Renowned as an expert interpreter and champion of bel canto opera and a specialist in French repertoire and early Verdi, Italian conductor Enrique Mazzola is in demand worldwide as both an operatic and symphonic conductor. The 2021-2022 season marks the beginning of Mazzola’s tenure as Music Director of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He is also the Principal Guest Conductor at Deutsche Oper Berlin, a position held from the 2018-2019 season and served as Artistic & Music Director of the Orchestre National d’Île de France (ONDIF) from 2012-2013 to 2018-2019. In October 2018 he was made a Chevalier de l'ordre des Arts et des Lettres, in recognition of his significant contribution to musical life in France.

Plans for the 2021-2022 season with Lyric Opera include a new production of Verdi’s Macbeth, directed by Sir David McVicar, a revival of Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’amore, the Chicago premiere of Missy Mazzoli’s chamber opera Proving Up, and gala performances with students from the Ryan Opera Center. Debut engagements for this season include Utah Symphony and Berner Symphonieorchester. Mazzola will also make return appearances with Opernhaus Zurich (Anna Bolena), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Les Vêpres Sicillennes), Dutch National Opera (Anna Bolena), London Philharmonic Orchestra (Opera Gala with Renée Fleming), Bregenzer Festival (Madama Butterfly), and symphonic concerts with the Wiener Symphoniker.

Recent seasons include notable debuts with Salzburg Festspiele (Orphée aux Enfers), Wiener Staatsoper (Don Pasquale), Dutch National Opera (Donizetti Queens in Concert), Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Oslo Philharmonic, New Japan Philharmonic, Taipei Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Brussels Philharmonic, Staatsphilharmonie Nurnberg, and Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Return engagements have included Metropolitan Opera (La fille du régiment), Opernhaus Zurich (Turco in Italia, Maria Stuarda, Il barbiere di Siviglia, I puritani), Bregenzer Festspiele (Rigoletto and previously Rossini’s Mosè in Egitto), Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchestre Symphonique de Quebec, Sao Paulo State Symphony, and Glyndebourne Festival Opera (Luisa Miller, Il barbiere di Siviglia).

Opera has also included the Rossini Opera Festival (La gazzetta), Theatre des Champs-Elysées (Tancredi, Don Pasquale, La scala di seta, L'occasione fa il ladro, Il signor Bruschino), Deutsche Oper Berlin (Le prophète, Dinorah in concert, Il barbiere di Siviglia, Le Vaisseau fantome, Falstaff, Vasco da Gama, Les contes d’Hoffmann), and the Bolshoi Theatre (La sonnambula). Glyndebourne Festival Opera has included Don Pasquale, Poliuto, L’elisir d’amore and Il barbiere di Siviglia. Opera credits also include Teatro del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino (L’italiana in Algeri), New National Theatre Tokyo (Don Giovanni), Opera du Rhin (Macbeth, La Cenerentola), and Teatro alla Scala (Don Pasquale). He has regularly devoted time to working with young musicians, among them Accademia Teatro alla Scala, Académie de l’Opéra national de Paris, Opéra Studio de l’Opéra national du Rhin, Accademia del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Ryan Opera Center, Codarts of Rotterdam, and has given conducting masterclasses for the students of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon.

European festivals have included Falstaff (Aix-en-Provence), Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, Enescu Festival and Haydn Festival with ONDIF, Bregenzer Festspiele, Salzburg Festspiele, BBC Proms in 2016 with the Glyndebourne new production of Il barbiere di Siviglia, München Opernfestspiele, Rossini Opera Festival, Biennale of Venice, Wexford Opera Festival, Festival de Granada, and Les Chorégies d'Orange. Between 1999 and 2003, he was the Artistic and Music Director of the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte in Montepulciano, where he conducted many symphonic concerts and new operatic productions with the Royal Northern College of Music Symphony Orchestra.

An accomplished interpreter of contemporary music, he commissioned and premiered several works with ONDIF and led many other premieres with major European orchestras. Opera credits also include the world premiere of Colla’s Il processo (La Scala); Il re nudo by Luca Lombardi (Teatro dell’Opera di Roma), Medusa by Arnaldo de Felice (Bayerische Staatsoper), and Isabella by Azio Corghi (Rossini Opera Festival).

Baiba Skride’s natural approach to her music-making has endeared her to some of today’s most important conductors and orchestras worldwide. She is consistently invited for her refreshing interpretations and her sensitivity and delight in the music. 

The list of prestigious orchestras with whom she has worked include the Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Boston and Chicago Symphony Orchestras, New York Philharmonic, Concertgebouworkest, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Orchestre de Paris, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, and NHK Symphony Orchestra. Notable conductors she collaborates with include Marin Alsop, Christoph Eschenbach, Ed Gardner, Susanna Mälkki, Andris Nelsons, Andres Orozco- Estrada, Santtu-Matias Rouvali, Andris Poga, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Tugan Sokhiev, John Storgårds, Juraj Valcuha, and Kazuki Yamada. 

Highlights of Skride’s 2021-2022 season include the season opening of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, with which she performs Sofia Gubaidulina’s Triple Concerto with Harriet Krijgh (cello) and Martynas Levickis (bajan) under the baton of Andris Nelsons. In celebration of the composer’s 90th birthday, she returns to the orchestra once again for a performance of Gubaidulina’s Violin Concerto No. 1 “Offertorium,” which she also plays with the London Symphony Orchestra and Dima Slobodeniouk as well as with the Hallé Orchestra and Sir Mark Elder this season. Additionally, she returns to the hr-Sinfonieorchester with Alain Altinoglu to perform the composer’s Violin Concerto No. 3 “Dialog: Ich und Du.” Furthermore, Skride looks forward to her return to orchestras such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Orchester der Komischen Oper Berlin, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Residentie Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, and Sydney Symphony Orchestra, amongst others. 

Skride is a sought-after chamber musician internationally and commits to the long-established duo with her sister Lauma. She is one of the founding members of the Skride Quartet, with which she has performed at venues such as Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Musikverein Vienna, Wigmore Hall London, and Louvre Paris, and has toured in North America and Australia in previous seasons. In 2021/22 Skride also performs in trio with her sister Lauma Skride and Harriet Krijgh as well as in different chamber music projects with Alban Gerhardt and Brett Dean and others. 

Skride is anticipating the release of her latest solo recording in January 2022, which adds to her prolific discography including her recently released Mozart recording with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra and her Bartok recording with the WDR Sinfonieorchester, both with Eivind Aadland, as well as her American disc featuring Bernstein, Korngold, and Rózsa with the Gothenburg Symphony and Tampere Philharmonic Orchestras under the baton of Santtu-Matias Rouvali and the debut recording of the Skride Quartet, all under the Orfeo label. 

Skride was born into a musical Latvian family in Riga where she began her studies, transferring in 1995 to the Conservatory of Music and Theatre in Rostock. In 2001 she won the 1st prize of the Queen Elisabeth Competition. Baiba Skride plays the Yfrah Neaman Stradivarius kindly loaned to her by the Neaman family through the Beare’s International Violin Society.