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.

With a celebrated career encompassing five decades, Pinchas Zukerman reigns as one of today's most sought after and versatile musicians - violin and viola soloist, conductor, and chamber musician.  He is renowned as a virtuoso, admired for the expressive lyricism of his playing, singular beauty of tone, and impeccable musicianship, which can be heard throughout his discography of over 100 albums.  A devoted teacher and champion of young musicians, he has served as chair of the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program at the Manhattan School of Music for twenty-five years. As a mentor he has inspired generations of young musicians who have achieved prominence in performing, teaching, and leading roles with music festivals around the globe.  He singularly pioneered the use of distance-learning technology with the first technological installment at the Manhattan School and has established an advanced training program for gifted young artists as part of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa.

During the 2018-2019 season, Pinchas Zukerman’s marks his tenth season as Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London and his fourth as Artist-in-Association with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in Australia.  He leads the RPO on a tour of the United Kingdom and Ireland, conducting works by Mozart and Vaughan Williams and performing as soloist in Beethoven’s Violin Concerto.  Zukerman joins the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra in performances of Bruch’s Violin Concerto in G Minor, on tour in Germany, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.  He appears as soloist and conductor with the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa and the symphony orchestras of Toronto and Indianapolis.  Mr. Zukerman makes concerto appearances in North America with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, New World Symphony, and in Europe with the Gulbenkian Orchestra, Orquesta Nacional de España, NDR Radiophilharmonie, Salzburg Camerata, and Moscow State Symphony Orchestra.  Mr. Zukerman conducts the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and conducts and is soloist with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra on a tour of South Korea. 

As a founding member of the Zukerman Trio, along with cellist Amanda Forsyth and pianist Angela Cheng, Pinchas Zukerman appears in Baltimore and New York’s 92nd Street Y, tours Italy, including Bologna, Milan, and Naples, and gives performances in Germany, at Villa Musica in the Rhineland-Palatinate and in Mönchengladbach.  Zukerman and Forsyth join the Jerusalem Quartet in a program of Strauss, Schoenberg, and Tchaikovsky sextets in Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Princeton, Berkeley, and Vancouver.  Mr. Zukerman also appears with Ms. Forsyth in performances of the Brahms Double Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and joins violinist Viviane Hagner and the National Centre Arts Orchestra for performances of the Mozart Sinfonia Concertante.

As part of the 70th-birthday celebrations honoring Mr. Zukerman during the 2018-2019 season, the Manhattan School of Music marks the 25th anniversary of the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Program with a special tribute: a “25-70” concert of chamber and orchestral music performed by distinguished colleagues, former and present students.  Zukerman, who initiated the National Arts Centre Institute for Orchestral Studies in Ottawa, an apprentice program for string players, serves as artistic director of the Young Artist Program and returns each summer to teach and lead master classes.  He has taught prominent music educational programs in London, Israel, and China, among others, and was appointed as the first instrumentalist mentor in music of the prestigious Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative.

Pinchas Zukerman has been featured in numerous television specials and national talk shows.  He has been a performer and presenter at both the Kennedy Center Honors and the Grammy Awards ceremony and appeared with the Chicago Symphony on the PBS special Mozart by the Masters.  In 2004, the CBC recorded a ten-segment series entitled “The Concerto According to Pinchas” which continues to be broadcast and re-broadcast around the world.  A frequent performer on Live from Lincoln Center, Mr. Zukerman has collaborated with the English filmmaker Christopher Nupen on several projects including the Here to Make Music series, a Brahms series, a Schubert series and a documentary on Nathan Milstein.  He appeared on CBC Television's nationwide broadcast celebrating the opening concerts of the National Arts Centre’s 30th-anniversary season.  Crossing Bridges, a documentary by Niv Fichman, followed his tour to the Middle East with the NAC Orchestra, and was awarded the prestigious Gold World Medal at the 2001 New York Festival.  Mr. Zukerman's violin playing can be heard on the film soundtracks for Prince of Tides and Critical Care.

Born in Tel Aviv, Pinchas Zukerman came to the United States where he studied at the Juilliard School with Ivan Galamian as a recipient of the American-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarship.  An alumnus of the Young Concert Artists program, Mr. Zukerman has also received honorary doctorates from Brown University, Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, and the University of Calgary.  He received the National Medal of Arts from President Ronald Reagan and is a recipient of the Isaac Stern Award for Artistic Excellence in Classical Music.  Pinchas Zukerman’s extensive discography includes more than 100 titles, for which he gained two Grammy® awards and 21nominations.  His complete recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Philips were released in July 2016 in a 22-disc set comprising Baroque, Classical, and Romantic concertos and chamber music.  Recent albums include Baroque Treasury on the Analekta label with the National Arts Centre Orchestra, cellist Amanda Forsyth, and oboist Charles Hamann in works by Handel, Bach, Vivaldi, Telemann and Tartini; Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 and Double Concerto with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and Ms. Forsyth, recorded live at Ottawa’s Southam Hall; and a critically acclaimed album of works by Elgar and Vaughan Williams with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.