Magnificent Mahler : An Epic Season Opener

^2026-2027

With his innate musicianship, gift for communication, and irresistibly joyous spirit, conductor Rafael Payare is Music and Artistic Director of both Canada’s Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) and California’s San Diego Symphony (SDSO), as well as Principal Conductor of Virginia’s Castleton Festival and Conductor Laureate of Northern Ireland’s Ulster Orchestra. Payare is celebrated for his expertise in late Romantic repertoire while also cultivating the next generation of composers with regular commissions and performances of new works. A veteran of Venezuela’s El Sistema program – in which he began playing horn at the age of 14 – and 2012 first prize winner at Denmark’s Malko Competition for Young Conductors, Payare remains dedicated to inspiring younger musicians, regularly working with youth orchestras and establishing mentorship programs like El Sistema OSM and the SDSO Conducting Fellowship. Payare resides in San Diego and Montreal with his wife, acclaimed cellist Alisa Weilerstein, and their two young children.

Since her operatic debut as Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro) in 1998, Swedish soprano Miah Persson has distinguished herself as one of the world’s principal Mozart interpreters, leaving a lasting legacy on those lyric soprano roles for which she has become most celebrated: Susanna, Zerlina (Don Giovanni), Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier), Poppea (L’Incoronazione di Poppea) and later Fiordiligi (Cosi fan Tutte), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) and Contessa (Le nozze di Figaro). Having “added a burnish of gold to the silvery soprano that served her so well in Mozart roles” (The Sunday Times), Persson has now “cemented her place as one of the most intelligent Strauss sopranos of our time at the peak of her powers” (Bachtrack), with impactful role debuts as the Marschallin (Der Rosenkavalier) and Countess (Capriccio).

Persson’s 25/26 season opens with performances of Donna Elvira in Don Giovanni with the Budapest Festival Orchestra conducted by Iván Fischer at Müpa Budapest and on tour to Vicenza’s Teatro Olimpico and the Festspielhaus Baden-Baden. She goes on to perform Mahler’s Das klagende Lied with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ryan Bancroft, a programme of Haydn and Berlioz with the Gävle Symfoniorkester conducted by Magnus Fryk, Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Matthew Halls, and Mahler’s Symphony no. 2 conducted by Alexander Shelley with both the Naples Philharmonic Orchestra in Florida and the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa.

In addition, she gives a New Year’s concert with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Andreas Hansson, performs Strauss’s orchestrated songs in Denmark with the Aarhus Symfoniorkester conducted by Ramon Tébar, and Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 in Bochum and at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tung-Chieh Chuang. Persson will give recitals at the Leeds Lieder Festival with pianist Joseph Middleton, at Antwerp’s LiedFest with pianist Malcom Martineau and for San Francisco Performances with pianist Magnus Svensson.

Throughout her distinguished career, Persson has performed Fiordiligi (Cosi fan tutte), Gretel in Humperdinck’s Hansel und Gretel and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte) at the Metropolitan Opera; Susanna (Le Nozze di Figaro) and Zerlina (Don Giovanni) for the Royal Ballet & Opera, Covent Garden; title role in Monteverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea and Governess in Britten’s The Turn of the Screw at Teatro alla Scala and in concert with the Budapest Festival Orchestra; Fiordiligi, Sophie and Susanna at the Wiener Staatsoper; Governess, Fiordiligi, Donna Elvira and Anne Trulove in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress for Glyndebourne Festival Opera; Donna Elvira at the Théâtre Champs Elysées Paris and at the Liceu Barcelona; Fiordiligi at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Hamburgische Staatsoper, New National Theatre Tokyo, in Stockholm and for a Deutsche Grammophon recording at the Festspielhaus BadenBaden; Iris in Michael van der Aa’s Sunken Garden for Dallas Opera and Poppea at Carnegie Hall. Persson has sung Solomon’s Queen in Handel’s Solomon on tour with Harry Bicket and The English Concert, performing at Carnegie Hall, LA Opera, San Francisco, in London and Madrid. She also created the central role in van der Aa’s Blank Out for the Netherlands Opera with performances in Amsterdam, Rome and at the Park Avenue Armory, New York.

