Hailed as “a knockout performer” by The Times, Singaporean-British mezzo Fleur Barron recently triumphed at the San Francisco Symphony in the title role of Kaija Saariaho’s opera Adriana Mater in a production helmed by Peter Sellars and Esa-Pekka Salonen, and at the Aix-en-Provence Festival as Ottavia in Monterverdi’s L’Incoronazione di Poppea. She is a current Rising Star of Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and an Artistic Partner of the Orquesta Sinfonica del Principado de Asturias in Oviedo, for which she will curate and perform multiple projects across several seasons. A passionate interpreter of opera, chamber music, and concert works ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, Fleur Barron is mentored by Barbara Hannigan.

She launches the 2023–24 season with a return to the London Symphony Orchestra, where she is the soloist in their Season Opening Concert at the Barbican, performing Claude Vivier’s Wo bist du Licht, and in performances of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella the following week, both under the baton of Barbara Hannigan. Autumn 2023 sees the release on Pentatone Records of her performance in the title role in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas with La Nuova Musica, and she also begins a multi-season partnership with the Barcelona Symphony Orchestra and conductor Ludovic Morlot, joining them for Ravel’s Shéhérazade and Montsalvatge’s Cinco Canciones Negras at L’Auditori Barcelona and on tour to Hamburg and Stockholm, and to record a Ravel album featuring Shéhérazade and Trois Poèmes de Mallarmé. Further orchestral engagements include Mahler’s Third Symphony with the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov at the Baden Baden Festival, Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde and Second Symphony with Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias under Nuno Coehlo, and Freya Waley-Cohen’s Spell Book with the Manchester Collective at the Barbican, and Mendelssohn concert arias with the Royal Northern Sinfonia.

A dynamic presence on international stages, this season she debuts three opera roles: Penelope in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria with baroque ensemble I Gemelli, touring to major venues including Teatro Real Madrid, Opéra de Bordeaux and Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse; multiple roles in Sir George Benjamin’s two-person opera Into the Little Hill with the Staatskapelle Berlin under Finnegan Downie Dear; and the title role of John the Baptist in the baroque opera La Decollazione di San Giovanni Battista (Grimani) with Haymarket Opera in Chicago. fleurbarron.com

The Indian-American pianist Kunal Lahiry is a current BBC New Generation Artist and recipient of the 2021 Carl Bechstein Foundation scholarship. Recent performance highlights include recitals at Wigmore Hall, Kennedy Center, Pierre Boulez Saal, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Carnegie Hall Weill Recital Room, Musée d’Orsay, Ludwigsburg Festival, Life Victoria de Los Angeles Festival, and at the Ravinia Festival’s Steans Music Institute. He has performed broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, Icelandic National Public Radio RÁS1, Austrian Radio Ö1, and RBB Kultur, and was featured on ARTE’s ‘Hope@Home’ and ‘Europe@Home’ series hosted by violinist Daniel Hope. 

Kunal has commissioned and premiered works by Nico Muhly, Errollyn Wallen, Nahre Sol, Héloïse Werner, Pablo Campos, Molly Joyce, Viktor Orri Árnason, Guðmundur Emilsson, Zachary Radler, Zubaida Azezi, and Edo Frenkel. He received grants from the Musikfonds and the Center for Musical Excellence to finance and co-produce an interdisciplinary video project called Homescapes with Icelandic soprano and visual artist Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir, and created a music video with Boomtown Media Productions exploring queerness in classical music through the support of the Liedzentrum Heidelberg. Currently based in Berlin, he frequently collaborates with pop singer Lie Ning. 

Originally from Gainesville, Georgia, Kunal was a Schulich Scholar at McGill University and graduated with distinction in song interpretation from the Hochschule for Müsik Hanns Eisler. He is an Equilibrium Young Artist, Samling Artist, Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Artist, and Britten Pears Young Artist.