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Manfred Honeck has firmly established himself as one of the world’s leading conductors, whose distinctive and revelatory interpretations receive great international acclaim. As Music Director of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, where his contract runs through the 2027-2028 season, he has entered his 17th season. Celebrated at home and abroad, he and the orchestra continue to serve as cultural ambassadors for the city of Pittsburgh. Guest appearances include Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, as well as the major venues of Europe and leading festivals such as the BBC Proms, Salzburg Festival, Musikfest Berlin, Lucerne Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, and Grafenegg Festival. In summer 2024, he leads the Pittsburgh Symphony in a nine-city European Festivals Tour, starting with their appearance as the only American orchestra at the prestigious Salzburg Festival and concluding at Vienna Konzerthaus.

Manfred Honeck's successful work in Pittsburgh is being extensively documented by recordings on the Reference Recordings label, featuring works by Beethoven, Brahms, Bruckner, Shostakovich, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, and others. They have received a multitude of outstanding reviews and awards, including many GRAMMY® nominations, and he and the orchestra won the GRAMMY® for "Best Orchestral Performance" in 2018. The most recent recording, Bruckner's Symphony No. 7, paired with Resurrexit by Mason Bates, was released in July 2024 to great critical acclaim.

Born in Austria, Manfred Honeck completed his musical training at the University of Music in Vienna. His many years of experience as a member of the viola section in the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera Orchestra have had a lasting influence on his work as a conductor, and his art of interpretation is based on his determination to venture deep beneath the surface of the music. He began his conducting career as 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 November 2023, he was appointed Honorary Conductor by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, following decades of close collaboration.

Manfred Honeck also has a strong profile as 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 guest at leading houses such as Semperoper Dresden, Komische Oper Berlin, Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, 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 designed 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, of Strauss’s Salome, was premiered by the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in 2023.

As a guest conductor, Manfred Honeck has worked with all leading international orchestras, including Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome and the Vienna Philharmonic. In the United States, he has conducted all major US orchestras, including New York Philharmonic, The Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra and San Francisco Symphony. He has also been Artistic Director of the International Concerts Wolfegg in Germany for thirty years.

In 2024-2025, Manfred Honeck will conduct fourteen wide-ranging programs and several special projects in Pittsburgh, including all four of the season's world premieres and commissions. He also will return to the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Concertgebouworkest Amsterdam, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. In Bruckner's anniversary year of 2024, he will continue to place a special focus on the music of this composer.

Manfred Honeck holds honorary doctorates from several universities in the United States and was 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".

Born in Italy, the soprano Martina Russomanno began her artistic career from an early age as an actress and pop singer. Her classical studies started in her hometown of Livorno, where from the age of 15, she performed smaller roles in operas by Puccini and Mascagni. She later pursued her studies at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg in 2017, in the class of Michéle Crider.

This 2023/24 season, Martina will appear in the role of Princesse Euxodie in Halevy’s La Juive in a new production at the Teatro Regio di Torino, under the direction of Daniel Oren. At Teatro alla Scala, she will perform in Cherubini’s Médée, in a production directed by Damiano Michieletto.

During the 2022/23 season, Martina made her debut in the role of Clorinda in La cenerentola at the Paris Opéra. She also made her debut as Fiordiligi in Così fan tutte at the Royal Opera House in Muscat, Oman, and as Marzelline in Beethoven’s Fidelio conducted by Gustavo Dudamel in Venezuela, and later interprets the role again at the Opéra Dijon. During the summer of 2022, Martina makes her debut at the Salzburg Festspiele in Christoph Loy’s production of Puccini’s Il trittico, broadcasted on ARTE. At the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Martina made her debut as Corrina in Il Viaggio a Reims.

Highlights of past seasons include Juliette in Die tote Stadt at La Monnaie in Brussels and the role of Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito at the Mozarteum. From 2021 to 2023, Martina was a member of the Opera Academy of the Paris Opéra, where she made her debut as Drusilla and Fortuna in L’incoronazione di Poppea at the Opéra de Dijon, Théâtre de l'Athénée, and La Maison de la Culture in Amiens.

Among the awards Martina has received are prizes in the Portofino International Opera Competition (2020), the Duschek Competition in Prague, the AsLiCo Competition (2021), and the Vincerò Competition (2021). In 2022, she was selected to participate in the prestigious YSP of the Salzburger Festspiele and received the Cercle Carpeaux price at the Opéra de Paris

Season 2023-2024 Asanova will appear as Third Dame in Die Zauberflöte, Stephano in Romeo et Juliette, Rychtarka in Jenufa, Metella in La vie Parisienne, Kartenlegerin in Arabella and Dido in Dido and Aeneas, all as an ensemble member of Bern Opera.

