The Panel
Sir Mark Elder CH CBE
Mark Elder has been Music Director of the Hallé since September 2000. He was Music Director of English National Opera (1979–93), Principal Guest Conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (1992–5) and Music Director of the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra (1989–94). He has also held positions as Principal Guest Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra and London Mozart Players.
He has worked with many of the world’s leading symphony orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw and Munich Philharmonic. He is a Principal Artist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and works regularly with the London Symphony Orchestra. He has appeared annually at the BBC Proms for many years, including the internationally televised Last Night of the Proms in 1987 and 2006, and from 2003 with the Hallé.
Mark Elder was knighted in 2008 and was awarded the CBE in 1989. He won an Olivier Award in 1991 for his outstanding work at ENO and in 2006 was named Conductor of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society, of which he was awarded Honorary Membership in 2011. And in 2017, Sir Mark Elder was awarded the Companion of Honour for services to music.
Professor Dr. Stephan Frucht
Stephan Frucht heads Siemens' culture and sponsoring programs and is the Artistic Director of Siemens' Arts Program. He studied music in Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media, and Violin at Berlin University of the Arts whilst studying human medicine at the Humboldt University Berlin, receiving his doctorate in 2002. He worked as a cultural officer in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, after which he was managing director in the culture circle of the German economy in the BDI, until joining Siemens in 2015.
Stephan Frucht has received several awards, including the Chamber Music Prize of the Berlin Broadcasting Company and prizes at Jugend musiziert (Youth makes music). Working as a conductor, he has released numerous CD recordings for Sony music and Haenssler Classics and has worked with orchestras including Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic, the German Symphony Orchestra and the Deutsche Opera Berlin and Bavarian State Orchestra. He is Honorary Professor at the University of Music in Karlsruhe and Chairman of the Society of University of Music in Munich.
Arna Kristín Einarsdóttir
Arna Kristin Einarsdottir was appointed Managing Director of Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra in late 2018. Formed in 1969, the Orchestra gives about 100 performances a year in Ottawa across Canada and around the globe, working with diverse artists of international renown under the inspiring leadership of Music Director, Alexander Shelley.
Ms. Einarsdottir spent 12 years at the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, initially serving as the orchestra’s concerts director and then Managing Director of the orchestra in 2013. In that role, she was responsible for meeting all its overall artistic and financial goals and managed a successful financial turnaround during her time as a manager. Arna led the search process and signed a three-year contract with the world-renowned conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier as Chief Conductor in 2015.
Ms. Einarsdottir further strengthened the ISO’s artistic team by creating an assistant conductor position, as well as a composer-in-residence, signing Daniel Bjarnason and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, two of Iceland’s most prominent composers. In 2011, the orchestra moved into a new concert hall, Harpa, which has become one of Reykjavík’s landmarks and has more than two million visitors a year. In addition, the Orchestra took part in the BBC Proms in 2014, and was invited to perform in the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra’s subscription series in 2017.
Before moving into management, Ms. Einarsdottir played second flute with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra from 2000–2004 and had a successful career as a flautist, in both Iceland and England.
John Summers
Chief Executive of the Hallé since 1999, John Summers was formerly Chief Executive of the Northern Sinfonia. He studied the cello at Trinity College of Music and after graduation worked in Scotland. While working as a freelance cellist with the Northern Sinfonia he was appointed to the management, culminating in his appointment as Chief Executive in 1989. He was actively involved in the planning of the Sage, Gateshead before moving to manage the Hallé in Manchester.
Since joining the Hallé he has been responsible for a number of new initiatives, including a significant expansion of the Orchestra’s Education and Ensemble Programme, and the setting up of the Hallé’s own recording label. He was a member of the Board of the Association of British Orchestras from 1991 with a special interest in Education and Outreach matters, and in 1995 was appointed Chairman through until 1998. John was Lead Adviser for Music to the Arts Council of England from 2003 – 2005 and is currently President of the Lakeland Concerts Society.
Carola Reul
Carola Reul is Managing Director of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie, an orchestra that prepares selected students from German-speaking Music Conservatoires aged 18 to 28 for the life of professional orchestra musicians. Prior to this role, which she took up in May 2019, she was Senior Project Manager at the Orchestral Department of the Konzertdirektion Schmid from 2013, where she continued the long standing relationship between the Hallé Orchestra and KD Schmid with her touring activities for the orchestra.
She studied music at the University of Würzburg, trained as a music teacher for secondary education and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Cultural Management at City University, London. During her time at City University she worked as an intern at the BBC Symphony Orchestra, where she gained first insights in the operations of a professional orchestra. She held positions in both the Artist and Touring Departments at the classical music agency Harrison Parrott UK, before moving to KD Schmid in 2007. From 2012 until the end of 2018 she served as an elected board member of the International Artist Manager’s Association (IAMA).
Geoffrey Owen
Geoffrey Owen took over the Artistic Planning of the Hallé Concerts Society in 2001, and since then has worked alongside Sir Mark Elder and John Summers planning the work of the Orchestra and Choir, securing touring engagements, guest artists, negotiating their repertoire and controlling the artistic budget.
On graduation from Bristol University with a degree in music in 1975, he spent two years as a violinist with the Academy of the BBC, before joining the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera. In 1983 he moved to London, where he ran a small concert agency before joining Van Walsum Management, serving latterly as a director of the company. Between 1985 and 2001 his brief included the company’s many orchestral concert promotions, festivals and series at London’s Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican and in Luzern, as well as many orchestra tours throughout Europe and the UK.
Julia Albrecht
Julia Albrecht grew up in a family of musicians. She completed her law degree in Berlin by successfully passing the German First State Examination. In 1995, she started working at KD SCHMID as an artists manager. Ten years later, she took a break to start a family and her own business in Hanover, working on local classical music projects, fundraising and public relations. One of her major clients was the “Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition 2012”, for which she held the position of managing director.
In March 2013, she returned to Konzertdirektion Schmid as the Director of the Artist Management Department. She was a jury member of the “Gundlach Music Prize” for the Hanover University of Music and Drama for many years and for the International Telekom Beethoven Competition Bonn in 2017.