Spanish-American conductor François López-Ferrer has carved an impressive path in the world of classical music, distinguished by his dynamic artistry and compelling performances. Recipient of the prestigious 2024 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, his international career has been marked by recent debuts with esteemed orchestras worldwide, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic (LA Phil), Hong Kong Philharmonic, Orquesta Nacional de España, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Orquesta Sinfónica Radio Televisión Española, Verbier Festival Orchestra, Ensemble intercontemporain, Opéra de Lausanne, and George Enescu Philharmonic.

Upcoming engagements include debuts at the Hollywood Bowl with the LA Phil, the May Festival with the Cincinnati Symphony, and the Opéra de Paris conducting a new production of Haydn’s ‘L’isola disabitata’. His journey began as Associate Conductor of the Cincinnati Symphony (CSO) and May Festival, where he made a significant impact on audiences and critics alike. In January 2022 he seamlessly stepped in for Louis Langrée with the CSO for the US premiere of Mark Simpson’s Violin Concerto, featuring Nicola Benedetti. López-Ferrer’s artistry was further refined during his tenure as a 2021-22 Dudamel Fellow with the LA Phil, as well as Resident Conductor of the Opéra de Paris’s Académie. He was a featured conductor in the 2022 Bruno Walter National Conductor Preview alongside the Louisiana Philharmonic.

Early career achievements include serving as Associate Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Chile and Principal Conductor of the Ballet Nacional Chileno. As a 2018 Verbier Festival Conducting Fellow, he made a memorable debut stepping in for Iván Fischer in a shared program alongside Sir Simon Rattle and Gábor Takács-Nagy. Furthermore, he is a two-time recipient of the Solti Foundation U.S.’s Career Assistance Award, winner of the inaugural 2015 Neeme Järvi Prize at the Menuhin-Gstaad Festival, and former member of the Deutsche Dirigentenforum.

López-Ferrer’s holds a master’s degree in Orchestral Conducting from the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne and a bachelor’s in Composition from the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. Born in Switzerland and raised in the United States, he embodies a rich multicultural lineage, with a Cuban mother and Spanish father, and speaks six languages fluently.

Born in Russia, violinist Maria Ioudenitch immigrated with her musical family to the U.S. at the age of two and grew up in Kansas City. In 2021,  she received first prizes in the Ysaÿe International Music Competition, the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition and the Joseph Joachim International Competition. She also received numerous special prizes at these competitions, including Joachim’s Chamber Music Award, the prize for Best Interpretation of the Commissioned Work, the Henle Urtext Prize, and a recording deal with Warner Classics.

Recognized for her innovative programmes, her first album on Warner – Songbird with pianist Kenny Broberg, released on 24 March 2023 – spans from Franz Schubert, Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann to Nikolai Medtner, Richard Strauss and Nadia Boulanger. In upcoming concerts, she performs the Tchaikovsky, Glazunov and Barber concertos as well as Haydn’s G-Major and Mozart’s D-Major concertos, while this season’s recital programmes include works by George Gershwin, William Grant Still, Dolores White and Fazil Say, alongside standard violin repertoire.

In the recent months, Maria Ioudenitch has made her debuts with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (at Berlin’s Philharmonie), MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, Düsseldorfer Symphoniker and Münchner Symphoniker and returned to her home-town Kansas City Symphony. Other recent engagements have taken her to the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Lithuania Chamber Orchestra and Utah Symphony, while her growing list of conductors includes names like Andrey Boreyko, Alpesh Chauhan, Kevin John Edusei, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Andrew Manze, Ruth Reinhardt and Hugh Wolff. She is also an active chamber musician and has taken part in multiple chamber music tours with Ravinia Steans Music Institute and Marlboro Music Festival. An upcoming Marlboro tour will take place in November 2023.

Maria began playing violin with Gregory Sandomirsky at the age of three and continued her studies with Ben Sayevich at the International Center for Music in Kansas City and Pamela Frank and Shmuel Ashkenasi at the Curtis Institute of Music, where she completed her bachelor’s degree. She fulfilled both her master’s degree and Artist Diploma at the New England Conservatory, where she studied with Miriam Fried.

In the past year, Maria has been mentored by Sonia Simmenauer as part of Simmenauer’s new initiative, zukunfts.music. Maria is currently in the Professional Studies programme at the Kronberg Academy, working with Christian Tetzlaff.