Haydn Festival

Aya Yoshida (*1992) is a Japanese composer who studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Niels Rosing Schow and Jeppe Just Christensen. In addition to composition, she has also studied cello and classical singing.

Yoshida’s works have been performed in Japan, USA and Europe, including by the Arditti Quartet (2014), the Danish National Symphony Orchestra (2016) and the Royal Danish Orchestra (2024). In November 2017, Yoshida’s opera “The Shadow” premiered in Copenhagen, commemorating the 150th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Japan and Denmark, to great acclaim.
Aya Yoshida has already received a number of awards in her young composing career, including first prize in the Zemlinsky Competition (2019), a final place in the Luciano Berio Competition (2022) and the Dutch Gaudeamus Prize.

Professor emeritus of legal history at the University of Copenhagen; published extensively on legal and cultural history and regularly appears in media and lectures..

Emöke Baráth quickly rose to prominence on the international stage by winning a series of prestigious competitions - including the Cesti Competition in Innsbruck and the Grand Prix de l'Académie du Verbier Festival. She gained widespread recognition for her portrayal of Sesto in Handel's Giulio Cesare. Shortly thereafter, she made a brilliant debut at the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence as Elena in Cavalli’s opera of the same name.

Alongside her evident virtuosity, music lovers have found in Emöke's voice a uniquely distinctive timbre, with the most delicate nuances in the upper register - qualities that have been brought to life in a remarkably diverse repertoire under the direction of some of today’s leading conductors. These include Monteverdi's Orfeo (Ivan Fischer), Handel's Alcina (Emmanuelle Haïm), The Marriage of Figaro (Marc Minkowski) and Cavalli's Hipermestra (William Christie).

In addition to her regular appearances as a soloist with the Danish Chamber Orchestra, Emöke Baráth performs with many of the leading orchestras and ensembles in the classical music world, including Les Arts Florissants, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Concerto Köln, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Washington Symphony Orchestra, and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra. Emöke is also featured on a number of CD releases, including solo albums as well as several collaborations with Philippe Jaroussky.

Gyula Rab is a Hungarian tenor who has been associated with the Staatstheater am Gärtnerplatz in Munich since 2018. He has sung Tamino in The Magic Flute, Count Almaviva in The Barber of Seville and Ramiro in Rossini's La Cenerentola. Gyula completed his studies at the Royal College of Music in London after studying under the legendary Éva Marton in Budapest.

Though still early in his career, Gyula Rab has already appeared on some of Europe’s most prestigious stages, including Theater an der Wien, Wiener Volksoper, the Hungarian State Opera, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, and Concertgebouw Amsterdam. He has worked with equally prominent conductors such as Jakub Hrůša and Barbara Hannigan.

Named Musical America’s “New Artist of the Month” and featured as “One to Watch” in Gramophone Magazine, as well as recipient of the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2022 and numerous other awards, Jonathan Swensen is currently one of the most exciting Danish names on the international music scene.

He has performed as a soloist with most of Denmark’s regional orchestras, as well as with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and several others. His solo recitals have taken him to some of the most prestigious concert halls across the United States.

In 2022, Jonathan released his debut CD featuring works for solo cello, including Bent Sørensen’s Farewell-Fantasia, composed and dedicated to Jonathan. The album received outstanding reviews from publications such as Gramophone, BBC Music, and The Strad.

Mikael Rothstein, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Comparative Religion at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and Research Professor affiliated with Museum Lolland-Falster. As a historian of religion, he has spent decades studying creation myths from around the world. At today’s event, he will speak about mythology in general and biblical myths in particular. Rothstein is currently working on the religious history of the Stone Age, but has for many years studied religious practices of nomadic hunter-gatherer cultures, as well as modern spiritual movements and emerging religions. He has authored and edited numerous books, most recently Jeg er en jaguar (2023) and, together with Olav Hammer, Religionskritikken i Danmark (2024).

Born in Budapest in 1979, Miklós Sebestyén rose to international prominence following his success at the Belvedere Singing Competition in Vienna, which opened the doors to performances at some of the world’s most prestigious opera houses—including the Metropolitan Opera in New York, La Scala, Covent Garden, Teatro Real in Madrid, the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and Theater an der Wien.

His major roles include, among many others, Figaro, Duke Bluebeard, Leporello, and King Marke in Tristan und Isolde. He has also enjoyed great success on the concert stage, performing works by Haydn, Bach, Mozart, and Bartók, in collaboration with renowned conductors such as Riccardo Chailly, Fabio Luisi, and Lorin Maazel.

Valdemar Wenzel Most, 19, grew up in a musical family and, alongside his focus on the piano, has played cello with the Zapolski Strings and sung in the Copenhagen Royal Chapel Choir. He is currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree in piano under Kirill Gerstein at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. From the age of ten until September 2024, he studied with Bella Zapolski.

In 2023, Valdemar was awarded Second Prize and the Carl Nielsen Prize at the Aarhus International Piano Competition. In 2024, he received the Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl-Nielsen Foundation’s Talent Prize, along with several other distinctions—most recently being named “P2 Talent of the Year 2025.”

Already well on his way to an international career, Valdemar has performed in cities such as Oslo, Kraków, Stockholm, and Vienna, alongside artists including Torleif Thedéen, Andreas Brantelid, Marianna Shirinyan, Ludvig Gudim, and Anna Agafia.

Hungarian-born Adam Fischer (b. 1949) studied at the Conservatory in Budapest and continued his training in Vienna. He is a highly sought-after conductor in both opera and symphonic repertoire and has collaborated with many of the world’s leading opera houses and concert halls.

In 2019, he was awarded the prestigious Wolf Prize, named Conductor of the Year by Presto Classical, and received the Orchestral Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards for his recording of Mahler’s First Symphony with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra.

In 2022, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA), and in February 2025, he was honored with two Special Achievement Awards from the same institution—one for his “sustained social and humanitarian commitment and innovative programming,” and the other for his recent Schubert–Dvořák album with the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra, as well as his recordings of Haydn’s late symphonies with the Danish Chamber Orchestra.

In 2006, Fischer founded the festival Wagner Days in Budapest, which he has developed into a world-class event in his role as artistic director—hailed by The New York Times as “Bayreuth on the Danube.”