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Since winning the 1998 Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York at the age of 14, Vassilis Varvaresos has appeared in some the world's most prestigious halls: Carnegie Hall, Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., Vienna's Musikverein, New York's Avery Fisher Hall, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Zurich's Tonhalle, Paris' Salle Gaveau. Last season he appeared in the Beirut, Istanbul and Athens Festivals, the Sommets Musicaux in Gstaad, as well as the Chopin Festival in Nohant, the Festival des Arcs and the Festival des Lisztomanias in Chateauroux. This season he is collaborating with the Orchestre de Normandie, the Freiburg Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Basel Symphony Orchestra and the Thessaloniki and Athens State Symphony orchestras.

An avid chamber musician, his collaborators include acclaimed musicians Michel Dalberto, Henri Demarquette, Nicolas Dautricourt, Michael Gutman as well as Noe Inui and Leonard Elschenbroich.

Since his debut in the U.S. At the age of 15, he has appeared in the country's major halls, including Carnegie's Zankel Hall, the Morgan Library in New York, the Isabella Gardner Museum in Boston and the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia. After his Carnegi Hall debut in 2012, he was invited to play in front of former President Barack Obama in the White House.

Mr. Varvaresos is an avid composer or music for stage and film. He has written music for ten films as well as a TV series, while his latest score on a documentary about Brancusi will be shown in New York City in May 2018. He has written a book on Claude Debussy, and he gives masterclasses in California, Cincinatti, and Charleston U.S.A.

He is a laureate of the prestigious Enescu Competition in 2014, as well as the Piano Masters Competition in Monte Carlo in 2015. In 2008 he represented Greece for a two-week tour of China, as part of the festivities surrounding the Beijing Olympics.

Born in Thessaloniki, Greece, Vassilis Varvaresos starts piano at the age of 5. He continues his studies at the Juilliard School with Jerome Lowenthal and Robert MacDonald, while he finishes his studies at the CSNM of Paris under the tutelage of Michel Dalberto.

Vassilis Varvaresos has recorded for NAVIS Classics. His latest CD with Aparté Records, dedicated to the art of the waltz, appears in May 2018.

The musical universe is infinite and the galaxy of best-loved composers alone contains thousands of musical suns. Stylistically, though, these are often musical light-years apart. The Janoska Ensemble has set out to span intergalactic distance with its unique synthesis of musical worlds and its venture has won it an enthusiastic international public in a remarkably short time.
The four young progenitors of this art – each with a superb classical training – have combined their individual musical attainments to perfection: Ondrej, František and Roman Janoska (three brothers from Bratislava) and their brother-in-law Julius Darvas (born and bred in Konstanz) are already successful in repeated engagements on four continents.

The Janoska Ensemble has achieved the feat, in the competitive jungle of today’s music scene, of forging their specific style into their own brand and thus into a genre concept, namely their Janoska Style, transposing familiar references from classic to pop into an audibly related and yet quite new message. Nor is this all: each of their precision-tuned arrangements invariably carries the hallmark of the ensemble’s abounding musical invention, the Janoska fingerprints. This fingerprinting – with an amazing range of expression from moving to thrilling – naturally shows up in the ensemble members’ own compositions.
The Janoska Style possesses the rare ability to enthuse dedicated followers of totally opposing genres. Its vast reserves of positive energy electrify an audience after just a few bars; by the time they have embarked on their spontaneous virtuoso improvisations, the four great artists have stirred even the most reticent listeners from their seats.

The Janoska Ensemble’s debut album “Janoska Style” was released on the prestigious classical music label Deutsche Grammophon in 2016 and attained gold status within a year.

Ondrej Janoska, violin
Roman Janoska, violin
František Janoska, piano
Julius Darvas, double-bass

Since its move to Germany in 1990, the Georgian Chamber Orchestra has been based in Ingolstadt. The former orchestra-in-exile, with the support of the City of Ingolstadt, Audi and the Ingolstadt Sparkasse, has become a fixture in cultural life both locally and further afield. The ensemble’s concert series, which have taken place in Ingolstadt since 2001, enjoy consistently high subscription rates.

The ensemble was founded in 1964 in Tbilisi/Georgia, as the Georgian State Chamber Orchestra; in 2014 it celebrated its fiftieth anniversary. After twenty-six years based in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, the orchestra moved to Ingolstadt, where it has made its second home for the last twenty-eight years. Its new life in Bavaria is nothing other than a continuation of the old, under different conditions. Continuity is a principle of this very Eastern European orchestra, which always – including in exile – stayed true to its character. Even today the orchestra in Ingolstadt still consists almost of musicians from Georgia and Eastern Europe.

The orchestra has been strongly artistically influenced by its director of many years, the violinist Liana Issakadze, as well as by conductors such as Lord Yehudi Menuhin and Kurt Masur. Between 2000 and 2006, Markus Poschner headed the ensemble, followed by Ariel Zuckermann until 2011. Lavard Skou Larsen then became chief conductor. In 2014 the Los Angeles-born conductor Benjamin Shwartz was Artistic Director, and now in 2015 the Armenian Ruben Gazarian leads from the podium of the Georgians. Gazarian has been Artistic Director of the renowned Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn since 2002.

Distinguished guest conductors and a phalanx of exceptional international artistic personalities have also appeared with the orchestra, for example David Oistrach, Barbara Hendricks, Svjatoslav Richter and Daniil Shafran. In more recent times Heinrich Schiff, Tabea Zimmermann, Juan Diego Florez, Gidon Kremer, Edita Gruberova, Giora Feidman, Eliso Virsaladze, Lynn Harrell, Rudolf Buchbinder, Christian Zacharias, Lisa Batiashvili, François Leleux, Natalia Gutman, Sharon Kam, Diana Damrau, Zoltán Kocsis, Alfredo Perl, the KOLSIMCHA ensemble, Gilles Apap, Maxim Vengerov, Nikolai Tokarev and Khatia Buniatishvili have provided further artistic impulses. In 2015 the violinist and conductor Julian Rachlin performed with the orchestra in Ingolstadt for the first time as “Artist in Residence”. In 2016 the clarinettist Sharon Kam and in 2017 the cellist Daniel Müller-Schott performed as “Artist in Residence”.

The Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt considers itself an ensemble not only responsible for a significantly broad repertoire, but also as a cultural ambassador for the City of Ingolstadt. This involves activities beyond the subscription concerts. The orchestra gives about ninety concerts a year at music festivals. It also performs abroad, for example in Spain, France, Georgia, Austria, in Switzerland and recently in Israel. It has also been a fixture in the Audi Summer Concert Series for many years.

Since 2010, the ensemble has been supported by the Free State of Bavaria as a non-state orchestra.

Michael Guttman is a violinist, conductor and music director of prominent festivals around the world, including Pietrasanta in Concerto, Crans Montana Classics in Switzerland, Le Printemps du Violon in Paris, and Made in Polin in Warsaw. He is also the music director of the Napa Valley Symphony and the Belgian Chamber Orchestra. Guttman received the prestigious Scopus Prize (2014) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his achievements in music, and was also nominated for a Grammy award for his Hindemith Album with the Philarmonia Orchestra. He was the youngest violinist ever admitted to the Brussels Royal Conservatory at age 10. His debut at age 14, with Jean-Pierre Rampal, led to the meeting with his mentor Isaac Stern who recommended him for further studies at the Juilliard School in New York City where he studied with Dorothy Delay and The Juilliard Quartet. He studied with the legendary Russian violinist Boris Goldstein, in tribute to whom he organized a violin competition together with Professor Zakhar Bron in Bern, Switzerland in 2014. As Belgium’s leading violinist, he was chosen to represent his country in 1992, during the Sevilla Universal Exhibition. Concerts at the Lincoln Center, Barbican Hall, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Salle Pleyel in Paris, and in Asia were followed by invitations to prestigious festivals such as, Progetto Martha Argerich, Flanders Festival, Bashmet’s Elba Festival, Folles Journées of Nantes and Tokyo, and the Menuhin Festival Gstaad. He premiered the Philip Glass Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in the USA and the Hong Kong Philhamonic for Asia, which were both conducted by Jaap Van Zweden. He has toured with Martha Argerich, Nestor Marconi, Nigel Kennedy, Boris Berezovsky and Vadim Repin among others. After collaborating with composers and conductors such as Lukas Foss and Noam Sheriff, he developed his conducting career and in 2017, toured the most prestigious halls in Spain appearing with the legendary pianist Ivo Pogorelich. His encounter with Astor Piazzolla encouraged him to discover different styles of tango music, and in 2017 he created the first double concerto for violin and bandoneon with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and J.P. Jofre, the famous Argentinian bandoneon player. Michael Guttman plays on a 1735 Guarneri del Gesù violin once owned by the great Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Battista Viotti.

Boris Berezovsky has established a great reputation, both as the most powerful of virtuoso pianists and as a musician gifted with a unique insight and a great sensitivity. Born in Moscow, Boris Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Eliso Virsaladze and privately with Alexander Satz. Subsequent to his London debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times described him as an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power. Two years later, he won the Gold Medal at the 1990 International Tchaïkovsky Competition in Moscow. Boris Berezovsky is regularly invited by the most prominent orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Philharmonia of London, Orchestra Santa Cecilia Roma, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and so on. Boris Berezovsky is often invited to the most prestigious international recital series : The Berlin Philharmonic Piano series, the Concertgebouw International piano series and the Royal Festival Hall International Piano series in London, to great stages such as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Salle Pleyel in Paris, Royal Festival Hall of London, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Konzerthaus of Vienna, the Megaron in Athens, as well as to the most famous international festivals among which Verbier, Salzbourg, or la Roque d’Anthéron. With Teldec, Boris Berezovksy has recorded works of Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Medtner, Ravel and the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies. His recording of the Rachmaninov sonatas was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and his Ravel disc was recommended by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, The BBC Music Magazine and the Sunday Independent. Boris Berezovsky also won the BBC Music Magazine Awards in March 2006 as Best Instrumentalist. His solo live recording Chopin/Godowsky was highly praised. His next engagements include, among others, concerts with : Russian National Rochestra/ Mikhail Pletnev, Orchestre de Paris/Andreï Boreyko, Les Siècles/François-Xavier Roth, Hong Kong Philharmonic/Jaap Van Zweden…, tours in Asia with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, in Europe with the Deutsches Symphony-Orchester/Tugan Sokhiev, in Russia (Mariinsky…) with the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra/Dimitri Liss, recitals and chamber music in the most prestigious halls and festivals (Royal Festival Hall of London, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Suntory Hall of Tokyo…). Boris Berezovsky took over the work of his friend Brigitte Engerer becoming artistic director of the Festival Pianoscope Beauvais.

"He has been defined by the classical music press as one of the most promising musicians at the international level.  Even at his early age, the quality and experience of Enrico Fagone’s musical experience surpass the highest standards. (ranging from Martha Argerich to the Juilliard school of New York )  I am determined to back this statement.” Z.G.- CdT 

Fagone is a staple performer in the most prestigious festivals worldwide, collaborating with Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mischa Maisky, Vadim Repin, Michael Guttman, Kathia and   Marielle Labèque and countless others.
?His recording portfolio is vast with appearances on record labels EMI, Deutsche Grammophon and Warner and He is the Principal Guest Conductor of the LICO Long Island Concert Orchestra - New York, Ambassador of the Martha Argerich Presents Project in the world and Artistic Director of the Giovanni Bottesini Competition. 

Fagone is often invited as a Conductor and soloist all over the world, by numerous orchestras such as Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Mendelsshon Chamber Orchestra, l’Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto, NYSO Orchestra Nazionale Giovanile Inglese, LICO Long Island Concert Orchestra New-York, Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Napa Valley Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Nazionale del Paraguay, Italian Ensemble (Teatro Bellini di Catania), Bilkent Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Municipale di Rosario,                        I Virtuosi Italiani ecc.

Recently Enrico Fagone has conducted an important series of concerts in Italy, Switzerland,   Germany and United States with soloists like Christoph Hartmann (Berliner Philharmoniker),  Marco Zoni and  Simonide Braconi (Soloists in “Teatro la Scala” of Milan) and the famous singers  Vladimir Stoyanov and Amarilli Nizza.  

He regularly holds Courses and Master Classes worldwide in the most important institutions including; The Juilliard School of New York, Manhattan school of Music (USA), Royal College of Music of London (UK), IUNA of Buenos Aires (Argentina), Royal Danish Academy (Denmark), Toho Gakuen of Tokyo (Japan), and The Paris Conservatory CNSMDP. (France). He is also a respected educator. Currently he maintains a large teaching studio at the Conservatory of Lugano in Switzerland. 

Before commencing his conducting career, he had the opportunity to perform for fifteen years Symphonic and Opera Repertoire as a Principal Double bass of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and in some of the finest orchestras and theaters throughout the world. Such as the Orchestra-Teatro alla Scala (Milan), Parma Opera Theater, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Festival Strings Lucerne, Accademia Nazionale of Santa Cecilia, Rome Opera Theater , NHK of Tokyo. In addition to this seasoned experience, he has made appearances with the most notable conductors of our time. Including, Lorin Mazeel, Myun-Whun Chung, Nello Santi, Christian Thielemann, Bernard Haitink and Daniele Gatti. 

He graduated cum laude in Double bass at the conservatory ‘Giuseppe Nicolini’ of Piacenza (Italy) with Leonardo Colonna and completed his studies with Franco Petracchi and Klaus Stoll (Berliner Philharmoniker 1965-2008). In addition, he complimented his studies in Composition with Jorge Bosso and in Orchestral Conducting at the "Claudio Abbado" school in Milan, and with Jorma Panula in Helsinki (Panula Academy). 

