Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra

Daniele Rustioni is one of the most compelling conductors of his generation both in opera and orchestral repertoire. In 2022, he was awarded “Best Conductor of the Year” by the International Opera Awards.  

Rustioni has been Music Director of Opéra National de Lyon since September 2017 and became Music Director of the Ulster Orchestra in the United Kingdom in 2022/23 after three seasons as Chief Conductor. In September 2021, he became Principal Guest Conductor of the Bavarian State Opera. Between 2014 and 2020 he was Music Director of the Orchestra della Toscana and served as Artistic Director until January 2023. 

Rustioni has been engaged by all major international opera houses including the Berlin Staatsoper, La Scala, Opéra Bastille, Opernhaus Zürich, Royal Opera House Covent Garden and Teatro Real. He made his debut at the Salzburg Festival in 2022 leading a concert performance of Lucia di Lammermoor. He returned to the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden in July 2023 taking over a production of Don Carlo for Daniel Barenboim.   

As Music Director of the Opéra National de Lyon, Daniele Rustioni conducts two new productions each season in addition to symphonic programs. He and the opera house are regular guests of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris – they performed Hérodiade by Massenet in concert version during the 2022/23 season – as well as of the Aix-en-Provence Summer Festival, where they present operas on stage as well as in concert versions. Rustioni opened the 2022/23 season with a new production of Tannhäuser, his first Wagner production and the beginning of a three-year survey of German repertoire, which will include Die Frau ohne Schatten in 2023/24 and Wozzeck in 2024/25. 

Rustioni is a regular presence at the Metropolitan Opera House where he made his debut in April 2017 with Aida and returned in 2021/22 with back-to-back performances of a new production of Rigoletto and a revival of Le Nozze di Figaro. In March 2022/23 he led critically acclaimed performances of a revival of Robert Carsen’s production of Falstaff. He returns to the Met in 2023/24 for the New Year’s Eve Gala and performances of a new production of Carmen directed by Carrie Cracknell. 

Rustioni is in-demand by many of the leading international orchestras. In February 2023, he made his Carnegie Hall debut conducting the MET Orchestra, an honor usually reserved for the Music Director of the MET. His other recent American debuts include the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra in April 2023 and Philadelphia Orchestra in January 2022. In the 2023/24 season he will make debuts with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. and Dallas Symphony Orchestra. He has many debuts and reengagements with major American orchestras coming in future seasons. 

Rustioni has conducted all the major Italian symphony orchestras, including the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra and the Filarmonica della Scala. His guest conducting engagements have included the London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, and the Hallé Orchestra. 

As Music Director of the Ulster Orchestra, Rustioni has developed significant activities for the ensemble including a European Union tour in May 2022 and an acclaimed performance at the BBC Proms in August 2022. Future plans include recordings and more touring activities. 

Rustioni has made regular appearances in Japan since his debut conducting Madama Butterfly at the Nikkikai Opera in 2014, including performances with the Kyushu Symphony Orchestra, the HPAC Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Osaka Philharmonic and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. 

Rustioni’s extensive and varied discography includes Bellini’s Adelson e Salvini for Opera Rara with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Wolf-Ferrari’s Violin Concerto on Deutsche Grammophon with Francesca Dego and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He has recorded works by Federico Ghedini, Goffredo Petrassi and Alfredo Casella with the Orchestra della Toscana for Sony Classical. The Opéra National de Lyon and Rustioni’sacclaimed performance of Barry Kosky’s production of The Golden Cockerel was recently released on DVD by Naxos. 

Internationally recognized as one of today's most acclaimed and admired pianists, Yefim Bronfman stands among a handful of artists regularly sought by festivals, orchestras, conductors and recital series. His commanding technique, power and exceptional lyrical gifts are consistently acknowledged by the press and audiences alike. 

Following summer festival appearances in Verbier, Israel, Aspen, Grand Tetons and Sun Valley the season begins with a European tour celebrating the auspicious 500th anniversary of the Munich Opera and Orchestra with concerts in Lucerne, Bucharest, London, Paris, Linz, Vienna and Munich. In partnership with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra together they will visit Japan and Korea followed in the US by return engagements throughout the season with New York Philharmonic, Boston, Kansas City, National, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, San Francisco symphonies and Minnesota Orchestra. With Munich Philharmonic and both Brahms concerti on the program he will travel to Spain and Carnegie Hall followed by European engagements with Budapest Festival Orchestra. An extensive winter/spring recital tour will begin in Ljubljana and include Milan, Berlin, Cleveland, Chicago, Vancouver, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, La Jolla and culminate in Carnegie Hall in early May. 

Mr. Bronfman works regularly with an illustrious group of conductors, including Daniel Barenboim, Herbert Blomstedt, Semyon Bychkov, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, Valery Gergiev, Alan Gilbert, Vladimir Jurowski, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jaap Van Zweden, Franz Welser-Möst, and David Zinman. Summer engagements have regularly taken him to the major festivals of Europe and the US. Always keen to explore chamber music repertoire, his partners have included Pinchas Zukerman, Martha Argerich, Magdalena Kožená, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Emmanuel Pahud and many others. In 1991 he gave a series of joint recitals with Isaac Stern in Russia, marking Mr. Bronfman's first public performances there since his emigration to Israel at age 15. 

Widely praised for his solo, chamber and orchestral recordings, Mr. Bronfman has been nominated for 6 GRAMMY® Awards, winning in 1997 with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the Los Angeles Philharmonic for their recording of the three Bartok Piano Concerti. His prolific catalog of recordings includes works for two pianos by Rachmaninoff and Brahms with Emanuel Ax, the complete Prokofiev concerti with the Israel Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta, a Schubert/Mozart disc with the Zukerman Chamber Players and the soundtrack to Disney's Fantasia 2000. His most recent CD releases are the 2014 GRAMMY® nominated Magnus Lindberg's Piano Concerto No. 2 commissioned for him and performed by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Alan Gilbert on the Da Capo label; Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 with Mariss Jansons and the Bayerischer Rundfunk; a recital disc, Perspectives, complementing Mr. Bronfman's designation as a Carnegie Hall ‘Perspectives' artist for the 2007-08 season; and recordings of all the Beethoven piano concerti as well as the Triple Concerto together with violinist Gil Shaham, cellist Truls Mørk, and the Tönhalle Orchestra Zürich under David Zinman for the Arte Nova/BMG label. 

Now available on DVD are his performances of Liszt's second piano concerto with Franz Welser-Möst and the Vienna Philharmonic from Schoenbrunn, 2010 on Deutsche Grammophon; Beethoven's fifth piano concerto with Andris Nelsons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra from the 2011 Lucerne Festival; Rachmaninoff's third concerto with the Berlin Philharmonic and Sir Simon Rattle on the EuroArts label and both Brahms Concerti with Franz Welser-Möst and The Cleveland Orchestra (2015). 

Born in Tashkent in the Soviet Union, Yefim Bronfman immigrated to Israel with his family in 1973, where he studied with pianist Arie Vardi, head of the Rubin Academy of Music at Tel Aviv University. In the United States, he studied at The Juilliard School, Marlboro School of Music, and the Curtis Institute of Music, under Rudolf Firkusny, Leon Fleisher, and Rudolf Serkin. A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Prize, one of the highest honors given to American instrumentalists, in 2010 he was further honored as the recipient of the Jean Gimbel Lane prize in piano performance from Northwestern University and in 2015 with an honorary doctorate from the Manhattan School of Music.