Lang Lang © Yann Orhan / Sony Music Entertainment

Lang Lang is a leading figure in classical music today – as a pianist, educator and philanthropist he has become one of the world’s most influential and committed ambassadors for the arts in the 21st century. Equally happy playing for billions of viewers at the 2008 Olympic Opening Ceremony in Beijing or just for a few hundred children in the public schools, he is a master of communicating through music.

Heralded by the New York Times as “the hottest artist on the classical music planet”, Lang Lang plays sold-out concerts all over the world. He has formed ongoing collaborations with conductors including Sir Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Barenboim and Christoph Eschenbach and performs with all the world’s top orchestras. Lang Lang is known for thinking outside the box and frequently steps into different musical worlds. His performances at the GRAMMY Awards with Metallica, Pharrell Williams or jazz legend Herbie Hancock were watched by millions of viewers.

For about a decade Lang Lang has contributed to musical education worldwide. In 2008 he founded the Lang Lang International Music Foundation aimed at cultivating tomorrow’s top pianists, championing music education at the forefront of technology, and building a young audience through live music experiences. In 2013 Lang Lang was designated by the Secretary General of the United Nations as a Messenger of Peace focusing on global education.

Lang Lang started playing the piano aged three, and gave his first public recital before the age of five. He entered Beijing’s Central Music Conservatory aged nine, and won First Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians at 13. He subsequently went to Philadelphia to study with legendary pianist Gary Graffman at the Curtis Institute of Music. He was seventeen when his big break came, substituting for André Watts at the Gala of the Century, playing Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach: he became an overnight sensation and the invitations started to pour in.

Lang Lang’s boundless drive to attract new audiences to classical music has brought him tremendous recognition: he was presented with the 2010 Crystal Award in Davos and was picked as one of the 250 Young Global Leaders by the World Economic Forum. He is also the recipient of honorary doctorates from the Royal College of Music, the Manhattan School of Music and New York University. In December 2011 he was honoured with the highest prize awarded by the Ministry of Culture of the People’s Republic of China and received the highest civilian honours in Germany (Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany) and France (Medal of the Order of Arts and Letters). In 2016 Lang Lang was invited to the Vatican to perform for Pope Francis. He has also performed for numerous other international dignitaries, including four US presidents and monarchs from many nations.

SEASON 2022/2023 - THIS BIOGRAPHY IS AVAILABLE BY COURTESY OF KÜNSTLERSEKRETARIAT AM GASTEIG

Christiane Karg © Gisela Schenker

Born in Feuchtwangen (Bavaria), soprano Christiane Karg studied at the Mozarteum University Salzburg with Heiner Hopfner and in Wolfgang Holzmair’s Lied class, being awarded the Lilli Lehmann Medal for her master's degree in opera/musical theatre. While still a student she made her debut at the Salzburg Festival and has been a welcome guest ever since.

She can be heard all over the world in the great roles of her profession: in London at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden and at Opéra national de Paris as Pamina, at the Lyric Opera Chicago and at the Met in New York as Susanna, at La Scala in Milan as Sophie and Euridice, at the Vienna State Opera as Mélisande (Pelléas et Mélisande), at the Hamburg State Opera as Pamina, Mélisande, Daphne and Contessa, at the Staatsoper unter den Linden as Micaëla and at the Bavarian State Opera as Pamina, Calisto (La Calisto) Blanche (Dialogues des Carmélites) and Fiordiligi.

In the coming season, she has been invited to Paris to sing Pamina at the Opéra de Bastille and, for the first time, also Rosalinde in a concert performance of Die Fledermaus in Graz. The soprano is also in demand internationally for concert roles, her musical partners to date including conductors such as Ivor Bolton, Herbert Blomstedt, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph Eschenbach, Andrés Orozco-Estrada, Iván Fischer, Daniel Harding, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Thomas Hengelbrock, Manfred Honeck, Mariss Jansons, Fabio Luisi, Marek Janowski, Andrew Manze, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Kirill Petrenko und Christian Thielemann. She works with important orchestras all over the world.

Projects in the current season include Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach at the Wiener Konzerthaus, Haydn's Creation with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra under Giovanni Antonini, Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the Gewandhaus Leipzig under Andris Nelsons and Schumann's Das Paradies und die Peri with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra under Daniel Harding. Mahler's 4th Symphony will see her appearing with three different orchestras: with the Munich Philharmonic both under Krzysztof Urbański and Tugan Sokhiev, with the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra under Teodor Currentzis and with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra under David Afkham. In addition, Christiane will take over the soprano part in Mahler's 2nd symphony performed by the Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino under Zubin Mehta and appear as soloist with selected concert arias by Mozart with the Belgian B'Rock Orchestra led by René Jacobs.

Christiane Karg is a distinguished recitalist and regularly appears at the Schubertiade in Hohenems / Schwarzenberg, at London’s Wigmore Hall (where she was Artist in Residence in 2019/2020) and many other prestigious venues such as the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Pierre Boulez Saal Berlin and the Salzburg Festival. In the current season, she is also giving recitals with the principal harpist of the Vienna Philharmonic, Anneleen Lenaerts. In addition to her numerous engagements and as Artistic Director of the festival KunstKlang, Christiane Karg conceives her own concert series in her hometown Feuchtwangen and is very committed to her project "be part of it! - Musik für Alle" to promote music education for children and young people. The artist has been awarded the Bavarian Culture Prize and the Brahms Prize of the Brahms Society Schleswig-Holstein for her merits.

Christiane Karg's unmistakable voice has been recorded on numerous CDs. Among others, the CD "Erinnerung" with songs by Gustav Mahler was released by the Harmonia mundi label in late 2020. Her recording of Le nozze di Figaro under Yannick Nézet-Séguin, her CD Scene! with the ensemble Arcangelo under Jonathan Cohen and her Lied CD “Verwandlung - Lieder eines Jahres” received several awards. Her latest solo album, the CD 'Licht der Welt - A Christmas promenade', which was highly praised by the press, was finally released in 2021.

SEASON 2022/2023 - THIS BIOGRAPHY IS AVAILABLE BY COURTESY OF MACHREICH ARTISTS MANAGEMENT.