4th Shanghai Baroque Festival David Stern Conducts B minor Mass

Date: Dec 16 - 1:30 pm

Venue: Shanghai Symphony Hall

David Stern is a born communicator. Whether conducting a major symphony orchestra, baroque opera, teaching vocal master classes or defending cultural activities, Stern keeps his musicians, students and audiences riveted by sharing his strong musical convictions, his flexibility of approach and his belief that music is relevant and essential in today's world. He is the founder and director of the Paris-based opera company and period-instrument ensemble, Opera Fuoco, as well as director of the Shanghai Baroque Festival and director of opera at the Crested Butte Music Festival in Colorado. Most recently, in 2015 he was appointed Chief Conductor of Palm Beach Opera.

Stern is known for his eclectic range of repertoire. In his time as former music director of the Israel and the St Gallen Opera houses, he championed works by Handel, Gluck and Simone Mayr, but also Wozzeck, Turn of the Screw and Mahagonny. With Opera Fuoco, Stern released a CD of rediscovered French Romantic Cantatas with mezzo-soprano Karine Deshayes, and has recorded and toured Johann Christian Bach's opera, Zanaida, which he premiered at the 2011 Bachfest in Leipzig. In 2014, Stern and Opera Fuoco commissioned a new opera, Cosi Fanciulli, which premiered at the Theatre de St Quentin and the Theatre des Champs-Elysees in Paris in 2014. He premiered Gil Shochat's the Child Dreams in Israel in 2010 and in February 2015 he conducted the world premiere of Enemies, a Love Story by Ben Moore, based on the novella by Isaac Bashevis Singer.