Avery Fisher Career Grant-winning violinist and composer Tim Fain has earned a reputation as a mesmerizing creator and performer, appearing on today’s greatest stages. Increasingly recognized for his work as a composer with an authentic voice, Fain pushes the envelope with cutting-edge technology and has carved out one of the most wildly diverse careers in the music industry.

Seen on-screen and heard in the GRAMMY-nominated soundtrack to Black Swan, he is known for his numerous performances in soundtracks, including 12 Years a Slave, Moonlight, The Tragedy of Macbeth, Don’t Look Up, Indignation, and HBO’s Succession (also making a cameo appearance). Increasingly acknowledged for his original film music, Fain composed the score for Munch (Best Nordic Film nominee, Göteborg Film Festival), stop-motion film Los Huesos (Best Short, Venice Film Festival), and media for The North Face and Ralph Lauren.

In the concert music world, Fain’s violin concerto Edge of a Dream was premiered by the Amarillo Symphony, with recent and upcoming performances with the symphonies of Maryland, Anchorage, Helena, San Juan, and Missoula, in addition to the BPO. His work Resonance, commissioned by Google/YouTube for a groundbreaking VR video, was recorded by The Knights with conductor Eric Jacobsen, subsequently shown at the Sundance Film Festival. His works were also used for campaigns by Sierra Club and Made in a Free World.

Fain continues to be at the forefront of technology, with boundary-pushing projects and VR experiences for Samsung at the TriBeCa Film Festival, Facebook/Oculus, The Future of Storytelling in NYC, Forbes and the city of Jerusalem, and at SXSW. Fain’s LED light installation with Symmetry Labs was featured on BBC and PBS, and he gave a TEDx Talk on emerging technologies in music.

Whether touring in a duo with Philip Glass, performing solo with the National Orchestra of Spain or the American Composers Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, or collaborating with artists ranging from Mitsuko Uchida to composer Meredith Monk, jazz pianist Billy Childs, Bryce Dessner, DJ Spooky, Iggy Pop, Rob Thomas (Matchbox Twenty), James Blake, or Christina Aguilera, Fain electrifies audiences. His wildly diverse career has taken him to unique spaces across the globe, including on-stage at the NYC Ballet, the Vatican, and a performance for the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday.

Dutch conductor Otto Tausk has served as Music Director of the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra (VSO) and Artistic Advisor of the VSO School of Music since 2018, with his contract renewed through the end of the 2029-30 season. Tausk has demonstrated extraordinary artistic leadership in the VSO community and beyond. His innovatively re-imagined digital performance series and his initiative to introduce Canadian contemporary music, including works by five Indigenous composers, have been highly acclaimed and have significantly expanded the orchestra’s reach. Tausk is a passionate believer in concerts as shared experiences between the performers and the audience, and his inclusive approach has had a profound impact on the community of Vancouver where the orchestra has become an essential part of the cultural identity of the city and its people.

Otto Tausk’s musical expertise ranges from historically informed performances of Mozart and Beethoven to the early 20th-century scores of Prokofiev, Stravinsky, and Richard Strauss and new works by today’s composers. In the 2024-25 season, he performs masterpieces by Stravinsky, Sibelius, and Brahms as well as Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, and gives the world premiere performance of a new work by Canadian composer Marcus Goddard. He works with stellar soloists such as Lang Lang, Behzod Abduraimov, Leila Josefowicz, Bruce Liu, and Vadim Gluzman. Tausk’s guest conducting appearances this season include concerts with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Staatskapelle Weimar, Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, among others.

Tausk has worked with orchestras such as the Concertgebouworkest, Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Residentie Orkest, Orchestre national de Belgique, Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and BBC National Orchestra of Wales, with whom he made his BBC Proms debut in 2018.

As Chief Conductor of the Sinfonieorchester and Theater St. Gallen from 2012 to 2018, Tausk led numerous opera productions such as the world premiere of Annas Maske by Swiss composer David Philip Hefti, the Swiss premiere of George Benjamin’s Written on Skin, as well as productions of Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, Don Giovanni, Die Entführung aus dem Serail, Eugene Onegin, West Side Story, Lohengrin, and Ariadne auf Naxos. He is a long-time collaborator of the Dutch composer Michel van der Aa and conducted the highly acclaimed world premiere production of Upload in Amsterdam, Cologne, Bregenz, and New York. In 2023-24, he conducted the Dutch premiere of Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face at the Nederlandse Reisopera.

Tausk has recorded with the Concertgebouworkest, Sinfonieorchester St. Gallen, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Hans Pfitzner’s Orchesterlieder for the CPO label and Rosanne Philippens Plays Prokofiev on Channel Classics garnered international praise.

Born in Utrecht, Otto Tausk studied violin with Viktor Liberman and conducting with Jonas Aleksa. From 2004 to 2006, he was an Assistant Conductor to Valery Gergiev with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2011, he received the prestigious De Olifant prize of the City of Haarlem, recognizing his achievements as music director of the Holland Symfonia and his contribution to the arts in the Netherlands.