Persson’s concert repertoire includes Mozart’s Mass in C Minor with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta and at the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin conducted by Simone Young; Mozart’s Requiem with the Los Angeles Philharmonic conducted by Gustavo Dudamel; Bach’s Mass in B Minor at Teatro La Fenice; Bach’s St Matthew Passion with the Rotterdam Philharmonic; Bach’s St John Passion in Chicago with Music of the Baroque conducted by Jane Glover; Verdi’s Requiem with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryan Wigglesworth, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland conducted by Jaime Martín; Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Jurowski at the BBC Proms and with the Orchestre National de Lyon and Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider; Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin conducted by Vladimir Jurowski; Brahms Requiem with the State Symphony Orchestra of Russia, the Gulbenkian Foundation and the London Philharmonic Orchestra; Grieg’s Peer Gynt with the Vienna Symphony; Haydn’s Nelson Mass at the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum Salzburg; Haydn’s Creation with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal conducted by Bernard Labadie and at the Verbier Festival; Haydn’s The Seasons with the Borusan Istanbul Philharmonic; Mahler’s Symphony no. 2 with the Orchestre National de Lyon, Swedish Radio Orchestra, MDR Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk, London Symphony, Teatro alla Scala, Philharmonie Luxembourg and Boston Philharmonic Orchestra; Mahler’s Symphony no. 4 with the Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, Basque National Orchestra, Philharmonie Luxembourg, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Orchestre National de Lille and at the BBC Proms with BBC National Orchestra of Wales conducted by Ryan Bancroft; Mahler’s Des Knaben Wunderhorn for the Gulbenkian Foundation; Schumann’s Faust Szenen with the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester; Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder at New York’s Lincoln Center with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali, at the Muziekgebouw Eindhoven with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder, with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana conducted by Harmat Haenchen, with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orkester Berlin, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal.

Persson has appeared in recital at London’s Wigmore Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Berlin’s Pierre Boulezsaal, Victoria de los Ángeles Festival in Barcelona, Stockholm Konserthuset, Spivey Hall, the Schubert Club of St Paul, Cal Performances at Berkeley, Vancouver Playhouse and New York’s Carnegie Hall.

Miah Persson was appointed Hovsångerska, Court Singer, by H.M. the King of Sweden in 2011.

With the depth of her timbre, the evenness of her voice, her mastery of breath, the emotion of her singing and her striking charisma, Rose Naggar-Tremblay has made a remarkable entrance onto the musical scene.

Rose began her musical training with piano and choral singing before turning to classical singing at the age of 12. She continued her studies at McGill University in music and literature, then graduated from the Atelier lyrique de l’Opéra de Montréal. Since 2020, she has been studying with Lena Hellström-Färnlöf, director of the Academy of Music and Opera at Mälardalen University.

Her career was immediately marked by remarkable musical openness, with exciting projects and success in major competitions. Rose won First Prize at the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (OSM) Competition, First Prize at the Enesco Competition in Paris, the Canadian Young Lyric Hope Scholarship at the Gala des Jeunes Ambassadeurs Lyriques, as well as the Prize for Best Performance of a Canadian Work at the OSM Competition with the cycle Healing, composed in collaboration with Éric Champagne. In 2022, she was named a Radio-Canada Classical Music Revelation and won Second Prize at the 2022 Prix d’Europe, also receiving the prestigious Fernand Lindsay Scholarship. In fall 2024, she won the Audience Prize at the Premiere Opera Foundation Competition in New York.

Rose quickly embraced a vast repertoire, ranging from the Baroque era to contemporary works, from sacred masterpieces to great operatic pages: Elgar’s Sea Pictures, Handel’s Messiah, Vivaldi’s Dixit Dominus, Mozart’s and Duruflé’s Requiem, and Bach cantatas, under the direction of renowned conductors such as Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Rafael Payare, Jean-Marie Zeitouni, Jacques Lacombe, Christophe Rousset and Laurence Equilbey.

In 2021, she made a brilliant debut at the Sofia Opera in the role of Carmen. In 2023, she made her French debuts at the Opéras de Metz and Reims as the Second Spirit in Dvořák’s Rusalka, and in Germany at the Munich Opera as the Innkeeper in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov, in addition to reprising the role of Carmen at Edmonton Opera. In 2024, she sang the Voice from Above in Richard Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten at the Théâtre du Capitole de Toulouse and Erda in Wagner’s Das Rheingold at Theater Erfurt.

The 2024/2025 season confirms this love of theatre: the title role in Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Toulouse, conducted by Christophe Rousset and staged by Damiano Michieletto, and a return to Carmen in Sofia. She also sings Farnace in Mozart’s Mitridate in concert version with Les Talens Lyriques at La Scala in Milan and the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. Another side of Rose is revealed with Charlebois symphonique with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and then the Orchestre symphonique de Québec. In 2025/2026, Rose collaborates once again with Les Talens Lyriques as Medoro in Handel’s Orlando, staged by Jeanne Desoubeaux, in Nancy, Caen and Luxembourg, and then returns to Erda at the National Theatre in Prague under the direction of Robert Jindra.

