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.

Anne-Sophie Mutter is a musical phenomenon: for 46 years the virtuoso has now been a fixture in allthe world’s major concert halls, making her mark on the classical music scene as a soloist, mentor andvisionary.The four-time Grammy® Award winner is equally committed to the performance of traditionalcomposers as to the future of music: so far she has given world premieres of 30 works–Unsuk Chin,Sebastian Currier, Henri Dutilleux, Sofia Gubaidulina, Witold Lutoslawski, Norbert Moret, KrzysztofPenderecki, Sir André Previn, Wolfgang Rihm, Jörg Widmann and John Williams have all composed forAnne-Sophie Mutter. She dedicates herself to supporting tomorrow’s musical elite and numerousbenefit projects.Given Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, she has played four benefit concerts for its victims sofar–and more are to follow.Her concert calendar for 2022 once again reflects the musical versatility of the violinist and heroutstanding position in the classical music world–some excerpts: at the Lucerne Festival, she will givethe world premiere of the Air for Violin and Orchestra by Thomas Adès, which she co-commissioned.She performs the violin concerto Anne-Sophie, which André Previn dedicated to her, in several Germancities. In the USA, the violinist plays Beethoven’s Violin Concerto. Another musical focus is on JohnWilliams’ oeuvre: Mutter performs his Violin Concerto No. 2, of which she is the dedicatee, and aselection of the virtuoso adaptations of film scores Williams created especially for her.The Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Krakow awarded her an honorary doctorate in March2022. She has received the Ernst von Siemens Music Prize and the Polar Music Prize, among others. Sheholds the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany, the French Order of theLegion of Honor, the Bavarian Order of Merit, and the Grand Decoration of Honor of Austria; since 2021,has been president of German Cancer Aid.

In a career spanning more than five decades, John Williams has become one of America’s most accomplished and successful composers for film and for the concert stage.  He has served as music director and laureate conductor of one of the country’s treasured musical institutions, the Boston Pops Orchestra, and he maintains thriving artistic relationships with many of the world’s great orchestras, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.  Mr. Williams has received a variety of prestigious awards, including the National Medal of Arts, the Kennedy Center Honors, the Olympic Order, and numerous Academy Awards, Grammy Awards, Emmy Awards and Golden Globe Awards.  He remains one of our nation’s most distinguished and contributive musical voices.

Mr. Williams has composed the music and served as music director for more than one hundred films.  His 45-year artistic partnership with director Steven Spielberg has resulted in many of Hollywood’s most acclaimed and successful films, including Schindler’s List, E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, Jurassic Park, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the Indiana Jones films, Saving Private Ryan, Amistad, Munich, Hook, Catch Me If You Can, Minority Report, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Empire of the Sun, The Adventures of TinTin, War Horse, The BFG and Lincoln.  Their latest collaboration, The Post, was released in December of 2017. Mr. Williams composed the scores for all nine Star Wars films, the first three Harry Potter films, Superman, JFK, Born on the Fourth of July, Memoirs of a Geisha, Far and Away, The Accidental Tourist, Home Alone, Nixon, The Patriot, Angela’s Ashes, Seven Years in Tibet, The Witches of Eastwick, Rosewood, Sleepers, Sabrina, Presumed Innocent, The Cowboys, The Reivers and Goodbye, Mr. Chips among many others.  He has worked with many legendary directors, including Alfred Hitchcock, William Wyler and Robert Altman.  In 1971, he adapted the score for the film version of Fiddler on the Roof, for which he composed original violin cadenzas for renowned virtuoso Isaac Stern.  He has appeared on recordings as pianist and conductor with Itzhak Perlman, Joshua Bell, Jessye Norman, and others.  Mr. Williams has received five Academy Awards and fifty-one Oscar nominations, making him the Academy’s most-nominated living person and the second-most nominated person in the history of the Oscars.  His most recent nomination was for the film Star War: The Last Jedi.  He also has received seven British Academy Awards (BAFTA), twenty-four Grammys, four Golden Globes, five Emmys, and numerous gold and platinum records.

Born and raised in New York, Mr. Williams moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1948, where he studied composition with Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.  After service in the Air Force, he returned to New York to attend the Juilliard School, where he studied piano with Madame Rosina Lhevinne.  While in New York, he also worked as a jazz pianist in nightclubs.  He returned to Los Angeles and began his career in the film industry, working with a number of accomplished composers including Bernard Herrmann, Alfred Newman, and Franz Waxman.  He went on to write music for more than 200 television films for the groundbreaking, early anthology series Alcoa Theatre, Kraft Television Theatre, Chrysler Theatre and Playhouse 90.  His more recent contributions to television music include the well-known theme for NBC Nightly News  (“The Mission”), the theme for what has become network television’s longest-running series, NBC’s Meet the Press, and a new theme for the prestigious PBS arts showcase Great Performances.

In addition to his activity in film and television, Mr. Williams has composed numerous works for the concert stage, among them two symphonies, and concertos for flute, violin, clarinet, viola, oboe and tuba.  His cello concerto was commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra and premiered by Yo-Yo Ma at Tanglewood in 1994.  Mr. Williams also has filled commissions by several of the world’s leading orchestras, including a bassoon concerto for the New York Philharmonic entitled “The Five Sacred Trees,” a trumpet concerto for the Cleveland Orchestra, and a horn concerto for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.  “Seven for Luck”, a seven-piece song cycle for soprano and orchestra based on the texts of former U.S. Poet Laureate Rita Dove, was premiered by the Boston Symphony at Tanglewood in 1998.  At the opening concert of their 2009/2010 season, James Levine led the Boston Symphony in the premiere Mr. Williams’ “On Willows and Birches,” a new concerto for harp and orchestra.  

In January 1980, Mr. Williams was named nineteenth music director of the Boston Pops Orchestra, succeeding the legendary Arthur Fiedler.  He currently holds the title of Boston Pops Laureate Conductor which he assumed following his retirement in December 1993, after fourteen highly successful seasons.  He also holds the title of Artist-in-Residence at Tanglewood. 

One of America’s best known and most distinctive artistic voices, Mr. Williams has composed music for many important cultural and commemorative events.  “Liberty Fanfare” was composed for the rededication of the Statue of Liberty in 1986.  “American Journey,” written to celebrate the new millennium and to accompany the retrospective film The Unfinished Journey by director Steven Spielberg, was premiered at the “America’s Millennium” concert in Washington, D.C. on New Year’s Eve, 1999.  His orchestral work “Soundings” was performed at the celebratory opening of Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.  In the world of sport, he has contributed musical themes for the 1984, 1988, and 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the 2002 Winter Olympic Games, and the 1987 International Summer Games of the Special Olympics.  In 2006, Mr. Williams composed the theme for NBC’s presentation of NFL Football.

Mr. Williams holds honorary degrees from twenty-two American universities, including Harvard University, The Juilliard School, Boston College, Northeastern University, Tufts University, Boston University, the New England Conservatory of Music, the University of Massachusetts at Boston, The Eastman School of Music, the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, and the University of Southern California.  He is a recipient of the 2009 National Medal of Arts, the highest award given to artists by the United States Government.  In 2016, Mr. Williams received the 44th Life Achievement Award from the American Film Institute – the first composer in history to receive this honor.  In 2003, he received the Olympic Order, the IOC’s highest honor, for his contributions to the Olympic movement.  He served as the Grand Marshal of the 2004 Rose Parade in Pasadena, and was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors in December of 2004. Mr. Williams was inducted into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2009, and in January of that same year he composed and arranged “Air and Simple Gifts” especially for the first inaugural ceremony of President Barack Obama.  In 2018, he received the Trustees Award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.