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INTRODUCTION
From his first symphonic concert at age five in Venezuela, José Salazar knew he was destined for the podium. Shaped by the values of El Sistema and enriched by international experience from Margarita Island to the Royal Ballet and Walt Disney Concert Hall, he has developed into a 21st-century conductor who bridges tradition and innovation while championing community, collaboration, and access.
BIOGRAPHY
Featured as one of Classic FM’s Rising Stars 2025 and recently announced by the LA Philharmonic as a 25/26 Dudamel Fellow, José Salazar is a young conductor with considerable experience, a wide repertoire and a flair for programming. He has been appointed Jette Parker Ballet Conductor at the Royal Opera House in London, working with the Royal Ballet for the 23/24 and 24/25 seasons. From 2018 until 2023, he worked as Artistic and Music Director of El Sistema Greece, performing and programming concerts in Greece’s most prestigious concert venues and festivals, while continuing to accept multiple invitations as a guest conductor internationally. Born on Margarita Island, Venezuela, José initially came to prominence at around 14 years old and has since conducted innumerable concerts in his native Venezuela and abroad. His work and story has received coverage on China National TV, Reuters and in The Guardian amongst others. Always dynamic, attentive, and meticulous, José was also selected as an assistant for Gustavo Dudamel and Christian Vasquez in preparation for multiple performances, recordings, and international tours. Initiated in conducting by his mentor Felipe Izcaray, José has also participated in masterclasses with prestigious conductors, such as Riccardo Muti, Dick van Gasteren, Manfred Huss at the Swarowsky Akademie, Rüdiger Bohn at the Robert Schumann Hochschule, Alejandro Posada, Philippe Auguin, Eduardo Marturet, Christoph Eschenbach and Michalis Economou. Being educated within El Sistema, José attended conducting studies at the Special Program for Academic Development in Caracas with Gregory Carreño. An exceptional student, he was selected to participate in an international exchange with the University of Göteborg, Sweden, for the master program of Orchestral Performance. In 2020, aged 23, José participated in the first edition of the Arthur Nikisch Conducting Competition, where he was a finalist. Recent highlights include José’s US debut at the Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Symphony Orchestra of the YOLA National Festival, working closely and under the guidance of Gustavo Dudamel (July 2024), concert performances with the Orchestra of the Royal Opera House, his Birmingham Royal Ballet debut, conducting performances of Sir Frederick Ashton’s La Fille Mal Gardée (October 2024) and his debut with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra in Caracas, Venezuela (April 2025). Born and raised in a family of educators, José is an avid enthusiast for languages and is fluent in Spanish, English, Italian, Greek and is currently learning French and German.
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INTERVIEW
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Alice Lechner comes from a music-loving family. Her first encounter with the opera universe was at the tender age of six. The grandeur of the stage productions and costumes, the backstage chatter, and last, but definitely not least, the music left her in awe, beginning with Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The overall feeling that opera awakens in anyone who gets a glimpse into this part of artistic eternity, that each and every day passes the test of time, was what drew her to stay and be a part of this world. The Opera House of Brașov became her second home, and the people who worked there were her second family.
Since then, Alice has devoted her spare time to maximising her musical knowledge through instrumental studies, studying both piano and violin for a short time. In the following years, her number one passion stepped out of the limelight and graciously gave way to Law Studies.
Since 2018 she has been studying Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.
Her passion for opera, even if it is no longer her top professional priority in terms of career, it has most definitely become her priority during her free time. Wanting to experience the best of both worlds and extend her musical horizons, she regularly attends opera performances throughout Romania and abroad.
With OPERA Charm Magazine, Alice aims to nurture her creative side to help it flourish and bloom and to discover, alongside the magazine’s readers, the fascinatingly complex world of opera.
Currently, she is an LL.M. in Business Law at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University in Iași.
Oana Zamfir is a second year MA student at the “George Enescu” National University of Arts, at the Department of Musicology.
She studied violin for 12 years at the “Stefan Luchian” High School of Art in Botosani, later focusing on the theoretical aspects of music. In 2019 she completed her bachelor studies in Musicology as a student of the National Academy of Music “Gheorghe Dima” in Cluj-Napoca. Her research during 2018-2019 brought to the forefront elements of the archaic ritual within works of composers who activated during the communist period, giving her the opportunity to start a research internship at the “Carl von Ossietzky” University in Germany. In this context, she recorded conversations with members of the Sophie Drinker Institute in Bremen, and had access to documents directly from the Myriam Marbé archive.
Since 2019 she has been a teacher of Music Education and Theoretical Music Studies, making full use of interactive methods in the musical training of students and working, at the same time, with the children’s choir founded in the first year of her activity.
Her interests include pursuing a degree in interior design in 2020.
Alexandru Suciu inherited his passion for art growing up in a family of several generations of musicians. He began his musical studies at the “Augustin Bena” School of Music in Cluj, where he studied piano and guitar. Even though his main study direction was philological, his passion for music prevailed. He began his academical journey at the Faculty of Letters of the “Babeș-Bolyai” University, studying Comparative literature and English. He continued by studying Opera Singing at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy. He also graduated the Musical Education section, followed by Artistic Directing at the Musical Performing Arts department.
His multidisciplinary education opened the doors towards research, which is seen both through his participation in national and international conferences and symposia, such as the Salzburg Easter School PhD-forum, organized by the Salzburg Universität or the Silesian Meeting of Young Scholars, organized by the Institute of English at the University of Silesia, as well as the collaboration with Opera Charm Magazine.
During his student years, he won several prizes, including the Grand Prize at the “Paul Constantinescu” National Musical Interpretation Competition, the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union Prize at the same competition, the First Prize and the Schubert Prize at the “Ada Ulubeanu” Competition.
He further developed his artistic skills by specializing in courses and masterclasses held by personalities such as Vittorio Terranova, Giuseppe Sabbatini, Marian Pop, Ines Salazar, Riccardo Zanellato, Paolo Bosisio, Valentina Farcaș and Manuel Lange in contexts such as the Internationale Sommerakademie für Operngesang Deutschlandsberg, Corso Internazionale di Canto Lirico I.M.C. Licata or the Europäische Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst Montepulciano. Besides his activity on-stage, he currently teaches Opera Singing Didactics, and Pedagogical Practice within the Department for Teacher Education and Training at the “Gheorghe Dima” National Music Academy.
Cristina is a 24 year-old Romanian soprano & a student at the National University of Music Bucharest, where she pursues the MA program in Vocal Performance.
She made her debut in Pamina from “Die Zauberflöte” by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart at only 19 years old at the Bucharest National Opera House, as a member of the Ludovic Spiess Experimental Opera Studio. Over the years she made her debut in roles such as Contessa d’Almaviva (Le nozze di Figaro), Mimì & Musetta (La Bohème), Alice Ford (Falstaff), Erste Dame (Die Zauberflöte) in her university’s opera productions.
Her passion and experience extends in the field of choral music, too.
She has been part of our dream team since the fall of 2021. For a good period of time she took care of OPERA Charm’s social media and took you on the monthly journey through the history of opera through our Legends rubric – and a few times through the Theaters around the World rubric.
Her little soul rubric – from 2021 to present – is definitely the Conductors of the Future, where, every month, she gives you the chance to meet a young star of the world of conducting and, of course, to find out what’s the most charming feature of opera in these artists’ views.
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