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Benjamin Grosvenor is an important contemporary British pianist known for his fresh interpretations of piano repertoire from the Romantic era. He began his career at 11 years old, as the winner of the BBC's Young Musician of the Year competition of 2004, and now as a mature artist, he's widely admired for his balance of virtuosic technique and expressive musicality.

Grosvenor was born in 1992 in Southend-on-Sea, England, and he has four older brothers. His father taught English and drama, and his mother was a professional piano instructor. He initially began learning to play the piano from his mother when he was six years old. Grosvenor later attended the Westcliff High School for Boys and studied piano with Hilary Coates and Christopher Elton. He gave his first recital in 2003, and he also performed Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 later that year with his school orchestra. In 2004, he won the BBC's Young Musician of the Year competition, in the keyboard division, and he became a student of Daniel-Ben Pienaar and Julian Perkins at the Royal Academy of Music. He participated in the 2005 BBC documentary "Being a Concert Pianist," and in 2009 he recorded his first album, This and That, which included the works of Nikolai Kapustin, Domenico Scarlatti, and others. He became a BBC New Generation Artist in 2010, and in 2011 he entered a contract with the Decca Classics label. The following year, he completed his bachelor's degree in music at the Royal Academy, and his first album with Decca, Chopin Liszt Ravel, won a 2012 Gramophone Award for best instrumental album. His next three releases, Rhapsody in Blue (2012), Dances (2014), and Homages (2016) were also critically acclaimed. In 2016, he earned a fellowship at the Royal Academy, and he was awarded the Ronnie and Lawrence Ackman Classical Piano Prize. He collaborated with violinist Hyeyoon Park in 2019 on the album Many Voices: 10 New Pieces for Violin. Grosvenor's 2020 release Chopin Piano Concertos was awarded both a Gramophone Award and the prestigious Diapason d'Or de l'année. In 2021, he performed debuts with the Chicago Symphony led by Paavo Järvi and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra led by Maxim Emelyanychev. That same year, he also released the album Liszt under a renewed contract with Decca, and he was the artist in residence at Wigmore Hall. Grosvenor toured Europe and the U.S., and his reputation as a master interpreter of Chopin led to his participation in the "Chopin and His Europe" festival in Warsaw. He released Schumann & Brahms in 2023, and began a tour of the U.S. and Latin America with the Doric String Quartet and as a solo artist. ~ RJ Lambert

In the decades since its founding, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra has earned a reputation as a distinguished ensemble with an extensive concert schedule, wide-ranging repertoire, and a significant representation on recordings. In 2021, the orchestra was heard on the album Xiaogang Ye: Winter, as well as a recording of Mozart Concertos, backing Francesca Dego.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra is the direct descendant of the Scottish Orchestra, founded in Glasgow in 1891. Throughout its first 40 years, the Scottish Orchestra had a series of principal conductors, beginning with George Henschel from 1893 until 1895. In 1933, while the orchestra -- along with the rest of the world -- was facing financial difficulties, subscribers and patrons kept the ensemble afloat. That year, John Barbirolli assumed the post of principal conductor; since that time, the orchestra has been helmed by many well-known conductors, including George Szell, Walter Süsskind, and Alexander Gibson (the first Scot to lead the ensemble and the longest-tenured), among others. Under Süsskind's leadership, with the establishment of the Scottish National Orchestra Society with monies from several Scottish cities, the Scottish Orchestra became a permanent ensemble, changing its name to the Scottish National Orchestra in 1950.

During its early years, the orchestra played its Glasgow concerts in the acoustically wonderful St. Andrew's Hall. From the time the hall was destroyed by fire in 1962, the Scottish National Orchestra played in a series of venues of varying suitability. In 1977, during Gibson's tenure, Queen Elizabeth II granted the orchestra royal patronage; Gibson also earned his knighthood that year during the Queen's Silver Jubilee and Birthday Honours. The redesign of the Trinity Church on Claremont Street in 1979 gave the Scottish National Orchestra a new home: Henry Wood Hall. In 1991, the orchestra changed its name to the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, affirming its royal patronage. It was briefly named the Royal Scottish Orchestra but reverted to its present name in 1992.

While the orchestra boasts a wide-ranging repertoire, it has been singled out for its recordings of Bruckner, Barber, and 20th century British composers like Bax, MacMillan, and Holst. It has also earned a particular reputation for recorded performances of film scores, including a Gramophone Award in 1997 for its recording of Bernard Herrmann's score to Vertigo. In 2015, the orchestra moved to its current home, the RSNO Centre at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Neeme Järvi (principal conductor from 1984 until 1988) is the orchestra's conductor laureate, and Alexander Lazarev (principal conductor from 1997 until 2005) is conductor emeritus. Following a six-year stint as principal guest conductor, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra appointed Thomas Søndergård its music director, effective in 2018. In 2021, the orchestra was heard on a collection of works by Xiaogang Ye on BIS and, under Roger Norrington, backed Francesca Dego on a Chandos recording of Mozart Concertos. ~ TiVo Staff

Elim Chan was musically educated largely in the U.S. and rose to prominence in Europe in the late 2010s. She amassed a string of "firsts," becoming the first female winner of the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition and both the first female and the youngest-ever chief conductor of the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra in Belgium.

Chan was born in Hong Kong on November 18, 1986. She played cello and piano as a girl and sang in choirs, attending Good Hope School and the Li Po Chun United World College. Attending Smith College in Massachusetts, she planned a medical career but was exposed to conducting in her sophomore year and switched to the music program, graduating in 2009. Chan earned a master's degree in conducting at the University of Michigan in 2011, studying with Kenneth Kiesler and conducting both the University of Michigan Campus Symphony Orchestra and the Michigan Pops Orchestra. She stayed on for a doctoral degree, which she earned in 2015, and also took master classes with Bernard Haitink. By that time, Chan had already won an important competition: the Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition in December of 2014. Part of her prize was a year as assistant conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra for the 2015-2016 season. That led to a three-year contract with the NorrlandsOperan, beginning in 2017.

Chan several times impressed new orchestras in guest conducting appearances so strongly that she was subsequently hired. Guest stints with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, including one as an emergency substitute for Neeme Järvi, led to Chan's elevation to the post of principal guest conductor in 2018. The pattern was repeated with the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, where after several guest appearances, Chan became chief conductor in 2019. She also made guest appearances with such prestigious and varied groups as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and the Ensemble InterContemporain. With the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Chan made her recording debut in 2020 on the Decca label, leading that group in a performance of Chopin's piano concertos with pianist Benjamin Grosvenor. ~ James Manheim