The National Centre for Performing Arts’ upcoming Symphony Orchestra of India's Spring Season 2018 from 11th February 2018 to 6th March 2018 has some interesting performances lined up.

The Spring Season 2018 of the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) will be a treat with a lineup of performances guaranteed to awe the audience. This spring, the SOI promises to bring yet another season full of splendid performances featuring celebrated artists such as Antoni Wit, Benjamin Appl , Roberto Prosseda and the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus along with Zane Dalal.

Antoni Wit

Antoni Wit is one of the most highly regarded Polish conductors and a champion of Polish music. A top prize winner at the Herbert von Karajan International Conducting Competition in 1971 and an assistant to Herbert von Karajan at the Easter Festival in Salzburg, he subsequently worked with all of the leading orchestras in Poland before taking up the position of General and Artistic Director at the Warsaw Philharmonic in 2001 for twelve years until the end of the 12/13 season. He is currently Music Director of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Navarra in Spain and Conductor Laureate of the Krakow Philharmonic in Poland. Seven times Grammy Award nominated, Antoni Wit has made over two hundred recordings for EMI, Sony and Naxos. He has sold over five million records on Naxos, including an acclaimed release of Prokofiev’s piano concertos with Kun Woo Paik, and was awarded the Diapason d'Or and Grand Prix de la Nouvelle Académie du Disque. He received the award of EMI “Record of the Year” in 1985 for his recording of Szymanowski’s Stabat Mater and in January 2002 he was given the Cannes Classical Award for his recording of Messiaen’s Turangalîla-Symphonie. In the 2017-18 season and beyond Antoni Wit makes his début with the Symphony Orchestra of India.

Benjamin Appl

Described as ‘the current front-runner in the new generation of Lieder singers’ (Gramophone Magazine, UK), Benjamin Appl is celebrated by audiences and critics in recital, concerts and opera. The German baritone was a BBC New Generation Artist and an ECHO Rising Star artist for the 2015/16 season, appearing in recital at major European venues.

He trained as a chorister at the renowned Regensburger Domspatzen and continued his studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and graduated fro, the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. He had the fortune to be mentored by one of the greatest singers, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau.

Operatic appearances include Conte Le Nozze di Figaro in London,  Owen Wingrave (title role) at the Banff Festival, Aeneas Dido and Aeneas at the Aldeburgh and Brighton Festivals, Schaunard La Bohème with the Munich Radio Orchestra, Baron Tusenbach in Eötvös’s Tri Sestri for the Deutsche Staatsoper and a new commission for Bregenz Festival (Das Leben am Rande der Milchstraße by Bernhard Gander). Conductors he has worked with include Marin Alsop, Christian Curnyn, Johannes Debus, Edward Gardner, Michael Hofstetter, Bernard Labadie, Alessandro de Marchi, Paul McCreesh, Roger Norrington, Christoph Poppen, Jordi Savall and Ulf Schirmer.

In concert he has appeared with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Gabrieli Players & Consort,  Les Violons du Roy, the Bach Collegium Stuttgart, and on multiple occasions with the major BBC orchestras. He made his BBC Proms debut in September 2015 singing Brahms’ Triumphlied with Marion Alsop and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Orff’s Carmina Burana with the BBC Concert. His oratorio repertoire includes Bach’s Magnificat, St John and St Matthew Passions, Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, Händel’s The Messiah, Haydn’s The Creation and Britten’s War Requiem.

An established recitalist, he has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Ravinia, Rheingau and Oxford Lieder festivals, deSingel Antwerp, Heidelberger Frühling, and with Graham Johnson at the KlavierFestival Ruhr. He is a regular recitalist at the Wigmore Hall and at the Schubertiade Hohenems and Schwarzenberg. He works closely together with pianists including Graham Johnson, Malcolm Martineau, Helmut Deutsch, James Baillieu and Martin Stadtfeld.

His discography includes Mendelssohn and Schumann duets with Ann Murray (DBE), accompanied by Malcolm Martineau; his debut solo disc “Stunden, Tage, Ewigkeiten” accompanied by James Baillieu, which was released in April 2016 on Champs Hill records; and a live recording of Schubert lieder with Graham Johnson for Wigmore Hall Live label.