The 2026/2027 season gives opera a prominent place: the title role in Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice at Opéra de Québec, conducted by Bernard Labadie; Abuelita in the world premiere of Halffter’s La Lettre au Général Franco at Opéra de Montréal; Maddalena in Verdi’s Rigoletto, also in Montréal; and Neris in Cherubini’s Medea in Toulouse. In concert version, she will sing Annina in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. For concerts, she will perform The Messiah with the Orchestre Classique de Montréal and then the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Mozart’s Coronation Mass with Laurence Equilbey, Mahler’s Das klagende Lied with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’été with the Orchestre de Drummondville, and Charlebois symphonique in Québec City and Montréal.

An eclectic artist, Rose is also a singer and songwriter. She recorded her first album of original songs in 2022, titled Je me souviens à toi, which combines French chanson and chamber music. In March 2022, she took part in the recording of La nuit est ma femme, an opera by Mathilde Côté inspired by the life and writings of Jack Kerouac, in which she performs the role of Gabrielle.

Her first solo recording, Händel Gourmand, was released on the Arion label.

Winning critical acclaim for “vocal heft, clarion sound and stamina” (New York Times) and for performances described as “close to perfection – powerful, subtle, intelligent, every word crystal clear” (Financial Times), American Heldentenor Clay Hilley continues to garner success in an ever-growing list of opera’s most monumental heroic roles.  He is the winner of the 2024 Richard Tucker Music Foundation Award and is proud to represent the legacy of one of the greatest American tenors of the last one hundred years by carrying the honor forward into the 21^st Century.

During the 2025-26 season, Clay Hilley’s remarkable diary includes the title role of Tristan und Isolde in new productions by Michael Thalheimer at Deutsche Oper Berlin conducted by Sir Donald Runnicles and by Bárbara Lluch at the Gran Teatre del Liceu conducted by Susanna Mälkki. In demand at the top international opera houses of the world, return engagements of the season bring him back to the Wiener Staatsoper in the title role of Tannhäuser and as Bacchus in Ariadne auf Naxos, back to the Bayerische Staatsoper in the title role of Parsifal, and to his ‘home company’ Deutsche Oper Berlin for a revival of Stefan Herheim’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen. The tenor joins Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra on a European tour of concert performances of Siegfried and shares the stage with his frequent musical partner Sir Antonio Pappano in concert performances of Tristan und Isolde with the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican Centre and on tour in Europe.

Last season Clay Hilley made his celebrated debut at the Wiener Staatsoper in the title role of Tannhäuser in a new production directed by Lydia Steier and conducted by Music Director Philippe Jordan. Other highlights included Der Kaiser in a new production of Die Frau ohne Schatten directed by Tobias Kratzer and led by Sir Donald Runnicles at Deutsche Oper Berlin, as well as revivals at Deutsche Oper Berlin of Tannhäuser conducted by Axel Kober and Tristan und Isolde led by Petr Popelka and Sir Donald Runnicles. On the concert stage Hilley made a debut with l’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in performances of Gurre-Lieder led by Music Director Rafael Payare, and he was tenor soloist in Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde with Sir Simon Rattle and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and with Juraj Valčuha leading the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra.

Highlights of the recent past include a role debut as Calaf in Turandot at Teatro Lirico Giuseppe Verdi Trieste, the title role of Parsifal at the Bayerische Staatsoper marking his first collaboration with renowned Wagner conductor Ádám Fischer, and performances of the First Act of Die Walküre for his debut at the Gran Teatre del Liceu and Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (Schoenberg arr.) with Sir Donald Runnicles at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival.

After stepping into the premiere of Bayreuth’s new Götterdämmerung on one day’s notice in 2022, Hilley returned to the Bayreuth Festival during the 2023 season in the title role of Tristan und Isolde.  The 2023-24 season saw his debut as the title role of Tannhäuser at the Edinburgh International Festival in a concert performance with Sir Donald Runnicles and later with the Deutsche Oper Berlin in fully-staged performances in Berlin led by Pietari Inkinen; a house debut at the Bayerische Staatsoper in the title role of Parsifal; and a return to the Deutsche Oper Berlin in a revival of Stefan Herheim’s production of Der Ring des Nibelungen.  The tenor also joined the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra and Music Director Karina Canellakis for a concert performance of Siegfried at Amsterdam’s venerable Concertgebouw.

