The German conductor Dominik Beykirch has been responsible for shaping the artistic profile of the Deutsches Nationaltheater (DNT) and the Staatskapelle Weimar since the 2015/16 season, most recently in the position of Music Director. Throughout this period, he has consistently upheld the highest standards of excellence. From the 2025/26 season onwards, however, he intends to pursue new opportunities, performing as a freelance conductor at various opera houses and concert halls. Dominik Beykirch's highlights for the 2025/26 season include his debut in the orchestra pit of the Semperoper Dresden with Engelbert Humperdinck's Hänsel und Gretel, as well as new productions of Die tote Stadt by Erich Wolfgang Korngold at the German National Theatre Weimar (director: Dorian Dreher) and Johann Strauss' Die Fledermaus at the Staatstheater Schwerin (director: Stephanie Schimmer). In the concert field, he is particularly looking forward to working with percussionist Vivi Vassileva (Recycling Concerto with the Mecklenburg State Orchestra) and with pianist Alexander Krichel in a concert with the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt. He is also looking forward to performing exciting programmes featuring works by Elfrida Andrée, Cécile Chaminade, Florence Price and Alice Mary Smith. He will be making his first guest appearances with the Augsburg Philharmonic Orchestra and the Philharmonic Orchestra of the Hanseatic City of Lübeck, among others. Dominik Beykirch continues to make a name for himself internationally through his work as an opera conductor. At the Deutsches Nationaltheater (DNT), his initiative led to the first performance in 170 years of the opera Samson by Swiss composer Joachim Raff (director: Calixto Bieito) in October 2022. During the 2019/2020 season, Beykirch enjoyed great success with Paul Dessau's opera Lanzelot, which had not been performed for 40 years. The production, directed by Peter Konwitschny, was named ‘Rediscovery of the Year’ by the trade journal Opernwelt, which also nominated Beykirch as ‘Conductor of the Year’. In January 2023, the CD label audite released a recording of the complete opera. This recording received significant press attention and was awarded the German Record Critics' Prize and the 'CD of the Year' prize by Opernwelt, as well as having been nominated for the International Opera Awards. New productions such as Richard Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos in Martin G. Berger's award-winning production (FAUST Prize 2020), Salome (director: Friederike Blum), Vincenzo Bellini's I Capuleti e i Montecchi (directors: Jossi Wieler and Sergio Morabito), Der fliegende Holländer (directed by Barbora Horáková), Aida and La traviata (directed by Andrea Moses) and L'italiana in Algeri (directed by Tobias Kratzer) were all also very well received by audiences and the trade press. In recognition of their conceptual work in the opera department of the Deutsches Nationaltheater (DNT), Dominik Beykirch, Michael Höppner (senior dramaturg) and Andrea Moses (opera director) were awarded the 2024 German Theatre Publishers' Award. Thanks to the precision of Beykirch’s craftsmanship, his sensitivity to the needs of singers and to his musical enthusiasm, he has also created exceptional theatrical events at other opera houses, such as the Royal Opera in Copenhagen, the Leipzig Opera, the Kassel State Theatre and the Chemnitz Theatre. When it comes to concerts, Dominik Beykirch has long been a highly sought-after guest conductor. He has collaborated with numerous renowned orchestras, including the HR, MDR, SWR and WDR symphony orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Duisburg Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Halle, the Bremen Philharmonic, the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra, the Philharmonie Zuidnederland, the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen, and the Rheinische Philharmonie State Orchestra. He has also performed with soloists such as Nemanja Radulovic, Cameron Carpenter, Jens Peter Maintz, Jan Vogler, Danae Dörken, Michael Barenboim, Harriet Krijgh and Claudio Bohórquez. Dominik Beykirch enjoys an intensive collaborative relationship with the pianist Frank Dupree. Together, they have introduced a wide audience to Nikolai Kapustin's piano concertos. Their second joint recording, featuring Kapustin's second and sixth piano concertos with the SWR Symphony Orchestra and SWR Big Band, was released in November 2024. Dominik Beykirch was nominated in the category Conductor of the Year at the OPUS Klassik awards for his multi-award-winning recording of Kapustin's Fifth Piano Concerto (International Classical Music Award, Diapason d'Or), released in February 2023. In 2020, the Berlin Classics label released the album Clarinet Concertos, featuring clarinettist Sebastian Manz performing Carl Nielsen's Clarinet Concerto with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken under Beykirch's direction. Beykirch also recorded Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (narrator: Malte Arkona) with the Dresden Philharmonic for Berlin Classics. Dominik Beykirch completed his studies at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar, studying conducting under Prof. Nicolás Pasquet, Prof. Gunter Kahlert and Martin Hoff. He gained valuable artistic inspiration from renowned conductors such as Bernard Haitink, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Ton Koopman, among others, and as a scholarship holder in the Conductors' Forum of the German Music Council. He now shares his experience in master classes and by teaching at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. During the winter semester of 2024/25, he also taught the main Orchestral Conducting class at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar.

