Assistant conductors

Yalda Zamani

Yalda Zamani, a German-based conductor of Iranian heritage, has made her mark in modern and contemporary music. Her career boasts world premieres at prestigious venues and festivals worldwide, including Darmstadt New Music Festival, Wien Modern, Warsaw Autumn, Berlin Ultraschall, Music Biennale Zagreb, Musikprotokoll Festival in Graz, Ruhrtriennale Festival, Time of Music Festival in Finland, St George’s Hall in Liverpool, Royaumont Abbey in France, Vienna Konzerthaus, and Musikverein in Austria, among others.

She has collaborated with renowned orchestras and ensembles, including RSO Radio Symphony Orchestra Vienna, Zagreb Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Klangforum Wien, Athelas Sinfonietta Denmark, Croatian Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra, Bilbao Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Musikfabrik, Bratislava Symphony Orchestra, Boulez Ensemble and Ensemble 10/10 from the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.

She graduated with distinction from the Music and Arts University in Vienna, after studying conducting and harpsichord performance. She was also a choir member of the historic Wiener Singverein and Wiener Singakademie and performed with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra and Vienna Symphonic Orchestra. She benefited from a scholarship from the Ensemble Modern Academy in Frankfurt, where her passion for modern and contemporary music blossomed.

Zamani received support and recognitions as a promising young conductor from the Austrian Federal Ministry, Ulysses Network and IRCAM artistic committee, as a winner/finalist of “Das Kritische Orchestra” by the Dirigentenforum and Deutscher Musikrat in Germany, and as a conductor in residence at the European Network of Opera Academies and at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence. Following this, she worked as an assistant conductor at the Stadttheater Klagenfurt in Austria, contributing to the premiere of Salvatore Sciarrino’s opera Il canto s’attrista perché?.

Yalda Zamani is the founder and artistic director of the Chamber Orchestra Elbe, which made its debut at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg in December 2023.

www.yaldazamani.com

Kyrian Friedenberg

At 25 years old, American-Canadian conductor Kyrian Friedenberg is the Assistant Conductor of the Ensemble intercontemporain until 2026. He came to international attention as the winner of the Neeme Järvi Prize 2022 at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival and gave his debut with the Kammerorchester Basel in June 2023. In recognition of his achievements, he has been awarded a 2024 Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Award.

The 24/25 season’s highlights include his return to l’Orchestra della Toscana to close the Festivale Sagra Musicale Umbra Perugia, New Year’s concerts with l’Orchestre National de Metz, and a residency at the Lyric Opera of Chicago for Verdi’s Rigoletto. With the Ensemble intercontemporain, he assisted Pierre Bleuse in the Grand Soir Edgard Varèse where he conducted the first rehearsals of Amériques and Arcana, and then in Pierre Boulez’s Répons for the opening of the Boulez Centenary celebrations at the Philharmonie de Paris.

He entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 2020 in the class of Alain Altinoglu. He has participated in prestigious academies including the Gstaad Conducting Academy (2022) and the Accademia Chigiana (2023), where he worked closely with Jaap van Zweden and Daniele Gatti. He has worked in masterclasses with Mikko Franck, Johannes Schlaefli, Baldur Brönnimann, Pascal Rophé, Arie van Beek, and Alexandre Bloch.

He has served as an assistant conductor for Jonathan Nott, Geoffroy Jourdain, Stephanie Childress, and Johanna Malangré, with orchestras including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Richmond Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Paris, Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, Orchestre National de Bretagne… Kyrian assisted Leonardo Alarcón in a 2023 production of Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas at the Conservatoire de Paris, which he conducted from the harpsichord for a performance.

Before turning to music, Kyrian spent several years working as a young professional actor, appearing in more than 330 performances of the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy, as well as several other Broadway shows including a lead role in Ron Hirsen’s Frugal Repast at the Abingdon Theater in Manhattan. In opera, he held titles roles as a young soprano in Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, Peter Ash’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors.

Having grown up in New York City, he completed a Bachelor of Music in Piano and Organ Performance at McGill University (Montréal, Canada) and now lives and works in Paris.

www.kyrianfriedenberg.com

Daniel Huertas

Born in Madrid but raised in La Mancha, Central Spain, the Spanish conductor Daniel Huertas emerged as one of the most sparkling current batons. He is notably the winner of the Neeme Järvi prize 2022 and the 2nd prize in Juventudes Musicales de España Competition 2023.

Daniel began playing music in Campo de Criptana, Spain, at the age of 5. Starting with the clarinet, he also showed interest in piano and in conducting. He studied the clarinet with José Luis Estellés, and conducting with Arturo Tamayo and Gabriel Baltes at Musikene, in San Sebastian. He continued studying conducting contemporary music at the Conservatoire de la Suisse italienne in Lugano. He graduated from the Haute École de Musique in Geneva with Laurent Gay.

He has worked with orchestras such as the Orchestre National du Pays Basque Français, the Ensemble Contrechamps, the Gstaad Festival Orchestra, the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, the Biel/Bienne Symphony Orchestra, the Ensemble Ars Nova and the Orchestre National de Pays de la Loire. He completed a training period at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in the production of Parsifal with Jonathan Nott, and has conducted opera productions such as Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas, Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro.

During the 2023-2024 season, he will be guest conductor of the Castilla y León Symphony Orchestra and the Südwestfalen Philharmonic Orchestra. He will continue his career in the lyrical repertoire as musical director of Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at the Haute École de Musique de Genève and as assistant conductor of Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges at the Tenerife Opera, with conductor Jordi Francés.

www.danielhuertasconductor.com