Cellist Kian Soltani has emerged from Daniel Barenboim's West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, in which he has served as principal cellist and begun a significant solo career. Signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label, he has been exceptionally active as a recording artist, issuing six albums on the label in three years.

Soltani was born in Bregenz, Austria, on June 3, 1992. He is of Iranian background and came from a family of musicians. Soltani took up the cello at age four and showed major talent as a child, enrolling at the Basel Music Academy when he was 12. His teacher there was Ivan Monighetti. Soltani moved on to the Kronberg Academy in Germany's Taunus region, where he benefited from scholarship support from the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation and was a member of the Young Soloists' Program. He also studied at Liechtenstein's International Music Academy. He also studied at Liechtenstein's International Music Academy. Soltani made an impressive debut at age 19 at the Goldener Saal at Vienna's venerable Musikverein society, following it up with first prizes at the Paulo Cello Competition in Helsinki, the Karl Davidoff Competition in Latvia, and the Antonio Janigro Competition in Croatia.

After joining the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conductor Daniel Barenboim's pioneering ensemble uniting Israeli and Arab musicians, Soltani took a major role when he appeared as soloist in the Beethoven Triple Concerto, Op. 56, with Barenboim on piano, during the orchestra's 2015 tour, performing at the Lucerne and Salzburg Festivals and the Waldbühnen summer concert in Berlin. That led to other solo appearances at the BBC Proms and with such groups as the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, and the Orchestre de Paris. Soltani took a solo role in Strauss' Don Quixote under Barenboim in the West-Eastern Divan's 2017 tour and made a series of major appearances in Germany, Austria, and France during the 2017-2018 season. In 2017, he was signed to the Deutsche Grammophon label, and early in 2018, he released his debut album, Home, featuring works by Schubert and Schumann as well as his own folk song settings and those by Iranian composer Reza Vali. Soltani continued to be prominently featured in West-Eastern Divan Orchestra concerts into the early 2020s, and his solo career has grown as he has made concerto appearances with such groups as the Munich Philharmonic, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, and the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony. His chamber music appearances have been notable as he has collaborated with Daniel and Michael Barenboim in trios, and with other players, including Lahav Shani and Renaud Capuçon. In 2020, Soltani released two albums, one of Beethoven's piano trios with the Barenboims and one of Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, with the Staatskapelle Dresden. Soltani returned with the film music album Cello Unlimited in 2021. ~ James Manheim

The Staatskapelle Berlin, or Berlin State Orchestra, has an extraordinarily long history the reflects much of the central European history of music in its relationship to the state. Since the ascension of international superstar conductor Daniel Barenboim to the podium in 1992, the group has emerged as a major force on the international concert and recording scene. Several dates may be given for the founding of what became the Staatskapelle Berlin, but it took shape in the middle and late 16th century as the court of the Elector of Brandenburg developed new musical ensembles and began to forge close ties with the Prussian monarchy. In 1701 it became the Royal Prussian Court Orchestra, and as such attracted top musicians including Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Johann Joachim Quantz. In 1783 the orchestra gave one of the first modern symphonic concerts, independently of the court, at the Hotel Paris, and through the 19th century it was a giant of European musical life, with conductors including Spontini, Meyerbeer, and, from 1899 to 1913, Richard Strauss. For all of this period, and down to the present day, the orchestra also served as the house orchestra of the Royal Court Opera, established in 1742 by Frederick the Great and in modern times renamed the Berlin State Opera. The same conductor serves as Staatskapellmeister or state music director of both ensembles. During World War II, Herbert von Karajan served as music director. After the war, due to its location in East Berlin, the orchestra came under the control of what would become East Germany. It maintained some connections with the non-Communist West; its conductor from 1964 to 1990 was the Austrian Otmar Suitner, who was able to travel fairly freely between East and West. After German reunification, Daniel Barenboim became the orchestra's first non-German conductor in modern times and has been successful in bringing the orchestra's international profile to a new level. The orchestra made its first appearance at the BBC Proms in 2013 (in a cycle of Wagner's Ring operas), and in 2017 performed a complete cycle of Bruckner's symphonies at Carnegie Hall in New York (the first-ever such cycle mounted in the U.S.). The orchestra has recorded prolifically for Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, Teldec, Denon, Berlin Classics, and Warner Classics, among other labels, releasing a set of Brahms' four symphonies with Barenboim conducting in 2018. ~ James Manheim

Daniel Barenboim is a conductor and pianist of top international stature, known for an extraordinarily large orchestral and operatic repertoire. He is the general music director and chief conductor for life of the Staatsoper Berlin in Germany.

