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Emerging from Australia as a child prodigy in the late '90s, Ray Chen is a violinist noted for his bright, vital playing style. He won both the Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition and the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in the late 2000s before turning 21. Chen went on record concertos by Mozart, Tchaikovsky, Bruch, and Mendelssohn for such labels as Sony Classical and Decca in the 2010s. He plays the 1715 "Joachim" Stradivarius.

Born in Taiwan in 1989 and raised in Australia, Chen showed an unusual aptitude for the violin as a young child; he made his solo orchestra debut with the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of eight. Just before he turned nine, he performed at the opening celebration concert for the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano. Chen enrolled at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia when he was 15 years old, and at 19, he took first prize at the 2008 Yehudi Menuhin Violin Competition in Cardiff, Wales. That same year, he made his Russian debut in St. Petersburg with Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto alongside the Mariinsky Orchestra. In 2009, he won the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition.

Chen signed a recording contract with Sony Classical in 2010, and the label released his first album, Virtuoso, in early 2011. Featuring accompaniment by pianist Noreen Polera, it included works by Bach, Franck, Tartini, and Wieniawski. Chen then became the youngest artist in its history to perform in a Nobel Prize Concert when he appeared on the 2012 program. That year, he also released Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn: Violin Concertos, following it in 2014 with Mozart: Violin Concertos & Sonata, recorded with Christoph Eschenbach and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra.

After making the move to Decca in 2017, Chen released his fourth album, 2018's The Golden Age. It included Bruch's Violin Concerto No. 1 (with the London Philharmonic Orchestra) along with a variety of shorter classical and popular pieces, including a version of "Summertime" from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, and his take on the traditional tune "Waltzing Matilda." ~ Marcy Donelson

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (RPO) has held a prominent place in British music-making for more than seven decades. With a wide reach across Britain, in addition to its regular concerts in London's Cadogan Hall, including concerts in places where access to orchestral music is limited, the RPO can lay claim to the title of Britain's national orchestra. The RPO incorporates the pops-oriented Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra, the avant-garde Sharp Edge group, and RPO Resound, a community and educational outreach program.

The RPO's broad contemporary appeal, which has included appearances with popular music stars and on film, television, and video game soundtracks, would have been lauded by its founder and first conductor, Sir Thomas Beecham, who set up the RPO in 1946 and helped lead a vital revival in the U.K.'s orchestral life after World War II. The new orchestra prospered, beginning a long summer residency at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera in 1948 and touring the U.S. in 1950, becoming the first English orchestra to do so since 1912. Rudolf Kempe became principal conductor upon Beecham's death in 1961. The orchestra hit a rough patch in the early '60s under the leadership of Beecham's widow; Kempe departed (and then returned), and the orchestra temporarily lost the right to use the "royal" designation. That was restored by Queen Elizabeth II in 1966, and several strong conductors, Antal Doráti (1975-1978), André Previn (1985-1992), and Vladimir Ashkenazy (music director, 1987-1994), built the orchestra artistically. Later conductors have included Daniele Gatti, Yuri Temirkanov, Charles Dutoit, and Vasily Petrenko, who began his tenure as music director in 2021.

The RPO is especially notable for the depth and variety of its recording program, which in the first few years of its existence had already topped 100 items; by the early 2020s decade, the orchestra had issued many hundreds of recordings, stretching from pop (disco enthusiasts will remember it as the orchestra featured on the Hooked on Classics recordings of the 1980s) to new avant-garde music. Among these was a 125-album contract with the Tring label. The orchestra's RPO Records, formed in 1986, is thought to have been the first recording label owned by a symphony orchestra; such an arrangement is now commonplace. The following year, the RPO launched the light music (or pops in the U.S.) companion group, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra.

