Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

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.

British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is internationally recognized for his sonorous lyricism and understated brilliance at the keyboard. His virtuosic interpretations are underpinned by a unique balance of technical mastery and intense musicality. Grosvenor is regarded as one of the most important pianists to emerge in several decades, with Gramophone recently acknowledging him as one of the top 50 pianists ever on record.

Concerto highlights in the 23/24 season include his much-anticipated debuts with DSO Berlin and Iceland Symphony Orchestra featuring Busoni’s Piano Concerto in the composer’s anniversary year. He also performs Gurzenich Orchestra and Elim Chan (Prokofiev 3), Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Maxim Emelyanychev (Mendelssohn 1) in their 50th anniversary season, CBSO, Hallé Orchestra, Washington National, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. Summer Festivals in 2023 include touring with the EUYO conducted by Manfred Honeck (Prokofiev 3) including Benjamin’s debut at the Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg.

A celebrated recitalist, this season Grosvenor makes his debut in the Luzerns KlavierFestival ‘Le Piano Symphonique’, where his Liszt-inspired program features a world premiere by Brett Dean, which later receives US and UK premieres at Chicago Symphony Master series and Wigmore Hall respectively. He also gives recitals at Konan Kumin Cultural Center Yokohama, Cologne Philharmonie, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Klavier Festival Ruhr, Hong Kong City Hall, Darmstadt, Bridgewater Hall and Sala Verdi, Milan. A keen chamber musician, he tours Japan with violinist Sayaka Shoji and Modigliani Quartet in a program featuring Chausson’s Concerto for Violin, Piano and String Quartet – including his debut at Suntory Hall, Tokyo. He also tours with his Piano Quartet including regular collaborators Hyeyoon Park, Timothy Ridout, Kian Soltani – with whom he appears with at numerous venues including Royal Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and Laeiszhalle, Hamburg.

Highlights of recent seasons include successful debuts with Chicago Symphony conducted by Paavo Järvi (Chopin 2), Cleveland Orchestra with Elim Chan (Liszt 1), RSO Wien at BBC Proms with Marin Alsop (Prokofiev 3), Scottish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Maxim Emelyanychev (Beethoven 3 and 4) at Festival Radio France, varied projects as Artist in Residence at Sage Gateshead in 22/23 season, Wigmore Hall in the 21/22 and at Radio France in 20/21. A renowned interpreter of Chopin, in 22/23 season he performed both concerti with Philharmonia Orchestra at Royal Festival Hall. In recital he has performed at Konzerthaus Berlin, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Frankfurter Hof Mainz as part of the SWR2 International Piano Series, ‘Chopin and his Europe’ Festival in Warsaw, Le Roque, Barbican Centre, Southbank Centre, Spivey Hall, Washington’s Kennedy Center, New York’s Carnegie Hall and 92nd Street Y. In July 2023 Grosvenor gave a solo recital at BBC Proms in Royal Albert Hall featuring Debussy, Liszt and Ravel, upon which The Spectator commented: “a genius who has reached the height of his artistic powers and intends to stay there.”

Süddeutsche Zeitung has praised his “astounding technical gifts, the freshness of his imagination, intense concentration, the absence of any kind of show, and the unmistakable sense of poetic immersion directed solely at the realisation of music.” As well as those already mentioned, Benjamin regularly works with such esteemed conductors as Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Sir Mark Elder, Kent Nagano, Alan Gilbert, Nathalie Stutzmann, Manfred Honeck, Vladimir Jurowski, François-Xavier Roth and Esa-Pekka Salonen.

In 2011 Benjamin signed to Decca Classics, becoming the youngest British musician ever, and the first British pianist in almost 60 years, to sign to the label. His most recent release in March 2023 of ‘Schumann

and Brahms’ featuring Kreisleriana was praised as a “masterpiece” (Le Devoir), selected as Gramophone Editor’s Choice and Diapason d’or. Released in 2020, his second concerto album featuring Chopin’s piano concerti, recorded with Royal Scottish National Orchestra under the baton of Elim Chan received both the Gramophone Concerto Award and a Diapason d'Or de L’Année, with Diapason's critic declaring that the recording is “a version to rank among the best, and confirmation of an extraordinary artist.” The renewal of his partnership with Decca in 2021 coincided with the release of Benjamin’s album Liszt, which was awarded ‘Chocs de l’année’ and Prix de Caecilia.

He was invited to perform at First Night of the 2011 BBC Proms with BBC Symphony Orchestra and has since become a regular there. Over the last decade Benjamin has performed at the Last Night of the Proms with Marin Alsop and BBC Symphony in 2015 and most recently with Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 4 and Hallé Orchestra. He performed Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Paavo Järvi in 2020 during the summer of lockdown and was invited to play both a solo recital and a concerto in the 2023 Festival.

Grosvenor has received Gramophone’s ‘Young Artist of the Year’, a Classical Brit Critics’ Award, UK Critics’ Circle Award for Exceptional Young Talent and a Diapason d’Or Jeune Talent Award. He has been featured in two BBC television documentaries, ‘BBC Breakfast’ and ‘Front Row’, as well as in CNN’s ‘Human to Hero’ series. In 2016, he became the inaugural recipient of The Ronnie and Lawrence Ackman Classical Piano Prize at the New York Philharmonic.

Following studies at the Royal Academy of Music, he graduated in 2012 with the ‘Queen’s Commendation for Excellence’ and in 2016 was awarded a RAM Fellowship. Benjamin is an Ambassador of Music Masters, a charity dedicated to making music education accessible to all children regardless of their background, championing diversity and inclusion.