Concertmaster of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra since 2008, Andrew Wan is also active as a soloist and chamber music player. He is also a professor at Montreal's McGill University and a member of the New Orford String Quartet.

Wan was born in 1983 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. He took up the violin as a kindergartner but attended a competitive high school where technical careers were favored, and at first, he did not aim toward a musical career. However, he applied to the Juilliard School in New York and was admitted, studying there with Ron Copes and Masao Kawasaki. He stayed on for a master's degree at Juilliard and was admitted into the prestigious Artist Diploma program, winning the school's concerto competition with a performance of Elgar's Violin Concerto in B minor, Op. 61. The work would play an important part in Wan's developing career: in 2007, he played the concerto again with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra at the OSM Standard Life Competition and won the grand prize, impressing local critics and audiences in Montreal. Conductor Kent Nagano invited Wan to audition for the orchestra's open concertmaster position, and in 2008, Wan accepted the position. He was among the youngest concertmasters of a major symphony orchestra anywhere in the world. Wan continued his career as a soloist, playing dates around the western hemisphere, in China, and Switzerland, and he has often played violin concertos with the Montreal Symphony. These included a new work written for him, Serge Arcuri's Les mouvements de l'âme. He has appeared at such venues as Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center, and the Salle Gaveau in Paris.

Wan has recorded the three violin concertos of Saint-Saëns with Nagano and the Montreal Symphony for the Analekta label, and he has also appeared in ensembles on recordings for Onyx, Bridge, ATMA, and Naxos. In 2018, with pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin, he recorded an album of Beethoven violin sonatas for Analekta. Wan is on the faculty at McGill University's Schulich School of Music, and he has also taught classes at Quebec's Orford Musique (Orford Music Festival). ~ James Manheim

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal (Montreal Symphony Orchestra) has established itself as one of the best orchestras in North America. Through the leadership of several world-class music directors, the OSM has toured across the world, accompanied soloists and opera productions, and received acclaim for many of its recordings.

The OSM was founded in 1934 as the Concerts symphoniques de Montréal (several Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal's were founded and failed in the late 19th to early 20th centuries). The CSM came to be through the financial support of Athanase David, the Secretary of the Province of Quebec. The orchestra's first music director was Wilfrid Pelletier, who began the CSM's community outreach with youth matinee concerts and the Festival de Montréal, which offered free concerts to the public until 1964. Désiré Defauw became the music director in 1940, and she began to draw in international soloists to perform with the orchestra. Defauw departed the CSM in 1952, and in 1953, the orchestra was renamed Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. In 1957, Igor Markevitch became the music director, bringing with him an advancement of contemporary music and beginning the yearly commissioning of new works from Canadian composers. During Markevitch's tenure, the OSM became a fully professional orchestra.

Zubin Mehta was named the music director in 1961, and it was during his tenure that the orchestra became an international success. Mehta led the OSM on the first-ever European tour by a Canadian orchestra in 1962. In 1963, the orchestra opened a new residence, the Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier, in the Place des Arts. In this venue, the OSM performed its first opera production, Puccini's Tosca. Franz-Paul Decker succeeded Mehta in 1967 and continued the orchestra's touring activities, taking the OSM to Japan in 1970. Under Decker, the OSM began a series of pop concerts to reach a broader audience in Montreal. Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos served as the music director from 1975-1976, taking the orchestra to New York for its first performance at Carnegie Hall. Frühbeck de Burgos' tenure ended following public disagreements, for which he apologized in 2002.

With Frühbeck de Burgos' departure, the OSM performed under guest conductors. One of these, Charles Dutoit, was named the new music director in 1977, beginning a nearly 25-year partnership. Shortly after the appointment of Dutoit, the OSM signed with the Decca label. The orchestra's first recording with Decca, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, was an international success. Dutoit would lead the OSM on tours throughout North and South America, Europe, and Asia. Under Dutoit, the orchestra won two Grammy Awards, for Berlioz's Les Troyens in 1996 and, with Martha Argerich in 2000, for an album of Prokofiev and Bartòk piano concertos. In 2002, Dutoit stepped down following animosity with the musicians of the OSM; he returned for the first time as a guest conductor in 2016. Jacques Lacombe served as principal guest conductor from 2002-2006, leading the OSM in the interim period between the announcement of new music director Kent Nagano in 2003 and the beginning of his tenure in 2006. Under Nagano, the OSM resumed its international tours, opened the Maison Symphonique, and launched a webcast series. Nagano remained with the OSM until the close of the 2019-2020 season.

The Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal has recorded mainly on Decca and London, but also for EMI and Analekta, among others. The orchestra, conducted by Nagano, won the Diapason d'Or for its 2016 Decca release of Honegger & Ibert's opera L'Aiglon. The OSM issued two albums, both under Nagano, in 2019: an Analekta release of Chopin concertos with Charles Richard-Hamelin and The John Adams Album, on Decca. ~ Keith Finke

Given the impact of his career upon music, it seems incredible that Kent Nagano almost became a lawyer. Nagano has proven himself a powerhouse in the operatic and orchestral realms, championing the music of the 20th and 21st centuries. He is best known for his long association with the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, the Opéra National de Lyon, and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, as well as a critically acclaimed recording career.

Nagano was born in Berkeley, California, on November 22, 1951. Despite thorough musical training beginning at age six and obvious talent, Nagano simultaneously worked toward degrees at the University of California, Santa Cruz in sociology and music in 1974 before moving on to San Francisco State University in 1976 to study law. There, composition courses with Grosvenor Cooper and Roger Nixon turned him toward music, and an encounter with Laszlo Varga -- former first cellist of the New York Philharmonic under Walter, Mitropoulos, and Bernstein -- prompted him toward conducting. Though he no longer composes, Nagano has said, "While I seemed to be quite able from the point of view of craftsmanship, I was not very good at the creative aspects! However, having the skills of composition only increases the admiration that one can have for the exceptionally talented who have composed great works." His apprenticeship was spent under Sarah Caldwell at the Opera Company of Boston from 1977 to 1979, where he eventually became an assistant conductor.

In 1978, Nagano was named music director of the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra, a post he held until 2009. It was with the Berkeley Symphony in 1982 where he led the first American performance of Pfitzner's opera Palestrina. As assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, he stood in, without rehearsal, to conduct Mahler's Symphony No. 9 in 1984. An adventurous spirit and a major interpretive grasp were clearly at work. These traits were confirmed when Olivier Messiaen tapped Nagano to assist Seiji Ozawa in preparing the world premiere of his sprawling, luminous opera Saint François d'Assise in 1984, a work Nagano later recorded. His years as musical director of the Opéra National de Lyon (1988 to 1998) were marked by a number of distinguished premieres (including Peter Eötvös' opera Three Sisters, which he commissioned) and recordings, including Debussy's abandoned opera Rodrigue et Chimène, John Adams' Death of Klinghoffer, Busoni's comic opera double bill of Arlecchino and Turandot, and his testament, the unfinished Doktor Faust (with alternate completions by Philipp Jarnach and Antony Beaumont). As music director of the Hallé Orchestra from 1991 until 2000, he recorded John Adams' El Niño and the four-act version of Britten's Billy Budd.

Nagano was named the principal conductor and music director of the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in 2000. The following year, he took up the role of principal conductor of the Los Angeles Opera and transitioned to become the company's first-ever music director in 2003. In 2006, Nagano stepped down from his positions with the Los Angeles Opera and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester to take up the post of music director for both the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Bavarian State Opera. He still maintains a relationship with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, whose members named him Honorary Conductor. He exited his Bavarian State Opera at the end of his contract in 2013, taking up the general music director and chief conductor posts for the Hamburg State Opera in 2015, with a contract extension through 2025. Nagano left the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal in 2020, which named him conductor emeritus in 2021.

Nagano is married to pianist Mari Kodama, and together they issued a complete recording of Beethoven's works for piano and orchestra. ~ Adrian Corleonis & Keith Finke