Grieg Piano Concerto

CONDUCTOR
Michelle Di Russo

A graceful yet powerful force on the podium, Argentinian-Italian conductor Michelle Di Russo is known for her compelling interpretations, passionate musicality, and championing of contemporary music. Di Russo is thrilled to have been named Music Director of the Delaware Symphony, the sixth in its 119-year history, and begins her tenure in the current season. In 2024 Di Russo was appointed Associate Conductor of the Fort Worth Symphony, by Robert Spano and is a two-time recipient of The Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award. She is a conducting fellow at the Aspen Music Festival as well as a former Dudamel Fellow with LA Philharmonic, mentee of the Taki Alsop Fellowship and a conducting fellow of Chicago Sinfonietta’s Project Inclusion program and The Dallas Opera Hart Institute.

This season’s highlights include guest conducting debuts here at the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Toledo Ballet and Fort Worth Symphony. She will also be returning to cover conduct for the New York Philharmonic, National Symphony and San Diego Symphony in addition to performing over 50 concerts with the Fort Worth Symphony as part of her position. Di Russo has been selected to be a part of a two-year project of the Roche Young Commissions at Lucerne Festival Academy and this summer will be leading Suor Angelica and perform with Ricardo Morales in a shared concert with Marin Alsop at the Prague Summer Nights Festival. As part of her work as a conducting fellow at the Verbier Festival, she assisted and worked closely with Simon Rattle, Klaus Mäkelä and Lahav Shani.

Di Russo has guest conducted LA Phil, San Diego Symphony, Vermont Symphony, Portland Symphony, Knoxville Symphony, and worked as cover conductor for the St. Louis Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra and LA Phil. She has held positions as Associate Conductor with the North Carolina Symphony assisting Carlos Miguel Prieto, Interim Director of Orchestras at Cornell University, and is conducting fellow alumni of the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music and a Joel Revzen fellow of the Napa Valley Festival. As a fellow at the Lucerne Festival Academy, she worked with the International Ensemble Modern Academy and was featured on a masterclass with Susanna Mälkki working on Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring that is aired on Medici.tv. She has also been the recipient of the American Austrian Foundation/Faber Young Conductors Fellowship (selected by members from the Vienna Philharmonic.)

During the pandemic Di Russo co-created Girls Who Conduct, an organization dedicated to bridge the gap between women and men in the conducting field and encourage younger generations of women and non-binary conductors to overcome any obstacles presented due to their gender.

Trained as a professional dancer since the age of three, she continued her studies in voice and piano, leading to participations in Argentinian and Disney TV shows. Prior to switching her focus to the podium, she was a cast member of a professional musical theatre company by Cibrian-Mahler while an undergraduate, gaining insight into the ways of a working theatre. This passion for theatre has endured in her work conducting Opera and Musical Theatre.

A native of Argentina with Italian roots, Di Russo holds a Doctoral Degree in Orchestral Conducting from Arizona State University and a Master of Music in Orchestral Conducting from the University of Kentucky. She completed her degree in Orchestral Conducting and Music Production of Audiovisual Media from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, where she was awarded an Ad-Hoc Diploma for the highest grade in Orchestral Conducting.

PIANO
Inon Barnatan

“One of the most admired pianists of his generation” (New York Times), Inon Barnatan has received universal acclaim for his “uncommon sensitivity” (The New Yorker), “impeccable musicality and phrasing” (Le Figaro), and his stature as “a true poet of the keyboard: refined, searching, unfailingly communicative” (The Evening Standard). A multifaceted musician, Barnatan is equally celebrated as soloist, curator and collaborator.

As a soloist, Barnatan is a regular performer with many of the world’s foremost orchestras and conductors. He was the inaugural Artist-in-Association of the New York Philharmonic from 2014-17 and has played with the BBC Symphony for the BBC Proms, the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Cleveland, Boston and most major orchestras in the US, as well as the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra Symphony and the London, Helsinki, Hong Kong, and Royal Stockholm Philharmonics.

Barnatan’s 2024-25 season highlights included performances with major orchestras worldwide. He opened the season with a gala performance at the San Diego Symphony, and performed with the New Jersey Symphony, Pasadena Symphony, Boston Symphony, Tokyo Symphony, Naples Philharmonic, Israel Symphony, and Atlanta Symphony. Additionally, he continued his collaboration with cellist Alisa Weilerstein, with performances at Stanford Live and Celebrity Series of Boston, and performed alongside James Ehnes at Wigmore Hall. Barnatan and Weilerstein continue their collaboration with the recording of a highly anticipated album of Brahms’ Cello Sonatas, released by Pentatone in 2024.

Equally at home as a curator and chamber musician, Barnatan is Music Director of La Jolla Music Society Summerfest in California, one of leading music festivals in the country. He regularly collaborates with world-class partners such as Renée Fleming and Alisa Weilerstein, and plays at major chamber music festivals including, Seattle, Santa Fe, and Spoleto USA. Barnatan was a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two) from 2006 to 2009 and continues to perform with CMS in New York and on tour.

Born in Tel Aviv in 1979, Inon Barnatan started playing the piano at the age of three, when his parents discovered his perfect pitch, and made his orchestral debut at eleven. His musical education connects him to some of the 20th century’s most illustrious pianists and teachers: he studied first with Professor Victor Derevianko, a student of the Russian master Heinrich Neuhaus, before moving to London in 1997 to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Christopher Elton and Maria Curcio, a student of the legendary Artur Schnabel.