The Grammy Award-winning Minnesota Orchestra, led by Danish conductor Thomas Søndergård—who is serving as music director designate during the 2022-23 season—is recognized for distinguished performances around the world, award-winning recordings and broadcasts, educational engagement programs, and commitment to building the orchestral repertoire of the future. Founded in 1903, the Orchestra has an extensive history of touring throughout Minnesota, nationally and abroad, including high-profile visits in recent years to Cuba, Europe and South Africa. Recording projects undertaken in the past two decades include complete cycles of symphonies by Beethoven, Sibelius and Mahler, all recorded under Osmo Vänskä, who is now the Orchestra’s conductor laureate.

John Beal, an internationally recognized film music conductor and award-winning film and television composer, is as at home on the concert stage as he is in the recording studio. Principal conductor of the Hollywood Symphony Orchestra, he is a highly sought-after conductor and has conducted a wide and diverse variety of shows and live-to-film scores with many of the world’s greatest musicians in venues stretching from London to Tokyo, including the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, National Orchestra of Belgium, City of Prague Philharmonic, National Symphony of Malaysia Kuala Lumpur and Evergreen Symphony of Taiwan, as well as major symphony orchestras throughout the U.S., including several decades in Los Angeles with the Hollywood Studio Symphony Orchestra. Throughout his career as a music director, Beal has arranged for and conducted orchestras on albums and in concerts and television with very diverse artists ranging from the world premiere of Rocketman: Live in Concert with Sir Elton John and Taron Egerton to the world premiere orchestral concert of Electronica DJ Deadmau5, the world premiere of Serengeti Live with Lola Lennox, the U.S. concert debut of Olivia Newton-John, and for singers Gladys Knight, Ella Fitzgerald and B.B. King.