American pianist Deirdre Brenner studied with Julius Drake and Colin Stone among others and participated in master classes with such artists as Elly Ameling, Robert Holl, Rudolf Jansen, Malcolm Martineau and Roger Vignoles. She has appeared in venues that include the Musikverein (Vienna), Stadthalle (Bayreuth), Teatro Real (Madrid) and St. Martin-in-the-Fields. She is the pianist for the Morphing Vienna Chamber Orchestra and has performed concertos with the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra and the New Hampshire Philharmonic Orchestra. Last season she performed recitals in Austria, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and Korea with baritone Wolfgang Holzmair. Earlier this year she made her debut at the Vienna Konzerthaus with soprano Mara Mastalir.
Hans Eijsackers has won the Rotterdamse Piano Driedaagse, the Princess Christina Competition and the European Piano Competition in Luxembourg as well as being awarded the Zilveren Vriendenkrans of the Concertgebouw twice. He plays as a duo with clarinettist Lars Wouters van den Oudenweijer and has accompanied Xenia Meijer, Geert Smits and Henk Neven, with whom he won the Mees Pierson Prize in 2008. He has been one of the house pianists for the IVC ‘s-Hertogenbosch since 2004. He has also guested with the Orlando Festival, the Grachtenfestival, the Gergiev Festival and the Toon Festival Brabant. Hans Eijsackers teaches 1st study piano and chamber music at the conservatories of Utrecht and The Hague.
Paul Plummer specialised in piano accompaniment with Graham Johnson and Martin Katz and assisted as repetiteur at London’s Royal College of Music. He was a regular accompanist at Aldeburgh’s Britten-Pears Young Artists’ Programme, working there with Thomas Allen, Roger Vignoles, Malcolm Martineau, Ann Murray and Sergei Leiferkus. Recital engagements have taken him to the Zurich Tonhalle, the Foyer Européen in Luxembourg and to London’s Wigmore Hall. Paul Plummer has also been active as a freelance repetiteur, working for Rotterdam’s Opera O.T., London’s Royal Opera House Covent Garden and at the Bregenz Festival. He is currently working on projects for Theater Kiel in Germany and for the Tiroler Landestheater in Innsbruck.
British conductor David Angus began his professional opera house career as a staff conductor for Glyndebourne Festival Opera, where he conducted Die Zauberflöte, Così fan tutte, Eugene Onegin and Kát’a Kabanová. For the Aldeburgh Festival he conducted Britten’s Albert Herring. David Angus is the recently appointed Music Director of Glimmerglass Opera and he is Honorary Conductor of the Flanders Symphony Orchestra. He was Associate Conductor for London’s Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Vocal Consultant to the Britten-Pears School in Aldeburgh. David Angus has appeared with the London and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. David Angus has conducted several productions in Italy and has also worked with Scottish Opera, English Touring Opera, the Canadian Opera Company, Opéra National de Paris and Danish National Opera.
Performance venues for the Brabant Philharmonic Orchestra include the Muziekcentrum Frits Philips in Eindhoven, Theater aan de Parade in ’s-Hertogenbosch, the Concertzaal in Tilburg and the Chassé Theater in Breda. The orchestra enjoys a favourable international reputation that is the well-deserved result of several tours abroad. The orchestra was led by Marc Soustrot from 1996 through 2006; he highlighted the French repertoire with great success as well as carrying out many other projects. Alan Buribayev, a young conductor from Kazachstan, was chosen as Soustrot’s successor in 2007. The 2009-2010 season, the 60th of the orchestra’s existence, clearly demonstrates the influence of artistic advisor Jan Zekveld and provides a unique mixture of traditional with modern music. Alongside its symphonic concerts, the Brabant Philharmonic accompanies various opera performances, this most frequently with Opera Zuid.