It is, of course, every musician’s dream to at some stage be able to play with the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras. At just 21 years of age, Sarah Christ had played in both these world famous orchestras. Born in 1980, Sarah began playing the harp at the age of 10. For a whole year she, who had been playing and continued to play both the violin and the piano, had to beg to be allowed to receive a harp and harp lessons. And thus the harp was introduced into this musical ensemble, the Christ family: The famous Martinu Oboe Concerto was written for and dedicated to Sarah’s grandfather, first oboist in the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and Sarah’s father had for 22 years been the leader of the violas in the Berlin Philharmonic. “In Kindergarten I had already begun to regularly attend the Berlin Philharmonic concerts and also other concerts my father played in. I can still remember the great aura surrounding Herbert von Karajan and when I shook his hand as a little girl in Salzburg in the ‘Festspielhaus’. I love playing together with my father and brother, which I have been able to do on multiple occasions in the Luzern Festival Orchestra with Claudio Abbado.” At the age of 13, Sarah Christ gave her debut as a soloist with the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra in the Berlin Philharmonic hall. Since then, she has played as a soloist with the Jenaer Philharmonic orchestra, the Sinfonietta Cologne, the Kuerpfalzischen Kammerorchestra, the Prague Opera, the Dresden Kapellsolisten and the Turku Philharmonic Orchestra, just to name a few. Sarah regularly plays with brother and violinist Raphael Christ, and in 2006 together they were able to win first prize in the Kulturkreises des Bundes der Deutschen Industrie Competition. “The phase in my life that cemented my desire to become a musician was my involvement in the Mahler Youth Orchestra. I was 17 at the time, still at school, and playing with conductors like Claudio Abaddo, Seiji Ozawa and Franz Welser-Moest left an incredible impression on me; it was definitely an honour. At that time I was also very involved in the piano and had even toyed with the idea of studying it. These trips with the youth orchestra, however, made it clear to me that I simply had to pursue the harp because as a pianist you don’t have nearly as many opportunities to play in an orchestra.” In 1999, Sarah embarked on her studies in Detmold with Catherine Michel, continued by studying in Lyon with Fabrice Pierre and later completed her studies with a Masterkalssendiplom Karmmermusik after having studied under Helga Storck in Munich. Her initial leap onto the highest rung of the musical ladder in 2002 came about through her engagement in the Vienna Opera Orchestra at the age of 21, making her one of the youngest members of the orchestra. "I have known Sarah Christ for several years and have watched her development with interest and joy. She is equally at home in the orchestra, as my concerts with the Vienna Philharmonic have proven, as well as in different kinds of chamber music ensembles, where her performance is always of the highest standard." Daniel Barenboim, 2003 Feeling as though she was still too young to settle into a permanent orchestral position, Sarah Christ left the Vienna Opera after two years in order to pursue the fields of Chamber music and solo performance. She also played in orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Bayerischen Staatsoper, the Bayerischen Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra and the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and has, since 2004, been repeatedly invited by Claudio Abbado to take part in the Luzern Festival Orchestra. Sarah Christ has also received a scholarship from the Deutschen Musikrates and together with Sandra Schumacher (oboe) they formed the duet ‘Harbois’ and toured throughout Germany playing concerts. She has also played chamber music in festivals such as Tanglewood, Lockenhaus, the Edinburgh Festival, the Luzern Festival, the Moritzburg Festival, the Schwetzinger Musikfestspielen, as well as in the Carnegie Hall together with Emmanuel Pahud, Wolfgang Schulz, Jan Vogler, Albrecht Mayer, Renaud Capucon and Eckhardt Haupt. In 2013 Sarah Christ gave her debut in Wigmore Hall playing a Schubert Liederabend with baritone Matthias Goerne. Not exclusively involved in playing, Sarah Christ is also well acquainted with the art of teaching. She has taught in the Schleswig Holstein Musikfestival, in the Sommerakademie der Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes in 2012, in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra academy and was invited as a guest professor to the Orchesterzentrum Dortmund. She lives with her husband, horn player in the Staatskapelle Dresden, and daughter in Dresden.

Julia Fritz is a prize winner of the 8th International Telemann Competition in Magdeburg (2015) and the International Competition for solo recorder in Feldkirch (2006). As a recorder and cornett player she performs in Europe, Taiwan, South Korea and in the USA. She has been invited to perform at festivals such as the Utrecht Early Music Festival, the Boston Early Music Festival, the Innsbruck Festival of Early Music, the Arolser Barock-Festspiele and the Tage Alter Musik Regensburg. She plays with ensembles such as the Dresdner Kammerchor, Hamburger Ratsmusik and Musica Fiata. Julia Fritz has been performing with her recorder consort, the Boreas Quartett Bremen, for ten years. The ensemble has won numerous prizes (scholarship of the German Music Council and admission to the Federal Selection of Concerts of Young Artists, Early Music Prize of the Saarland Broadcasting Corporation). From 2020 to 2023, the Boreas Quartett will be supported by the Senator for Culture of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen. Since 2017, Julia Fritz has been teaching recorder, chamber music and didactics at the Vorarlberger Landeskonservatorium in Feldkirch/Austria. Previously, she taught at the Hochschule für Musik Trossingen. Julia Fritz’s own musical training encompassed pedagogical and artistic studies in recorder, cornett, organ and early music at the Mozarteum University Salzburg and the University of the Arts Bremen, where she graduated with a recorder concert exam in Han Tol’s class.

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