Artist Spotlights

Jane Glover, music director of Chicago’s Music of the Baroque since 2002 and recently named artistic director of Opera at London’s Royal Academy of Music, is a Baroque scholar, author, and opera conductor with a penchant for modern dance.

In his extraordinary 17-year run as music director of the San Francisco Opera, Donald Runnicles has enriched the cultural life of the Bay Area. As a conductor, he has shaped many memorable performances, bringing forth Wagner’s Ring of the Nibelungs cycle, John Adams’ Doctor Atomic, and Messiaen’s Saint François d’Assise with equal passion and acuity.

Cameron Carpenter is a rarity in the rarified world of classical organists. Flamboyant and virtuosic in performance, he has earned not only recognition among musicians, but also popularity as a soloist that overshadows all other exponents of the instrument.

Pianist Jonathan Biss talks about what it's like to grow up in a family of musicians, finding time for tennis and Philip Roth, and what's in store for Bay Area audiences.

Both of your parents are professional musicians: Your mother is violinist Miriam Fried, and your father is violist and violinist Paul Biss. What was family life like growing up?