Neal Davies

Neal Davies studied at King's College, London and the Royal Academy of Music, and won the Lieder Prize at the 1991 Cardiff Singer of the World Competition. He has appeared with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra under Mariss Jansons, BBC Symphony Orchestra under Pierre Boulez, Cleveland and Philharmonia orchestras under Christoph von Dohnányi, Chamber Orchestra of Europe under Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Frans Brüggen, English Concert with Harry Bicket, Gabrieli Consort under Paul McCreesh, Hallé Orchestra with Sirf Mark Elder, Concerto Koeln under Ivor Bolton, Scottish Chamber Orchestra with Adam Fischer, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra with Edward Gardner, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin with David Zinman, Melbourne Symphon Orchestra with Sir Andrew Davis, and the London Symphony and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras under Daniel Harding. He has been a regular guest of the Edinburgh Festival and BBC Proms.

His wide discography includes Messiah, Theodora, Saul and Creation (Gramophone Award 2008) under McCreesh, Jenufa and Makropulos Case under Sir Charles Mackerras, Barber’s Vanessa under Leonard Slatkin, Messiah under René Jacobs, the Hyperion Complete Schubert Edition with Graham Johnson, and Britten’s Billy Budd with Harding (Grammy Award, 2010).

Operatic appearances have included: Major General Stanley The Pirates of Penzance and Ko-Ko The Mikado for the Lyric Opera of Chicago; Giulio Cesare, Figaro Le nozze di Figaro and Alaska Wolf Joe The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden; L’Allegro, Zebul Jephtha, Publio La clemenza di Tito, Ariodates Xerxes, Kolenaty The Makropoulos Case and a new commission by Ryan Wigglesworth, A Winter’s Tale, for English National Opera; Radamisto for Opera de Marseille; Leporello Don Giovanni for Scottish Opera and Opera de Montreal; Curlew River for the Edinburgh Festival; Guglielmo and Don Alfonso Cosi fan tutte, Papageno Die Zauberflöte, Leporello, Dulcamara L’elisir d’amore, Zebul and Sharpless Madame Butterfly for the Welsh National Opera; Agrippina for the Deutsche Staatsoper Berlin. With William Christie and Les Arts Florissants, Neal has sung in Theodora (Paris and Salzburg) and in the Aix-en-Provence Festival production of Charpentier’s David et Jonathas (Aix, Edinburgh and New York), which is available on DVD. He sang Traveler in the Barbican Centre production of Curlew River, which toured to New York’s Lincoln Center, and Alaska Wolf Joe for the Opera di Roma.

Roberto Prosseda

Roberto Prosseda was born in Latina, Italy, in 1975. His Decca albums dedicated to Felix Mendelssohn, including the Piano Concerto No. 3 with the Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly, have won much acclaim in the press, including the CHOCfrom Le Monde de la Musique Classique, the Diapason d'Or and Chamber Music CD of the Month in the UK's Classic FM magazine. In 2010, Deutsche Grammophon selected twelve recordings by Prosseda to add to the box set, "Classic Gold" In 2014 Prosseda completed his 10-year project of recording all of Mendelssohn's piano works for Decca in 9 CDs. Roberto Prosseda has performed regularly with some of the world's most important orchestras, such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, Moscow State Philharmonic, Santa Cecilia, Filarmonica della Scala, Bruxelles Philharmonic, Residentie Orkest, Netherlands Symphony, Berliner Symphoniker, Staatskapelle Weimar, Calgary Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Leipzig

Other than Mendelssohn, whose piano music he is considered to be a leading interpreter of today, Prosseda's interpretations of Mozart, Schubert, Schumann and Chopin have been particularly praised, and these composers have in fact featured in Prosseda's recent Decca recordings. In 2015, Prosseda started the complete recording of Mozart's Piano Sonatas with a modern piano tuned with unequal temperament.

An active proponent of Italian music, Prosseda also recorded the complete piano works of Petrassi and Dallapiccola.

In September 2011 Prosseda gave his debut on the pedal piano, performing the Concerto for Pedal Piano by Gounod in the world premiere version for modern instrument. Concerts are planned in the coming seasons on this instrument, rediscovering the original compositions by Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Charles Valentin Alkan. Several composers, including Ennio Morricone, have already written new pieces for pedal piano for Roberto Prosseda, and a recording of Gounod's four pieces for pedal piano and orchestra with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana conducted by Howard Shelley, was released on the Hyperion label in fall 2013. Roberto Prosseda is also very active in musical divulgation. He wrote the book "Il Pianoforte" for Curci Editori (2013) and made three documentaries dedicated to Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt (Euroarts). He is currently artistic advisor at Cremona Musica International Exhibitions and president of the Associazione Mendelssohn.