The American violinist Hilary Hahn is one of the most sought-after performers of the present time. She began playing violin already before her fourth birthday and at the age of ten was admitted to the famous Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with the world-renowned Russian-American violinist Jascha Brodsky. At eleven she debuted as a soloist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Her first performance in Europe was at the age of sixteen in 1995, when she performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in Munich with the Bavarian Radio Symphony under Lorin Maazel. Hahn appears with the most important orchestras and conductors of the world and is regularly invited to prestigious international music festivals. Her discography comprises almost two dozen recordings for Deutsche Grammophon and Sony Classical. She is known for her efforts in promoting contemporary music; several composers, including Edgar Meyer and Jennifer Higdon, have written works especially for her.

The Swedish conductor Daniel Blendulf is one of the most sought-after performers of the younger generation. In 2008 he became a laureate of the Swedish Conducting Competition, and six years later he won the prestigious Herbert Blomstedt Conducting Prize. At several Czech opera houses, he has conducted productions of Bizet’s Carmen, Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, and Gounod’s Faust. He is a regular conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, and he collaborates with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. He systematically promotes the works of contemporary Swedish composers, having given, for example, the world premiere of the chamber opera Karolinas sömn by Anders Eliasson at the Royal Swedish Opera. He also appears frequently on stages abroad on several continents – among the orchestras with which he has collaborated are the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and the Sydney Symphony. Daniel Blendulf is the husband of the violinist Janine Jansen.

The Camerata Salzburg chamber orchestra was founded in 1952 by the Salzburg conductor and music teacher Bernhard Paumgartner with the participation of the teachers and pupils at Salzburg’s music school, the Mozarteum University. The ensemble gives concerts frequently on important stages around the world, and at home in Salzburg it appears regularly in the summer at the prestigious Salzburg Festival, at the Mozart Week, and in its own concerts. The orchestra’s domain is the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, but it also devotes itself to the music of other composers, especially from the period of Viennese Classicism and Romanticism. The ensemble was especially famous internationally during the period when its conductor was the outstanding Mozart expert Sándor Végh (1978–1997), thanks to whom the orchestra’s special sound became a byword in the music world. The Camerata Salzburg has a number of superb recordings to its credit for the Decca, Warner Classics, and Sony Classical labels.