Karina Canellakis has been chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic since 2019, leading the orchestra at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and Utrecht’s TivoliVredenburg, and has been principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic since 2021. She was principal guest conductor of the Berlin Radio Symphony from 2019–23, and in 2023–24 was a featured artist in residence at Vienna’s Musikverein.

Highlights this season include her Lucerne Festival debut, Vienna Philharmonic debut at Mozart Week Salzburg, a seven-city European tour with the London Philharmonic and Anne-Sophie Mutter, and her Hamburg State Opera. She returns this season to the Chicago Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony, and Vienna Symphony. Over recent seasons, she has developed close relationships with the Bavarian Radio Symphony, Orchestre de Paris, Vienna Symphony, and Munich Philharmonic, and is a repeat guest with the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Cleveland Orchestra, and Philadelphia Orchestra. She has toured Australia and made her debut in Japan in July 2025 with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony and at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in October 2019.

April 2023 saw the start of a multi-album collaboration with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic and Pentatone, earning a Grammy nomination for Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra and Four Orchestral Pieces. Her second album for Pentatone, Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, was released in April 2025. She was also a featured artist for the launch of Apple Music Classical with a recording of Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Alice Sara Ott.
Already known to many in the classical music as a violinist, Canellakis grew up in New York City, where she learned conducting and score-reading from her father, Martin Canellakis. She was then encouraged to become a conductor by Sir Simon Rattle while playing in the Berlin Philharmonic’s Orchestre-Akademie. She performed for several years as soloist, guest leader, and chamber musician, spending summers at the Marlboro Music Festival, until conducting eventually took over after she won the Sir Georg Solti Award in 2016.

Since winning the Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award in 2016, Ms. Canellakis has guest conducted leading orchestras around the world. She was the first woman to conduct the First Night of the BBC Proms in London in 2019, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and also the first woman to ever conduct the Nobel Prize Concert with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 2018. She made her San Francisco Symphony debut in 2019. Born in New York, she began her musical career as a violinist, and was initially encouraged to pursue conducting by Simon Rattle while playing regularly in the Berlin Philharmonic as a member of their Orchester-Akademie.

In 2019, aged 22, Alexandre Kantorow became the first French pianist to win the gold medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition, along with the Grand Prix, granted only three times in the competition’s history. In 2024, he was recognized once again when he received the Gilmore Artist Award.

Highlights of Kantorow’s 2025–26 season include a Japanese tour with the Concertgebouw Orchestra, European tours with Filarmonica della Scala and the London Philharmonic, an Asian tour with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, and a US tour with the Philharmonia, including a performance at Carnegie Hall. He will also embark on a recital tour of North America and return to the Rotterdam Philharmonic and Bavarian Radio Symphony. He makes his San Francisco Symphony debut as a Shenson Young Artist with these concerts.

In recent seasons, Kantorow has performed with the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, and Budapest Festival Orhchestra. In recital, he has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Concertgebouw, Vienna Konzerthaus, Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie de Paris, Suntory Hall, and at festivals such as Edinburgh, Salzburg, La Roque d’Anthéron, Piano aux Jacobins, Verbier, Rheingau, and Klavierfest Ruhr. As a chamber musician, he performs regularly with Janine Jansen, Renaud Capuçon, Gautier Capuçon, and Matthias Goerne. With Liya Petrova and Aurélien Pascal, he is co-artistic director of the Rencontres Musicales de Nîmes and the Pianopolis festival in Angers.

Kantorow records exclusively for BIS. He was awarded the title of Chevalier of the National Order of Merit by the French president, having previously been made a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters by the minister of culture. In July 2024, Kantorow performed Ravel’s Jeux d’eau at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games.