Beethoven plus Festival 2026 - DIALOGUE OF VOICES

Soprano Barbara Krieger was born in Wiesbaden and initially studied German, English and musicology at the University of Mainz. Her vocal studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts "Mozarteum" in Salzburg, which she completed with honours in 1996, were decisive for her career. She already sang concerts during her studies and successfully took part in international competitions. She won a prize at the famous AS.LI.CO. Singing Competition at La Scala in Milan. Her first engagements and guest appearances took the singer - initially as a mezzo-soprano - to Salzburg, Erfurt, Klagenfurt, Zagreb and the Klangbogen Festival in Vienna, among others. In the process, she has been able to take on a wide variety of roles. In 1997 she was a member of the Vienna State Opera ensemble. Since then, she has appeared as a lyric-dramatic soprano on renowned opera stages, including the Gran Teatru del Liceu Barcelona, Bregenz, Leipzig, Karlsruhe and the National Theatre Weimar.
Major artistic challenges for Barbara Krieger were the concert tour with the world-famous bass-baritone Bryn Terfel (2007) and her appearance at the Festival Música Mallorca with Verdi's "Messa da Requiem" at the Teatre Principal de Palma. In 2008 Barbara Krieger gave gala concerts with star tenor Roberto Alagna and in the summer of 2009 she once again thrilled audiences at the Classic Open Air in Berlin, this time alongside world star José Carreras. In Dresden, Barbara Krieger has initiated the CLASSIC OPEN AIR concert series at the Frauenkirche since 2007 and brought thousands of music lovers together on the Neumarkt from 2007 to 2011 in favour of various charitable causes.


Alexander York - Baritone
In his third season in the ensemble of the Landestheater Linz (2025/26), the American baritone Alexander York sings the roles of Malatesta in Don Pasquale, Faninal in Rosenkavalier, Ping in Turandot, Sepulchrave in Irmin Schmidt's rock opera Gormenghast and once again the role of Adam in Mike Svoboda's Adam and Eve. Since joining the soloist ensemble in September 2023, York has appeared at the Landestheater Linz as Papageno in Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, as Silvio in Leoncavallo's I Pagliacci, as Ruggiero in Halévy's La juive, as Kilian and Ottokar in Der Freischütz, as Prince Yamadori in Puccini's Madama Butterfly and as Fiorello and Ambrogio in Il barbiere di Siviglia. Further engagements included the world premieres of Febel's Benjamin Button and Svoboda's Adam and Eve at the Schwetzingen SWR Festival. In summer 2024, he sang Marcello in La bohème at the Musica Le Mans Festival in Le Mans, France, where he had already appeared as Papageno in 2024 and as Conte Almaviva in Le nozze di Figaro in 2023. On New Year's Eve 2023, he stepped in as Dr Falke in Die Fledermaus at the Brandenburg Theatre with just two days' notice.

Prior to his engagement in Linz, York appeared as Ned Keene in Peter Grimes at the Staatstheater Augsburg, as Escamillo in Andrea Bernard's adaptation of Carmen at the Opéra Grand Avignon and as Schaunard in La bohème under the direction of James Gaffigan at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. In October 2022, he performed with the Opéra de Paris in a concert series in Tokyo. From 2018 to 2021, York was a member of the Opera Studio of the Opéra national de Paris. Highlights of his work there include the roles of Tarquinius in Britten's Rape of Lucretia, Dr Falke in Die Fledermaus and the Horloge comtoise and Chat in Ravel's L'Enfant et les Sortilèges, as well as recitals at the Palais Garnier, in Évian-les-Bains, Amiens, Metz and Grenoble. In the January 2021 issue of Opéra Magazine, York was presented as "Jeune Talent" [Young Talent]. In September 2020, he received the City of Gordes Prize and the Best Young Baritone or Bass Prize at the International Art Song Competition [Concours international de la mélodie] in Gordes, France.

York made his debut at the Bavarian State Opera in 2018 in Viktor Ullmann's Der zerbrochene Krug as the Waiter. In 2017, he sang the role of James Ramsey in the world premiere of Zesses Seglias' To the Lighthouse at the Bregenz Festival. In his first two years in Europe, York was a permanent fixture on the opera stage at the Augsburg Theatre - first with his European debut as Belcore in L'elisir d'amore in 2016, then as a scholarship holder of the soloist ensemble in 2016/17, where he played Angelotti and Sciarrone in Tosca, the Captain in Karl Amadeus Hartmann's Simplicius Simplicissimus, Weickmann/Fuhrmann in Hans Thomalla's Kaspar Hauser and the Herald in Verdi's Otello. Most recently, he sang the German premiere of Kelvin (Off stage) in Dai Fujikura's Solaris. In addition to his opera engagements, York studied German, French and Slavic song repertoire with Lars Woldt, Rudi Spring, Donald Sulzen and Andreas Schmidt at the Munich University of Music and Theatre.

