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Manfred Honeck is widely regarded as one of the world's leading conductors, celebrated for his distinctive and revelatory interpretations that have garnered international acclaim. As Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where he is now in his 19th season, he continues to shape the orchestra’s artistic identity with a deep sense of purpose and passion. His tenure, recently extended through the 2032–2033 season, has seen the orchestra flourish artistically while strengthening its role as a cultural ambassador for the city of Pittsburgh. Celebrated at home and abroad, the orchestra has appeared at Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as at major venues throughout Europe and prestigious festivals such as the BBC Proms, Salzburg Festival, Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, and Grafenegg Festival.

Manfred Honeck's acclaimed Pittsburgh tenure is reflected in an extensive discography on the Reference Recordings label, featuring works by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and others. These recordings have received widespread critical acclaim and multiple GRAMMY® nominations, including a win for "Best Orchestral Performance" in 2018. In August 2025, he and the orchestra released Requiem: Mozart’s Death in Words and Music, an original concept reimagining a funeral mass for Mozart, combining the composer’s Requiem with Gregorian chant, poetry, and other choral works by Mozart. 

Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck completed his musical training at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. His years as a violist with the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Orchestra have had a lasting influence on his work as a conductor, and his approach to interpretation is rooted in a desire to venture deep beneath the surface of the music. He began his conducting career as an assistant to Claudio Abbado and as director of the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra. Subsequently, he was engaged by the Zurich Opera House, where he was awarded the European Conducting Prize in 1993. He has since served as one of three principal conductors of the MDR Symphony Orchestra Leipzig, as Music Director of the Norwegian National Opera, Principal Guest Conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and Chief Conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm. In 2023, he was appointed Honorary Conductor by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, following decades of close collaboration.  

Manfred Honeck also enjoys a distinguished profile as an opera conductor. In his four seasons as General Music Director of the Staatsoper Stuttgart, he conducted premieres of operas by Berlioz, Mozart, Poulenc, Strauss, Verdi, and Wagner. He has also appeared as a guest conductor at major institutions such as Semperoper Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, the Royal Opera of Copenhagen, and the Salzburg Festival. In 2020, Beethoven’s anniversary year, he conducted a new staging of Fidelio (1806 version) at the Theater an der Wien. In autumn 2022, he made his much-acclaimed debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, leading a revival of Mozart’s Idomeneo. Beyond the podium, Manfred Honeck has created a series of symphonic suites, including Janáček’s Jenůfa, Strauss’s Elektra, Dvořák’s Rusalka, as well as Puccini's Turandot, which he regularly performs around the globe. The most recent arrangement, based on Strauss's Arabella, received its premiere with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2025.

As a guest conductor, Manfred Honeck appears regularly with many of the world's leading orchestras, including the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra London, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia. In the United States, he has conducted many of the nation’s most distinguished ensembles. He has also been Artistic Director of the International Wolfegg Concerts in Germany for over three decades. 

In summer 2026, he returns to the Salzburg Festival to conduct Ariadne auf Naxos with the Vienna Philharmonic. He will also lead the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on a European festival tour, with appearances in Salzburg, Lucerne, Amsterdam, Hamburg, and at the opening concert of the season at the Vienna Konzerthaus. In the 2026/27 season, he will commemorate the 200th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven’s death with special programs and a new commission from Jüri Reinvere, to be presented worldwide.

Manfred Honeck holds honorary doctorates from several universities in the United States and has been awarded the honorary title of Professor by the Austrian Federal President. In 2018, the jury of the International Classical Music Awards declared him "Artist of the Year." In 2026, he received the Julio Kilenyi Medal from the American Bruckner Society, an honor bestowed on distinguished interpreters of Bruckner.

Alexander Malofeev studied at legendary institutions such as the Gnessin Special College of Music and the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow. 
In 2014, at the age of only thirteen, Alexander Malofeev won the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. Quickly hailed by critics as a “young Russian genius” (Corriere della Sera), he has since established himself as one of the most remarkable pianists of his generation.

Since his promising debut, Alexander has performed with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including 
the Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, hr-Sinfonieorchester (Frankfurt), BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, Korean Symphony Orchestra and Baltic Sea Philharmonic.   
He collaborates regularly with some of the most renowned conductors of our time, such as Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung, Susanna Mälkki, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Alain Altinoglu, Lionel Bringuier, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Kirill Karabits, Hannu Lintu, Vasily Petrenko, Andris Poga, Fabio Luisi, Michael Tilson Thomas, Juraj Valcuha, Kazuki Yamada, among others.

In recent seasons, he has given concerts and recitals in major concert halls: the Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Teatro alla Scala in Milan, Philharmonie de Paris, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Kurhaus Wiesbaden, Bolshoi and Mariinsky Theatre, Queensland Performing Arts Centre, Lotte Concert Hall Seoul, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, Shanghai Oriental Art Centre, National Centre for the Performing Arts in Peking and the Royal Opera House Muscat in Oman.  

Malofeev is a frequent guest at international festivals and renowned piano series such as La Roque d'Anthéron and La Folle Journée in Nantes, the Piano Festival in Brescia and Bergamo, the Master Pianist Series in Amsterdam, the Rheingau Music Festival, Verbier Festival, Tanglewood Festival and the Celebrity Series in Boston, USA.  

Highlights of the 2025/26 season include performances with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Karina Canellakis, the Wiener Symphoniker and Petr Popelka, solo recitals in Europe and the USA, as well as a concert tour with violinist María Dueñas. In June 2025, he was one of six pianists selected to perform at the ‘Harmonies of Hope’ concert in the Vatican at the invitation of Pope Leo XIV.  

Alexander Malofeev is an exclusive Sony Classical artist. His debut album for the label will be released in early 2026.  

Born in Moscow in 2001, he now resides in Berlin.