ACADEMY CONCERT

Nabil Shehata
Born into a German-Egyptian family, Nabil Shehata began his musical education as a double bass player, studying with Michinori Bunya at the University of Music in Würzburg and with Esko Laine at Berlin’s Hanns Eisler School of Music. He was awarded first prizes at several international competitions, including the ARD Music Competition in Munich, where he also received the audience award. After performing as principal double bass with the Staatskapelle Berlin from 2003 to 2004, he held the same position with the Berliner Philharmoniker until 2008. He served as principal double bass with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra for more than ten years. Encouraged by Daniel Barenboim, among others, he began his career as a conductor in 2006, studying with Rolf Reuter, Lawrence Foster, and Christian Thielemann, and has since led major orchestras, including the Berlin Radio Symphony, the Munich Radio Orchestra, the Robert-Schumann-Philharmonie Chemnitz, the Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg. He led the Munich Chamber Opera as music director for several years, holding the same position with the Philharmonie Südwestfalen from 2019 to 2024. Nabil Shehata has been closely associated with the Barenboim-Said Akademie as professor of double bass since 2019 and was named artistic director of its Orchestra in 2024. He also conducted the Filasteen Young Musicians Orchestra at the Pierre Boulez Saal in 2023.

Clara-Jumi Kang

Clara-Jumi Kang began her violin studies at an early age at the conservatories of Mannheim and Lübeck and at the Julliard School in New York, later completing her training at the Korean National University of Arts and with Christoph Poppen at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich. She won first prizes at the violin competitions in Indianapolis, Sendai, and Seoul and at the beginning of her career received important artistic guidance from Daniel Barenboim, who invited her to perform with the Chicago Symphony at the age of 12. She has since appeared with many leading orchestras, including most recently the New York Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Cologne’s Gürzenich Orchestra, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the BBC Philharmonic, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In February 2025, she joined the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra and Zubin Mehta on a tour of China and Europe and this past summer made her debut at the Salzburg Festival. As a chamber musician, Clara-Jumi Kang regularly performs in the world’s most important concert halls; she released a complete recording of Beethoven’s violin sonatas together with pianist Sunwook Kim in 2021. She made her Pierre Boulez Saal debut in 2017 opposite Gidon Kremer.