York was the 2016 winner of the prestigious Fulbright Research Grant, the 2017 winner of the Hanns Seidel Foreign Scholarship and was supported by the arte-Musica Foundation in Frankfurt. As a concert soloist in Europe, York gave a solo recital at the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, performed with the Munich Radio Orchestra and sang the bass solos in Bach's Christmas Oratorio with the Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2019, he performed with the Jewish Chamber Orchestra Munich in a concert of Mahler's 14 Lieder und Gesänge and organised a song recital at the Hamburg Art Museum. Equally at home in the new music scene, York recently gave the world premiere of Rudi Spring's Augenblicke des Abschieds, a song cycle for baritone and hammered dulcimer. In June 2023, he sang the bass solos and the role of Jesus in Bach's St John Passion and the bass solos in Rossini's Petite messe solennelle in Paris. In 2017, he took part in the Excellence in Voice/Opera masterclass with Hedwig Fassbender in Weikersheim, Germany, and the IMAS masterclass with Lars Woldt in Bückeburg, Germany. Before coming to Europe, York was active in the American summer festival circuit. He was awarded a Luminarts Fellowship and a Bel Canto Prize from the Bel Canto Society of Chicago and was runner-up in the Art Song/Oratorio category of the American Prize. York graduated from Lawrence University in Wisconsin in 2014 and received his master's degree from Northwestern University in 2016.


Philine Passin - Choral Conducting
Born in Berlin, the soprano studied at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg and at the Trossingen University of Music. She has numerous engagements for popular concert and song repertoire. She made her operatic debut as Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro under the baton of Sebastian Tewinkel at the Mannheim State Theatre. She has sung several world premieres as part of the Salzburg Pocket Opera Festival under the directors Thierry Brühl and Ernst Marianne Binder. In 2017, she was invited to the Biennale Teatro in Venice with the opera Alla Fine del Mare, directed by Anna-Sophie Mahler.
In addition to her artistic activities, the singer pursues her passion as a singing teacher and choir director. She has taught at the Sankt Gilgen International School since 2018, directs the choir of the Liedertafel Sankt Gilgen and also gives private singing lessons.
In the 2024 Beethoven plus festival season, she will be in charge of rehearsing the festival choir of the Verein der Musikfreunde Inneres Salzkammergut.


David Holzinger - Conductor
Since the 2022/23 season, he has been a guest conductor at the Brandenburg Theatre and with the Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra. Here he has successfully conducted post-concerts of "Zauberflöte" (W. A. Mozart) and operettas such as %u201EBa-Ta-Clan" by J. Offenbach and %u201EIm Weißen Rössl" by R. Benatzky as well as various concerts. In the 2023/24 season, he not only conducted concerts and revivals, but was also responsible for rehearsing the new production of Richard Strauss' "Elektra". He is currently assisting Principal Conductor Andreas Spering with the productions of Mozart's "Le Nozze di Figaro", Verdi's "La Traviata" and J. Strauss' "Die Fledermaus". In December 2024, he was invited to conduct Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 as a guest conductor with the Sichuan Philharmonic Orchestra in Chengdu.

Holzinger celebrated an outstanding success when he stepped in for Sascha Götzel at short notice and conducted a concert with the Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra in Bulgaria, in which members of the Vienna Philharmonic appeared as guest soloists. Shortly before this, he conducted a memorable performance of Beethoven's 9th Symphony with the choir and orchestra of the Ruse State Opera, where he had already conducted the opera production "Gianni Schicchi" (G. Puccini) in the previous season. His guest conducting engagements have taken him to numerous renowned opera houses and festivals. His commitment to contemporary music has led him to the Neue Oper Wien (P. Eötvös "Angels in America") and the Junge Oper Rhein-Main (M. Eggert "Caliban"). He is also the founder and musical director of the EXEDRA Ensemble, which he successfully conducted at the opening of the Salzburg Festival in 2017. His work at the Tyrolean Festival in Erl included the position of Kapellmeister and assistant to the chief conductor Gustav Kuhn for four seasons. There he took over the production of "Guillaume Tell" (G. Rossini), followed by further productions such as %u201ESemiramide", "Ermione" and %u201ELa Traviata" (G. Verdi). Holzinger attracted international attention on a month-long tour of China with the Amsterdam Chamber Orchestra, among others. Due to the great success of this tour, he was invited to assist chief conductor Peter Santa and conduct Gustav Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde", among other works.

Holzinger has been invited several times to give masterclasses with renowned conductors such as Alexander Polishchuk, Sir Mark Elder, Jorma Panula, Clark Rundell, Nicolás Pasquet, Mark Stringer, Peter Gülke, Martin Sieghart, Julius Kalmar and Christian Kluttig. He has worked with orchestras such as the Sichuan Philharmonic Orchestra, Sofia Philharmonic, Brandenburg Symphony Orchestra, Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra Olomouc, Salzburg Orchestra Soloists, Rousse Philharmonic Orchestra, Filarmonia de Stat Sibiu Romania, Manchester Camerata, Vilnius State Symphony Orchestra and the Salzburg Chamber Soloists.

Holzinger completed his conducting studies at the Hochschule für Musik "Carl Maria von Weber" in Dresden with Christian Kluttig and Steffen Leißner. There he worked with numerous orchestras, including the Plauen-Zwickau Philharmonic Orchestra, the Elblandphilharmonie Sachsen and the Landeskapelle Eisenach. He made his debut as study director of an opera production in spring 2015 with Scott Joplin's %u201ETreemonisha" at the Staatsschauspiel Dresden. His musical career began at the Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna, where he studied orchestral conducting and violin under the direction of Maximilian Cencic.