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Brilliant and charismatic pianist Yuja Wang is among the most prominent pianists in the world, becoming a star by age 21 and building a consistently growing career since then. Russian virtuoso music is at the center of Wang's repertory, but she has expanded into new musical realms.

Yuja Wang (Wang Yuja in the Chinese naming system; Wang is her family name) was born in Beijing on February 10, 1987. An only child like most Chinese of her time, she grew up with a dancer mother and percussionist father. She took up the piano at six, was identified as a major talent, and took classes at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. Wang's first breakthrough outside China was a win at the Sendai International Music Competition in Japan in 2001. She moved that year to Calgary, Alberta, Canada, to enter the Mount Royal College Conservatory and then, after winning the Aspen Music Festival Concerto Competition, headed for Philadelphia in 2002 to study at the Curtis Institute with Gary Graffman. In 2003, Wang made her European debut with the Tonhalle Orchestra in Switzerland, playing Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 in G major, Op. 58. Some pianists are propelled into the A list by a single evening substituting for a famous pianist; in Wang's case, it happened three times: for Radu Lupu (2005), Martha Argerich (2007, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B flat minor, Op. 23), and Murray Perahia (2008, on an entire American tour). In 2008, she graduated from the Curtis Institute and made several high-profile appearances, including one at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center in upstate New York. The following year, she made her debut with an album of works by Chopin, Scriabin, Liszt, and Ligeti; the album appeared on Deutsche Grammophon, and she has remained almost exclusively associated with that label.

Since then, Wang has made concerto appearances with many of the world's major orchestras. She toured Asia in 2012 with the San Francisco Symphony and played a recital at Suntory Hall in Tokyo the following year. Wang has continued to live in the U.S. (in New York), saying that the country fits her independent spirit. She has toured the globe repeatedly as a soloist and recitalist; Fall 2019 brought a five-night stand with the Dresden Staatskapelle in Germany. Wang is known for fashionable on-stage outfits. She stated to Fiona Maddocks of the London Guardian that the look was intentional: "If the music is beautiful and sensual, why not dress to fit? It's about power and persuasion." By the late 2010s, Wang was popular enough that a concert she gave could appear on recordings simply as The Berlin Recital in 2018. The following year, she issued the recital The Blue Hour. Wang is also an enthusiastic chamber player who has often appeared with cellist Gautier Capuçon; in 2022, the pair issued an album of music by Rachmaninov and Brahms on Deutsche Grammophon. ~ James Manheim

Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist, teacher, and ornithologist whose music is distinguished by his deep devotion to Catholicism, exoticism, and nature. At the age of 11 he entered the Paris Conservatoire, studying organ and improvisation with Marcel Dupré and composition with Paul Dukas. In 1930, he became the principal organist at La Trinité Cathedral in Paris, a post he held for more than 40 years. His distinguished teaching career is marked by appointments in Darmstadt (1950-1953), his famous courses in harmony and analysis at the Paris Conservatoire beginning in 1947, and his appointment as professor of composition there in 1966. His impressive list of students includes Boulez, Stockhausen, and his second wife, keyboardist Yvonne Loriod, among many others.

In synthesizing an individual style, Messiaen discovered in the music of Debussy the properties of "exotic" modes such as the whole-tone and diminished scales, calling them "modes of limited transposition." The inherent symetricalities of these modes enabled Messiaen to create progressions and melodies free of the tonic-dominant polarity of traditional tonal music, while remaining independent of the twelve-tone system as well. Messiaen was gifted with a strong sense of "synaesthesia" or hearing in colors. He often described his music in terms of "color progressions," also equating key signatures and collections (sets) of pitches with specific colors. At an early age, Messiaen developed a strong interest in rhythm, particularly fostered by Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. His rhythmic investigations ranged from Gregorian chant, to ancient Greek poetic meters, to Indian raga, to gamelan music. He soon left regular metric divisions behind, although repetition remained an integral part of his rhythmic vocabulary. All of these elements are explained in great detail in his 1944 publication, Technique de mon langage musical (Technique of my musical language).

