As the new season begins, it’s a good time to draw your attention to the exciting young talents on the classical and operatic scenes. Many are performers I have seen myself but, editing around 1000 reviews from around the world each year, I’m also in a great position to get the inside track on new faces from further afield. These are definitely young performers well worth seeking out in the coming season.
Ava Bahari
Accomplished young Swedish violinist Ava Bahari is currently in the middle of an Artist-in-Residence with Gothenburg Symphony and has been selected as an ECHO Rising Star for 2026–27 season. With the GSO, she made a terrific debut recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto, where her mesmeric storytelling qualities shine, as well as her silvery tone. Bahari plays on a Stradivarius, made in Cremona in 1694, on loan by the Anders Sveaas’ Almennyttige Fond.
Monica Conesa
When I was invited to Milan in 2023 to watch Riccardo Muti’s Italian Opera Academy rehearsing a concert performance of Norma at the Fondazione Prada, I was impressed not only by the young conductors and orchestra – his “ragazzi” – being put through their paces, but also the young cast, led by Cuban-American soprano Monica Conesa in the title role. She soaked up Muti’s instructions like a sponge, has a fabulous soprano and struck me as a really promising talent. La Scala obviously thinks so too as next year she has been given two performances singing the title role in their new production of Anna Bolena.
Alexandra Dovgan
Young Russian pianist Alexandra Dovgan (born 2007) began studying piano at the age of four, A year later, she passed the entry selection to join the Academic Central Music School of Moscow State Conservatory. Competition wins earned prestigious engagements at places like the Salzburg Festival. I saw her play in Vienna last season, performing piano concertos by both Robert and Clara Schumann, where she displayed maturity and poise beyond her years. I like this comment by the great Grigory Sokolov who said that “she can hardly be called a Wunderkind, for while this is a wonder, it is not child’s play.”
Axelle Fanyo
French soprano Axelle Fanyo has attracted positive reviews, not least for her performances last year at Opera di Roma in Kaija Saariaho’s Adriana Mater and the title role in Ariadne auf Naxos, as well as her duo recital with Fleur Barron (one of last year’s Bachtrack Rising Stars) at the Athénée, Paris. She returns to Rome to take the title role in Iphigénie en Tauride next spring, but before then she makes her English National Opera debut leading Annilese Miskimmon’s new production of Tosca this autumn.
Jack Furness
Welsh director and designer Jack Furness has gone from strength to strength in recent seasons. In 2025 he directed a gripping Queen of Spades at Garsington, cleverly recycling elements of the festival’s earlier Eugene Onegin, and a gripping Hamlet for Buxton. On a similarly tight budget, he created tense psychological drama in Welsh National Opera’s Flying Dutchman. This summer he returned to Garsington for Gerald Barry’s anarchic The Importance of Being Earnest – plate-smashing galore! He is the founder and Artistic Director of Shadwell Opera.
Thomas Mole
Young British baritone Thomas Mole has just finished his final season as a member of the Bayerische Staatsoper ensemble, where I saw him last December as the Father in Hänsel und Gretel. I caught him again in the summer, where he made his role debut as Billy Budd, “full of wide-eyed innocence” in the classy revival of Michael Grandage’s excellent Glyndebourne production. This season sees him make his US debut, with appearances at San Francisco Opera and Santa Fe Opera.
Harry Sever
Living in Winchester back then, I well remember Winchester College pupil Harry Sever winning the BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year in 2003. For some reason, the name stuck and then I started seeing it pop up recently, not least when he was a finalist in the LSO's Donatella Flick Conducting Competition. He served as Longborough Festival Opera’s conducting fellow, assisting the revered Wagnerian Anthony Negus. Last summer, Sever impressed with his conducting of Das Rheingold, the start of Grange Park Opera’s Ring cycle. He returns for Die Walküre next summer.
Matilda Sterby
I’ve twice been hugely impressed by Swedish soprano Matilda Sterby: firstly as the Countess in an otherwise pretty dire production of Le nozze di Figaro in Vienna; and as the Marschallin in this summer’s revival of Bruno Ravella’s classy Rosenkavalier at Garsington. For such a young singer, she has natural poise and grace, as well as a gloriously creamy soprano, absolutely ideal for Strauss. It’s little wonder that she was awarded the prestigious Birgit Nilsson Stipendium in 2024. Highlights in the coming season include Freia in the Bayerische Staatsoper’s Ring cycle next summer and the title role in Göteborg Opera’s new Luisa Miller.
Nil Venditti
Italian-Turkish conductor Nil Venditti grabbed the attention in her 2024 BBC Proms debut with a riveting Beethoven 7 which our reviewer praised for its “dramatic sense of purpose”. She is currently Principal Guest Conductor of the Royal Northern Sinfonia, where our reviewer described her admiringly as “a small, benign bomb exploding in the world of classical music”. This summer she earned a 5* rave for her Respighi and Rossini at the Proms. The coming season sees her debuts with Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
Woolf Quartet
The Woolf Quartet is named after Virginia Woolf – they frequently rehearse on the site in Bloomsbury where Virginia Woolf once lived – was founded at the Royal Academy of Music in London. During the 2025–26 season, they served as the Learning and Participation Ensemble Fellows at Wigmore Hall, participating in outreach programs, including "Music for the Moment" concerts, designed for people living with dementia. All four members, violinists Zosia Herlihy-O’Brien and Emily Harrison, violist Beatrice Slocumbe and cellist Hoda Jahanpour, are dedicated to performing contemporary music and, in his review of their Bradfield Festival of Music recital, Phil Parker praised their performance of Anna Meredith’s Honeyed Words and a new work, Seed, by the quartet’s leader.
