Jonathan Nott (born 25 December 1962, Solihull, England) is an English conductor, the son of a priest at Worcester Cathedral. He was a music student and choral scholar at the University of Cambridge, and also studied singing and flute in Manchester at the Royal Northern College of Music. Nott was also a conducting student in London. He left London to develop his conducting career in Germany via the traditional Kapellmeister system.

Nott made his conducting debut in 1988 at the Opera Festival in Battignano, Italy. In 1989, he was appointed Kapellmeister at the Frankfurt Opera. In 1991, he was appointed Erster Kapellmeister at the Hessisches Staatstheater Wiesbaden, and became interim chief conductor for the 1995–96 season. He later became music director at the Lucerne Theatre and served as principal conductor of the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra from 1997 to 2002.

With the Berlin Philharmonic, Nott recorded several orchestral works of György Ligeti as part of the Teldec contribution to the complete recorded works of Ligeti. Nott became music director of the Ensemble InterContemporain (EIC) in 2000. He relinquished this post in 2003, and immediately took up the position of principal guest conductor of the EIC. He has held that title since then.

Gustav Mahler (German pronunciation: [ˈɡʊstaf ˈmaːlɐ]; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then the Austrian Empire, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic. Then his family moved to nearby Iglau (now Jihlava) where Mahler grew up.

As a composer, he acted as a bridge between the 19th century Austro-German tradition and the modernism of the early 20th century. While in his lifetime his status as a conductor was established beyond question, his own music gained wide popularity only after periods of relative neglect which included a ban on its performance in much of Europe during the Nazi era. After 1945 the music was discovered and championed by a new generation of listeners; Mahler then became one of the most frequently performed and recorded of all composers, a position he has sustained into the 21st century.

Born in humble circumstances, Mahler displayed his musical gifts at an early age. After graduating from the Vienna Conservatory in 1878, he held a succession of conducting posts of rising importance in the opera houses of Europe, culminating in his appointment in 1897 as director of the Vienna Court Opera (Hofoper). During his ten years in Vienna, Mahler—who had converted to Catholicism from Judaism to secure the post—experienced regular opposition and hostility from the anti-Semitic press. Nevertheless, his innovative productions and insistence on the highest performance standards ensured his reputation as one of the greatest of opera conductors, particularly as an interpreter of the stage works of Wagner and Mozart. Late in his life he was briefly director of New York's Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic.

Matthias Goerne (born 1967) is a German baritone.

Born in Weimar, he studied with Hans-Joachim Beyer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Elisabeth Schwarzkopf.

His repertoire spans a wide range of music, from baroque to contemporary, but above all he is a celebrated lieder singer. His discography includes award-winning recordings of Mahler and Schubert song cycles.

Goerne is especially known for his beauty of tone, thoughtful phrasing, commitment to legato singing and impeccable German diction.

He is a recipient of the Wigmore Hall, London, medal.