In 1940, while a prisoner of war of the Germans, Messiaen composed Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time). The quartet's unique instrumentation of piano, clarinet, violin, and cello was written for, and premiered by Messiaen and three fellow inmates while in detention; it became one of the great chamber works of the twentieth century. Messiaen was one of the first composers to apply serial techniques to parameters other than pitch (such as duration, register, and dynamics) in Mode de valeurs et d'intensités (1949) for solo piano. His interest in plain chant and rhythm led him to the ancient Greeks and Hindus, where he discovered processes such as nonretrogradable, additive, and subtractive rhythms. The Turangalila-symphonie of 1948 is the most synthetic of his early works. It features rich orchestration, imaginative use of tonal colors, Hindu rhythms, and a formal scheme that unfolds in large, block-like structures. Also of note here is one of the earliest uses of the Ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument capable of producing eerie glissandi, as well as monophonic melodies. Messiaen had a deep love of birdsong, and spent much time in the wild making extensive transcriptions, many of which would surface in his works, most notably in an arresting orchestral passage in Chronochromie (1960) and the monumental Catalogue d'oiseaux (Catalog of the Birds) (1958) for solo piano. His large body of organ music, composed primarily during his tenure as organist at the Sainte Trinite Cathedral, is highly idiomatic, colorful in harmony and registration, and rhythmically ingenious. From 1950, his Messe de la Pentecote (Mass of the Pentecost) is a collection of improvisations that he shaped into a composition. His only opera, St. Francis d'Assise, was completed in 1983.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is one of the most prominent U.S. symphonic ensembles, with deep roots in the Germanic practices that formed the model for American orchestral culture. The orchestra's catalogue of recordings on the RCA Victor label in the middle of the 20th century, artistically ambitious and sonically top-notch thanks to the ambiance of Boston's magnificent Symphony Hall, continue to set a standard. The Boston Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1881 with principal support from banker Henry Lee Higginson, who also spearheaded the construction of Symphony Hall and its opening in 1900. Its membership consisted largely of German-trained musician, and its first conductor, George Henschel, was a friend of Brahms. Subsequent conductors were German or, in the case of Arthur Nikisch, Hungarian. Especially important was Karl Muck, a former conductor of the Berlin Court Opera (now the Berlin State Opera), who led the orchestra from 1906 to 1908, and again from 1912 to 1918 after the leadership of Max Fiedler in the interim. Muck stepped down and was held in an internment camp in Georgia after espousing pro-German sympathies during World War I. But beginning with Pierre Monteux in 1919, the Boston Symphony boasted a series of internationally renowned and non-German conductors. Monteux was French; Serge Koussevitsky, who led the orchestra from 1924 to 1949, was Russian and a towering figure who commissioned numerous modern works and led the world premieres of Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, among many other now-standard works, and founded the annual Tanglewood Music Festival and its associated talent-development classes, with the BSO in residence. Koussevitsky was succeeded by Alsatian-French Charles Münch (1949-1963) and the Austrian-Jewish Erich Leinsdorf, whose RCA recordings were central to collections in the LP era in the U.S. Leinsdorf was succeeded for several years by the ailing William Steinberg and in 1973 by Japanese-born Seiji Ozawa, whose leadership was artistically controversial but long, and also marked by significant recordings, mostly on the Deutsche Grammophon label. Another conductor with an operatic background, James Levine, followed Ozawa in 2002; he stepped down due to ill health and Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons, who had taken on Mahler's vast Symphony No. 8 ("Symphony of a Thousand") as an emergency replacement for Levine, was named conductor. His contract has been extended through 2022, and he has led the orchestra in new recordings with Deutsche Grammophon, including a live cycle of the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich. A notable feature of the orchestra's musical life is the existence of the Boston Pops light music orchestra, with personnel drawn from the ranks of the BSO; under conductor Arthur Fiedler (son of Max), that group attained unprecedented popularity on American radio and television as well as in live concerts. The Boston Symphony Orchestra has also been heard on the scores of two films by director Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, with the scores' composer, John Williams, as conductor. ~ James Manheim

Andris Nelsons has held major conducting posts on both the concert and operatic stages, and in each realm, has distinguished himself as an incisive interpreter of a broad range of music. Whether conducting Puccini at the Met, Wagner at Bayreuth, or Stravinsky with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Nelsons has managed to win over both critics and the public alike. He is the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In 2022, Nelsons led the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig in the latest installment of their survey of Bruckner's symphonies on the Deutsche Grammophon label.

Nelsons was born in Riga, Latvia, on November 18, 1978. His parents and stepfather were musicians, and at an early age, Nelsons studied piano but took up the trumpet at 12. He later sang in his mother's early music ensemble and played trumpet in the Latvian National Opera Orchestra. After local studies, Nelsons began studying conducting at the St. Petersburg Conservatory with Alexander Titov. In 2002, he began studying privately with famed conductor Mariss Jansons. Nelsons' orchestral repertory includes large portions of Mozart, Mahler, and Shostakovich. His operatic repertory takes in much Wagner and Puccini, as well as Bizet, Tchaikovsky, and Richard Strauss.

Nelsons has conducted around the globe, including throughout Europe, the U.S., and Japan. He served as principal conductor of the Latvian National Opera from 2003-2007. In 2006, he took on a second important post, this one as chief conductor of the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, a position he held until 2009. From 2007, Nelsons began making regular appearances in the U.K., and that September was named music director of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, beginning in the 2008-2009 season. He held this post until the conclusion of the 2014-2015 season. 2009 saw Nelsons' debut at the Met, leading a performance of Puccini's Turandot. The following year, Nelsons made his debut at the Bayreuth Festival with a production of Wagner's Lohengrin; this followed a concert performance given in Birmingham with the City of Birmingham Symphony. In 2011, a highly praised reading of Mahler's Ninth Symphony at Carnegie Hall with the Boston Symphony Orchestra marked two more important debuts for Nelsons; this was his first performance at Carnegie Hall and his first time leading the Boston Symphony. Nelsons was named the Boston Symphony's 15th music director in 2014, after several years of guest conducting. In 2018, Nelsons was named the 21st Gewandhauskapellmeister (music director) of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig.

Nelsons has an exclusive recording contract with the Deutsche Grammophon label but has also recorded for Decca and Orfeo, among others. He has continued to receive acclaim for his recordings, especially those of his continuing surveys of the symphonies of Shostakovich, with the Boston Symphony, and Bruckner (which is paired with music by Wagner), with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. In 2020, Nelsons received contract extensions with both groups: the Boston Symphony until 2025 and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig until 2027. Nelsons led the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig on a recording of Bruckner's first and fifth symphonies with Wagner's Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde in 2022. ~ Robert Cummings & Keith Finke