Cinzia Forte returns to Castiglioncello after appearing in 2015 with Maurizio Baglini in program dedicated to the Seasons (revived at the Teatro Comunale in Treviso) in 2016 with a successful Shostakovich program and in 2017 performing in an exclusive lyric concert. Praised by international critics for the uncommon elegance of her phrasing and remarkable stage presence, Mrs. Forte is present on the billboards of the main Italian and European theatres such as the Teatro alla Scala, Teatro San Carlo in Naples, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Teatro Massimo in Palermo, Teatro Regio in Turin, Opera in Rome, Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Liceu in Barcelona, Teatro de la Maestranza in Seville, Zurich Opera House, Théâtre des Champs-Elysees in Paris, Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège, Deutsche Oper Berlin and Teatro Real in Madrid, Opéra de Monte Carlo. She collaborated with such prestigious conductors as Claudio Abbado, Bruno Campanella, Riccardo Chailly, Myung-Whun Chung, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Daniele Gatti, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Jeffrey Tate and René Jacobs, and internationally renowned directors such as Roberto De Simone, Willy Decker, Dario Fo, Michael Hampe, Mario Martone, Jonathan Miller, Pier Luigi Pizzi, Luca Ronconi, Emilio Sagi, Jérôme Savary, Graham Vick, Franco Zeffirelli. Her recent engagements included: Rossini’s Bianca e Falliero at the Rossini Festival in Bad Wildbad, Madama Butterfly in Sassari, La Traviata, Le Nozze di Figaro (Contessa) and Leo’s L’Olimpiade in Naples, Falstaff (Alice) Le Nozze di Figaro (Contessa) in Cagliari, Otello in Liège, La Gazzetta in Tel Aviv, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Milan.

Siberian-born Vadim Repin won the Wienawski Competition’s gold medal and gave debuts in Moscow and St Petersburg at age 11, followed by Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, Helsinki and Carnegie Hall. At only 17 he was the youngest ever winner of the Reine Elisabeth Concours. Since then he has performed with the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors. Among the highlights of his career in the past few seasons have been tours with the London Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, the NHK Orchestra and Dutoit; a tour of Australia with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski, and acclaimed premières in London, Philadelphia, New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Salle Pleyel in Paris and Amsterdam's Concertgebouw of the violin concerto written for him by Sir James MacMillan, culminating in a BBC Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. Vadim Repin recorded concerti by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky on Warner Classics, Beethoven and Brahms on Deutsche Grammophon, trios with Mischa Maisky and Lang Lang (winning the Echo Classic) and sonatas with Nikolai Lugansky, winning the BBC Music Award. His partnership with the Bolshoi and La Scala prima ballerina Svetlana Zakharova in their ‘Pas de Deux’ programme has been internationally acclaimed for its remarkable combination of music and dance. In 2010 he received the Victoire d’Honneur, France’s most prestigious musical award for a lifetime’s dedication to music, and became Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres. In 2014 he became Honorary Professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music, and in 2015 at the Shanghai Conservatory, in recognition of his work with young musicians. His acclaimed Transsiberian Arts Festival has annually since 2014 brought exceptional music to his home region and has reached out to Israel and Japan and many other destinations. He plays on the 1733 Stradivarius 'Rode' violin.

A sort of modern-day Vivaldi, Anton Martynov is described by Ivry Gitlis as “an absolute and complete musician: magnificent violinist, excellent pianist, composer and conductor - what more can you expect - all in one person!" Anton Martynov studied at the Gnessin School and Academy of Moscow with Elena Malkina, Irina Svetlova, Vladimir Spivakov and Valentin Berlinski, then with Dora Schwarzberg in Brescia and with Gigino Maestri at the Milan Conservatory. In 1993, he recorded Brahms’ Concerto Op. 77, distributed by ARTE. Winner of the Stresa International Competition (1994), he joined the Anton Quartet in Paris and became soloist of the Milan Symphony Orchestra under Chailly and of Minkowski’s Musiciens du Louvre. Beginning a solo career in 2010, in the last few years he has performed in France, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Brazil, Russia, Slovenia, Turkey and Bulgaria, playing with the Orchestra of Italian Switzerland, the Maggio Musicale, the Modo Antiquo, the Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca, the Istanbul and Izmir Symphonic Orchestras. His partners now include Martha Argerich, Boris Berezovsky, Gérard Caussé, Henri Demarquette, Ivry Gitlis (who he also accompanies at the piano), David Guerrier, Xavier Phillips and many others. In 2017, he opened the Bologna Festival in trio with Martha Argerich and Jorge Bosso. His repertoire includes Bach’s Six Sonatas and Partitas and Paganini’s 24 Caprices for solo violin as well as his own transcriptions and compositions for violin, orchestra and other instruments. Several of his live recordings of the Lugano Festival are included in the collections of EMI and Warner Music, nominated to Grammy in 2017. Two other CDs are dedicated to today’s composers Antonio Santana (Erol, 2014) and Alexander Mansourian (Brilliant Classics, 2017). The first two CDs of the “Music for Two” series with Kremena Nikolova (NovAntiqua Records) made headlines of French magazines in 2016 and got nomination to the International Classical Music Awards in Luxembourg in 2017. His recording of Federico Maria Sardelli’s Violin Concerto under the direction of the author (Brilliant Classics, 2014) received 5 Diapasons in 2014, their common version of Vivaldi’s “La Stravaganza” with Modo Antiquo will be released by Dynamic in 2018. Anton Martynov the founder and artistic director, with Michaël Guttman, of the Parisian festival Le Printemps du Violon since 2016. He is professor of violin at the Royal Conservatory of Mons in Belgium and assistant to Philippe Graffin at the National Superior Conservatory of Paris. He plays a magnificent violin by Nicolò Gagliano of 1732.

Known for her capitvating spirit and ability to move from “soft and sultry to all around smiles” – Splash Magazines, Arianna Smith quickly established herself as a young prodigy, performing at such prestigious venues as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., the Symphony Center and Harris Theater in Chicago, as well as the Dame Myra Hess Concert Series Live from Preston Bradley Hall, Verbier Academy, the Perlman Music Program, and the Kronberg Academy.

An avid chamber musician, Ms. Smith has given collaborative performances with world-renowned artists such as Steven Isserlis, Christian Tetzlaff, Mate Bekavac, the Ébene Quartet, James Galway, Arnold Steinhardt, Daniel Hope, Viviane Hagner, Claudio Bohorquez, Rachel Barton Pine, and Paul Coletti. In the United States, you can hear Arianna’s performances featured on National Public Radio’s “From the Top,” WFMT’s “Live from WFMT” and “Introductions,” as well as KUSC’s “Sundays Live Program from LACMA.”

Ms. Smith is currently an artist in residence at The Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and recently joined the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz roster of 2017. She is also a concertist at the École Normale de Musique in Paris. Her prior pedagogues include Jean Sulem, Paul Coletti, Roland and Almita Vamos, and Marko Dreher.

In 1999, a group of young virtuosi from different cultures gathered in Brussels around a musical score out of shared passion for chamber music. The specific sonority of the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, their genuine interest to deeply research and experiment as a group is the result of this initial union. Indeed, this ensemble merges an especially rich mixture of nationalities, cultures and musical heritages, forging a dynamic interaction between contrasting musical belief systems, styles, and traditions. The absence of a conductor drives the musicians towards total personal involvement and converts orchestral texture into real chamber music. The repertoire includes works spanning from Bach to Mozart to Britten, from Elgar to Bartók Hindemith and Schoenberg. They have commissioned and premiered many new works from young outstanding composers and are constantly looking for new repertoire to be discovered. BCO performed with some fo the most outstanding musicians of our time such as Ivry Gitlis, Igor Oistrakh, Maxim Vengerov, Gavriel Lipkind, Janine Jansen, Sergei Krylov, Pierre Amoyal, Lorenzo Gatto, Dora Schwarzberg, Erasmo Capilla, Boris Berezovsky, Gilles Apap, David Cohen, Michael Guttman, Eliane Rodrigues, Plamena Mangova, Tatiana Vassilieva, Justus Grimm, Richard Stolzman, Walter Boeykens and the singer Daniele De Niese. BCO also excelled in other musical styles such as Flamenco with Amparo Cortes, Jazz with Michel Bisceglia as well as the ‘Pierre Anckaert Quintet’, Pablo Villuendas’ music, Jewish folklore with Kletzstory, Chinese folklore with George Gao (Erhu) and the French Chanson with Mauranne. These experiences enrich BCO’s ability to meaningfully participate in multicultural projects, adding programs of local music to otherwise classical tours in countries such as Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Norway, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, USA and recently China. The Brussels Chamber Orchestra is involved in the creation and nourishment of educational and outreach projects and has been graciously honoured as artistical ambassodor of the « Yehudi Menuhin Fondation ».

Pursueing a centuries-old choral tradition firmly rooted in this city, the Opera Choir of Parma stems from the need to create a team that brings together chorus artists with excellent musical preparation and, at the same time, an extraordinary ability to work on the stage. The choral ensemble is characterized by a marked flexibility of the staff, consisting of a number of players ranging from thirty to ninety - and even more for the great symphonic repertoire. The repertoire includes the main works of the nineteenth century, even in their original language, and some of the most important productions of the symphonic repertoire.
It has taken part in numerous opera productions in the main Italian theaters, meeting with unanimous approval from the public and critics. In 2009, the collaboration with the Italian Philharmonic Orchestra led to a recording of Cavalleria Rusticana, and in the same year it successfully dealt with the K317 Coronation Mass by W.A.Mozart, performed in Milan and in other important theaters. Once again in Milan, it took part in the Assassinio nella Cattedrale production, as well as in concerts with the tenor Andrea Bocelli. In 2011, it took part in the opera Matilde di Canossa, conducted by Maestro Stefano Giaroli at the Teatro "Valli" in Reggio Emilia, and later took part in the recording of the opera Storia di una Capinera, featuring music by Gianni Bella. Once again in 2011, it performed an opera concert in the prestigious KKL Hall in Lucerne, one of the most important concert venues in Europe, Nabucco for the Music Association "Ripatransone Opera Leonis Festival" conducted by Maestro Stefano Romani, and in December of the same year, in Milan, the IX Sinfonia by L.Van Beethoven, and La Boheme in Fidenza conducted by Fabrizio Cassi for the restoration of the sound booth. In 2012, it performed the Messa di Requiem with the Orchestra Coccia of Novara at various Italian cathedrals, Rigoletto at the Teatro Cavour of Imperia, Ivrea, Rovereto and in Roncole Verdi, as well as Carmen at the Teatro Cantero of Chiavari. In 2013, it took part in the Noli Musica Festival with a concert by Verdi's choirs conducted by Maestro Martino Faggiani. In the same year, conducted by Maestro Marcello Rota, it also took part in the opera La Traviata, staged in front of the birthplace of Maestro Giuseppe Verdi, in Roncole Verdi. In November of the same year, it also took part in the opera Jerusalem by Giuseppe Verdi in the full edition staged by the Teatro Magnani of Fidenza. In 2014, it took part in the opera Tosca in the re-opening after the earthquake of the Teatro Sociale di Carpi. Also in 2014, it took part in the opera L'Elisir d'Amore seen by Botero at the Teatro Verdi in Busseto, alongside artists such as Michele Pertusi, Eva Mei and Celso Albelo. In June 2014, it performed an opera concert, conducted by Maestro Martino Faggiani, on the Island of Elba, in a unique and rare scenario: the Ginevro Mine, namely the most important event within the celebrations of the Napoleonic Bicentennial. Other productions are Madama Butterfly in Pordenone, La Vedova Allegra at Forte di Rivoli, L'Elisir d'Amore in Carrara, La Boheme at the Teatro dei Marsi and at Teatro Caniglia, La Vie Parisienne at the Teatro Comunale in Bolzano, Madama Butterfly at the Teatro Magnani di Fidenza, and The Princess of Czardas at the Teatro di Udine. It also recorded some other operas, such as Turandot, Tosca, La Traviata, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, L'Elisir d'Amore. In Europe, the Opera Choir of Parma has taken part in numerous opera festivals in recent years, including, to name a few, the International «Salon de Provence» Festival, the Locarno Festival, the «La Perla» Festival in Zurich. For several years, it has taken part in the opera seasons of Roncole Verdi, in front of the Maestro's birthplace. Subsequently, it performed the Messa di Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi in the Cathedral of Como. For three years, it has taken part in the important «Magnetic Festival», staging summer opera productions at the Ginevro Mine of Capoliveri - Isola d'Elba. In 2015, the Opera Choir of Parma was called by Giovanni Allevi to record the song «O generosa», which from September has become the official anthem of the Italian football league of the highest series. The collaboration with Maestro Allevi has continued later with live concerts in Rome, Turin and Milan. In Milan, it has also recorded an unpublished song, «Sotto lo stesso cielo», which will be performed later at the "Verdi" Auditorium, without forgetting the participation in important RAI broadcasts. At the same time, it has continued his opera activity with the participation in important opera and concert productions, such as the Messa di Gloria by Pietro Mascagni performed in the Cathedral of Carpi, on the occasion of the reopening after the severe damage following the earthquake. This was followed by Norma's productions at the Teatro Magnani in Fidenza conducted by Maestro Valerio Galli, Carmen in the theaters of the Abruzzo region, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, La Boheme conducted by Maestro Stefano Giaroli, and Nabucco in the Reggia di Colorno. Then, in August, it took part in the eleventh «Salon de Provence» Opera Festival, Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Tower of Castruccio of Massa Carrara, and in November the Mass of the Coronation K317 by Mozart in the Cathedral of Siena. Subsequently, the lyrical season of Fidenza and Bolzano, Tosca in the Theaters of Avezzano and Sulmona, Nabucco and Cavalleria Rusticana at the Giuditta Pasta Theater in Saronno, Il Barbiere di Siviglia at the Paganini Auditorium in Parma conducted by Maestro Agiman, Madama Butterfly at the Teatro Sociale in Carpi. Some upcoming engagements will be Rigoletto and Il Trovatore at the Reggia di Colorno, the Festival of Elba Island, Madama Butterfly at the «Orizzonti» Festival, Turandot in Piacenza, and the «Salon de Provence» Opera Festival. The choir has been led by various conductors, such as Emiliano Esposito, Fabrizio Cassi, Marco Faelli and Martino Faggiani.

Dario Bonuccelli, born in 1985, has devoted himself to the piano from the age of four, under the guidance of Luciano Lanfranchi. He graduated in 2004 from the Conservatory of Genoa with the highest mark, honours and a special mention. He then went on to specialize with Franco Scala, Andrea Lucchesini and Pietro De Maria. In 2011 he earned a master degree with Marco Vincenzi. Dario has taken part in many national and international competitions, winning forty-two first prizes, many scolarships and special recognitions. He gave his first public performance in 1998; since then, he has performed approximately 500 concerts in Europe and Japan. Dario’s repertoire ranges from Baroque to contemporary music. In 2013 he recorded a double CD of Richard Wagner’s complete piano works for the Dynamic label, then he recorded the first two in a series of four CDs devoted to the piano works of Richard Strauss. In addition to his solo performances, Dario also plays chamber music in ensembles, ranging from duos to quintets. He teaches principal piano at the Conservatory of Potenza.

