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Since its founding, the Cleveland Orchestra has become a source of tremendous pride for the city of Cleveland. It is one of America's artistic treasures, an orchestra capable of playing as well as any in the world. Franz Welser-Möst led the orchestra on a recording of music by Schubert and Ernst Krenek in 2020 on the group's Cleveland Orchestra label.

Chamber music flourished in Cleveland from the middle of the 19th century on, but the orchestra was not founded until 1918. Adella P. Hughes, with the support of the Musical Arts Association, spearheaded the formation of the orchestra and engaged conductor Nikolai Sokoloff to direct it. Sokoloff remained the music director until 1933 and led national tours, educational concerts, commercial recordings, and radio broadcasts. Perhaps the most important legacy of his tenure is Severance Hall, which opened in 1931 and received immediate renown for both its acoustics and its aesthetics. In 1999, the hall was renovated and improved and then reopened in 2000 to renewed acclaim. Artur Rodzinski directed the orchestra from 1933 to 1943 and was followed by Erich Leinsdorf from 1943 to 1946. Both of these men contributed to Cleveland's budding reputation, but the golden age of orchestral playing in Cleveland came with the arrival of the now-legendary George Szell in 1946.

One of the last of the old-time conductors, Szell ruled the orchestra with an iron fist, lashed out at players whom he felt were giving less than full effort, erupted at even the smallest technical mistakes, and built the best orchestra in America. The Cleveland Orchestra, under Szell, played with marvelously clear textures, impeccable precision, perfect ensemble, and inspiring passion. It was also astonishingly adaptable to different genres and styles of music; Szell liked to say that the specialty of the Cleveland Orchestra was that it had no specialty. The orchestra recorded extensively for Columbia (now Sony), toured internationally, and staked its claim as the biggest of the "Big Five" American orchestras. In 1968, the orchestra began a long and fruitful association with composer and conductor Pierre Boulez. During the same year, Szell opened the Blossom Music Center, a summer concert venue owned by the orchestra, which has been enormously successful financially and musically. Szell died in 1970 but could have been the music director for as long as he wanted. Boulez served as musical advisor until 1972 when Lorin Maazel became the music director. While Maazel was and is a great conductor, the orchestra felt it had not been properly consulted in the decision to hire him, and his tenure was marked by controversy. His interpretations were seen as extreme, and although he kept the orchestra playing at a high technical level, he was never much loved by the city of Cleveland.

The appointment of Christoph von Dohnányi as the music director in 1982 started the Cleveland Orchestra on another long run of greatness. Dohnányi successfully preserved the tonal clarity of the Szell years while broadening the orchestra's repertoire to include more contemporary music and modern classics. Franz Welser-Möst succeeded Dohnányi in 2002, with Dohnányi serving since then as the music director laureate. In 2018, Welser-Möst led the orchestra in its 100th anniversary concert, which was broadcast on the television series Great Performances. The Cleveland Orchestra issued two albums in 2020, A New Century and a recording of Schubert's Great Symphony and Krenek's Static and Ecstatic, with both released on the Cleveland Orchestra label. To the extent that orchestras can be ranked, the Cleveland Orchestra is widely considered America's best, and the city of Cleveland supports its orchestra in the manner it deserves. ~ Andrew Lindemann Malone

Franz Welser-Möst is one of those rare superstar musicians: he has been successful as a conductor from his mid-twenties, landing a major post at 29 (principal conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra); he has generated much controversy over personnel issues and other management matters, and has both enraged and assuaged critics; and he has reached the pinnacle of success in both the concert and operatic worlds, an achievement to rival that of any conductor of his generation. Welser-Möst is the long-time music director of the Cleveland Orchestra, leading that group on a recording of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 in 2023. That year Welser-Möst also led the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra's annual New Year's Concert for the third time.

Franz Möst was born in Linz, Austria, on August 16, 1960. He was raised in the Austrian city of Wels and later took the double surname of Welser-Möst to honor his adopted hometown. He studied violin and piano and later enrolled at the Linz Music School. Nerve damage to his left hand from an auto accident caused him to abandon playing either instrument and opt for conducting. He studied under Balduin Sulzer and later studied at the Musikhochschule in Munich from 1980 to 1984. Welser-Möst debuted at the 1985 Salzburg Festival and was appointed principal conductor of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in 1986. That was also the same year he debuted with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Three years later, he began a stormy tenure with that ensemble, departing in 1996; Welser-Möst and the London Philharmonic earned a Gramophone Award for their recording of Franz Schmidt's Symphony No. 4. Welser-Möst served as the music director of the Zurich Opera House from 1995 to 2000 and later general music director from 2005 to 2008. Since 2002, he has served as music director of the Cleveland Orchestra. In 2007, Welser-Möst led the Cleveland Orchestra on their first recording together with a reading of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 on the Deutsche Grammophon label. He was also the music director of the Vienna State Opera from 2010 to 2014.

