Mario Venzago has joined the conducting team at the Northern Sinfonia, as a principal conductor. The Gateshead-based ensemble now boasts two people with that title – the other is John Wilson – in addition to its music director Thomas Zehetmair. Conducting a minimum of three weeks each season, Venzago will share the conducting of core repertoire with Zehetmair, while Wilson will focus on the lighter end of the repertoire. Zehetmair will continue to have overall responsibility for the orchestra’s artistic direction. Swiss-born Venzago is conductor laureate of the Basel Symphony Orchestra, and has also held posts at both the Indianapolis Symphony (music director) and the Gothenburg Symphony (principal conductor) orchestras. He takes up his new post on January 1; his contract runs until 2013. He can next be heard with the Northern Sinfonia on February 26, conducting Brahms's Ein Deutsches Requiem and Schumann’s Violin Concerto.