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.

Paraguayan conductor Ernesto Estigarribia Mussi is highly regarded for his versatility and effervescent style on and off the podium. Hailed for his “expert direction” by Fanfare magazine, he is music director of the Sheboygan Symphony Orchestra and the Mankato Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he is the associate conductor of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra, music director of the Quad City Symphony Youth Ensembles and director of orchestras at Augustana College.

G. Phillip Shoultz, III, who is known for fostering community and inspiring action among people of all ages and abilities, enjoys a multifaceted career as artist, educator, consultant, speaker and pastoral musician. He is the associate artistic director of VocalEssence, where his most visible impact is seen through his visionary leadership as founding conductor of the VocalEssence Singers Of This Age and through his engaging Take 5 with GPS daily livestream and series of instructional videos. He also serves Westwood Lutheran Church as Cantor for Music, Worship and the Arts, and he frequently appears throughout the U.S. as a guest clinician, adjudicator and consultant.

Nita Qiu, whose April 2023 performances with the Minnesota Orchestra are the result of her first-place win in the 2019 YPSCA Young People’s Concerto Competition—an engagement delayed due to the pandemic—is a 20-year-old junior attending Yale University majoring in Computer Science and Psychology. She graduated from Trinity School at River Ridge in 2020 and studied piano from 2007 to 2020 with Dr. Joseph Zins of Crocus Hill Studios in Saint Paul. Highlights of her piano career include being named winner in the 2020 National YoungArts Foundation in Classical Music/Piano; being named a national winner of the distinguished Career Development Grant from the Chopin Foundation of the United States in 2019 for the third consecutive year; and winning first place in the 2019 Aloha International Piano Competition and Festival in Honolulu.