Born in Malta in 1978, Joseph Calleja began singing at the age of 16, inspired by the film The Great Caruso starring Mario Lanza. After singing in his church choir, he began formal training with Maltese tenor Paul Asciak. Calleja made his professional debut in Malta in 1997 as Macduff in Macbeth, and later that year won an award in the Belvedere Hans Gabor competition, launching his international opera career. He went on to win the 1998 Caruso Competition in Milan, was a prizewinner in Domingo’s Operalia the following year, and Artist of the Year at the Gramophone Awards in 2012.

Despite his youth, he has already sung 28 principal roles and performed on most of the world’s leading opera stages, including New York’s Metropolitan Opera, London’s Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, and the Vienna Staatsoper. An exclusive recording artist for Decca Classics, his third solo album, The Maltese Tenor, debuted as the best-selling vocal album on the core classical charts in the UK and Germany.

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In the more than 35 years he has been performing on the concert stage, American pianist Murray Perahia has become one of the most sought-after and cherished pianists of our time, performing in all of the major international music centers and with every leading orchestra. He is the Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, with whom he has toured as conductor and pianist throughout the United States, Europe, Japan, and South East Asia.

Born in New York in 1947, Mr Perahia started playing piano at the age of four, and later attended Mannes College where he majored in conducting and composition. His summers were spent at the Marlboro Festival, where he collaborated with such musicians as Rudolf Serkin, Pablo Casals, and the members of the Budapest String Quartet. He also studied at the time with Mieczyslaw Horszowski. In subsequent years, he developed a close friendship with Vladimir Horowitz, whose perspective and personality were an abiding inspiration. In 1972 Mr Perahia won the Leeds International ...

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Abbado was born in Milan in 1933. He studied piano at the Milan Conservatory with his father Michelangelo Abbado, and went on to study conducting with Hans Swarowsky at the Vienna Academy of Music.

In 1958, he won the Koussevitsky Competition, establishing him in Italy, and then won the 1963 Mitropoulos Prize, after which he rapidly became known internationally as an orchestral and opera ...

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This exquisite French label embraces a variety of musical styles including classical, film music, jazz and world artists. Performers and ensembles represented on the Naïve label include Sandrine Piau, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Il Giardino Armonico, Christophe Rousset, Laurence Equilbey and Accentus, Ensemble Matheus and the World Philharmonic Orchestra, to name but a few.

Naïve Classique is also renowned for its exhaustive, pioneering Vivaldi Edition, now nearing 40 volumes of the Italian composer’s music drawing on a veritable goldmine of his manuscripts discovered in Turin.

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British pianist Benjamin Grosvenor is internationally recognized for his electrifying performances and penetrating interpretations. An exquisite technique and ingenious flair for tonal colour are the hallmarks which make Benjamin Grosvenor one of the most sought-after young pianists in the world. His virtuosic command over the most strenuous technical complexities never compromises the formidable depth and intelligence of his interpretations. Described by some as a ‘Golden Age’ pianist (American Record Guide) and one ‘almost from another age’ (The Times), Benjamin is renowned for his distinctive sound, described as ‘poetic and gently ironic, brilliant yet clear-minded, intelligent but not without humour, all translated through a beautifully clear and singing touch’ (The Independent).

Benjamin first came to prominence as the outstanding winner of the Keyboard Final of the 2004 BBC Young Musician Competition at the age of eleven. Since then, he has become an internationally regarded pianist performing with orchestras including the London Philharmonic, RAI Torino, New York Philharmonic, Philharmonia, Tokyo Symphony, and in venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican Centre, Singapore’s Victoria Hall, The Frick Collection and Carnegie Hall (at the age of thirteen). He was named Young Artist of the Year at the ...

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