THE CADENZA RECAP · June 2026 · The month in world classical music
June is the month the classical world plans its future. In the lull between the closing concerts of one season and the quiet of high summer, orchestras and opera houses across Europe unveiled the conductors who will lead them into the next decade, competition juries from Montréal to Odense sent a new generation of musicians out into the profession, and the field paused to remember colleagues who had shaped it. Here is the month — who, what, and when.
Podium & Appointments
The appointments came almost daily. It began in Düsseldorf: on June 1, the American conductor Evan Rogister was named General Music Director of Deutsche Oper am Rhein, taking up a five-year term in the 2027/28 season. The next day, June 2, the Munich Radio Orchestra named Leo Hussain its next Music Director.
Geneva made one of the month's marquee hires. On June 8, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande appointed Tugan Sokhiev as its Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser, succeeding Jonathan Nott after nine years — a notable return to a permanent orchestral home for one of the most in-demand conductors of his generation.
Tugan Sokhiev, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande's incoming Principal Conductor and Artistic Adviser. Photo: Philo Toutou, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Nordic countries had a particularly busy month. On June 10, the Finnish National Opera and Ballet in Helsinki named Dima Slobodeniouk its Principal Conductor, starting this August. Six days later, on June 16, the Tampere Philharmonic turned to one of the youngest chief conductors anywhere — the 25-year-old Kristian Sallinen, who takes the title in 2027. Germany added its own: on June 9, the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra named Lithuania's Vilmantas Kaliūnas to lead it from the 2027/28 season.
Two orchestras chose to deepen partnerships they already had. Also on June 10, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra extended Manfred Honeck through 2033; by the end of that contract he will have led the orchestra for 25 years — longer than any music director in its 131-year history.
Manfred Honeck, whose Pittsburgh Symphony contract now runs through 2033. Photo: Reinhold Möller, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
In London, the Philharmonic extended Karina Canellakis as Principal Guest Conductor through the 2029/30 season (June 16), a steadying hand as the orchestra moves from Edward Gardner to Paavo Järvi. The month closed with two more appointments: on June 23 the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra named the Dutch conductor Antony Hermus its Chief Conductor from September 2027, succeeding Ryan Wigglesworth; and on June 30, Stephen Buzard was appointed Director of Music at Grace Cathedral, San Francisco.
Competitions & Winners
June is competition season, and the string players had the best of it. Congratulations to all of the month's first-prize winners:
- Concours Musical International de Montréal (violin edition): Japan's Koshiro Takeuchi took first prize and CAD 70,000, with Sara Watanabe and Laurel Gagnon also among the prizewinners. The competition ran May 27–June 4.
- Michael Hill International Violin Competition (25th edition, Auckland): Italian-Australian violinist Beatrice Colombis won first prize — NZ$40,000 and a recording — around June 8.
- Irving M. Klein International String Competition (41st edition, San Francisco): 18-year-old American cellist Starla Breshears won first prize and $5,000, out of a field of players barely older than she is.
- Khachaturian International Competition (cello division, Yerevan): Germany's Cosima Regina Federle, 24, took first prize and $10,000 in mid-June.
- Hans Gabor Belvedere Singing Competition (44th edition, Jūrmala, Latvia): South Korean bass-baritone Sungmin Park won first prize and €10,000; the finals ran through June 7.
- Carl Nielsen International Competition (flute division, Odense): Paris-based Italian flautist Federico Altare took first prize, announced June 17.
In Memoriam
The month asked the classical world to say a great many goodbyes — to players and singers, scholars and craftspeople:
- Hart Hollman, a violist with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra for more than half a century and its unofficial photographer, died June 4, aged 78.
- Ute Walther, the German mezzo-soprano and long-serving member of Deutsche Oper Berlin, died June 6, aged 83.
- Bruno Turner, the British musicologist and choral conductor who championed early Spanish polyphony, died June 9, aged 95.
- Ruth Watson Henderson, the Canadian composer and pianist behind more than 200 choral works, died June 9, aged 93.
- Jan Málek, the Czech composer, died June 10, aged 88.
- Hans Gerd Klais, head of the celebrated Klais organ-building workshop in Bonn, died June 11, aged 95.
- Vladimir Sapozhnikov, the Russian composer, and his wife, the musicologist Larisa Vorontsovskaya, died after a railway-crossing collision near St. Petersburg; he was 81, she was 74.