"A brilliant display of artistry on the violin", says the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger about Fedor Rudin.

Recently winning both Second Prize and Audience Prize at the prestigious 2018 Premio Paganini International Violin Competition in Genoa, the French-Russian violinist Fedor Rudin is quickly establishing himself as one of the most unique and polyvalent concert artists of today's generation. His numerous awards also include first prizes at Henri Marteau, Rodolfo Lipizer and Aram Khachaturian competitions, and a second prize at the George Enescu competition. His newest CD album "Reflets" together with pianist Florian Noack has been nominated for the International Classical Music Awards.
His latest concert engagements included solo debuts at prestigious concert halls like Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium in New York, Cadogan Hall in London, Paris Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein, Tonhalle Zurich, Cologne Philharmonie, Dusseldorf Tonhalle and Hamburg Laeiszhalle, with many world-renowned orchestras including the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the National Orchestra of the Opéra Bastille, the Bulgarian National Orchestra, the Bretagne Symphony Orchestra, the Erfurt Philharmonic Orchestra, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Nürnberg Symphony Orchestra, the Cape Town Philharmonic and the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. He has played under the baton of Maxim Vengerov, Darrell Ang, Vladimir Altschuler, Christoph Poppen, Emil Tabakov & Conrad van Alphen. 

Fedor has been also recently combining both playing and conducting. Notable performances include Tchaikovsky and Khachaturian concertos with the Georgian National Philharmonic, who had engaged Fedor as their guest conductor at the age of 20, as well as different Mozart concerti with Kobe City Chamber Orchestra, Paris Chamber Orchestra and Munich Chamber Orchestra. In the upcoming 2018-19 season, Fedor is invited to perform with the Petrobras Symphony Orchestra of Rio de Janeiro as a soloist and as a conductor as well. He also had the chance to work with the Lviv Philharmonic Orchestra and the Orquesta Reino de Aragon.

A devoted chamber musician, Fedor is a founding member of Fratres Trio, hailed as "a new generation of classical music" by the press for their unusual combination of violin, saxophone and piano. The ensemble was a recipient of the Best of NRW Concert Series Award in Germany, and has received the Supersonic Award by Pizzicato Magazine for their CD release "Couleurs d'un Rêve".

He is regularly performing at prestigious musical festivals such as the Salzburg Festival in Austria, ArtenetrA, Musée en Musique (where he won the Audience Prize in 2012), Périgord Noir and Giverny chamber music festivals in France, Braunschweig Classics and Oleg Kagan Festivals in Germany, Musica Riva in Italy, Crans Montana Classics in Switzerland, and Mozart Festival in Havana, Cuba. His chamber music partners include Michel Strauss, Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden, Igor Levit, Itamar Golan, Francois Dumont, Laurent Korcia and Vadym Kholodenko.

Born in Moscow in 1992 to a musicians’ family, Fedor's grandfather was the famous Russian avant-garde composer Edison Denisov. He has studied with Larissa Kolos, Miroslav Roussine, Svetlin Roussev, Zakhar Bron and Pierre Amoyal, before being enrolled in the conducting class of Prof. Simeon Pironkoff at the University of Music in Vienna in 2016.
Fedor plays a fine Italian violin by Lorenzo Storioni made in Cremona in 1779, generously loaned to him by the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben Foundation in Hamburg. He became a laureate of French funds “Fondation d’entreprise Banque Populaire” (2013) and "Fondation Bleustein-Blanchet pour la Vocation" (2014), as well as winner of the "Prix Fondation Safran pour la Musique" Prize (2015).

Set up in the spring of 2002 by the union of musicians who collaborate with the most important Italian and foreign orchestras, the Chamber Orchestra «I Musici di Parma» was established with the dual aim of both rediscovering unpublished works and disseminating masterpieces of all time. As a chamber and symphonic orchestra, it faces a wide repertoire ranging from baroque to classicism, up to the most beautiful pages of twentieth-century music, paying particular attention on the Italian melodrama and the arias and romances of the international opera.

The «Musici di Parma» have accompanied in concert and recital musicians and singers of international fame. Among them, we can mention Christoph Hartmann, Andrea Oliva, Enrico Bronzi, Giovanni Gnocchi, Simonide Braconi, Stefano Pagliani, Francesco Manara, Francesco De Angelis, Andrea Lucchi, Emanuele Arciuli, Federico Mondelci, Mario Marzi, Renato Bruson, Daria Masiero, Katia Pellegrino, Katia Ricciarelli, Chiara Taigi, Carlo Colombara, Francesco Meli, Carmelo Corrado Caruso, and Federico Canonici. The Orchestra has stood out in the European music scene for the originality of its concert programs and the quality of its performances, greatly welcomed by both the public and critics. The «Musici» have performed in important theaters, concert halls, and festivals, in Italy and abroad. Among these, we can mention the «Galuppi Festival» of Venice, the «Guido Cantelli Festival» in Novara, the «Amfiteatrof Festival» in Levanto, the «Kultur und Kongresszentrum Luzern» Festival, the Martinskirche Festival in Basel. Moreover, we cannot avoid mentioning the Teatro Arcimboldi in Milan, where they performed with the singer Lu Wei, directed by Maestro Lü Jia, on the Anniversary of Relations between Italy and China; a concert broadcast in over 50 countries worldwide.

The «Musici di Parma» manage the homonymous Academy of Music, and organize in Salsomaggiore Terme (province of Parma), the city where they reside at the prestigious Palazzo Berzieri, the «Salso Summer Class & Festival», this year at its ninth edition, and the review «Musica alle Terme» [Music at the Spa]. They record for the label «Concerto». Their CD, recorded with the participation of Enrico Bronzi, entirely dedicated to Nino Rota, has obtained pleasing reports in numerous magazines and periodicals of the sector (five stars by the critics on «Amadeus» and «Classic Voice»).

With her deep musicality and virtuosity, Jing ZHAO is considered one of the most promising artists now establishing an international career. Jing Zhao, the leading Chinese cellist of her generation, won the 1rst prize of the prestigious ARD international competition in Munich in 2005 and went on to receive the 2009 Exxon Mobil Music award in Japan. The Great Seiji Ozawa chose her as soloist, together with the violinist Vadim Repin, the pianist Lang Lang and the Singer Kathleen Battle, for the opening new-year concert of the China National Center for the Performing Arts . He had already been instrumental in helping her move to Berlin where she studied at the Karajan Academy, as well as studying privately with Yo-Yo Ma and Maestro Rostropovich.
M.Rostropovich recognizing her exceptional talent,made it possible for her to enter the Class of the renowned Prof David Geringas in the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik Hanns Eisler. She has performed with noted conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Mazel, Ricardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Myung-whun Chung, Muhai Chang, Mikhael Pletnev, Yuri Bashmet,?Kenichiro Kobayashi, Jean Fournet and Eliahu Inbal among others. Orchestras that have invited her include the NHK Symphony, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Beijing Symphony, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra,Berliner Symphony Orchestra, The Hong Kong Philharmonic, the KBS Philharmonic in Seoul, the NDR Symphony orchestra, the Philharmonica della Scala, the Sydney Symphony and the Singapore Symphony.
While in Berlin, Jing Zhao became a very sought after chamber music partner, collaborating with artists such Emmanuel Pahud, Guy Braustein , Daishin Kashimoto, Paul Meyer, Boris Berezovsky, Eric le sage, Antoine Tamestit, Konstantin Lifschitz and Trevor Pinnock. She toured in Asia with Myung -whun Chung, where they were invited to perform together with H I H Crown Prince Nahurito of Japan.
The great pianist Martha Argerich has chosen to perform and record the Tchaikowsky trio with Jing ZHAO and dora Schwartzberg during her festival in Lugano, where she is now a regular guest. Other festivals where she performs include the celebrated Jerusalem festival, Zagreb international festival, Zagreb chamber music festival,Roland’s Ecke in Bonn WH, Bad Kissingen, Istanbul international festival, Argerich’s Beppu festival, Folles Journees, etc.
She is also Guest Professor in Beijing conservatory and Tokyo College of Music . Jing Zhao has recorded 5 cd’s for Victor entertainment in japan. She plays on a Montagnana Cello(1738) on generous loan to her from a private Foundation. Her upcoming CDs, a Russian album, recorded in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra featuring the Shostakovich cello concerto and a Chinese album, two Tan Dun's Cello Concertos were recorded in June 2017 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London with Maestro Tan Dun conducting, both CD released in 2018.

Born in Moscow, Katia Skanavi has been impressing audiences, critics and fellow performers alike with her vibrant pianism and sensitive musicality. A former finalist at the Van Cliburn competition, she is a favorite partner of musicians like Leonidas Kavakos, Yuri Bashmet and Gidon Kremer, both as a soloist with the Salzburg Camerata, Moscow Soloists, Kremerata Baltica and as a chamber music partner.

Katia has appeared at various European festivals including La Roque d’Anthéron, Lockenhaus, Schubertiade among many others.
European engagements included her debut at the Berlin Philharmonie with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester with Arvo Part' s Credo, Theatre des Champs- Elysees with the Orchestre National de France and Kurt Masur performing Tchaikovsky Concerto N 3, which resulted in an immediate re-invitation, performances with Sinfonia Varsovia under the baton of Sir Yehudi Menuhin and many years of collaboration with Maestro Jaap van Zweden.
Her most notable American engagements included recitals in New York, Ravinia and Washington and performances with the Symphony Orchestras of Cincinnati, Dallas, Indianapolis and San Francisco.

Katia Skanavi toured Australia with a three-week national recital tour for Musica Viva. She “brought the house down” (The West) and prompted the critic from The Australian to describe her as having “…an exceptionally refined sense of musical discourse.”

Katia Skanavi comes from a culturally rich Greek – Russian family. She began her musical studies in Moscow at the School for Gifted Children and at the age of 12 she gave her first public concert with orchestra in the Grand Hall of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory, performing Kabalevsky’s third piano concerto under the composer’s direction. On her 18th birthday she became a multiple prize-winner in the finals of the Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris. Appearances followed at the world’s major concert venues, including the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo.
She nevertheless continued to study, at the Conservatoire National in Paris and the Moscow Conservatory, then at the Cleveland Institute with Sergei Babayan.
In 1994 she won Grand Prix Maria Callas.
Katia Skanavi’s repertoire is spreading from classical over contemporary music. She recorded Georgs Pelecis ' Double Concerto "Nevertheless" with Gidon Kremer as well as many live recitals on Lyrinx, which were highly praised by the press and a Chopin recital (Pro Piano label) was named ‘Classical Recording of the Month’ by Gramophone magazine. Her last CD with orchestra includes Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No. 1 as well as his “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini” with Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra under Michel Tabachnik.
Katia Skanavi collaborated lately with such conductors as Vladimir Fedoseev, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Ignat Solzhenitsyn, Claudio Vandelli, Ainars Rubikis,Eiji Oue, Arman Tigranyan, Gintaras Rinkevicius and many wonderful chamber music partners such as Alban Gerhardt, Alexander Kniazev, Vilde Frang, Jorg Widmann, Sergey Krylov, Claudio Bohorquez, Amihai Grosz, Nicolas Dautricourt, Wenzel Fuchs, Nicolas Altstaedt, Marc Bouchkov, Sharon Kam, Daishin Kashimoto, Paul Meyer.

Highlights of the last years have been recitals and orchestral engagements in Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Moscow and Paris.

Katia was invited by Maestro Valery Gergiev to participate in Sergei Prokofiev's anniversary celebration (2016).


In Summer 2016 she performed at Verbier Festival with Liana Issakadze.
Her last recital CD is released in 2018.

She is a unique artist, her musical humility is an incredible asset for her performance where the listener’s attention is being taken by the marvel…” Philippe Graffin
Born in Bulgaria, Kremena Nikolova started the violin at the age of six. Several years later, she continued her education at the National School of Music in Bourgas, and then continued at the National Music Academy in Sofia. At the age of eleven, she began her concert career, winning prizes in competitions for young violinists and performing many concerts as soloist with Bulgarian orchestras in the most important Bulgarian concert halls.
During the following years she enriched her musical knowledge under the guidance of artists such as Zakhar Bron, Michael Frischenschlager, Gerard Poulet, Dong-Suk Kang, Pavel Vernikov, Enrico Onofri, Chiara Banchini, Giorgio Fava and Anton Martynov, of whom she is currently teaching assistant.
After completing her studies at the National Music Academy in Sofia, she moved to Italy in 2012. Considered by critics as an extremely expressive young violinist, Kremena currently has the opportunity to perform concerts as a soloist and chamber musician in Italy, Bulgaria, France, Spain, Russia, Slovenia working with world-renowned musicians.
Her chamber music partners are: Anton Martynov, Riccardo Minasi, Ivry Gitlis, Giorgio Fava, Lyda-Chen Argerich, Vittorio Ceccanti, Anna Serova, Walter Vestidello, Alberto Casadei, Mark Drobinsky, Dima Tzypkin, ecc. She plays with various chamber ensembles including “Sonatori de la Gioiosa Marca”, “Contrarco Baroque Ensemble”, ‘’Alraune”, “Orchestra Antonio Vivaldi of Venice”,, “Camerata of Paris” ‘’Oficina Musicum’’ and others. Kremena Nikolova is the artistic director of the International Music Festival “San Martino a Natale” in Venice since its foundation in 2014. Her repertoire includes early music performed with original baroque instruments, classical, romantic and contemporary music, as well as first performances of newly created compositions.

The Russian-American creator and performer Lera Auerbach is a composer, pianist, conductor, poet and visual artist. Thanks to her Renaissance approach to creation and art, Lera is one of today’s most sought after and exciting creative voices in the art's world .
Her knowledge of the whole piano and symphonic repertoire makes her concert programs a very special trip: she likes to introduce in her programs one of more of her own works, which in that special contest, reinforces her vision of the music of other composers present in the same event.
Lera began composing her own music at an early age; she later told an interviewer, "I was born to do this, to work in art... I had this feeling when I was four and I had it when I came to New York...".

