Rising stars: ten to watch in 2025–26

As the new season gets under way (in the northern hemisphere, at least), it’s time to draw your attention to a handful of exciting young talents to watch – and listen – out for in the coming months. As someone who edits reviews from around the globe, I come across many new names, but have mostly limited myself here to those performers I have seen in action during the past year. 

Fleur Barron

I’ve seen mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron three times in the past season, most recently at the Salzburg Festival where she jumped into Peter Sellars’ imaginative double bill One Morning Turns into an Eternity, where she sang Der Abschied from Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde (paired, improbably but brilliantly, with Schoenberg’s Erwartung). Mahler has been a significant addition to Barron’s repertoire; her luscious, dark mezzo is so well suited to his music that she could easily fill her diary with it. Thankfully, her coming season offers variation, everything from Handel to contemporary.

Hugh Cutting

Handel is always going to be fertile terrain for young countertenors and it was in Garsington Opera’s Rodelinda this summer that Hugh Cutting impressed me, not just for his beautiful tone, but his rapidfire coloratura too. A former BBC New Generation Artist, Cutting was the first countertenor to win the Kathleen Ferrier Award. The coming season has bags of Handel, including Arsace (Partenope) at English National Opera, Didymus in Theodora with Ensemble Jupiter, Unulfo in Rodelinda when Garsington’s production transfers to Santa Fe Opera, and Tolomeo (Giulio Cesare) at The Grange Festival.

Irène Duval

Last autumn, I attended all five Wigmore Hall recitals programmed by Steven Isserlis to mark the centenary of the death of Gabriel Fauré. Among the starry names – Isserlis, Joshua Bell, Jeremy Denk – young French-Korean violinist Irène Duval more than held her own, playing with assurance and gorgeous tone, even when plunged into Fauré’s Second Violin Sonata a few days earlier than planned due to Bell suffering a bout of food poisoning! A prize-winner at the 2021 Young Classical Artists Trust International Audition, Duval’s new season includes a recital celebrating Stephen Kovacevich’s 85th birthday.

Adam Hickox

You’ll know the surname. Yes, Adam Hickox is the son of the late (and still much missed) Richard Hickox. Opera plays a big part in his musical life. Last year he became Principal Conductor of the Glyndebourne Sinfonia, which plays the autumn season in Sussex, our review praising the “extremes of contrast and thrilling detail” in La traviata. This season he conducts Weinberg’s The Passenger at Dutch National Opera. On the concert platform, the new season sees Hickox take up his position of Chief Conductor of the Trondheim Symphony.

Jaeden Izik-Dzurko

Canadian pianist Jaeden Izik-Dzurko had a dazzling 2024, winning both the Leeds International Piano Competition and the first Canadian Grand Prize Laureate at an instrumental edition of the Concours musical international de Montréal. “Composed, respectful and, above all, thoughtful,” was how our reviewer summed up his Brahms 2 in concert the day after his Leeds victory. Izik-Dzurko displays artistic maturity and technical finesse, and his career is definitely worth following.

Oliver Leith

“It experiments with theatrical and musical ideas, never self-indulgently, and stirs the emotions by haunting the mind with suggestion rather than blatancy.” It was editing Mark Valencia’s review of Last Days that put composer Oliver Leith on my radar. His opera, premiered at the Linbury Theatre, traces the self-destructive spiral of a rock star escaped from rehab. A sell-out hit, the show returns this autumn. The world premiere of Garland, a large-scale new work for orchestra and chorus of 118 performers, takes place later this month. Recent works include will o wisp, a work for strings.

Cecilia Molinari

One of the highlights of last year’s visit to the Donizetti Festival in Bergamo was encountering young Italian mezzo Cecilia Molinari, singing Abenamet in Zoraida di Granata. Her voice is dark, but lithe and athletic, great for bel canto and Baroque. This season sees her sing the title role when Robert Carsen’s production of Ariodante is revived at Opéra de Paris, plus Dorabella (Così fan tutte) for Lyric Opera of Chicago, and a pair of Cherubinos (Dutch National Opera and Opera di Roma).

Ersan Mondtag

Opera Ballet Vlanderen has been a happy hunting ground for young German director Ersan Mondtag. His 2020 production there of Franz Schreker’s Der Schmied von Gent marked his opera debut, followed by Kurt Weill’s Der Silbersee. I loved his grotesque, gripping Salome in Antwerp last season, a bold production that ends with a great coup d’état plot twist. This season sees a step into the operatic big time: directing the first ever staging of The Pearl Fishers at the Wiener Staatsoper.

Opus13

This year has been a big one for Swedish-Norwegian string quartet Opus13, winning the First Prize and five Special Prizes at the Wigmore Hall International String Quartet Competition, as well as First Prize and a clean sweep of all the Special Prizes at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition. Reviewing them recently at the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival in Norway, Nick Boston praised their impressive virtuosity and spirit. The quartet is led by violinist Sonoko Miriam Welde who, with her colleagues, inaugurated a new chamber music festival this year, Vinterspill på Lillehammer.

Mishka Rushdie Momen

I first became aware of Mishka Rushdie Momen as a chamber music partner to Steven Isserlis, well remembering their recital together in an empty Wigmore Hall during lockdown, their music-making bringing great joy to the online audience. Mishka is an exceptionally fine pianist, unflashy but sensitive, getting to the musical heart of whatever she plays. Her latest album, titled Reformation, includes music by William Byrd, John Bull, Orlando Gibbons and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck performed on the modern piano, a programme she plays at the London Piano Festival at Kings Place in October.

See our picks for rising stars in dance in 2025–26.

^{Top row: Fleur Barron © Victoria Cadisch, Jaeden Izik-Dzurko © Waldy Martens, Cecilia Molinari © Alina Fezjo, Ersan Mondtag © Wilke Weermann, Mishka Rushdie Momen © Benjamin Ealovega; Bottom: Hugh Cutting © Olivia da Costa, Irène Duval © Kaupo Kikkas, Opus13 © Elvira Glänte, Oliver Leith © Faber Music, Adam Hickox © Benjamin Ealovega}