Last season's highlights include the roles of Romeo in Capuleti e i Montecchi, Melisande in Pelleas et Melisande, Idamante in Idomeneo, Third Dame in Die Zauberflöte at the stage of Bern Opera. She performed Bradamante in Handel’s Alcina, Gretel Hänsel und Gretel and as Carmen at Hannover Staatsoper.

Evgenia debuted with the Young Singers Project at the Salzburg Festival in the Summer of 2021 featuring The Confidante in Elektra. And just a year later became an ensemble member of the Bern Opera.

Her other engagements were Carmen at Seoul Opera, Korea, Olga in Eugene Onegin at Opéra de Rouen Normandie, She performed the part of Garcias in the concert version of Massenet’s Don Quichotte conducted by Tugan Sokhiev at Musikverein (Wein, Austria) and Theatre Capitole de Toulouse. Evgenia took part in the tour of Bolshoi Theatre in the Festival Aix-en-Provence and the Savonlinna Festival, where she performed the part of Olga in Eugene Onegin, and the tour of the Young Artists Program in the Festival “Vocale” in Linz, Austria.

2016 she made her debut on the stage of the Bolshoi Theatre performing the part of Fyodor in Boris Godunov by Mussorgsky, Delia in Il Viaggio a Reims. In season 2017-2018, she performed the part of Stepanida Matuta in Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Maid of Pskov among others.

Tenor Seungwoo Simon Yang was born in South Korea in 1997. Since October 2018, he has been studying with Carolyn James at Hamburg’s University of Music and Theatre and was a member of the International Opera Studio of the Hamburg State Opera from 2020-2023. In the summer of 2022, he was a member of the Young Singer Project and the Salzburger Festspiele, and sincethe start of the 2023-24 season, he has been a member of Festensemble Soloists of Hamburg State Opera. 

He has already won numerous prizes in competitions in South Korea and Germany.  These include first prizes in the 2014 Ewha-Kyunghyang Music Competition, the Shin Youngok Singing Competition and the Shinhan Music Awards. In 2018 he won the second prize and special prize at the Maritim Music Awards and in 2020 was awarded the first prize at the Mozart Prize Awards, Elise Myer Musikpreis and Gustav Mahler Lied-duo competition in Hamburg. In 2022 he was Finalist of Neue Stimmen International Singing Competition. 

Mr. Yang has appeared in numerous concerts in South Korea and Europe. In college productions he has sung roles that include Ferrando (Così fan tutte) and Pilade in Handel’s pasticcio Oreste. In productions with the Hamburg State Opera, he has sung the roles Lord Arturo (Lucia di Lammermoor), Jaquino (Fidelio), Pong (Turandot) and he will debut in his first main role as Nemorino (L’eilisir damore). This season, he will perform as Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Fenton (Falstaff), Tamino (Die Zauberflöte) and will be making his American debut in Heinz Hall as tenor soloist in Beethoven’s 9th Symphony with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, under music director Manfred Honeck. 

Bass-baritone Vladyslav Buialskyi is from Berdyansk in Ukraine. As a member of the prestigious Lindemann Young Artist Programme at the Metropolitan Opera in New York, he appeared in performances of Idomeneo conducted by Manfred Honeck and Don Carlos conducted by Carlo Rizzi. Buialskyi will become a principal singer of the Semperoper Dresden from the 2024/25 season.

During the 2023/24 season, Buialskyi makes his debut with the Opéra de Lille as Leporello in a new production of Don Giovanni conducted by Emmanuelle Haïm, sings Walter Luisa Miller at the Sarasota Opera and makes his debut at the Salzburg Festival in the new Peter Sellars production of The Gambler. He also performs Brander La damnation de Faust in concert with the RTVE Symphony Orchestra Madrid and Beethoven Symphony No. 9 with the Ukrainian Freedom Orchestra in Warsaw and Berlin.

Buialskyi has distinguished himself through a number of competition successes, including the 2019 Moniuszko Competition and 2020 Tenor Viñas Competition. He was first recipient of the Brian Dickie Young Talent Award At the 2019 Neue Stimmen Competition and is an alumnus of the Salzburg Festival Young Singers Project. Buialskyi led the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and Orchestra in the Ukrainian National Anthem as part of 'A Concert for Ukraine', which has since been nominated for a Grammy.

Despite his young age, Buialskyi possesses a voice of remarkable maturity - artistically he performs with an unusual sincerity and a freshness of style that is ideally suited to Mozart and Rossini.