Auerbach has graduated in piano and composition from the Juilliard School, where she studied piano with Joseph Kalichstein and composition with Milton Babbitt. Her graduate studies were supported by The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans. She also graduated from the piano soloist program of the Hochschule für Musik Hannover.

She made her Carnegie Hall debut in May 2002 performing and conducting her own Suite for Violin, Piano and Orchestra with violinist Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica. She has appeared as solo pianist at such venues as the Great Concert Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, Tokyo's Opera City, Lincoln Center, Herkulessaal, Oslo Konserthus, Chicago's Theodore Thomas Orchestra Hall and the Kennedy Center.
Her work as composer is championed by today’s leading performers and with most of them Lera has made music together on stage from the keyboard including violinists such as Gidon Kremer, Leonidas Kavakos, Vadim Gluzman, Hilary Hahn, Vadim Repin, Daniel Hope, Julian Rachlin, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Dmitry Sitkovetsky; violists such as Kim Kashkashian and David Aaron Carpenter; cellists like Alisa Weilerstein, Gautier Capuçon, Alban Gerhardt, David Finckel, Joshua Roman, David Geringas, Ani Aznavoorian, Wendy Warner and Narek Hakhnazaryan.

Auerbach has received numerous awards, including the prestigious Hindemith Prize, the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship, the German National Radio prize among others.
From 2007-2012 Auerbach was a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum in Davos. Today, she serves the WEF as a Cultural Leader, giving presentations around the world on Borderless Creativity. The LeraArt Foundation was established in her name in 2015 and seeks to create an artistic paradigm for composers through its “Modern Renaissance” project.
Her works as composer are published exclusively by Sikorski in Germany and her catalog presents more than 100 works for orchestra, opera and ballet, as well as choral and chamber music
Her music is available on Deutsche Grammophon, Nonesuch, BIS, Cedille and other labels.

Luc Tooten was for more than fifteen years the first cello soloist of the Brussels Philharmonic. He studied at the Brussels Royal Conservatory with Carlo Schmitz and completed his education with Edmond Baeyens and Reine Flachot . He also attended the masterclasses of Gerhard Hamann, Anner Bijlsma and Mstislav Rostropovitch. After winning several international prizes, he made his debut as a soloist performing the Saint Saëns Cello Concerto with the Belgian Radio Symphony Orchestra. His performance of the Korngold Cello Concerto was broadcast by the VRT, the Flemish Television. His recording of the symphonic poem "Naar Hoger Licht ", a composition for cello-solo and orchestra by Lodewijk De Vocht, received a Choc award from the music periodical Monde de la Musique. In 2015 he was invited in Saint Petersburg to make a CD recording of the Triple Concerto of Beethoven with the St.-Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra. He performed as a soloist under the direction of conductors such as Andrej Borejko, Jan Latham-Koenig, Yoël Levy, Walter Proost, Alexander Rahbari and Tan Dun. At Tan Dun’s request, he played the Belgian premiere of the cello concerti Crouching Tiger and The Map.

As a chamber musician he has performed in Europe, Israel, Canada, China, Mexico and the USA. Luc is a frequent guest at festivals where he performs with well-known musicians such as Martha Argerich, Boris Berezovsky, Ivry Gitlis, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Eliane Rodriguez, Paulina Leschenko, Michel Letiec, Frank Braley, Itamar Golan, Michael Guttman and Vadim Repin, ./.. He made many recordings for Pavane Records Belgium, such as Franz Liszt and Lalo's complete works for cello and piano, and also the sonatas by Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Camille Saint-Saëns and Franz Schubert. Together with Trio Portici (Damien Pardoen, violin and Stéphane De May, piano) he recorded chamber music by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Sergey Rachmaninov, George Onslow, Robert Schumann, César Franck and Franz Schubert. Kalidisc released also a CD with previously unpublished works by tango composers like José Bragato and Ástor Piazzolla. Luc Tooten plays on a Gagliano cello from Napoli.

Marc Bouchkov’s artistry is driven by expression. His violin playing is grounded not only in a thorough knowledge of the score, the historical content and the authenticity of the interpretation, but also in his belief that performance is a way to communicate directly with his listeners. The closeness of the violin’s sound to the human voice is his inspiration for expressing feelings and emotions in music, turning these into a musical experience for the audience. Marc Bouchkov was born 1991 into a family of violinists. He received his first lessons at the age of five from his grandfather, Mattis Vaitsner. He studied with Claire Bernard and Boris Garlitzky, who has been his mentor ever since. Marc Bouchkov’s artistic development has been marked by numerous international awards. He won First Prize at the highly-regarded “International Violin Contest Henri Koch,” at the “European Young Concert Artists Audition” and at the “Queen Elizabeth Competition”. In 2013 he won the First Prize at the “Montreal International Musical Competition“ and was named an award-winner of the Stiftung Juventus by Georges Gara. Recently he received the “Lotto-Förderpreis” of the Rheingau Musik Festival. As a concert artist, the young musician has enjoyed a rapidly growing and widely acclaimed career. “Without doubt: an exceptional talent!” wrote the Neue Zürcher Zeitung after his concert with the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and Lionel Bringuier. Highlights of the 2016/2017 season include concerts with the hr Sinfonieorchester and Christoph Eschenbach, the Orchestre National de Belgique and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI in Turin under the baton of Andrey Boreyko. Marc Bouchkov performed already with the NDR-Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie. He played Brahms Violin Concerto with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker for a ballet production of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. In 2014, upon the invitation of Mariss Jansons, Marc Bouchkov performed the inaugural concert of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s «Essentials» series. As a keen chamber musician, Marc Bouchkov receives invitations to Hamburg, Montpellier, Zurich, Colmar, St. Petersburg and Montreal as well as to festivals like the Heidelberger Frühling and the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg. In October 2016 he will give his debut at Wigmore Hall London where he will be awarded with the London Music Masters prize. Marc Bouchkov is studying since October 2014 as a Young Soloist in a postgraduate course at the Kronberg Academy with Mihaela Martin. He is sponsored by Brigitte Feldtmann, who has provided him with a violin by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, Paris, 1865.

Marc Tooten studied at the Brussels Royal Conservatory and went on to pursue further studies at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. During the course of his career, he has been the leader of the viola section of various esteemed orchestras. He is currently the solo principal violist of the Brabant Philharmonic in Eindhoven, the Netherlands. As an interpreter of chamber music he is highly regarded in international circles; in addition to other ensembles, he is a member of the Salzburg Soloists and the Arriaga Quartet as well as the Taneyev String Trio, which he co-founded. Such distinguished musicians as Abdel Rahman El Bacha, Eduard Brunner, András Adorján, Martin Lovett, Martha Argerich, Boris Berezovsky and Itamar Golan have been among his numerous chamber music partners. At the Lemmens Institute (Leuven, Belgium) as professor of viola and chamber music and at the Maastricht Conservatory, he is pleased to impart his musical experience and insights with great enthusiasm to young musicians.

Destiny elevated Nigel Kennedy into one of classical music’s true greats.

He was born into a musical family, nurtured by a musical community and propelled to international superstardom.

Kennedy remains the bestselling violinist of all time. He singled-handedly paved the way for a new generation of artists, who have enjoyed success both in the classical field and in the mainstream. His virtuoso technique, unique talent and mass appeal have brought fresh perspectives to both the classical and contemporary repertoire.

Pushing at the boundaries that might constrain others, he has continued to pioneer new sounds and new methods of performance.

Single-minded, determined and utterly unique, Kennedy explores repertoire which spans classical, jazz, klezmer, rock and much, much more.

His mother bought him a violin as a youngster, after having previously encouraged her son to learn the piano. Kennedy’s violin teacher had the foresight to make learning fun, asking for no more than five minutes practice and then rewarding the youngster with sweets.

Kennedy shone and at the age of seven was spotted by the great Yehudi Menuhin, who offered him a scholarship at the Yehudi Menuhin School and agreed to pay all of his fees. Kennedy excelled and went on to study at the Juilliard School, in New York City, with Dorothy DeLay.

His unconventional approach to performing, however, had already taken root. He railed against the needless conformity that was sought in other youngsters and on occasion would take off his jacket and tie while on stage, much to the delight of the audience.

“That gave me a direct connection with the people in the theatres,” he said. “They realised I was the same as them. It made the performances more exciting.”

Labelling Kennedy a mere maverick, however, is missing the point. He is one of the great virtuosos, a compelling talent whose strong work ethic and perfectionist tendencies constantly propel him to ever-greater heights. Starting each day with three hours practice, Kennedy continues to improve as his career moves on.

It is not just in the world of classical music that Kennedy has made his mark. Famously, he reimagined the work of Jimi Hendrix having been asked by the great rock guitarist’s estate to record a tribute to the iconic bluesman. The ground-breaking recording The Kennedy Experience followed and featured improvisational recordings based on Hendrix compositions.

Kennedy’s participation in the world of rock has encompassed collaborations with numerous others. Sir Paul McCartney, Kate Bush, The Who, Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant and others are among those who have worked with him.

“I’ve learned so much from working with those cats,” he added. “Macca is a brilliant multi-talented musician and writer of great melodies, Planty is a genuine rock legend, Kate has always pushed herself and given 200% and Daltry and Townsend have changed the course of music.”

Kennedy is a man of the people who has popularised the sometimes stuffy world of classical music by exhibiting a human touch. His love of Aston Villa Football Club, for instance, has helped to break down some of the barriers.

When his club won the European Cup in Rotterdam in 1982, Kennedy was playing a concert in Germany. He halted the concert and erected a giant screen so that he and the audience could watch the match before continuing his concert. “It was the right result that night,” he said. “And the crowd enjoyed both the music and the football.”

His humanity has also been evident in his work as a campaigner. He has fought hard to help the underprivileged and impoverished, speaking out against the oppression of minorities and those whose voices might otherwise go unheard.

Playing, however, is just part of Kennedy’s activities. He is an experienced music director, who not only founded his own orchestra, the Orchestra of Life, the versatile, pan-European collective of dynamic Polish and British musicians, but also led the Polish Chamber Orchestra for years. Both ensembles recorded and toured extensively under his leadership. Kennedy also regularly curates festivals and has put together and played with a number of bands in a variety of formations as a sophisticated band leader.

A truly international performer, Kennedy divides his time between England and Poland, where he lives with his wife, Agnieszka. They collaborated on part of his new release, My World, which features music written to accompany a new version of Chekov’s Three Sisters. The play was translated from the original text by Kennedy’s wife and set to music by the great violinist.

My World also features tributes to five of the musicians and mentors who have shaped Kennedy’s life.

Icons like Yehudi Menuhin and Stephane Grappelli were inspirational in turning Kennedy into a global superstar. They were not alone. Kennedy’s development in music was also helped by the great Isaac Stern, and creative collaborations with the brilliant Polish jazz guitarist Jarek Smietana and the formidable American instrumentalist Mark O’Connor. He pays tribute to their profound influence in self-penned compositions that showcase both his remarkable playing skills and his immense talent as a composer. Nigel says, “I wanted to find a musical way of saying thank you.”

Kennedy will be busy in coming years. Numerous concerts and projects are planned as he continues to develop a sound that has brought pleasure to many millions.

As a writer, performer, band leader and player he is intent on continuing to improve as he pushes the boundaries and breaks new ground.

“I sometimes liken music to competitive sport. You see the great sportsmen and they are continually trying to improve. Even when they get to number one, they are never satisfied, they want to do more. Well, so do I. There’s a lot more to come from me. I’m very excited about the future.”

Kennedy has won BRIT Awards, ECHO and Bambi awards in Germany, multiple Grammynominations and other awards across the world. He performed and recorded music from the baroque era to the modern day Many of his albums went to Platinum and Gold, his most recent album My World just hit the top of the classical charts in the UK.

A true original, Kennedy’s career remains in the ascent. And that will be music to his many fans’ ears.

Olga Domnina is a Gold Medal graduate of the Gnesin Institute of Music in Moscow in the class of Mikhail Arkadiev. In 2009 she completed the two-year "Diploma in Performance" course of postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Prof Hamish Milne, for which the Academy had granted her a merit scholarship. At RAM she won the Macfarren Prize for Best Solo Recital, awarded previously to Sir Clifford Curzon and Dame Myra Hess.

A native of Moscow, Miss Domnina began her piano studies at the age of 7. Whilst still at the Gnesin, she participated in a number of international piano competitions, going on to win the San Bartolomeo competition in Italy and taking an honours diploma at the Maria Canals competition in Spain. She also performed numerous solo concerts, at such venues as both Great and Small Halls of the Moscow Conservatory, Menuhin Hall of the European Parliament in Brussels, Association Internationale Dimitri Chostakovitch in Paris, and the Gasteig in Munich, as well as with chamber and symphony orchestras, including the Novaya Opera and the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana.

