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

Born in 1999 in New York City, Kyrian Friedenberg studied the piano and conducting at McGill University where he was mentored by Guillaume Bourgogne. He joined Alain Altinoglu’s conducting class at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) in 2020, and then came to international attention as the winner of the Neeme Järvi Prize 2022 at the Gstaad Menuhin Festival.

He has conducted the Kammerorchester Basel, Orchestre National de Lille, Gstaad Festival Orchestra, l’Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, the Sinfonie-Orchester Biel Solothurn, Orchestre de Picardie, l’Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Moravska Filarmonica, Orchestra Senzaspine, and the Richmond Symphony.

Kyrian assisted Leonardo Alarcón in Henry Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas in March 2023, and he also conducted the opera himself from the harpsichord for a performance. Working with Leonardo Alarcón and Guillaume Bourgogne led to Kyrian’s parallel interests in early and contemporary music, drawing on his skills as a pianist to lead orchestras from the keyboard and integrating the bookends of the repertoire in his programming.

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, and Pascal Rophé.

Before turning to classical music, Kyrian spent several years working as a young professional actor, appearing in 330 performances of the 2008 Broadway revival of Gypsy starring Patti LuPone, as well as several other Broadway shows including a lead role in Ron Hirsen’s Frugal Repast at the Abingdon Theater in Manhattan. In addition, he had a blossoming operatic career as a boy soprano, with title roles in Nico Muhly’s Two Boys, Peter Ash’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Gian Carlo Menotti’s Amahl and the Night Visitors.

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