Born in Montréal in 1984 and now based in Berlin, composer-conductor Samy Moussa is one of the world’s leading composers. Moussa’s work has been performed by many of the world’s most prestigious orchestras including Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic. He has also featured as Artist in Residence at Toronto Symphony Orchestra and works closely with Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. The 2022/23 season saw the world premiere of his Trombone Concerto with Orchestre national de Lyon and trombonist Jörgen van Rijen, as well as the European premiere of his Second Symphony with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Proms 2023, whilst Moussa himself made appearances as conductor with Musikkollegium Winterthur and Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. Upcoming highlights in the 2023/24 season include the world premieres of Antigone, an oratorio for female chorus and orchestra conducted by Erik Nielsen with Dutch National Opera & Ballet, and a new work commissioned by Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra to be conducted by Manfred Honneck.

In the 2023/24 season, Moussa directs Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, as well as Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra’s Ensemble 10/10 and Bilbao Orkestra Sinfonikoa. Recent seasons have seen him take up the baton to lead a range of repertoire from Classical to contemporary with Bayerisches Staatsorchester, RSO Wien, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, MDR Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Calgary Opera, Staatskapelle Halle and Zürcher Kammerorchester.

Regularly programmed by the world’s most prestigious orchestra’s, Moussa’s works have commissioned and performed by the likes of Wiener Philharmoniker, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, DSO Berlin, Dutch National Opera and Ballet, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Brussels Philharmonic. This season sees even more premiere orchestras take up his work with performances by NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. His works remain popular with internationally-renowned conductors such as Hannu Lintu, Manfred Honeck, Kent Nagano, Kevin John Edusei, Stéphane Denève, Christoph Eschenbach, Gustavo Gimeno and Fabien Gabel.

Regularly programmed by the world’s most prestigious orchestra’s, Moussa’s works have commissioned and performed by the likes of Wiener Philharmoniker, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, DSO Berlin, Dutch National Opera and Ballet, Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Brussels Philharmonic. This season sees even more premiere orchestras take up his work with performances by NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. His works remain popular with internationally-renowned conductors such as Hannu Lintu, Manfred Honeck, Kent Nagano, Kevin John Edusei, Stéphane Denève, Christoph Eschenbach, Gustavo Gimeno and Fabien Gabel.

Moussa completed his undergraduate studies at Université de Montréal under José Evangelista and postgraduate studies at Hochschule für Musik und Theater München under Matthias Pintscher and Pascal Dusapin, undertaking masterclasses with Pierre Boulez and courses with Salvatore Sciarrino.

Audiences and critics alike have praised The Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh’s programming, saying, “EXCEPTIONAL and MEMORABLE… I’m still talking about it,” “One of the finest music events I have ever attended,” and “the Mendelssohn never ceases to amaze me… This city should be proud of its choir” (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). 

Critically acclaimed as one of the finest choruses in the country, MCP is the “voice of the greater Pittsburgh region” — whether premiering a choral work composed by Stewart Copeland of The Police at a rock venue, or performing Mozart with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra (PSO) at Carnegie Hall in New York City. Unlike other professional arts organizations, MCP is proudly comprised of mostly amateur singers with professional-caliber talent, whose day jobs vary from postal clerk to physician to casino card dealer. MCP singers give generously of their talent, passion, and commitment to share the magic of live music with the widest possible audience, within Heinz Hall and throughout the community. 

For more than a century, MCP has proudly partnered with the PSO as its “chorus of choice,” bringing the joys of symphonic choral music to tens of thousands of people each year. MCP has performed under the batons of world-renowned conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Mariss Jansons, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Michael Tilson Thomas, Claudio Abbado, Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Slatkin, Charles Dutoit, André Previn, Sir Neville Marriner, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Helmuth Rilling, Ingo Metzmacher, Richard Hickox, Zdenek Mácal, and Manfred Honeck.

MCP embraces its long legacy of performances, recordings, and commissions that reimagine choral music for today’s audiences and bring bold, unique programming to the Pittsburgh region, such as the recent world premieres of Satan’s Fall by the Police’s Stewart Copeland and The Times They Are A-Changin’ by composer and conductor Steve Hackman. Under the leadership of its new Robert Page Music Director Daniel Singer, MCP looks forward to continuing its tradition of excellence while seeking innovative ways to encourage broader community participation in MCP as singers and as members of the audience. 

MCP fosters the next generation of choral singers and audience members through its educational program, the Junior Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh (JMCP). Founded in 1986, JMCP is the region’s premier high school choral training and performance program. Annually, JMCP attracts singers from more than a dozen school districts, providing youth with a challenging musical environment in which to develop their skills and encouraging them to be lifelong participants in the arts.