Since moving to London and entering the Royal Academy of Music in 2007, Miss Domnina has been dividing her time between England and Italy. She has collaborated with such internationally acclaimed artists as the violinists Julian Rachlin, Viktor Tretyakov, and Vadim Repin, the violist Paul Silverthorne, the cellist Guido Schiefen. In October 2011 she attained international acclaim with the world premiere of Vladmir Genin’s piano cycle “Seven Melodies for the Dial” at the Moscow House of Music, which has since been released by Challenge Records International to worldwide critical plaudits. A European premiere of the recorded work took place in October 2013 at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Pavel Vernikov, a student of David Oistrach and S. Snitkowsky, gained a reputation as virtuoso violinist more than twenty years ago. Among other prizes he won the International ARD Violin Competition in Munich and the Grand Prix at the International Violin Competition “Vittorio Gui” in Florence. He has appeared at such prestigious venues as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, La Salle Gaveau in Paris, La Scala in Milan and Santa Cecilia in Rome. 
For the last 30 years he has been a member of the Tchaikovsky Trio. 
His artistic partners have included Sviatoslav Richter, James Galway, Alain Meunier, Patrick Gallois, Maria Tipo, Natalia Gutman, Oleg Kagan, Yuri Bashmet, Elisso Virsaladze, Christian Zimmermann and Anthony Pay. He inaugurated the Russian Academy of Higher Learning in Portogruaro and was the Artistic Director of the Gubbio Music Festival, the Dubrovnik Chamber Music Festival and the Eilat Chamber Music Festival. At present he is Artistic Director of Sion Festival in Switzerland. 
He teaches and gives master classes around the world, in Italy, France, Finland, Spain (Escuela Superior de Mu?sica Reina Sofia Madrid), Israel (Rubin Academy), Germany (Kronberg Academy), etc. and has been invited to be a member of the jury at international competitions (Szigeti, Kreisler, Gui, ARD-Competition in Munich, Sendai (Japan), Budapest, Sarasate, Wieniawski, etc.). 
Pavel Vernikov has recorded for RCA, Ondine and Dynamic. 
He was Professor at the Conservatoire national supe?rieur de musique de Lyon. At present he’s Professor at the famous Konservatorium Wien University and at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne (Site de Sion). 
Among his many laureate students are people like Massimo Quarta (1. Prize Paganini International Violin Competition, Genua), Fumiaki Miura (1. Prize Hannover International Violin Competition), Lorenza Borrani (Leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe), Fanny Clamagirand (1. Prize Fritz Kreisler International Violin Competition, Vienna and 1. Prize International Monte Carlo Violin Competition) and Miki Kobayashi (2. Prize Wieniawski Competition). 
In 2017 Pavel Vernikov was awarded by a Gold Medal of Ministry of Culture in Armenia Armenia followed by another distinction - Honour Order of the Gouverment of Odessa.

Coming soon

“ Sincere, meaningful tone alongside
impeccable technic”- Lorin Mazel

A sought after artist, Svetlana Makarova is a regular performer at major internationally renowned festivals such as Verbier Festival, Kuhmo Festival, Miyazaki Festival and others. She has performed in Tonhalle Zu?rich, La Scala, la Fenice and la Pergola Theaters, Auditorio Nacional Madrid, Seoul Art Center, Tchaikovskiy Hall.

Born in Moscow, Svetlana Makarova was a child prodigy: at the tender age of 10 she won the First Prize in the Moscow International Youth Tchaikovsky Competition, and this was followed by many other distinctions. In 2008, having earned her Ph.D. and completed her both master and postgraduates studies at the Moscow Conservatoire with Prof. M. Glezarova she was invited by L. Maazel to take a position as one of the principal players in the "Palau de Les Artes Reina Sofia" in Spain.

She collaborates globally with, among others, such esteemed musicians as F. Helmerssohn, P. Vernikov, N. Gutman, D. Poppen, G. Apap, S. Krylov, A. Chaushian, I. Golan, P. Demenga, F. Biondi to name a few.

She is also an accomplished soloist, having performed with Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Kremerata Baltica Orchestra, Miyazaki Festival Orchestra, Wu?ttenberg Philharmonic Orchestra and The Pfo?rzheim Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of Comunidad Valenciana, Korean Soloists Orchestra, Moscow Symphony Orchestra, Odessa State Symphony orchestra, Georgian Philharmonic Orchestra. Makarova recorded several CDs and was featured in many radio broadcasts.

Passionate about teaching Svetlana splits her time between performing and sharing her knowledge and artistic experience with next generation. Among her students there are winners of several prestigious International Competitions. Before becoming Professor at HEMU Lausanne in 2014 she taught at renowned Gnessin’s College of Music in Moscow. S. Makarova gives numerous masterclasses in Europe and Asia.
Internationally reclaimed pedagogue she is regularly invited as a member of Jury of International Competitions and awards. Svetlana plays 1745 Niccolo? Gagliano.

Universally hailed as one of the world’s finest musicians, and often referred to as the greatest living string player in the world today, Grammy award winner Maxim Vengerov also enjoys international acclaim as a conductor and is one of the most in-demand soloists in all of classical music. Born in 1974, he began his career as a solo violinist at the age of five, won the Wieniawski and Carl Flesch international competitions at ages 10 and 15 respectively, studied with Galina Tourchaninova and Zakhar Bron, made his first recording at the age of 10, and went on to record extensively for high-profile labels including Melodia, Teldec and EMI, earning among others, Grammy and Gramophone artist of the year awards. In 2007 he followed in the footsteps of his mentor, the late Mstislav Rostropovich, and turned his attention to conducting and in 2010 was appointed the first chief conductor of the Gstaad Festival Orchestra. June 2013 saw the launch of the annual Vengerov Festival in Tokyo as well as an artist residency at the Barbican Centre London with five different concerts showcasing his versatility as an artist. That season he also accepted his current position as Artist in Residence with the Oxford Philharmonic. In 2014, Mr Vengerov graduated with a Diploma of Excellence from the Moscow Institute of Ippolitov-Ivanov with professor Yuri Simonov and he has since enrolled in a further 2-year program of opera conducting and will be conducting his first performance of Eugene Onegin in Moscow in December 2017. The 2015/16 season highlights saw Mr Vengerov again in concert with the New York and Munich Philharmonic orchestras as well as complete five recital tours in Australia, Canada, Asia, Europe and South America. Guest conducting engagements will include appearances with the RTE Orchestra Dublin,Munich Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras.The coming season will also see a European tour with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and performances at the Park concerts with the New York Philharmonic in New York and Shanghai. Mr Vengerov has received numerous awards including Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (with Orchestra) (2003), two Gramophone awards (1994, 1995), a Classical Brit Award (2004), five Edison Classical Music Awards (1995, 1996, 1998, 2003, 2004), two ECHO awards (1997, 2003) and a World Economic Forum Crystal award (2007) - honouring artists who have used their art to improve the state of the world. In 1997 Mr Vengerov became the first classical musician to be appointed International Goodwill Ambassador by UNICEF. He plays the ex-Kreutzer Stradivari (1727).

The Menuhin Academy Soloists are an outstanding chamber ensemble from the International Menuhin Music Academy (IMMA) Switzerland, known for their technical brilliance and inspirational musicality. IMMA was founded by Lord Menuhin in 1977 “to ensure that the great heritage of violin mastery is passed to the next generation” and is a nonprofit organization that provides exceptional young string players from all over the world a 3-year scholarship. For almost 40 years the academy has been training violinists, violists and cellists from all over the world, with the help and guidance of past professors such as Lord Menuhin himself and Alberto Lysy. Today it has become one of the worlds most renowned Swiss music institutions with their base at Le Rosey, nr Geneva. Touring worldwide, led by konzertmeister Oleg Kaskiv, The Menuhin Academy Soloists have already debuted in prominent musical centres, such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Theatre des Champs Elysees, the Concertgebouw, the Edinburgh Festival and the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, as well as concert halls in South America, the USA, Canada, Japan and China. Since 2011 Maxim Vengerov has been the academy’s Maestro, performing regularly show-stopping concerts together, one of which was recorded and broadcast on Mezzo and Arte TV.

Described by Yehudi Menuhin as ’’A true violinist of the 21st century’’ Gilles is known for his virtuosity, unique approach to music and the skill to bring joy to every concert hall. He delivers distinctive performances of the standard classical repertoire combined with genres such as jazz and folk from around the world and the result is unique programming merging the borderlines between musical styles. This season, Gilles is appearing at the Konzerthaus, Berlin; BOZAR, Brussels; Cadogan Hall, London (with the Bristol Ensemble), and Philharmonie de Paris amongst many others. In November he recorded Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Nordic Chamber Orchestra which is followed by tours in Sweden in May and October this year. He also is regularly leading workshops and education projects across Europe including Gstaad Menuhin Academy, Kronberg Academy and Paris Philharmonie, working with children as well as young professionals and in August Ariana Todes, former editor of The Strad, published an interview highlighting these eclectic aspects of his career. Further upcoming highlights include a tour to China in December 2017 performing his original arrangement of Vivaldi Four Seasons and also performances with Ibrahim Malouf (jazz session at Festival St. Denis), Basel Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Chamber Orchestra, recitals at the Salle Gaveau in Paris, Salle Molière in Lyon, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, and Kuhmo Festival in Finland. After participating in the International Menuhin Competition in 1985, Gilles established a lifelong relationship with Yehudi Menuhin, together they worked on Gilles’ legendary cadenza of Mozart’s Third Violin Concerto, filmed and directed lately by Bruno Monsaingeon, known for his documentaries about Gould, Richter and Oistrakh, Monsaingeon directed two further films about Gilles Apap and his approach to music, and declared that the violinist’s “art represents music in its greatest possible purity.»

March 2017

In 1999, a group of young virtuosi from different cultures gathered in Brussels around a musical score out of shared passion for chamber music. The specific sonority of the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, their genuine interest to deeply research and experiment as a group is the result of this initial union. Indeed, this ensemble merges an especially rich mixture of nationalities, cultures and musical heritages, forging a dynamic interaction between contrasting musical belief systems, styles, and traditions. The absence of a conductor drives the musicians towards total personal involvement and converts orchestral texture into real chamber music. The repertoire includes works spanning from Bach to Mozart to Britten, from Elgar to Bartók Hindemith and Schoenberg. They have commissioned and premiered many new works from young outstanding composers and are constantly looking for new repertoire to be discovered. BCO performed with some fo the most outstanding musicians of our time such as Ivry Gitlis, Igor Oistrakh, Maxim Vengerov, Gavriel Lipkind, Janine Jansen, Sergei Krylov, Pierre Amoyal, Lorenzo Gatto, Dora Schwarzberg, Erasmo Capilla, Boris Berezovsky, Gilles Apap, David Cohen, Michael Guttman, Eliane Rodrigues, Plamena Mangova, Tatiana Vassilieva, Justus Grimm, Richard Stolzman, Walter Boeykens and the singer Daniele De Niese. BCO also excelled in other musical styles such as Flamenco with Amparo Cortes, Jazz with Michel Bisceglia as well as the ‘Pierre Anckaert Quintet’, Pablo Villuendas’ music, Jewish folklore with Kletzstory, Chinese folklore with George Gao (Erhu) and the French Chanson with Mauranne. These experiences enrich BCO’s ability to meaningfully participate in multicultural projects, adding programs of local music to otherwise classical tours in countries such as Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Norway, Mexico, Taiwan, Japan, USA and recently China. The Brussels Chamber Orchestra is involved in the creation and nourishment of educational and outreach projects and has been graciously  honoured  as artistical ambassodor of the « Yehudi Menuhin Fondation ».

Born in 1986, Valeriy Sokolov is one of the leading violinists to come out of Ukraine in the past twenty years. He left his native country age 13 to study with Natalia Boyarskaya at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England and continued his studies with Felix Andrievsky, Mark Lubotsky, Ana Chumachenko, Gidon Kremer and Boris Kushnir. He was the first prize winner of the 2005 George Enescu International Violin Competition in Bucharest, Romania. Working regularly with the world’s leading orchestras, he has enjoyed collaborations with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Cleveland Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Rotterdam Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic, NAC Ottawa, Orchestre National de France and the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. He works frequently with world known conductors. He has appeared in many major European festivals including Verbier and Lockenhaus. He regularly performs in the major concert halls around the world with highlights including regular Sunday Morning series appearances in Theatre du Chatelet as well as at the Wigmore Hall, Lincoln Center, Mariinsky Theatre, Prinzregenten Theatre in Munich and Musikverein in Vienna. Valeriy Sokolov regularly performs with Evgeny Izotov in recital as well as with his own piano trio alongside the Ukrainian cellist Alexei Shadrin. Exclusively signed with Erato records (formerly EMI Classics) Valeriy Sokolov has developed a strong and varied catalogue of recordings, releasing Enescu’s Sonata No. 3 for them in 2009. His first concerto DVD was of the Sibelius Violin Concerto under Vladimir Ashkenazy and with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Bruno Monsaingeon’s film “un violon dans l’âme / Natural Born Fiddler”, a record of Valeriy’s recital in Toulouse in 2004, received much praise from the critics and continues to be frequently broadcast on ARTE TV. In 2010 Valeriy recorded violin concertos of Bartok and Tchaikovsky under the direction of David Zinman and Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. Valeriy has recently given performances with the St Petersburg Philharmonic, NDR Hamburg Sinfonieorchester, Orchestre de Paris, Philharmonia Orchestra amongst others. He has also recently completed a successful tour of a chamber music project with Lisa Batiashvili and Gautier Capuçon throughout Europe. Valeriy’s 2016-17 season includes the violinst returning to Paris with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France , as well as performing with the Norddeutscher Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester Hamburg at the new Laeizshalle. He has recently comissioned a violin concerto from Ukraine’s most significant composer Yevhen Stankovich and has become artistic director of a newly set-up chamber music festival on the lake of Konstanz in Germany.

Oleg Kaskiv was born in 1978 in the small Ukrainian village Kremenetz into a family of musicians. He began playing violin at the age of 7 under the guidance of his violinists parents and later entered M.Lysenko National Academy of Music in Lviv. In 1996, Oleg won a scholarship to study in Switzerland at the famous “International Menuhin Music Academy” (IMMA), which was founded by Lord Yehudi Menuhin in 1977. At the Academy, Oleg’s great mentor was Professor Alberto Lysy, who got his education directly from Lord Yehudi Menuhin and was his only pupil. Therefore the tradition of the great romantic violin playing was passed on to Oleg. Today, Oleg Kaskiv is a soloist and artistic director at the IMMA. As a soloist, Oleg Kaskiv regularly performs with great success in his native country with the National Symphony of Ukraine, Odessa Philharmonic and Lviv Philharmonic Symphony Orchestras and worldwide: with the Camerata Lysy, Camerata de Lausanne, Symphonisches Orchester Zürich, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden. He is a laureate of many prestigious violin competitions such as Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition (Belgium); International Oistrakh Competition (Ukraine); International Kotorovych Violin Competition (Ukraine), International Spohr Competition (Germany); International Montreal Competition (Canada); International Premio Lipizer (Italy), International Niredgazi Violin Competition (Japan), International Dvarionas Violin Competition (Lithuania) and International Molinari Competition (Switzerland).

