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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.

One of classical music’s most creative minds, in the 2023-24 season Alice Sara Ott appears as Artist in Residence at London’s Southbank Centre and Paris’s Radio France; gives the worldwide premieres of a new piano concerto composed for her by Bryce Dessner; embarks upon an extensive Asia tour with her project Echoes Of Life; and releases two major new albums on Deutsche Grammophon, for whom she is an exclusive recording artist.  

2023-24 also sees Alice Sara Ott on tour with London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Antonio Pappano, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Kazuki Yamada. She makes her debut with New York Philharmonic performing Ravel’s G Major concerto with Karina Canellakis conducting. Ott also premieres Bryce Dessner’s piano concerto with Tonhalle Zurich Orchestra with Kent Nagano, before going on to perform it with the likes of London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic and Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin.  

Two major album releases this season include Beethoven and Echoes Of Life Deluxe, a follow-up to Echoes Of Life, Ott’s widely successful tenth album on Deutsche Grammophon. The Beethoven project - with Karina Canellakis and Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra - was born as a collaboration with Apple Music, with the album released exclusively upon launch of the new Apple Music Classical app. Ott was the face of Apple Music’s global advertising, starring and performing in the multi-platform video campaign.  

In 2023-24 Ott will take Echoes Of Life on an extensive Asia tour taking in China, Hong Kong and Japan. Echoes Of Life, built around Chopin’s preludes op.28 and featuring works from the likes of Chilly Gonzales, Francesco Tristano, Arvo Pärt and György Ligeti - is, in its live incarnation, an affecting and original collaboration with architect Hakan Demirel. A digital video installation accompanying the recital takes the audience on their own virtual journey to create a unique concert experience.  

Alice Sara Ott has worked with conductors at the highest-level including Gustavo Dudamel, Pablo Heras-Casado, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Edward Gardner, Paavo Järvi, Sir Antonio Pappano, Gianandrea Noseda, Andrés Orozco- Estrada, Francois Leleux, Yuri Temirkanov, Lorin Maazel, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sakari Oramo, Osmo Vänskä, Myung-Whun Chung and Robin Ticciati. She continues to perform with ensembles such as Berliner Philharmoniker, Los Angeles Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Gothenburg Symphony, Camerata Salzburg, Münchner Philharmoniker, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra, and Wiener Symphoniker.  

Beethoven and Echoes Of Life Deluxe follow on from seminal albums such as Nightfall, Wonderland and The Chopin Project, taking her total number of album streams to over 370 million. Also a talented illustrator and designer, Alice Sara Ott created a signature line of bags for JOST, one of Germany’s premium fashion brands. As well as her collaboration with Apple Music, she has also been global brand ambassador for Technics, collaborated with French luxury jewelry house, Chaumet, part of the LVMH group, and with German luxury jewelry brand Wempe.