Guarneri del Gesù, placed generously at his disposal by an anonymous family from Germany.
He holds both Irish and German citizenship and resides with his family in Berlin. January 2020
Simon Crawford-Phillips
Piano
Simon is a multi-festival director, conductor, renowned pianist, creative programmer with a passion for championing contemporary repertoire, and a chamber musician who regularly collaborates with artists such as Daniel Hope, Lawrence Power, Roderick Williams and Anne Sofie von Otter in repertoire from Haydn and Schumann to Adès, Byström, Dean and Reich. His own ensembles include The Kungsbacka Piano Trio and Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble (resident artists at Stockholm Konzerthus). Simon is the Artistic Director of the Change Music Festival in Norra Halland, Västerås Music Festival and Co-Artistic Director of the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival as well as Chief Conductor & Artistic Advisor of Västerås Sinfonietta, alongside multiple guesting roles.
Simon is a multi-festival director, conductor, renowned pianist, creative programmer with a passion for championing contemporary repertoire, and a chamber musician who regularly collaborates with artists such as Daniel Hope, Lawrence Power, Roderick Williams and Anne Sofie von Otter in repertoire from Haydn and Schumann to Adès, Byström, Dean and Reich. His own ensembles include The Kungsbacka Piano Trio and Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble (resident artists at Stockholm Konzerthus). Simon is the Artistic Director of the Change Music Festival in Norra Halland, Västerås Music Festival and Co-Artistic Director of the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival as well as Chief Conductor & Artistic Advisor of Västerås Sinfonietta, alongside multiple guesting roles.
Simon’s spicy and eclectic programming is reflected in an extraordinarily varied career as a conductor/director alongside his solo collaborations. His triumphant season has included conducting debuts with Royal Swedish Opera in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which was Norman Lebrecht’s Opera of the week and SvenskaDagbladet wrote “The Swedish Royal Opera Orchestra under the direction of Simon Crawford-Phillips manage to reveal the myriad of temperament and structure that the music contains, without the dreaminess disappearing”; Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, the world premiere of Börtz Violin Concerto for Onewith Malin Broman and Norrköpings Symfoniorkester; directing the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra in a joint programme with Pekka Kuusisto; and the world premiere of a new double concerto from Finnish composer Sauli Zinovjev for him as director/soloist and Hugo Ticciati with Tapiola Sinfonietta.
Upcoming conducting debuts for Simon include Swedish Royal Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Pekka Kuusisto, Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Neubrandenburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Britten and Berlioz. Reinvites include Uppsala, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, Nordic Chamber Orchestra, Jönköping Sinfonietta and Musica Vitae for a programme of Tippett, Wallen, Gerswhin & Bloch. Recent conducting engagements include Gothenburg Symphony, Uppsala (world premiere of Monnakgotla Saxophone Concerto with Johannes Thorell), Helsingborg Symphony, Dalasinfoniettan Nordic Chamber Orchestra, directing Sinfonia Varsovia in Warsaw’s Lutosławski Chain Festival. Simon has also conducted the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Nash Ensemble, the Swedish Radio Symphony, Aalborg Symphony, Polish Chamber, and English Chamber orchestras.
Other regular collaborators include artists such as Colin Currie, Anthony Marwood, Truls Mørk, Phillip Moore, Michael Schade, Roman Simović, Torleif Thedéen, and the Danish and Elias string quartets. Passionate about contemporary music Simon has recently given world premieres of music by Thomas Adès, Britta Byström, Steve Reich and Mark-Anthony Turnage as well as working alongside composers Sofia Gubaidulina, Simon Holt, Colin Matthews and Huw Watkins.
In 2017 Simon was appointed Artistic Adviser and Chief Conductor of Västerås Sinfonietta. He has broadened the Sinfonietta’s reach and repertoire as well as launching the Sinfonietta’s own festival. Västerås Sinfonietta’s recent disc release, for BIS, features the world premiere recording of Albert Schnelzer’s Burn my letters and A Freak in Burbank.
As a pianist The Guardian says Simon has “profound sensitivity and technical brilliance, achieving an expressive intensity that made for compelling listening.” He performs in premiere festivals and concert halls across Europe including Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Edinburgh, and at Wigmore Hall where he appears as the regular pianist with Chamber Ensemble in Residence, the acclaimed Nash Ensemble, and in recital with Daniel Hope, Lawrence Power, and Phillip Moore. Notable concerto debuts include the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra directing from the keyboard. Passionate about contemporary music Simon has recently given world premieres of music by Thomas Adès, Britta Byström, Steve Reich and Mark-Anthony Turnage as well as working alongside composers Sofia Gubaidulina, Simon Holt, Colin Matthews and Huw Watkins.
Simon’s numerous recordings include Fanny and Felix for dB Productions with Malin Broman and award-winning Swedish string orchestra, Musica Vitae, The KungsbaTrio have released two volumes of Complete Schumann Piano Trios on BIS, and the Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble released Voices of Angels (Dean, Gubaidulina, Rachmaninov). Simon also appears with the Nash Ensemble for Hyperion (Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann), and Västerås Sinfonietta’s recording, Nightingale. In addition to radio and television broadcasts in Europe, Australia and Japan Simon has also presented concerts for Sweden’s classical music radio station P2.
A renowned teacher, Simon was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2010 and currently teaches at the Gothenburg Academy of Music and Drama. Recent guest teaching has included the Schymberg masterclasses in Sweden together with Anne Sofie von Otter and chamber music at Indiana University in Bloomington and the University of Colorado.