Barenboim was born in Buenos Aires on November 15, 1942, into a family of Ukrainian Jewish descent. His mother was his first piano teacher. He later studied with his father, Enrique Barenboim, who was an eminent music professor. After playing for the noted violinist Adolf Busch, who was impressed by his talent, Daniel made his debut recital at the age of seven. In 1951, he played at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and observed Igor Markevitch's conducting class. The family moved to Israel in 1952; two years later, Barenboim went back to Salzburg for a conducting course with Markevitch, piano studies with Edwin Fischer, and chamber music performance with Enrico Mainardi. He studied conducting with Carlo Zecchi at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, also attending Nadia Boulanger's music theory and composition class at Fontainebleau. His U.S. debut was at New York's Carnegie Hall on January 20, 1957, in Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Leopold Stokowski conducting the Symphony of the Air.

Debuts with leading orchestras included the London Symphony Orchestra (New York, 1968), Berlin Philharmonic (1969), and New York Philharmonic (1970). In 1967, Barenboim married the brilliant cellist Jacqueline Du Pré, with whom he made several exceptional recital recordings. Unfortunately, this partnership ended when Du Pré contracted multiple sclerosis, which forced her to end her playing career in 1972. She died in 1987. Barenboim began a long association with the Deutsche Grammophon label in 1972, and the following year, issued a recording of Bruckner's Symphony No. 4 in E flat major ("Romantic") with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He has maintained long relationships with both that orchestra and with Bruckner's music. In 1982, Barenboim issued an album of music by Ravel with the Orchestre de Paris. He has guest conducted virtually all of the world's leading orchestras.

In 1989, he was named Sir Georg Solti's successor as music director of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Barenboim became music director of the Staatsoper Berlin in 1992, then was named chief conductor for life by its orchestra in 2002. In 1999, along with Palestinian-American scholar Edward Said, Barenboim co-founded the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, a summer youth orchestra designed to foster understanding and cooperation, and he established the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin. Devoted to the training of young Arab and Israeli musicians, the school opened in 2016. A recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra appeared in 2013, and the group has spawned several young musicians with international careers, sometimes performing and recording with Barenboim.

Barenboim has a rich recorded repertoire as a conductor, pianist, accompanist, and chamber music player. Interestingly, as a pianist he tends to focus on Mozart, Beethoven, and the early Romantics, while as a conductor he favors later Romantic music, particularly Brahms and Bruckner (he has won a medal from the Bruckner Society of America). Barenboim's recorded output continued to be abundant through his ninth decade, including not only standard repertory but such novelties as On My New Piano (2016), an album devoted to the capabilities of an instrument custom-made for Barenboim by builder Chris Maene and based on a piano owned by Liszt. As a conductor, he continued to undertake lengthy, difficult scores by the likes of Bruckner and Mahler. His 2017 recording of Elgar's The Dream of Gerontius with the Staatskapelle Berlin was critically acclaimed. He has often issued more than a dozen recordings in the course of a single year, and by 2022, his recorded output included well over 500 releases. Early that year, he already had three albums on the docket for release: an album of Mozart and Strauss oboe concertos with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and oboist Cristina Gómez Godoy, an album of piano encores, and the annual Vienna Philharmonic New Year's Concert, which he has conducted multiple times. However, in early 2023, Barenboim stepped down from the Staatsoper, as his health prevented him from carrying out his duties to their fullest. ~ Joseph Stevenson & James Manheim