A multiple Grammy Award winner and the 2018 Olivier Award winner for Outstanding Achievement in Opera, Kansas-born mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato charms audiences around the globe. She has soared to the top of the industry both as a performer and as a fierce advocate for the arts, gaining international prominence in operas by Handel and Mozart, as well as through her wide-ranging, acclaimed discography. She is also distinguished for the bel canto roles of Rossini and Donizetti.

In demand on the concert and recital circuit, Ms. DiDonato has recently been in residence at London’s Barbican Centre, appeared as guest soloist at the BBC’s Last Night of the Proms, and toured extensively in the United States, South America, Europe, and Asia. Recent concert highlights include performances with Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle and the Berliner Philharmoniker, Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and The Philadelphia Orchestra, and Sir Antonio Pappano with both the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and the National Youth Orchestra United States of America.

Recent opera highlights have included Didon in Les Troyens at the Vienna State Opera; the title role in Semiramide at the Bayerische Staatsoper; Agrippina in concert with Il Pomo d’Oro and Maxim Emelyanychev; Sister Helen Prejean in Dead Man Walking at Madrid’s Teatro Real and the Barbican Centre; Sesto in La clemenza di Tito, Adalgisa in Norma, and the title role in Cendrillon at the Metropolitan Opera; and the title role in Semiramide and Charlotte in Werther at London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden.

Ms. DiDonato’s 2019–2020 season includes her staged debut as Agrippina in a new production at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; her return to the Metropolitan Opera as Agrippina and Charlotte; and performances as Semiramide at the Liceu in Barcelona. She is a Carnegie Hall Perspectives artist this season, with upcoming appearances that include a chamber music concert titled Joyce DiDonato and Friends, a Baroque-inspired program titled My Favorite Things with Il Pomo d’Oro, and live-streamed master classes. Also with Il Pomo d’Oro, she performs her album In War & Peace on tour in South America and in Washington, DC, and embarks on a European and US tour of My Favorite Things. Other highlights include a tour with the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal under Mr. Nézet-Séguin; a European tour performing her latest album, Songplay; and recorded concerts of Berlioz’s Roméo et Juliette with John Nelson and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg.

Ms. DiDonato is an exclusive Erato / Warner Classics recording artist. Her award-winning discography includes Les Troyens, which in 2018 won the Recording (Complete Opera) category at the International Opera Awards, the Opera Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards, and Gramophone’s Recording of the Year. Other recent albums include Songplay; In War & Peace (winner of a 2017 Gramophone Award); Stella di Napoli; her Grammy Award–winning Diva, Divo; and Drama Queens. Other honors include Gramophone’s Artist of the Year and Recital of the Year awards, and induction into the Gramophone Hall of Fame.

Yannick Nézet-Séguin was appointed music director of the Metropolitan Opera in 2018. He leads Puccini’s Turandot, Massenet’s Werther, and a new production of Berg’s Wozzeck during the Met’s 2019–2020 season in addition to conducting concerts with The MET Orchestra as part of a nine-concert series at Carnegie Hall, where he is a Perspectives artist. Additional performances in the series include a Beethoven symphony cycle with The Philadelphia Orchestra, of which he has served as music director since 2012.

Yannick has worked regularly with many leading European ensembles, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and London Philharmonic Orchestra, of which he was principal guest conductor from 2008 to 2014. In the US, he has conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Yannick has appeared several times at London’s BBC Proms and at festivals in Edinburgh, Lucerne, Salzburg, Berlin, Grafenegg, Lanaudière, New York, Vail, and Saratoga. He has also appeared at the Vienna State Opera, Milan’s Teatro alla Scala, and London’s Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Yannick conducted Mozart’s last seven operas at Germany’s Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, of which a live recording was released by Deutsche Grammophon, for whom he records exclusively.

A native of Montreal, Yannick studied piano, conducting, composition, and chamber music at Montreal’s Conservatoire de Musique du Québec. After serving as chorus master, assistant conductor, and music advisor of the Opéra de Montréal, he founded the ensemble La Chapelle de Montréal in 1995. Yannick served as chief conductor of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra from 2008 to 2018, and has served as artistic director and principal conductor of the Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal since 2000. Among Yannick’s honors are appointments as Companion of the Order of Canada, Companion of the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, Officer of the Ordre National du Québec, and Officer of the Ordre de Montréal, as well as several honorary doctorates. He was named Musical America’s 2016 Artist of the Year.