In 1993, the RPO inaugurated an educational and community outreach program titled RPO Resound. This program provides musical experiences outside of traditional concert settings, such as schools, prisons, and hospitals. Among the key projects for this program is the stroke rehabilitation project STROKESTRA. The RPO is the resident music ensemble of Cadogan Hall in Chelsea, becoming the first London orchestra to have a permanent home, giving its first concert there in 2004. In 2019, the RPO released Animal Requiem by rocker Pete Townshend's collaborator and marital partner, Rachel Fuller. That year, the RPO was named the associate orchestra of the Royal Albert Hall. Among the orchestra's 2022 albums are a recording of two Sibelius Symphonies and Air, featuring the music of Oliver Davis. The next year, they teamed with Joe Hisaishi for A Symphonic Celebration, which reimagined songs from beloved Studio Ghibli animated films. ~ James Manheim & Keith Finke

The conducting career of Cristian Măcelaru is relatively young, for he did not even pick up a baton seriously until age 26. Măcelaru has rapidly established strong relationships with top orchestras in both the U.S. and Europe, and he was named chief conductor of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne in 2019.

Măcelaru was born in Timisoara, Romania, on March 15, 1980. He was the youngest of ten children, all of whom studied music. Măcelaru's instrument was the violin, and he was strong enough as a 17-year-old to pass auditions at the Interlochen music camp in the U.S. state of Michigan. There, he met a mentor, former Chicago Symphony conductor Larry Rachleff, who agreed to teach him conducting as long as Măcelaru continued his violin studies. Măcelaru agreed, earning a bachelor's degree in music at the University of Miami in 2003. He served as concertmaster of the Miami Symphony, becoming the youngest player ever to hold that position, and at that point, he reminded Rachleff of his offer. Rachleff, who taught conducting at Rice University, arranged for Măcelaru's admission to the program there, and Măcelaru earned a master's degree.

Măcelaru made his debut in 2010, leading the Houston Grand Opera in a performance of Puccini's Madama Butterfly. He also took master classes at the Tanglewood Music Festival, leading the U.S. premiere of Colin Matthews' orchestral work Turning Point while he was there. His work at Tanglewood also caught the ear of Chicago Symphony artistic advisor Gerard McBurney, who recommended Măcelaru as a substitute in 2011 for the ailing Pierre Boulez. The newly minted conductor earned plaudits from Chicago's corps of critics, and he has made renewed guest appearances there and with other major American orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Cleveland Orchestra. Măcelaru gained a reputation as a conductor who could master difficult scores quickly, and for his debut with Sweden's Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, he told Bryant Manning of CSO Sounds & Stories that he had literally found out on Saturday afternoon, flew to Sweden on Sunday for a Monday rehearsal, and then gave performances on Wednesday and Thursday. He succeeded in learning two complex modern scores: Peter Lieberson's Neruda Songs and Andrea Tarrodi's Camelopardalis. Măcelaru's longest association has been with the Philadelphia Orchestra, of which he became assistant conductor in 2011, associate conductor in 2012, and conductor-in-residence in 2014. In 2018, Măcelaru led the Philadelphia Orchestra in a recording of Michael Torke's Unconquered, and the following year, he was heard once again with the Philadelphia Orchestra in a recording of Wynton Marsalis' new violin concerto, played by star Nicola Benedetti; this recording won the 2020 Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

Măcelaru has continued to appear often with both the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony. After several guest appearances with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne in Germany, he was named the orchestra's chief conductor in 2019. That year, he was also named music director of the Orchestre National de France, effective in 2021. In 2021, he conducted the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra in an album of works by Shostakovich and led the Orchestre National de France in a complete cycle of the symphonies of Saint-Saëns. In 2022, Măcelaru made his first recording with the WDR Symphony Orchestra, featuring the Legends, Op. 59, and Czech Suite, Op. 39, of Dvořák. The following year, he led the Bavarian Radio Symphony and Chorus on the album 1923, and he also conducted the WDR Symphony Orchestra on an album of music by Bartók. ~ James Manheim