The king of the violinists - Daily Telegraph (UK)

Legendary Gypsy violinist Roby Lakatos is not only a scorching virtuoso, but a musician of extraordinary stylistic versatility. He is a rare musician who defies definition. He is referred to as a gypsy violinist or “devil’s fiddler”, a classical virtuoso, a jazz improviser, a composer and arranger,. He is the kind of universal musician so rarely encountered in our time. Roby has performed at the most prestigious venues of the World including Carnegie Hall, Sydney Opera House, Barbican Centre, BOZAR and others, and has appeared at the biggest festivals of Europe, Asia and America. Born in 1965 into the legendary family of gypsy violinists descended from Janos Bihari, “King of Gypsy Violinists”, Roby Lakatos was introduced to music as a child and at age nine he made his public debut as first violin in a gypsy band. His musicianship evolved not only within his own family but also at the Béla Bartók Conservatory of Budapest, where he won the first prize for classical violin in 1984. He has collaborated with Vadim Repin and Stéphane Grappelli, and his playing was greatly admired by Sir Yehudi Menuhin, who always made a point of visiting the club in Brussels to hear Lakatos. In March 2004, Lakatos appeared to great acclaim with the London Symphony Orchestra in the orchestra’s “Genius of the Violin” festival alongside Maxim Vengerov. When Roby Lakatos mixes the so-called « classical music » with the magic of the Hungarian-gypsy vitality, it reflects the deep tradition rooted in the cultural heritage of the Gypsy people and offers new, refreshing pleasures to the listener and music lover. And just as Liszt, Brahms and others used the Hungarian music in their compositions, so now the public profits from the confrontation of these classics with the gypsy roots. Roby is not only an extraordinary virtuoso but a magician with a unique technique and his own style. It’s a rare musician who can play Classical music, Jazz and naturally his own Hungarian folk idiom with as much energy and technical qualities, he redefines every genre with his violin. He has performed at the great halls and festivals in Europe, Asia and America and played with de biggest jazz men like Herbie Hancock, Quincy Jones, Stéphane Grappelli,... Roby Lakatos has a numerous discography with such labels as Deutsche Grammophon, which is considered as a biggest CD label of classical music, Universal, Avanticlassic and others.

Marc Bouchkov’s artistry is driven by expression. His violin playing is grounded not only in a thorough knowledge of the score, the historical content and the authenticity of the interpretation, but also in his belief that performance is a way to communicate directly with his listeners. The closeness of the violin’s sound to the human voice is his inspiration for expressing feelings and emotions in music, turning these into a musical experience for the audience. Marc Bouchkov was born 1991 into a family of violinists. He received his first lessons at the age of five from his grandfather, Mattis Vaitsner. He studied with Claire Bernard and Boris Garlitzky, who has been his mentor ever since. Marc Bouchkov’s artistic development has been marked by numerous international awards. He won First Prize at the highly-regarded “International Violin Contest Henri Koch,” at the “European Young Concert Artists Audition” and at the “Queen Elizabeth Competition”. In 2013 he won the First Prize at the “Montreal International Musical Competition“ and was named an award-winner of the Stiftung Juventus by Georges Gara. Recently he received the “Lotto-Förderpreis” of the Rheingau Musik Festival. As a concert artist, the young musician has enjoyed a rapidly growing and widely acclaimed career. “Without doubt: an exceptional talent!” wrote the Neue Zürcher Zeitung after his concert with the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich and Lionel Bringuier. Highlights of the 2016/2017 season include concerts with the hr Sinfonieorchester and Christoph Eschenbach, the Orchestre National de Belgique and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI in Turin under the baton of Andrey Boreyko. Marc Bouchkov performed already with the NDR-Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, the Belgian National Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie. He played Brahms Violin Concerto with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker for a ballet production of the Deutsche Oper am Rhein. In 2014, upon the invitation of Mariss Jansons, Marc Bouchkov performed the inaugural concert of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra’s «Essentials» series. As a keen chamber musician, Marc Bouchkov receives invitations to Hamburg, Montpellier, Zurich, Colmar, St. Petersburg and Montreal as well as to festivals like the Heidelberger Frühling and the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg. In October 2016 he will give his debut at Wigmore Hall London where he will be awarded with the London Music Masters prize. Marc Bouchkov is studying since October 2014 as a Young Soloist in a postgraduate course at the Kronberg Academy with Mihaela Martin. He is sponsored by Brigitte Feldtmann, who has provided him with a violin by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume, Paris, 1865.

Vanessa Benelli Mosell is a rising star on the international music scene. She is continuously praised for her virtuosity, her technical brilliance and the sensitivity of her musical insight, which have been shaped significantly in mentorships with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Yuri Bashmet. Benelli Mosell gave her debut appearance at eleven years old with pianist Pascal Rogé, who described her as “the most natural musical talent I have encountered in my entire life”. She has since performed with orchestras such as the Münchner Symphoniker, Berliner Symphoniker, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. She has also performed often with the Moscow Soloists, and replaced Martha Argerich in 2012. In the same year, Vanessa gave her celebrated debut at London’s Wigmore Hall. Recent years have seen new encounters, including a tour to South America, concerts with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, as well as at Hamburg’s Laeiszhalle. Vanessa Benelli Mosell is internationally renowned for her performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Klavierstücke. Following her recording of Klavierstücke I-IV, she was invited by the composer to study under him, as he believed that she “has the power to let people appreciate my music”. Vanessa worked closely with the composer and he remains an important influence on Vanessa’s music making, encouraging her passion for contemporary music and her championing of composers of today as well as the great classics. Vanessa Benelli Mosell began her comprehensive musical studies when she was exceptionally admitted at the International Piano Academy in Imola at seven years old, where she studied with Franco Scala. In 2007 she was invited to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory to study with Mikhail Voskresensky. Vanessa entered the Royal College of Music in London in 2007, where she graduated in 2012 studying with Dmitri Alexeev, generously supported by the Russell Gander Award. Vanessa was awarded the Elba Festival Prize by Yuri Bashmet and more recently she won the first Award of the Festival Pietrasanta as an outstanding young talent. She furthermore collaborates in chamber music with partners as Massimo Quarta, Daishin Kashimoto, Radovan Vlatkovich, Julian Rachlin, Boris Andrianov, Renaud and Gautier Capucon, Linus Roth, Alain Meunier, Boris Brovtsyn, Alexander Chaushian, Henri Demarquette, Alexander Buzlov and Massimo Mercelli. Vanessa’s debut recording received great international praise for her «extraordinary artistic talent» and «sparkling technique in demanding music” (Gramophone Magazine). In spring 2015, Vanessa Benelli Mosell released her recording, and debut on the DECCA label – a juxtaposition of Stockhausen and Stravinsky and will follow this in 2016 with a further disc in her Stockhausen series. Also in 2016, Vanessa will release her debut concerto CD for DECCA of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Kirill Karabits. Vanessa Benelli Mosell is a Young Steinway Artist.

The orchestra made its debut on 19 May 1992 at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and on 21 May the same year at Salle Pleyel in Paris. The orchestra has performed with great success at many famed and prestigious music venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Barbican Hall in London, the Tivoli in Copenhagen, the Berliner Philharmoniker and in Wellington (New Zealand).

The orchestra has performed with soloists including Sviatoslav Richter (piano), Gidon Kremer (violin), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello), Viktor Tretyakov (violin), Maxim Vengerov (violin), Vadim Repin (violin), Sarah Chang (violin, USA), Barbara Hendricks (soprano, USA), James Galway (flute, USA), Natalia Gutman (cello), Lynn Harrell (cello, USA), Mario Brunello (cello, Italy) and Thomas Quasthoff (bass, Germany).

In 1994 the Moscow Soloists with Gidon Kremer and Mstislav Rostropovich recorded a compact disc for EMI. A disc of works by Dmitry Shostakovich and Johannes Brahms with Sony Classics was named “best recording of the year” by STRAD magazine critics and nominated for a Grammy. The orchestra received a repeat Grammy nomination in 2006 for a disc of chamber symphonies by Shostakovich, Georgy Sviridov and Mieczys?aw Weinberg. In 2007, the Moscow Soloists won a Grammy award for a recording of music by Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev.

The orchestra has frequently performed at the most prestigious music festivals, among them the Rostropovich Festival in Evian (France), the Music Festival of Montreux (Switzerland), Sydney Music Festival, Bath Music Festival (UK), The Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Prestige de la

Musique at Paris’ Salle Pleyel, Sony-Classical at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Semaines musicales de Tours (France) and the December Evenings in Moscow.

The orchestra regularly appears on various television programmes in Russia and abroad. Their concerts have been broadcast and recorded numerous times by the world’s leading broadcasting companies, such as the BBC, Bavarian Radio, Radio France and Japan’s NHK corporation.

Michael Guttman is a violinist, conductor and music director of prominent festivals around the world, including Pietrasanta in Concerto, Crans Montana Classics in Switzerland, Le Printemps du Violon in Paris, and Made in Polin in Warsaw. He is also the music director of the Napa Valley Symphony and the Belgian Chamber Orchestra. Guttman received the prestigious Scopus Prize (2014) from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for his achievements in music, and was also nominated for a Grammy award for his Hindemith Album with the Philarmonia Orchestra. He was the youngest violinist ever admitted to the Brussels Royal Conservatory at age 10. His debut at age 14, with Jean-Pierre Rampal, led to the meeting with his mentor Isaac Stern who recommended him for further studies at the Juilliard School in New York City where he studied with Dorothy Delay and The Juilliard Quartet. He studied with the legendary Russian violinist Boris Goldstein, in tribute to whom he organized a violin competition together with Professor Zakhar Bron in Bern, Switzerland in 2014. As Belgium’s leading violinist, he was chosen to represent his country in 1992, during the Sevilla Universal Exhibition. Concerts at the Lincoln Center, Barbican Hall, Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, Salle Pleyel in Paris, and in Asia were followed by invitations to prestigious festivals such as, Progetto Martha Argerich, Flanders Festival, Bashmet’s Elba Festival, Folles Journées of Nantes and Tokyo, and the Menuhin Festival Gstaad. He premiered the Philip Glass Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in the USA and the Hong Kong Philhamonic for Asia, which were both conducted by Jaap Van Zweden. He has toured with Martha Argerich, Nestor Marconi, Nigel Kennedy, Boris Berezovsky and Vadim Repin among others. After collaborating with composers and conductors such as Lukas Foss and Noam Sheriff, he developed his conducting career and in 2017, toured the most prestigious halls in Spain appearing with the legendary pianist Ivo Pogorelich. His encounter with Astor Piazzolla encouraged him to discover different styles of tango music, and in 2017 he created the first double concerto for violin and bandoneon with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and J.P. Jofre, the famous Argentinian bandoneon player. Michael Guttman plays on a 1735 Guarneri del Gesù violin once owned by the great Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Battista Viotti.

Born in Seoul in 1982, So-Ock Kim moved to London at the age of three. At 15, she was the youngest ever winner of the gold medal in the prestigious Shell/LSO Competition playing the Tchaikovsky concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra in the Barbican Hall. At 19, So-Ock was selected for the Young Concert Artists Trust. So-Ock has given numerous critically acclaimed performances around the world and at the Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Barbican Hall in London. Abroad she has comprehensively toured throughout Asia, Europe and the US, performing concertos and recitals in the various international music festivals, such as Schleswig Holstein, Beethoven Festival, Ravinia, Mecklenburg, BBCProms, Radio France Festival, Seoul Spring, Casals and Aldeburgh. Many of her performances have been broadcast on radio and television worldwide, including the BBC, ABC, Radio France, RAI, KBS, Polish Radio and Classic FM. So-Ock has made numerous acclaimed international performances with the Philharmonia Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Sofia Philharmonic, Orchestre Nationale de Montpellier, KBS Symphony, Seoul Philharmonic, Mexico State, and Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestras. She has performed with Krzystof Penderecki and the Polish Radio Orchestra, Vladimir Ashkenazy and the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with Vassily Petrenko, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Korean Chamber Orchestra, Westdeutsche Sinfonia and the English Chamber Orchestra. So-Ock has a keen interest in the performance of new works and has given several World Premieres that have been recorded for Universal (France and Korea) and Naxos. She is also an active chamber musician and Professor of Violin at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

From October 2012 onwards So-Ock will perform for charitable purposes only

‘...remarkable violinist So-Ock Kim, performed with breathtaking virtuosity...
she shaped a powerful performance....magic.’ The Times

‘ a performance of mesmerising intensity.’ The Strad

Nata a Nagoya (Giappone), ha iniziato lo studio del pianoforte in tenera età, sotto la guida della madre. Dopo essersi diplomata alla Toho-Gakuen School of Music nella classe di Midori Miura, ha ottenuto il primo premio con eccellenza sotto la guida di Alan Weiss al Lemmens Instituut (Belgio). Si è perfezionata con Lilya Zilberstein e Pavel Gililov. Vanta anche il premio del Young artist development assegnato dal ministero della cultura giapponese e una borsa di studio della Yellow Angel Foundation. Appare regolarmente in centri musicali quali la Salle Pleyel (Parigi), Palais des Beaux Arts (Bruxelles), Teatro Colón (Buenos Aires), Triphony Hall (Tokyo), ecc. Collabora con la Kremerata Baltica, la Tokyo Symphony Orchestra (Naoto Ohtomo), la Sinfonia Varsovia (Jean-Jacques Kantorow). Ha registrato per la NHK TV. Prossimamente suonerà con Boris Berezovsky e Yu Kosuge nel Concerto per tre pianoforti di Bach. È regolarmente invitata a vari festival: Progetto Martha Argerich, Sintra (Portogallo), Pacific Music Festival (Giappone),Pietrasanta in Concerto (Toscana), La Folle Journée, La Roque d’Anthéron. Nel campo della musica da camera si esibisce con Martha Argerich, Lilya Zilberstein, Ivry Gitlis e Yuzuko Horigome, nonché in duo con Geza Hosszu-Legocky. Una sua registrazione discografica in duo con Lilya Zilberstein appare nell’album di EMI Martha Argerich and Friends del 2009.Friends” from 2009. Ha registrato per Deutsche Grommophon e Warner Classics, e ha pubblicato il suo primo CD solista, che comprende la « Sacre du Printemps » di Stravinsky con Martha Argerich per l’etichetta giapponese King International.