While his repertory in both the concert and operatic spheres is broad, Welser-Möst has paid particular attention to the music of Mozart (operas, sacred music, and instrumental works) and Bruckner (symphonies and sacred works). That said, he has led performances of a varied range of compositions, from Handel, Haydn, Beethoven, and Schumann to Duparc, Lehár, and Orff, and on to Stravinsky, Schreker, and John Williams. Welser-Möst has continued a rigorous recording and performance schedule into the 2020s decade, issuing several releases each year, including A New Century with the Cleveland Orchestra in 2020. In 2023, he returned to Vienna to lead the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concert for the third time, with a recording appearing shortly afterward. That year, he also led the Cleveland Orchestra in a recording of Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5. ~ Robert Cummings & Keith Finke

Though she was active in the latter half of the 1990s, Camilla Nylund emerged in the early years of the 21st century as a leading soprano especially noted for appearances in the operas of Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Mozart. With a robust repertoire in opera and concert works, Nylund has performed on-stage in many of the top venues across the U.S. and Europe.

Nylund was born in Vaasa, Finland, on June 11, 1968. She studied voice with Eva Illes before studying at the Salzburger Mozarteum. Nylund was an ensemble member with the Niedersächsischen Staatsoper from 1995-1999. During this period, she appeared on her first recordings: contemporary composer Mikko Heiniö's Hermes, on the Ondine label, and the E.T.A. Hoffmann Miserere, on Koch International, both issued in 1996. Nylund next served as a member of the Saxon State Opera in Dresden, from 1999-2001. While there, she was the recipient of the prestigious Christel Goltz-Preis in 2000. She also made a number of notable debuts around this time, including with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (2001), singing Richard Strauss' Four Last Songs.

Nylund's first DVD appeared in 2002, the highly successful Dacapo production of Langgaard's Antikrist, in which she sang The Great Whore. Her expansive repertoire has allowed her to perform in a variety of roles in her career, including Mimi (La bohème), Anne Trulove (The Rake's Progress), and Desdemona (Otello). She also has an enormous range in concert works, performing works by Bach, Bernstein, Bruckner, and Mahler, and many others, including contemporary composers. She has appeared at many of the world's major operatic venues, including the Vienna State Opera, La Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, and the Finnish National Opera. In 2004, Nylund made her acclaimed Zurich debut as Leonore in Fidelio, under Nikolaus Harnoncourt. For her 2008 Salzburg Festival debut, she sang the title role in Rusalka, with Franz Welser-Möst conducting the Cleveland Orchestra. That same year, Nylund was given the title Kammersängerin (Chamber Singer) by the state of Saxony. Nylund has appeared in several productions at the Bayreuth Festival since 2011, including Wagner's Tannhaüser, Die Walküre, Lohengrin, and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.

Nylund's recordings can be found on the Deutsche Grammophon, Hänssler Classic, ArtHaus Musik labels, among others. Her more acclaimed recordings include a 2010 ArtHaus Musik DVD of Wagner's Rienzi, and a 2018 Opus Arte release of a Bayreuth Festival production of Wagner's Tannhaüser. In 2020, Nylund was heard on an Orfeo album of Richard Strauss' Die Frau ohne Schatten. ~ Robert Cummings & Keith Finke

Tenor Piotr Beczała has enjoyed a long career encompassing performances of operas from Italy, Germany, and France, as well as from his native Eastern Europe. In middle age, he has added Italian verismo operas to his repertory.

Beczała (pronounced Be-TSA-wa) was born on December 28, 1966, in Czechowice-Dziedzice in southern Poland. He studied singing at the Katowice Academy of Music; among his teachers were Pavel Lisitsian and Sena Jurinac. Beczała came of age as a singer just as opportunities were opening in the West after the fall of Communism, and he joined the cast of the Linz State Theater in Austria in 1992. He moved on in 1997 to the Zurich Opera in Switzerland. Major debuts at international houses began in 2004 with an appearance as the Italian Tenor in Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier at the Royal Opera House in London, returning to that house several more times over the next three years. Beczała's U.S. debut came in late 2004 at the San Francisco Opera, as Lensky in Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. Beczała also has a large repertory of choral and vocal concert works, and he made his recording debut in 2004 with an album on the Channel Classics label devoted to the complete songs of Karol Szymanowski.

Beczała made two important debuts in 2006, at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and La Scala in Milan, Italy, both times as the Duke in Verdi's Rigoletto. That role was a staple of his repertory for many years, but he has also sung roles by composers as diverse as Offenbach, Smetana, and Janáček. In 2012, he encountered controversy when a new production of Rigoletto got a hostile reception at La Scala -- not because of his performance but because of a modern production style. He vowed never to perform at the influential house again. In the late 2010s, he began to take heavier roles, appearing at the Semperoper in Dresden in 2016 in Wagner's Lohengrin, opposite soprano Anna Netrebko, and singing the role of Cavaradossi in Puccini's Tosca for the first time at the Vienna State Opera in 2019.

