Bezuidenhout & Minasi

Kristian Bezuidenhout, born in South Africa, was educated in Australia and later at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. He won the prestigious Fortepiano Competition in Bruges and began his international career as a pianist. Bezuidenhout performs on the fortepiano and harpsichord as well as on the modern grand piano. He has appeared with orchestras such as the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, the Orchestre des Champs-Élysées, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Les Siècles under the direction of conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner, Philippe Herreweghe, Bernard Haitink and Giovanni Antonini. More recently, he has also appeared as a musical director, for example with the Freiburger Barockorchester, which appointed him as its Artistic Director in 2017, and with The English Concert, where he served as Principal Guest Conductor. In 2025, he was appointed Associate Artist of the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Further concerts in this dual role have taken him to the Camerata Salzburg, the Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century and the Kammerakademie Potsdam. He is also deeply committed to chamber music, performing with violinists Isabelle Faust, Alina Ibragimova and Rachel Podger, cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras, and singers Carolyn Sampson, Mark Padmore, Matthias Goerne and Anne Sofie von Otter. Kristian Bezuidenhout has released more than 30 albums, including a complete cycle of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s piano sonatas, which was awarded the Diapason d’Or, the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik and the Prix Caecilia.

Riccardo Minasi is Principal Guest Conductor of Ensemble Resonanz, which is based at the Elbphilharmonie, as well as Artistic Director of the orchestra La Scintilla at the Opernhaus Zürich, positions he has held since 2022. Previously, from 2011 to 2016, he was co-founder and conductor of Il Pomo d’Oro, from 2017 to 2022 Chief Conductor of the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg and from 2022 to 2025 Music Director of the Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa. As a conductor, he has led numerous renowned orchestras worldwide, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Münchner Philharmoniker and the SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart. Engagements as musical director of various opera productions have taken him, among others, to the Salzburger Festspiele, the Opernhaus Zürich, the Staatsoper Hamburg and the Dutch National Opera. In addition, he served as musicological advisor to the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and, together with Maurizio Biondi, published the critical edition of Vincenzo Bellini’s "Norma" with Bärenreiter. As a soloist, Riccardo Minasi has performed with some of the most important ensembles of the early music scene, including Il Giardino Armonico and Le Concert des Nations. Minasi’s extensive discography includes recordings with artists such as Joyce DiDonato, Juan Diego Flórez and Philippe Jaroussky. Four of his albums have won the prestigious ECHO Klassik Award. His recordings include Joseph Haydn’s "The Seven Last Words of Our Saviour on the Cross" and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s Cello Concertos with Jean-Guihen Queyras under the label Harmonia Mundi.