Principal Conductor Designate
Alan Buribayev

Alan Buribayev will be Principal Conductor Designate for the 2009-2010 season and will take up the position of Principal Conductor in September 2010 on a three-year contract, conducting the RTÉ NSO in a minimum of eight concerts a year.

Alan Buribayev was born in 1979 to a family of musicians; his father is a cellist and conductor and his mother is a pianist. Graduating with honours from the Kazakh State Conservatory as both violinist and conductor, he continued his conducting studies at the University of Music, Vienna with Professor Uros Lajovic.

His victory at the Lovro von Matacic Conducting Competition in Zagreb in 1999 brought him to international attention and led to invitations from several European orchestras. In the 2001 Malko Conducting Competition in Copenhagen he was awarded a Special Prize recognising his 'outstanding talent and promise', and that same year he went on to win First Prize in the Antonio Pedrotti Competition.

He began his tenure as the Principal Conductor of the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra in September 2007, and took up the role of Chief Conductor of Brabants Orchestra in the Netherlands a year later. Both orchestras invited Alan to take up these roles within their organisations after just one day of rehearsal, a testament to his musicianship and communication skills. His time with both groups has been extremely successful, with much acclaim for his spirited performances.

He was previously Generalmusikdirektor of the Meiningen Theatre in Germany (2004-2007), where his productions included Offenbach's The Tales of Hoffmann, Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro, Janácek's Jenufa and Strauss' Salome; he also conducted six symphonic programmes per season.

Alan works regularly with major orchestras such as the Oslo Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Orchestra Giuseppe Verdi Milan and Bournemouth Symphony. Other orchestras he has worked with include the London Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Melbourne Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, Stockholm Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra/DR, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, St Petersburg Philharmonic and NDR Symphony-Hamburg. He has also conducted a production of Tchaikovsky's The Queen of Spades at the Opéra National de Lyon.

Principal Guest Conductor Designate
Hannu Lintu

Since graduating from the Sibelius Academy where he studied with Jorma Panula, Hannu Lintu has held three Music Director positions - Helsingborg Symphony, Turku Philharmonic and Bergen Collegium Musicum - and this month he assumes the position of Artistic Director and Chief Conductor with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland.

Lintu has made recent European appearances with the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin, Frankfurt Radio Symphony, Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Orchestre National de Belgique, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, where he is a regular guest. Outside Europe he has recently worked with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, Houston Symphony, Sydney Symphony and Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestras.

Forthcoming engagements include performances with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Atlanta Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, Dresden Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, Royal Flemish Philharmonic, RTVE Madrid and return invitations to the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Houston Symphony Orchestras.

Recordings include CDs of works by Rautavaara, Saariaho, Shostakovich, Schumann and numerous works by the Finnish composer Jouni Kapainen with the Tampere Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Berlin Radio Symphony and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestras for Online, Naxos and Hyperion labels.

In Lintu's single previous performance with the RTÉ NSO in January 2009, he conducted Rautavaara, Shostakovich and Sibelius. The Irish Times hailed the evening as 'something special.from the very first note', with 'an almost startling immediacy, fullness and power to the orchestral sound, a confidence and even a swagger to the playing'. The reviewer commented: 'The musicians played out of their skins, as if Lintu were one of those conductors whose vision is so clear and command so secure that his every wish becomes irresistible.'