He has increasingly often sung and has begun to record Italian opera in the verismo style. Beczała has continued to appear on operatic and vocal music recordings, including, in 2013, one devoted to numbers popularized by operetta tenor Richard Tauber. He has recorded for Orfeo, Deutsche Grammophon, and PentaTone, where, in 2020, he issued Vincerò!, an album of verismo operas. The following year, Beczała appeared on an Orfeo recording of Verdi's Un ballo in maschera, and in 2022, he released (on Profil - Edition Günter Hänssler) the album Das ist mein ganzes Herz: The Most Beautiful Melodies of Franz Léhar. In 2023, Beczała was heard on Sony Classical with baritone Christian Gerhaher on a recording of the rare voice-and-piano version of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. ~ James Manheim

Birgit Remmert is a well-known German alto/contralto/mezzo-soprano singer with a wide repertory.

She studied at the Detmold Conservatory with Professor Helmut Kretschmer. Upon graduation, she immediately began receiving engagements to sing. She debuted in an unusual work, Heinrich von Biber's Requiem, under the direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

Another of her notable early appearances was in Beethoven's Ninth Symphony under Harnoncourt in London, then in the Styrarte Festival, a performance ultimately released on compact disc.

In 1989, she took the title role of Othmar Schoeck's Penthesilea in the Festival de Montpellier.

She won the German Music Critics' Prize and Golden Palm award of Ligure in the song recital category. Her debut recital showed her wide musical interest and knack for intriguing program building by including songs of Brahms, Baur, Clara Schumann, Samuel Barber, and Pyotr Tchaikovky.

Offers followed that brought her to sing in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, and Poland. She joined the Zürich Opera in the 1992-1993 season. Her roles in her debut year were the Third Lady in The Magic Flute, Suzuki in Madama Butterfly, Dame Quickly in Falstaff, Zita in Gianni Schicchi, and Ulrica in Un Ballo in Maschera. The last-named of those is one of her most often-repeated roles.

She made her debut at the Hamburg State Opera in 1993 as Erda in Wagner's Siegfried, and the next year added to her repertory that goddess' other appearance in Wagner's Ring, in Das Rheingold.

She sang in the Salzburg Festival of 1993 as Nutrice in Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea and has gone on to add the roles of the Old Princess in Puccini's Soeur Angelica and Offenbach's La Perichole.

She also sings recitals frequently, and as a concert singer, has in her repertory, among other items Masses of Johann Sebastian Bach, Mendelssohn's Erste Walputrgisnacht, and Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. She has song with the Berlin Philharmonic, The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, and the Vienna Philharmonic under such conductors as Philippe Herreweghe, Carlo Maria Giulini, Riccardo Chailly, Claudio Abbado, Simon Rattle, Kent Nagano, and Wolfgang Sawallisch.

In May of 1995, she was selected to participate in the prestigious complete Mahler project of the Royal Concertgebouw.

She moved into one of the darker soprano roles as Fricka in Wagner's Rheingold and Walküre at the Bayreuth Festival in 2000.

Though American soprano Emily Magee launched her career with the Chicago Lyric Opera as Fiordiligi in Mozart's Cosí fan tutte, she has largely built her career in Europe and has had great success in the operas of Wagner and Richard Strauss. That said, the scope of her career is large: her repertory encompasses roles from the operas of Verdi, Puccini, Dvorák, Tchaikovsky, Johann Strauss, Jr., Korngold, Britten, Janácek, Martinu, and many others; and while she has been active largely on the major operatic stages in Europe, Magee has appeared in San Francisco and Tokyo, and she returned to Chicago for several further appearances, including a scheduled February 2011 performance of Lohengrin (Elsa). Magee possesses a radiant, rather powerful soprano voice that can easily hold its own against the orchestra in heavily scored passages. She has recorded for EMI Classics, Arthaus Musik, Teldec, Euroarts, and TDK.

Emily Magee was born in New York City on October 31, 1965. She studied music at Westminster Choir College and Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where her most important teacher was the iconic American soprano Margaret Harshaw. Magee's 1995 debut with the Chicago Lyric Opera was followed by several other important and equally acclaimed debuts, including at the Berlin-based Staatsoper unter den Linden in 1996 (Elsa) and the 1997 Bayreuth Festival (Eva in Die Meistersinger).

Magee returned to Bayreuth every year through 2002, singing Eva, and, in 1998 only, as Freia in Das Rheingold. She would eventually appear at such major opera houses as the Teatro alla Scala, Teatro del Liceu in Barcelona, the Vienna State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Covent Garden, the Bavarian State Opera and the Zurich Opera House.

Magee regularly appears in Zurich: her 2003 performance of Elektra there was highly acclaimed, as were many later performances, including the stunning 2005 Britten Peter Grimes (Ellen Orford), 2006 Richard Strauss Ariadne auf Naxos (Primadonna/Ariadne), and the 2008 Martinu The Greek Passion (Katerina). Magee debuted at the Salzburg Festival in August 2008 in a performance of Dvorák's Rusalka, where she sang the Foreign Princess, with Franz Welser-Möst conducting the Cleveland Orchestra.

Among Magee's later recordings is her 2009 TDK DVD of Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. Her portrayal of Ariadne, drawn from live performances at the Zurich Opera House in December 2006, drew rave reviews across the globe. Despite the demands of her mostly European-based career, Magee lives in Boulder, CO.