Pianist and pedagogue Alberto Portugheis was born in La Plata,Argentina, to parents of Russian and Rumanian descent. His international career began after winning First Prize at theGeneva Concours de Virtuosité. He performs in recitals, chamber-music concerts and as soloist with major orchestras, including: Royal Philharmonic, LondonSymphony Orchestra, London Mozart Players, Philharmonia, English Chamber Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Parisand Israel Sinfoniettas, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Sinfonica Nacional of Argentina, Filarmonica of Buenos Aires. His annual Steinway Masterclasses are now legendary. Alberto Portugheis’ repertoire includes music from the baroque to contemporary, with several composers writing specially for him. His acclaimed recordings include: 4 Chopin Ballades, Alfred Nieman 2nd Sonata, Ginastera complete piano music and chamber music with piano, Khachaturian Piano Concerto with the London Symphony Orchestra, Khachaturian solo works, Rachmaninov and Shostakovitch cello and piano Sonatas with the cellist Gwyneth George, a CD dedicated to the piano music of Rossini. 2013 saw the release of a double CD with The Complete Piano Works by Spanish composer Elena Romero, followed this year by a CD of music by Bach and Dinu Lipatti, partnered by Italian pianist Stefano Greco and the Youth Orchestra of León, Spain, conducted by Georgina Sánchez. Alberto Portugheis is founder member and Vice-chairman of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe, Vice-chairman of the International Society for the Study of Tension in Performance, Vice-president of the European Piano Teachers’ Association and founder of the Asociacion Latino-Americana de Pianistas Pedagogos. Like his colleague and compatriot Daniel Barenboim, Alberto Portugheis dedicates much time and energy to campaign for lasting World Peace though the organization he presides, HUFUD (Humanity United for Universal Demilitarisation). Nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008 for his Peace work and proposals, Portugheis published The Game of War and a Path to Peace the following year. His second book “In Their Hearts” was released in 2014.

Boris Berezovsky has established a great reputation, both as the most powerful of virtuoso pianists and as a musician gifted with a unique insight and a great sensitivity. Born in Moscow, Boris Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Eliso Virsaladze and privately with Alexander Satz. Subsequent to his London debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times described him as an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power. Two years later, he won the Gold Medal at the 1990 International Tchaïkovsky Competition in Moscow. Boris Berezovsky is regularly invited by the most prominent orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Philharmonia of London, Orchestra Santa Cecilia Roma, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and so on. Boris Berezovsky is often invited to the most prestigious international recital series : The Berlin Philharmonic Piano series, the Concertgebouw International piano series and the Royal Festival Hall International Piano series in London, to great stages such as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Salle Pleyel in Paris, Royal Festival Hall of London, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Konzerthaus of Vienna, the Megaron in Athens, as well as to the most famous international festivals among which Verbier, Salzbourg, or la Roque d’Anthéron. With Teldec, Boris Berezovksy has recorded works of Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Medtner, Ravel and the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies. His recording of the Rachmaninov sonatas was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and his Ravel disc was recommended by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, The BBC Music Magazine and the Sunday Independent. Boris Berezovsky also won the BBC Music Magazine Awards in March 2006 as Best Instrumentalist. His solo live recording Chopin/Godowsky was highly praised. His next engagements include, among others, concerts with : Russian National Rochestra/ Mikhail Pletnev, Orchestre de Paris/Andreï Boreyko, Les Siècles/François-Xavier Roth, Hong Kong Philharmonic/Jaap Van Zweden…, tours in Asia with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, in Europe with the Deutsches Symphony-Orchester/Tugan Sokhiev, in Russia (Mariinsky…) with the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra/Dimitri Liss, recitals and chamber music in the most prestigious halls and festivals (Royal Festival Hall of London, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Suntory Hall of Tokyo…). Boris Berezovsky took over the work of his friend Brigitte Engerer becoming artistic director of the Festival Pianoscope Beauvais.

With her deep musicality and virtuosity, Jing ZHAO is considered one of the most exciting artists now performing on the international stage. Jing Zhao, the leading Chinese cellist of her generation, won the 1rst prize of the prestigious ARD international competition in Munich in 2005 and went on to receive the 2009 Exxon Mobil Music award in Japan. The Great Seiji Ozawa chose her as soloist, together with the violinist Vadim Repin, the pianist Lang Lang for the opening new-year concert of the China National Center for the Performing Arts . He had already been instrumental in helping her move to Berlin where she studied at the Karajan Academy, as well as studying privately with Yo-Yo Ma and Maestro Rostropovich. M.Rostropovich recognizing her exceptional talent,made it possible for her to enter the Class of the renowned Prof David Geringas in the Berlin Hochschule fur Musik Hanns Eisler. She has performed with noted conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Lorin Mazel, Ricardo Muti, Andris Nelsons, Myung-whun Chung, Muhai Chang, Mikhael Pletnev, Yuri Bashmet, Kenichiro Kobayashi, Jean Fournet and Eliahu Inbal among others. Orchestras that have invited her include the NHK Symphony, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Beijing Symphony, the Bayerische Rundfunk Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra,Berliner Symphony Orchestra, The Hong Kong Philharmonic, the KBS Philharmonic in Seoul, the NDR Symphony orchestra, the Philharmonica della Scala, the Sydney Symphony and the Singapore Symphony. While in Berlin, Jing Zhao became a very sought after chamber music partner, collaborating with artists such Emmanuel Pahud, Guy Braustein , Daishin Kashimoto, Paul Meyer, Boris Berezovsky, Eric le sage and Trevor Pinnock. She toured in Asia with Myung -whun Chung, where they were invited to perform together with H I H Crown Prince Nahurito of Japan. The great pianist Martha Argerich has chosen to perform and record the Tchaikowsky trio with Jing ZHAO and dora Schwartzberg during her festival in Lugano, where she is now a regular guest. Other festivals where she performs include the celebrated Jerusalem festival, Zagreb international festival, Zagreb chamber music festival,Roland’s Ecke in Bonn WH, Argerich’s Beppu festival, Folles Journees. She is also Guest Professor in Beijing conservatory and Tokyo College of Music, Jing Zhao has recorded 5 cd’s for Victor entertainment in japan. She plays on a Montagnana Cello(1738) on generous loan to her from a private Foundation. Her upcoming CDs, a Russian album, recorded in London with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra featuring the Shostakovich cello concerto, and a Chinese album,two Tan Dun's Cello Concertos,will be recorded in June 2017 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London with Maestro Tan Dun conducting,both CD will be released in 2017.

Through his virtuosity, strength of personality and intelligence, Yuri Bashmet as given the viola a new prominence and motivated the leading composers of our time to expand the repertoire with significant new music. He is Artistic Director of the December Nights Festival, Moscow, Principal Conductor of the Novaya Rorriya State Symphony Orchestra, and the founder?/?director of Moscow Soloists. Yuri Bashmet spent his childhood in Lviv in Ukraine before studying at the Moscow Conservatoire with Vadim Borisovsky (of the Beethoven Quartet) and Feodor Druzhinin. In 1976, he won the International Viola Competition in Munich. Since then he has appeared with the world’s great orchestras, including Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Boston, Chicago and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. He has inspired many composers to write for him, and has enjoyed strong relationships with Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina. Concertos composed for him include works by Poul Ruders, Alexander Tchaikovsky and Alexander Raskatov. He has also given the world premieres of Styx by Giya Kancheli, The Myrrh Bearer by John Tavener and On Opened Ground by Mark-Anthony Turnage – all of which were written for him. In December 2002 Bashmet became Principal Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of New Russia. Other orchestras with which he appears as conductor?/?soloist include the Dresdner Philharmoniker, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Tokyo Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Camerata Salzburg, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Brussels Philharmonic. He is the founder of Moscow Soloists, an ensemble he has performed with and directed since 1992. In chamber music his closest collaborators have included Sviatoslav Richter, Gidon Kremer, Mstislav Rostropovich, Maxim Vengerov, Natalia Gutman, Viktoria Mullova and the Borodin Quartet. He formed a highly successful trio with mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Other recent chamber music projects include Beethoven trios with Anne Sophie Mutter and Lyn Harrell. He is a frequent visitor to summer festivals such as Elbe, Verbier and Martha Argerich’s festival in Japan and Pietrasanta in Concerto in Italy. Among his many CDs is a recording for Deutsche Grammophon of the Gubaidulina Concerto and Kancheli Styx, winner of a Diapason d’Or award and a Grammy nomination. Other notable DG discs are Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Anne-Sophie Mutter, Brahms’s Piano Quartet N°?1 with Argerich, Kremer and Maisky, and the recently released Bartók Concerto with Berliner Philharmoniker and Boulez. For Onyx he and Moscow Soloists have embarked on a critically-acclaimed series of recordings: chamber symphonies by Shostakovich, Sviridoc and Vainberg; music by Stravinsky and Prokofiev , which received a Grammy award. He plays a 1758 Testore viola.

Renowned around the most prestigious soloists and conductors on the international music scene, Salvatore Accardo gave his first professional recital at 13 with Paganini’s Capricci. At 15, he won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 he won the first Paganini Competition in Genoa. His vast repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary music. Composers like Sciarrino, Donatoni, Piston, Piazzolla and Xenakis have written for him. Accardo plays regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, alternating solo concerts and recitals as conductor. Following his strong inclination towards chamber music and an equally strong desire to promote young performers, in 1986 he founded the Master Courses of studies at the Fondazione Walter Stauffer in Cremona together with B. Giuranna, R. Filippini and F. Petracchi, and in 1992 he founded the Quartetto Accardo. In 1996 Accardo re-founded the Orchestra da Camera Italiana, which features the best pupils and ex-pupils of the Cremona “Walter Stauffer” Academy, and with which he regularly plays and records CDs. Accardo’s recordings for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Sony are almost beyond count and form an unrivaled patrimony of the last decades. He has received many prizes, among which being named in 1982 by the President of the Republic, Pertini, as Cavaliere di Gran Croce. Accardo plays a Guarneri del Ges. violin (ex “Hart” 1730).

Born into a musical family, Laura Gorna graduated with honors from the Milan Conservatory, under the guidance of Gigino Maestri. She received further education from Salvatore Accardo. Winner of the 22nd «Città di Vittorio Veneto» Competition, she debuted at a young afe at the Sala Verdi in Milan, playing the Khachaturian Concerto with the Orchestra of the RAI. Her concert tours have seen her perform in major Italian and international venues: Sala Verdi in Milan, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Teatro San Carlo and Settimane Musicali Internazionali in Naples, Chigi Academy in Siena, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Teatro della Pergola in Florence, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Lincoln Center in New York, the Tokyo Opera House, and the Verbier and Menton Festivals. As guest soloist In Italy and abroad, she has performed with orchestras such as the Orchestra of Padua and the Veneto, Tuscany Regional Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, I Solisti Aquilani, the Italian Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonic Sudwestdeutsche, under the direction of Stewart Robinson, Baldur Brönniman, Christopher Franklin, Salvatore Accardo and Piero Bellugi. Her great passion for chamber music lead her to become a member of the Accardo Quartet and to play in different formations with Patrice Fontanarosa, Bruno Giuranna, Toby Hoffman, Bruno and Regis Pasquier, Rocco Filippini, Franco Petracchi, Bruno Canino, John Bellucci, Filippo Faes, Stephanie Santangelo. In 2005 she founded Estrio with cellist Cecilia Radic and pianist Laura Manzini. She has also performed and recorded the complete chamber works of Johannes Brahms (in Vicenza 2002-2004) and Robert Schumann (in Milan, Turin, Bologna, Palermo 2005-2008). Laura Gorna is one of the minds behind the Festival «Notti Trasfigurate» taking place since 2003 in Vicenza and of «Lieber Schumann», an introspective journey around the chamber music of the great composer. The main feature of these projects is the direct participation from the public, especially young people, during rehearsals. Laura Gorna records for the «Foné» label; her most recent recordings include monographic CDs of Astor Piazzolla, a recital (Ravel, Schumann, Paganini-Szimanowsky), with pianist Filippo Faes and a CD with Estrio (Schumann / Shostakovich). She has also made several recordings for television, including a music documentary for «Arte» and Bruch’s Concertos, Prokofiev 2nd, Khachaturian, for RAI TRE RADIO. Professor of violin at the Pareggiato «C. Monteverdi» Institute in Cremona, Laura Gorna plays a gorgeous Giorgio III violin by Giovanni Paolo Maggini (Brescia 1620).

Ten years after the institution of the high specialization courses held at the “Walter Stauffer” Academy in Cremona, Salvatore Accardo decided to create in 1996 a string orchestra including the best students who attended the Academy. The idea was born from the will to preserve both the didactic and the artistic work carried out and from the wish to offer to young talented musician a high level working opportunity. The Orchestra da Camera Italiana (O.C.I.) is thus the expression of the best artistic results of an exceptional violin school, as well as a unique example in Italy, as far as technical and expressive unity are concerned. Since its foundation up to now the Orchestra da Camera Italiana has been performing with the double goal to go on with an italian tradition of musical excellence and to approach tahe audience by modifying the traditional “frontal” relationship between performer and listener, with the awareness that the love for music can be developed whereas the occasion to participate, understand and learn is offered. While conducting his orchestra, M° Accardo addresses either to the audience of the best national and international concert seasons, or to a non-specialized audience, which is mainly done of young people, with listening guides and lessons/concert, during which he illustrates the characteristics of the orchestra, as well as of the violin, of the conducting and of the performed repertory. The Orchestra carried out its first tourne?e in 1997, performing at the main Italian and foreign musical institutions; other tourne?es have followed: South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay) and Eastern big towns, such as Pekin, Tokyo, Shangai, Hong Kong, Taegu, Hanoi, etc. The O.C.I. has played in the most important theaters worldwide, among which the Champs-Elyse?es in Paris and the Lincoln Center in New York. Furthermore, it has performed in the Chamber Italian Senate in Rome on the occasion of the fiftieth Anniversary of the Italian Constitution signature and several times for the traditional Christmas Concert. The Musical Critics Association in Argentina awarded to the Orchestra the prize as the Best Foreign Chamber Group. The Orchestra has recorded for WARNER FONIT, EMI CLASSICS and FONE’.