- Justin Pierce, a 19-year-old American oboist, died June 14.
- Prasad Sawkar, the Indian classical vocalist and teacher, died June 17, aged 97.
- Désiré N'Kaoua, the French pianist, died June 19, aged 93.
- Erie Mills, the American soprano who later led Livermore Valley Opera, died June 23, aged 73.
- Thomas Fey, the German conductor and Harnoncourt pupil known for his cycle of Haydn symphonies, died in late June, aged 65.
- Reinhard von Nagel, the German-born harpsichord maker whose Paris workshop built more than a thousand instruments, died in late June, aged 89.
Orchestra & Opera
Two Washington institutions dominated the American news. On June 4, the National Symphony Orchestra issued an unusually public statement about its future amid financial uncertainty at its Kennedy Center home, alongside a change of board chair. Around June 12, Washington National Opera went further and sued the Kennedy Center over frozen funds — bequest and donation money the company says had been tied up as collateral — after the end of their partnership earlier in the year.
In Britain, English Touring Opera announced on June 25 that its Music Director, Gerry Cornelius, will step down in October after five years.
There was happier news in the recording studio. On June 30, Sir John Eliot Gardiner unveiled the debut recording of his new ensemble, the Constellation Orchestra and Chorus: a period-instrument account of Mendelssohn's A Midsummer Night's Dream, paired with Die erste Walpurgisnacht, for the Aparté label.
Sir John Eliot Gardiner, whose new Constellation Orchestra and Chorus announced its debut recording. Photo: Maciej Schumacher, CC BY-SA, via Wikimedia Commons.
There were debuts and premieres, too. On June 12, conductor Andrey Boreyko and cellist Maximilian Hornung both made their debuts with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, in a program of Lyadov, Shostakovich, and Stravinsky. On June 16, Tapestry Opera in Toronto gave the Canadian premiere of Rene Orth's 10 Days in a Madhouse, based on the story of the journalist Nellie Bly. And violinist Alina Ibragimova signed to the BIS label for a period-instrument cycle of the Beethoven violin sonatas with pianist Cédric Tiberghien.
Violinist Alina Ibragimova, who signed to BIS for a Beethoven sonata cycle with Cédric Tiberghien. Photo: Sussie Ahlburg, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Not every story was a happy one. Late in the month, on June 26, the baritone Matthias Goerne withdrew from performances of Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle and a recital with the Israel Philharmonic, citing personal reasons and the situation in the region; Robert Bork stepped in for the staged performances.
Baritone Matthias Goerne. Photo: Alexander Böhm, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Month in Numbers
- 7 — new chief or principal conductors named across European orchestras and opera houses, plus two contract extensions
- 6 — international competitions that crowned first-prize winners
- 25 — the age of Kristian Sallinen, the Tampere Philharmonic's incoming chief conductor
- 18 — the age of Starla Breshears, who won the Klein Competition outright
- 2033 — the year through which Manfred Honeck is now signed in Pittsburgh, a 25-year franchise record
- 14 — the musicians, scholars, and instrument makers remembered in this month's In Memoriam
The season ahead: Barbara Hannigan in Reykjavík
Not every headline this month was about a job just won. In June, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra unveiled the first season of Barbara Hannigan's tenure as its Chief Conductor and Artistic Director — a role she was named to back in 2024 and formally takes up this August, at the start of the 2026/27 season.
Barbara Hannigan begins her tenure as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Iceland Symphony Orchestra this autumn. Photo: Lelli e Masotti, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
It is the first chief-conductorship of a career Hannigan has built in two disciplines at once — as one of the most adventurous sopranos of her time and, increasingly, as a conductor — and she will hold it alongside her continuing role as Principal Guest Conductor of the Gothenburg Symphony. For a national orchestra on an island of some 400,000 people, the season she has planned is a statement of ambition. It feels like the right place to leave June: not with a look back, but with a new era in Reykjavík only weeks away.
The Cadenza Recap returns on the first of every month. Reporting in this edition was drawn from June 2026 coverage by Slippedisc, The Violin Channel, The Strad, OperaWire, Gramophone, Bachtrack, Classic FM, San Francisco Classical Voice, the Canadian Music Centre, the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, and official orchestra and competition announcements. Spotted something we should cover in July? Send it to the newsroom.
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