Marina Mahler is the granddaughter of composer Gustav Mahler and Alma Mahler, and the daughter of sculptor Anna Mahler and conductor Anatole Fistoulari.

She has long been an ardent champion of young artists in the field of music and visual art and in more recent times has been an active patron of the arts, first setting up the Anna Mahler Association to give residencies in her mother’s home in Spoleto, Italy, to visual artists practicing in a wide spectrum of disciplines and to encourage young curators.

Marina Mahler founded the Mahler Foundation which inspires and embraces ongoing concepts and projects in three main fields:  

Mahler and the 21 Century - encouraging innovation and creativity in the arts

Song of the Earth - awareness and activity for climate change

Project Infinitude - reaching out to children

Marina is President of the global online choir “Choir of the Earth”, which amongst many recordings, has performed the 2nd and 8th Symphonies by Mahler under the expert guidance of John Warner, with all instrumentalists and singers recording from home to produce a worldwide event. The children’s choir for Symphony No. 8 was recorded at the Mahler Conservertoire in Mexico.

A native of Norway, Morten Solvik grew up and received his education in the USA (Cornell University and University of Pennsylvania) before moving to Austria, where he currently resides and works as an educator and musicologist. Morten focuses on the tantalising connections between music and culture, especially with regard to Franz Schubert and Gustav Mahler and the turn of the century.

He is active as an author, editor, speaker, contributor, artistic director, writer and consultant on documentary productions for radio and television as well as host of the monthly livestream The Mahler Hour.

His activities in public musicology include his role as co-founder and Artistic Director of the Gustav Mahler Festival in Steinbach am Attersee and his work as Board Director of the International Gustav Mahler Society and Vice President of Mahler Foundation.

Morten heads up our discussions with custodians of original manuscripts and the preparations for expert commentary.

Professor Simon Keefe is an English musicologist, author, and Mozart expert. We was educated at the University of Cambridge, Boston University and Columbia University. After being awarded his PhD at Columbia in 1997, he was appointed to a lectureship at Christ Church, Oxford, and then lectured at Queen's University Belfast in 1999. In 2003, he took up a post at City University, London, where he became a professor of music. In 2008, he was appointed to the James Rossiter Hoyle Chair of Music at the University of Sheffield. As of 2024, Keefe is also serving a three-year term as president of the Royal Musical Association.

Keefe specialises in Mozart and is the only British member of the Salzburg-based Akademie für Mozart-Forschung of the Internationale Stiftung Mozarteum, as of 2005. Keefe has also written on other composers such as Haydn, Beethoven, and has also studied Wagner.

The Mozart Society of America awarded Keefe's 2012 monograph Mozart's Requiem: Reception Work and Completion the Marjorie Weston Emerson Award in 2013, for the best book or edition published in 2011 or 2012.

Mozart in Context was named one of the "best classical music book releases of 2019" by the BBC Music Magazine and received an "Outstanding Academic Title" award from the magazine Choice (American Library Association).

Mark Strachan is the Founder of the global online choir www.choiroftheearth.com and loves to share music with people in all its forms.

“Choir of the Earth” has had over 10,000 individuals singers in the choir since it started in March 2020 with MESSIAH.

The success of the choir resulted in him being awarded the British Empire Medal by Queen Elizabeth II in the 2022 New Year's Honours List.

He believes strongly that composers have more to say than just hearing the music or reading the words. The wonder of the creative process is revealed in that magic moment when we see an original manuscript and at that magic moment, we are truly in the presence of greatness.

Mark is the CEO of the Original Manuscript Society and will be there every step of the way on your journey as we view these original manuscripts.

Dr. David Nelson is Professor Emeritus of Music from the University of North Carolina in the city of Greensboro, USA. As the founder of In Mozart’s Footsteps, he brings an ideal background to make our Mozart Event truly special: a love of making musical history come alive for others, and more than thirty years of experience as a music professor.

Since 1992, David has taken more than 800 people on his European music trips. His first tours were to Vienna, and now he brings music lovers to Salzburg, Prague, Budapest, Leipzig and, of course to Vienna itself.

Dr. Nelson is also the author of “Vienna for the Music Lover,” “Vienna Music Guide,” and “Salzburg Music Guide.”

To recognize and honour Dr. Nelson’s years of dedication to research on the music of Vienna, the City of Vienna awarded Nelson with their “Golden Medal of Honor” in March 2008. This is one of the highest awards Vienna can offer.