Franz Ignaz Beck is increasingly acknowledged as one of the most forward-looking and inventive of mid-eighteenth-century symphonists. A student of the celebrated Johann Stamitz, Beck was trained in Mannheim, a focal point of new approaches to orchestral writing. Although small in scale, his Op.2 set includes some of the most striking and harmonically daring works of their kind from the period.

The Irish conductor Kevin Mallon studied composition, conducting (with J E Gardiner) and singing, and specialized in baroque violin. He became concertmaster with Le Concert Spirituel and Les Arts Florissants in Paris and led and directed The Irish Baroque Orchestra before moving to Canada to take up posts with Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and the University of Toronto.

In 1999 he founded the Aradia Ensemble, with whom he has toured widely and has made over 50 recordings for Naxos. In 2010 Mallon was appointed Music Director of Thirteen Strings Chamber Orchestra in Ottawa. Kevin Mallon fulfills a wide range of guest conducting engagements, is an Irish fiddler as well as a composer, most recently writing music for the TV series 'Camelot'.