David Lawrence

Principal Conductor

David Lawrence is one of the UK’s most versatile conductors, working with orchestras, symphony choruses and national youth choirs. He was recently nominated for a Gramophone Award for his conducting, and he holds the Guinness World Record for conducting the UK’s largest choir.

David’s work has taken him to Singapore, Colombia, Canada, the United States, India, the United Arab Emirates, throughout Europe, and Australia. His positive and engaging manner makes him a popular guest conductor, and he is an experienced and respected trainer of choral conductors. As a guest chorus master of the Netherlands Radio Choir he has worked with many conductors such as Kenneth Montgomery, Frans Brüggen, and John Adams, and in 2002 working closely with Stockhausen he also conducted this exceptional choir in the German premiere of Scene II from his opera Sontag aus Licht.

David has conducted the London Philharmonic Choir, Hallé Choir, London Symphony Chorus, the CBSO Chorus for whom he is an Associate Conductor, and the national youth choirs of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. He has directed large scale education projects with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, the English Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and of course the CBSO. David is the conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra’s Community Choir and Senior Youth Choir, and as Principal Conductor of Young Voices, he directs massed choirs in an annual series of concerts.

Tony Yike Yang

Piano

Hailed by CBC Music as one of Canada’s finest young musicians, pianist Tony Yike Yang first rose to international acclaim at the age of 16 after becoming the youngest-ever laureate in the history of the International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, winning the 5th prize in 2015. Additionally, Yang has also won prizes at the Van Cliburn, Gina Bachauer, Hilton Head, Cooper, and the Bosendorfer & Yamaha USASU International Piano Competitions.

As a soloist, Yang has performed internationally in venues such as Koerner Hall in Toronto, Severance Hall in Cleveland, Warsaw National Philharmonic, Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall, Millennium Amphitheatre in Dubai, Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Athenaeum in Bucharest, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre, Seoul Arts Center, the National Arts Centre in Ottawa, Osaka Symphony Hall, Sala Chopin in Mexico City, Sala Sudasiri Sohba in Bangkok, Esplanade Singapore, the Opera House in Guangzhou, and many others.

Concerto highlights include appearances with the Cleveland Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, Orchestre Métropolitain, Fort Worth Symphony, Ontario Philharmonic, Toronto Sinfonietta, Edmonton Symphony, Saskatoon Symphony, Changsha Symphony, and the Hilton Head Symphony Orchestra.

His debut album of works by Chopin was released on the Fryderyk Chopin Institute label in 2016.

Born in Chongqing and raised in Toronto, Yang is a recent graduate of Harvard University where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts in Economics. His present and past musical advisors have included renowned musical figures such as Gabriela Montero, Eliso Virsaladze, Stephen Hough, Martha Argerich, Dang Thai Son, Mari Kodama, and James Anagnoson.

Beverley Worboys

Soprano

Born in England, soprano Beverley Worboys studied at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she graduated with a Bachelor of Music with Honours. After singing the leading role of Christine in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera in London’s West End and in Basel, Beverley Worboys has appeared in numerous other musical roles: Mabel in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance in Zürich and on a UK tour, also in England in the lead role Rose in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Aspects of Love, Johanna in Sweeney Todd for Derby Playhouse or Jessie in Kurt Weill’s Mahagonny Songspiel at the Tonhalle Zürich.

Beverley Worboys’ operatic engagements include roles such as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro and Zerlina in Don Giovanni for English Chamber Opera, Despina in Così fan Tutte at St. John’s Smith Square in London, Venus in Orpheus in the Underworld, Gianetta in Gondoliers for Howard Griffith and Acis and Galatea at Winterthur conducted by Maurice Steger.

Her international concert activities as a soloist have taken her to the Globen Stadium in Stockholm or the Glasgow Symphony Hall with the musical show Best of West End, to the KKL in Lucerne or the Tonhalle in Zurich. She also sang the finale at the world-famous Basel Tattoo. She has also released two solo CDs of classical Celtic songs and has made numerous appearances on radio and TV, including a performance on Friday Night is Music Night (BBC Radio 2) with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

Mark Stone

Baritone

Mark Stone is an English helden baritone, acclaimed for his performances of Wagnerian roles, such as Alberich in Das Rheingold and Siegfried at Longborough Festival Opera, Wotan in Die Walküre for Trondheim Symfoniorkester, and Gunther in Götterdämmerung at the Grand Théâtre de Genève. He works extensively in Germany (Hamburgische Staatsoper, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Staatsoper Hannover) and the USA (Santa Fe Opera, Opera Philadelphia) where he is also renowned for his performances of modern works such as the title role in Nixon in China and the world premiere of Huang Ruo’s M. Butterfly.

This season sees Mark sing the title role of Der fliegende Holländer for Trondheim Symfoniorkester and Klingsor in Parsifal at the Hamburgische Staatsoper. On the concert platform, Mark will sing Totentanz with Thomas Adès and the Leipzig Gewandhausorchester, join Carolyn Kuan and the BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra to sing a concert performance of Ruo’s M. Butterfly and sing Sir George Benjamin’s Written on Skin conducted by the composer himself and the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

Basel Festival Orchestra

Orchestra

From 1997 to 2015, the Basel Festival Orchestra (BFO) performed a total of 19 times in a row at the traditional New Year's Eve concert in the Stadtcasino Basel. From 2016 to 2018, the project-based orchestra, consisting mainly of young professional musicians, returned to its place of origin, the Musical Theater Basel, for three more editions of the "Jahresausklang". It originally emerged there in 1996 from the "Phantom of the Opera" and in subsequent years also regularly accompanied guest performances by companies such as the Berlin State Ballet and the Stuttgart Ballet as part of "Basel tanzt". The BFO was engaged as an opera orchestra at the Riehen Opera Festival from 2008 to 2012 and as a permanent theater orchestra at the Goetheanum Dornach from 1999 to 2008. From 2008 to 2011, it was also involved in the annual Swiss Indoors at St. Jakobshalle Basel together with the Theater Basel choir. The orchestra has performed opera galas and gospel programs in all major cities in Switzerland (including the Tonhalle Zurich and the KKL Lucerne). Tours abroad have taken the BFO to Germany and Spain. Radio recordings and CD productions document a varied programme spectrum, which has repeatedly included premieres and debut performances as well as rarely performed repertoire. Kevin Rhodes and Thomas Herzog have been instrumental in shaping the orchestra as conductors for many years. Guest conductors have included James Tuggle, Jan Schultsz, Hans Richter, Michel Quéval, Carl Robert Helg, Maciej Zoltowski and Joonas Pitkänen. The BFO's own concert activities were suspended in 2019. Cat Music Management agency organises performances with the Basel Festival Orchestra on a project-by-project basis. An extensive archive of sound and image recordings, programme documents, sheet music, percussion instruments and orchestral furniture is maintained and managed by the Basel Festival Orchestra Association on a voluntary basis.