Beyond Wagner, Clay Hilley has appeared as Beethoven’s Florestan (Fidelio) for the Canadian Opera Company, with conductor Johannes Debus, Strauss’s Bacchus (Ariadne auf Naxos) at the Hong Kong Arts Festival with the orchestra of the Bayerische Staatsoper under Patrick Lange, and in his Staatsoper Hamburg debut as Laca in Janáček’s Jenůfa, in performances conducted by Tomáš Netopil.

Vocally and dramatically assured in even the most challenging repertoire, recent high-profile role debuts include Der Kaiser in Strauss’s Die Frau ohne Schatten with the Berlin Philharmonic and Kirill Petrenko, both in concert at the Berlin Philharmonie and in a new staging by Lydia Steier at the Baden-Baden Festival, as well as the Drum Major in Deborah Warner’s new production of Berg’s Wozzeck for the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, conducted by Music Director Sir Antonio Pappano – also the tenor’s company debut.

An artist accomplished on the world’s leading concert stages, recent highlights include Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with Marin Alsop and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, and Das Lied von der Erde with the Houston Symphony and Juraj Valčuha, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and Stéphane Denève, and with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia under Sir Antonio Pappano – where he subsequently returned for Kodaly’s Psalmus Hungaricus. 

Concert performances of opera are also a fixture of the busy tenor’s schedule: Clay Hilley has been heard as Florestan (Fidelio) for both Atlanta Symphony Orchestra under Robert Spano and the Edinburgh International Festival with Sir Donald Runnicles and The Philharmonia; in Act Two of Tristan und Isolde with Edward Gardner and the Orchestra of the Norwegian National Opera; in Act Three of Siegfried with Erik Nielsen and the Bilbao Symphony; and as Radamès in Act Three of Aida with Nicola Luisotti and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

The tenor’s burgeoning video catalogue includes Der Ring des Nibelungen from Deutsche Oper Berlin (Naxos) – about which Opera News wrote, “Vocally, he’s the finest Siegfried on DVD, with ringing top notes, perfect diction and impressive tonal flexibility” – and Götterdämmerung filmed at the Bayreuth Festival (Deutsche Grammophon).

German baritone Matthias Goerne, who has been hailed as “today’s leading interpreter of German art songs” (Chicago Tribune) and “one of the greatest singers performing today” (Boston Globe), is a frequent guest with leading orchestras and renowned festivals worldwide.

Among his musical partners are conductors Claudio Abbado, Herbert Blomstedt, Riccardo Chailly, Christoph von Dohnányi, Gustavo Dudamel, Christoph Eschenbach, Daniele Gatti, Bernard Haitink, Manfred Honeck, Mariss Jansons, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen and Franz Welser-Möst. Goerne has appeared on the world’s principal opera stages, including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Teatro Real in Madrid, Paris National Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, and the Vienna State Opera. His roles range from Amfortas, Marke, Wolfram, Wotan, Orest, and Jochanaan to the title roles in Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle and Alban Berg’s Wozzeck.

Goerne’s recordings have earned him five Grammy nominations, an ICMA award, a Gramophone Award, the BBC Music Magazine Vocal Award 2017, Diapason d’or arte, and the ECHO Klassik 2017 “Singer of the Year”.  Goerne was the 2017-2018 Artist-in-Residence at Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, 2018-2019 Artist-in-Residence with The New York Philharmonic, and 2024-2025 Artist-in-Residence with the Shanghai Symphony.

Goerne is an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Music in London and has also been an ambassador for the Weimar Art Festival since 2019. Born in Weimar, he studied with Hans-Joachim Beyer, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Andrew Megill is recognized as one of the leading choral conductors of his generation, known for his unusually wide-ranging repertoire, extending from early music to newly composed works. He has prepared choruses for the American Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonic, the National Symphony, and the New York Philharmonic, and he has worked with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jane Glover, Kurt Masur, Zubin Mehta, and Kent Nagano. He is Director of Choral Organizations Activities at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, and serves as Artistic Advisor and Director of Choral Activities for the Carmel Bach Festival and Choral Director for Music of the Baroque (Chicago). This year he begins his tenure as Artistic Director of Theater of Memory, a Chicago-based professional vocal ensemble specializing in Baroque music. He previously taught at the University of Illinois and Westminster Choir College and has been a Guest Conductor for the Yale Institute of Sacred Music. Broadcast by Public Radio International and the BBC, his work can be heard on numerous recordings, including Magnussen’s Psalm (Albany Records), Haydn’s Masses (Naxos), and works by Caleb Burhans (Cantaloupe).