Eduardo Marturet enjoys an active career on three continents. As the Music Director and Conductor of The Miami Symphony Orchestra, he remains deeply involved in the musical life of his native Venezuela and continues to guest conduct actively in Europe. He has made more than 40 CDs that range from a Brahms orchestral cycle to surveys of Latin America’s greatest orchestral composers.

European orchestras with which he has had an active guest conducting relationship include Berliner Symphoniker, European Community Chamber Orchestra, Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, RAI Symphony Orchestra, Danish Radio Symphony, Royal Flemish Philarmonique, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Gelders Orkest, Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic, Budapest Radio Symphony, Brabant Orkest, and Concertgebouw Chamber Orchestra in Amsterdam. In 2001, he led the Berliner Symphoniker on a 12-concert tour of major South American cities including Caracas, Sao Paulo, Cordoba, Montevideo and Buenos Aires. A documentary of the tour was broadcast through the region by DirecTV.

Born in Caracas, Marturet studied in Cambridge, England where he became firmly rooted in the European tradition, obtaining a degree in Piano, Percussion, Conducting, and Composition. In 1979, he returned to Venezuela with a permanent position with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Caracas as Associate Conductor and later as Artistic Director to the Orquesta Sinfónica Venezuela, where he served in that position until 1995. Presently, he maintains close contact with the Venezuelan National Youth Orchestra movement, giving advice and support in aid of poor children.

With the opening of the Teresa Carreño Theatre in Caracas in 1984, Marturet became its first Music Director. After three years of bringing challenging and original productions to the stage, he resigned from the Theatre to dedicate himself entirely to an international career, conducting in Italy, Greece, France, Spain, England, Denmark, Holland, Korea, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Canada and the United States.

He made his Asian debut with the Seoul Philharmonic in 2003, a year when he also opened the Chorin Summer Festival in Berlin and made his debut with the Buenos Aires Philharmonic in Argentina and the Florida Philharmonic in Miami.

In 2006, Marturet received a Latin Grammy nomination for “Encantamento” in the category of Best Classical Album conducting the Berliner Symphoniker.

At 34, Paris born Sébastien Verrier is often younger than some of the wines he serves. However, his youth has not prevented him from garnering a stellar reputation as a sommelier, one who relishes in the “always learning, always tasting, always working on the palate” associated with his profession. It is a profession he entered when he was only 15 as a sommelier’s assistant at Paris’s Michelin-starred Les Clos Longchamps. Verrier balanced his duties there with earning a bachelor degree in wine stewardship.

Having begun to master wine, he became equally determined to learn English, so after two years as second sommelier at the famed Michelin one-star Le Jardin in Paris, he headed for London and a position as captain/sommelier at Mon Plaisir Restaurant.

Wanderlust, which often accompanies wine expertise because of its global nature, had set in by 1998. Verrier set his sights on New York City, where he spent a year as a captain at Les Trois Jeans before taking off for Australia and an exploration of its viniculture.

Verrier joined the Biltmore team in the fall of 1999 where he oversaw the wine lists at La Palme d’Or and the 1200 Restaurant & Courtyard, as well as wine pairings for all the hotel’s winemaker-theme dinners. After 12 years at the Biltmore, he became a partner of W Wine Boutique in January 2011.