Evening Recital N° 3

Anna Rakitina has firmly established herself as one of the most exciting and sought-after conductors of her generation, following a series of highly acclaimed appearances with Chicago, Boston, San Francisco Symphony Orchestras as well as the New York Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Tonkünstler-Orchester, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra in the past two seasons. 2023/24 season highlights include her return to Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and debuts with Utah Symphony, BBC Philharmonic, Staatsorchester Hannover, Norwegian National Opera Orchestra, Danish Chamber Orchestra, Barcelona Symphony, and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin at the Dresden Musikfestspiele. She has previously worked with orchestras such as Cincinnati, Baltimore and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras as well as Musikkollegium Winterthur, Nürnberger Symphoniker, NDR Radiophilharmonie (Hannover), Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Casa da Musica Porto, Orchestre National de Lille and Malmö Symphony Orchestra. Anna Rakitina works with soloists such as Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Alexandre Kantorow, Inon Barnatan, Joshua Bell, Renaud Capuçon, Augustin Hadelich, Gil Shaham, Christian Tetzlaff, Raphaela Gromes and Alisa Weilerstein. She also enjoys collaborations with today’s composers and has notably worked with Elena

Langer and Ellen Reid in the recent years. Rakitina was the assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 2019 to 2023, where she was only the second woman in the orchestra’s history to hold the position. She concluded her tenure with a highly acclaimed performance at the Tanglewood Music Festival with Joshua Bell in August 2023. Previously, she was a Dudamel Fellow at the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the 2019/20 season. She won the second prize at the Malko Competition 2018, and further prizes at the ‘Deutscher Dirigentenpreis’ 2017 as well as TCO International Conducting Competition Taipei 2015. Born in Moscow to a Ukrainian father and a Russian mother, Rakitina grew up in a musical family and began her education as a violinist before she studied conducting at Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in the class of Stanislav Diachenko. From 2016 to 2018 she studied conducting in Hamburg, Germany with Prof. Ulrich Windfuhr and graduated with a diploma. She was a finalist of ‘Das kritische Orchester’ in Berlin in 2018, participated in the conducting fellowship scheme of the Lucerne Festival Academy led by Alan Gilbert and Bernard Haitink, and attended masterclasses with Gennadiy Rozhdestvensky, Vladimir Jurowski and Johannes Schlaefli. In 2022 she participated in the Ammodo conducting masterclass of the Concertgebouworkest led by Fabio Luisi.

Born in Chemnitz, Robert Langbein attended the Belvedere Music School in Weimar. He continued his musical training at Weimar Music College under Rainer Heimbuch and, from 2001, in Berlin at the Hanns Eisler College of Music as well as the University of the Arts under Christian-Friedrich Dallmann. While still a student he received his first appointment as principal horn of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin before joining the Staatskapelle in the same position in 2005.

Robert Langbein previously gained valuable experience in orchestral performance with the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. He has won numerous prizes and accolades such as a first prize at the International Competition of Markneukirchen in 2004, a first prize at the Kurt Alten Competition in Hanover as well as a special prize for natural horn at the Concours de Genève. In 2010 he was awarded the Horn Prize of the Michael Schuncke Foundation in Baden-Baden. 

In the 2013/2014 season Langbein was artist-in-residence at the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra. In addition, Robert Langbein is a popular soloist with renowned orchestras such as the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Berlin, the Radio Philharmonic Hanover, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra as well as the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec.

Robert Langbein is also active as an educator, teaching at the University of the Arts in Berlin before joining the faculty of the Carl Maria von Weber Conservatory of Music in 2009, where he became Professor for Horn in 2013. In addition he lectures on brass performance at numerous courses (Sorbian National Ensemble) and gives masterclasses (Pacific Music Festival, Sapporo, Dresden Masterclasses Music).