He has been defined by classical music specialized press one of the most promising musicians at international level and one of the best double bass players in the world, in spite of his early age, the quality and extent of Enrico Fagone’s musical experiences (ranging from Martha Argerich to POP music) I am determined to back this statement.

The Italian Doublebass player Enrico Fagone was born in 1979 and He graduated cum laude at the conservatory ‘Giuseppe Nicolini’ of Piacenza (Italy) with Mº Leonardo Colonna and completed his studies with internationally renowned masters including among others Franco Petracchi (Fondazione W.Stauffer of Cremona) and Klaus Stoll (former Double-bass soloist of the Berliner Philharmoniker 1965-2008).

Since his childhood, he won important national and international double-bass competitions including Double bass Competition «Werther Benzi», and 2nd price at International Competition for string instruments TIM (Torneo Internazionale Musicale).

He also won the double-bass open competition organized by the theatre Teatro Regio di Torino, open competition for the first double bass soloist of the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana and open competition for double bass professor at the Musikhochschule in Lugano – Switzerland.

He performs in the biggest festivals of chamber music, collaborating with Martha Argerich, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Mischa Maisky, Vadim Repin, Boris Belkin, Micheal Guttman, Michael Dalberto, Quartetto Modigliani etc.

He recorded for the record labels EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Warner (Carnival of the animals-by Saint-Saens Chamber music version with Martha Argerich&friends) and Stradivarius ("Bottesini duets”) which has received many acknowledgements.

Highly esteemed and passionate performer, he is regularly invited as double bass soloist all over the world, accompanied by several orchestras such as National Youth Strings-England, I Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino-Italy, Orchestra di Padova e del Veneto-Italy, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana-Switzerland, Chamber Orchestra of Rosario-Argentina, National Orchestra of Paraguay, I Musici di Parma-Italy, Italian Ensemble-Teatro Bellini of Catania-Italy, Napa Valley Simphony-USA, Dallas Symphony-USA, Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra Wroclaw etc

There are many composers who wrote for the Double bass of Enrico Fagone as Luis Bacalov (Oscar Award for the Film “The Postman”).Teppo Hauta-aho, Jorge Bosso, Raffaele Bellafronte, Lamberto Curtoni and Leonardo Presicci.

He is the Principal Double-bass soloist of the Orchestra della Svizzera and also collaborated with orchestras like the Filarmonica della Scala di Milano, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Festival Strings Lucerne, New York Philharmonic, Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Solisti Veneti, NHK of Tokyo etc. with Conductors such as Lorin Mazeel, Riccardo Muti, Claudio Abbado, Myun-Whun Chung, Alain Lombard, Vladimir Ashkenazy etc.

He is a professor at the Conservatorio (Musikhochschule) della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, Switzerland and He regularly holds Courses and Master Classes in several countries in the most important University in the World such as Juilliard school of New york, Manhattan school of Music, Royal College of Music of London, IUNA of Buenos Aires, Royal Danish Academy, Toho Gakuen of Tokio, Conservatoire supérieur de Paris CNSMDP.

Enrico Fagone plays double bass of the Italian luthier Pietro Pallotta (1780) and the prestigious Gasparo da Salò (1590).

Since 2010 he is Ambassador of the Martha Argerich Presents Project in the world and and since 2015 he became Artistic Director of renowned International double bass competition Giovanni Bottesini.

Alexander Buzlov is one of the most vivid and talented cellists of the next generation, one who represents the Russian performing school with honour at the world’s leading music venues.

One of Buzlov’s most recent achievements came with his participation in the Emanuel Feuermann Cello Competition in Berlin in November 2010, at which he was awarded the Grand Prix and the Audience Award.

Alexander Buzlov was born in Moscow in 1983. He graduated from the music school and college of the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatoire; in 2006 he graduated from the Moscow Conservatoire itself. At master-classes, he has received instruction from such renowned cellists as Mstislav Rostropovich, Daniil Shafran, Natalia Shakhovskaya,, Eberhard Finke (Switzerland) and Bernard Greenhouse (USA).

As a student, Alexander Buzlov received grants from numerous international organisations, among them the Russian Performing Arts foundation, the Mstislav Rostropovich Foundation, the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation.

He currently teaches at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire where he has his own class and is an assistant to Professor Natalia Gutman.

Alexander Buzlov has won 1st prizes at Young Concert Artist competitions in Leipzig (2000) and New York (2001) and the Grand Prix in the categories “Cello” and “Chamber Ensemble” at the I New Names All-Russian Open Competition (Moscow, 2000); recipient of the Triumph youth prize (2003) and prize-winner at the XXXV International Competition Jeunesses Musicales in Belgrade (1st prize and Audience Award, 2005). 4). In 2005 he took 2nd prize at one of the most prestigious music compositions in Europe – the ARD International Cello Competition in Munich (Germany), while in 2007 he was the undoubted favourite at the XIII International Tchaikovsky Competition at which he took the Silver Medal, the prize for the best performance of a work by Tchaikovsky and the special prize of the Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya Foundation. One year later the cellist took 2nd prize at the LXIII International Cello Competition in Geneva, the oldest cello competition in Europe.

Today Alexander Buzlov performs throughout Russia and abroad; his tours have taken him to the USA, Great Britain, Germany, France, Israel, Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Belgium and the Czech Republic. Alexander Buzlov has appeared with many renowned Russian ensembles, among them the New Russia Symphony Orchestra, the Svetlanov State Academic Symphony Orchestra, the Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the Grand Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Soloists chamber ensemble, the Munich Chamber Ensemble, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the St Petersburg Academic Philharmonic . He has worked with conductors including Yuri Bashmet, Valery Gergiev, Vladimir Spivakov, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Yuri Temirkanov, Konstantin Orbelian, Leonard Slatkin, Thomas Sanderling,, Claudio Vandelli (Italy), Yakov Kreizberg (USA)).

As a soloist he has performed with numerous American symphony orchestras, travelling to almost each and every American state while on tour. Alexander Buzlov’s debut at the renowned Carnegie Hall took place in 2005, while May the same year saw a gala at the Lincoln Center in New York with the Orchestra of St Luke’s under the baton of Leonard Slatkin. 
Alexander Buzlov performs with such acclaimed musicians as Natalia Gutman, Yuri Bashmet, Alexei Lyubimov, Vasily Lobanov and Tatiana Grindenko.

The cellist takes part in international festivals including Musical Kremlin, Moscow Autumn, December Evenings of Svyatoslav Richter and Ars Longa (Moscow), the White Nights, Arts Square and Musical Olympus (St Petersburg), festivals in Ludwigsburg and Usedom (Germany), Colmar (France), the Oleg Kagan Memorial Festivals in Moscow and Kreuth (Germany), international chamber music festivals in Giverny and Montpellier (France), Crescendo (Israel), Chanel, Ginza (Japan) and the Seiji Ozawa Academy (Switzerland).

Alexander Buzlov has won IIIrd prize at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition (2015).He plays on a 1742 Francesco Stradivarius on generous loan from a private collection.

Born in Belgium in 1973 to Polish and Indonesian parents, Alexander Gurning studied at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels. After completing his studies, he served for three years as assistant to the world-renowned Russian pianist Evgeny Moguilevsky. Soon after, Alexander moved to Moscow to attend further classes with Lev Naumov (once an assistant of Heinrich Neuhaus) and Victor Merzhanov (a representative of the Goldenweiser School) at the Moscow Conservatory.

Since then, Alexander Gurning has never stopped touring. He has appeared in world-renowned festivals such as the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festival International de Piano of La Roque d'Anthéron, the Sapporo Music Festival, the International Piano Festival of Obidos, the Saratoga Chamber Music Festival, the Tanglewood Music Festival, and the Verbier Festivals.

Alexander Gurning has played with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre National de Belgique, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Brussels or the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne with conductors such as Myung-Whun Chung, Charles Dutoit, Alexander Rabinovitch-Barakovsky and Christian Zacharias. Recently, Alexander toured Europe performing Bach’s Goldberg Variations to great acclaim.

The recording career of Alexander Gurning started with a ‘Choc’ award from French magazine Le Monde de la Musique for his very first solo album, in the series ‘Martha Argerich Presents’, featuring works by Stravinsky and Debussy. His other recording collaborations include frequent appearances with various prestigious musical friends in the annual EMI boxes of live recordings from the Lugano Music Festival. Alexander received another award from French magazine Diapason as pianist of the Talweg trio, together with Sébastien Surel (violin) and Sébastien Walnier (cello), for their Tchaikovsky/Shostakovich album.

Alexander Gurning is also a founding member of the world-renowned Soledad ensemble specialized in renewing the tradition of Tango. Together with Manu Comté (accordion and bandoneon), Jean-Frédéric Molard (violin), Patrick Schuyer (guitar) and Géry Cambier (bass), Soledad has had a tremendous success with acclaimed albums on the labels Virgin Classics and ENja.

Alexander’s superb classical technique, combined with a musical horizon embracing not only classical music but also jazz, world music and film music, make him one of the most fascinating, revered and accomplished artists of his generation.

Appreciated for her expressive and very emotional performances, Alissa Margulis regularly plays in important concert halls such as the Berlin Philharmony, the Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, the Tchaikovsky Hall Moscow, Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City, the Palais des Beaux Arts in Brussels, the Cologne Philharmony, the Vienna Musikverein, the Tonhalle Zurich and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Hall.

Born in Germany into a family of Russian musicians, Alissa Margulis studied in Cologne with Zakhar Bron, in Brussels with Augustin Dumay and in Vienna with Pavel Vernikov. She won numerous prizes at international violin competiitons and was awarded with the “Pro Europa” prize of the European Arts Foundation which was presented to her by Daniel Barenboim in Berlin.

She made her first public appearance at the age of seven with the Budapest Soloists and has performed since then with numerous orchestras such as the English Chamber Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National d’Ile de France, New Russia Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, Belgian National Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestras of Kiev and Novosibirsk, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, the Moscow Soloists, and the Kremerata Baltica, amongst many others.

Besides her solo career Alissa Margulis is an enthusiastic chamber music player and collaborates with artists such as Martha Argerich, Yuri Bashmet, David Geringas, Ivry Gitlis, Gidon Kremer, Bruno Giuranna, Mischa Maisky, Gabriela Montero, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Liana Issakadze, Alexandre Tharaud, Stephen Kovacevich, Alexander Lonquich, Polina Leschenko, Paul Badura-Skoda and Lars Vogt.

She further appeared at various Festivals: at the Enescu Festival Bucharest, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, in Davos, Tours, Stravanger Festival, at the Mozartwoche Salzburg, “Spannungen”-Festival in Heimbach, “Progetto” Martha Argerich Festival in Lugano, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Sotshi Winter Arts Festival and Verbier Festival.

Her discography includes more than than a dozen CDs at labels such as EMI Classics, Oehms, Novalis, Avanti Classic and CAvi. She recorded Piazzolla’s seasons and took part in an all Klezmer recording alongside musicians such as Myriam Fuks, Roby Lakatos, Evgeny Kissin, Polina Leschenko and Mischa Maisky. Alissa Margulis will be featured in another live recording of chamber music performed at the Progetto Martha Argerich, a 2016 release by Warner Classics.

This season she plays concerts in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Russia, the Netherlands, Switzerland, the USA, Italy, France at venues such as the Philharmonie de Paris, the Tchaikovsky Hall Moscow , the Verbier Festival and Pietrasanta in Concerto, among others.

Andrei Korobeinikov was born in Moscow in 1986. This outstanding pianist all over the world and was rewarded more than 20 prizes in national and international competitions among them Alexander Scriabin International Piano Competition and Rachmaninov Piano Competition in Los Angeles in 2005 where he received a special public prize. At the age of 19, he graduated with honors from the Moscow Conservatory (Best musician of the decade) and pursued his studies at the Royal College of Music in London.

Being regularly invited over the world, he appeared with prestigious orchestras such as Philharmonia Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Konzerthausorkester Berlin, Orchestre National de France, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow…
In chamber music, he plays with distinguished musicians such as Vadim Repin, Alexander Kniazev, Dmitri Makhtin, Borodin Quartet.

In 2008, he recorded his first CD for Mirare, devoted to Scriabin. The recording brought him extraordinary success and awards : Diapason d’Or of the year of Diapason Magazine, Choc of Classica magazine and was followed by two CDs : a selection of Beethoven Sonatas and Bagatelles and one dedicated to Shostakovich Preludes op.34 and the 2 Concertos (with Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Okko Kamu). The latest was acclaimed by the international press (Gramophone, Diapason d’or, BBC Music Magazine…). The pianist recently completed for Mirare Scriabin solo cycle that he recorded at the Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich.

This exceptional artist of multiple talents also graduated at the age of 17 from the Law European University of Moscow. He composes his music and writes poetry.
His recent appearences with Maestro Ivan Fisher and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin in Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto, with Maestro Yuri Temirkanov and the St Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra in Tchaikovsky 1st Piano Concerto and Rachmaninov Paganini Variations were marked by extraordinary succes.

Highlights of 14/15 season also include concerts with Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra/Pinchas Steinberg, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio/Vladimir Fedoseyev, NHK Philharmonic Orchestra/Vladimir Fedoseyev, recitals (Paris Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Taipei National Concert Hall…), two special japanese and canadian tour with the violonist Vadim Repin and an upcoming UK tour with Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra.

Boris Berezovsky has established a great reputation, both as the most powerful of virtuoso pianists and as a musician gifted with a unique insight and a great sensitivity. Born in Moscow, Boris Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Eliso Virsaladze and privately with Alexander Satz. Subsequent to his London debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times described him as an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power. Two years later, he won the Gold Medal at the 1990 International Tchaïkovsky Competition in Moscow.

Boris Berezovsky is regularly invited by the most prominent orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Philharmonia of London, Orchestra Santa Cecilia Roma, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, and so on.

Boris Berezovsky is often invited to the most prestigious international recital series : The Berlin Philharmonic Piano series, the Concertgebouw International piano series and the Royal Festival Hall International Piano series in London, to great stages such as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Salle Pleyel in Paris, Royal Festival Hall of London, Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, Konzerthaus of Vienna, the Megaron in Athens, as well as to the most famous international festivals among which Verbier, Salzbourg, or la Roque d’Anthéron.

With Teldec, Boris Berezovksy has recorded works of Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Medtner, Ravel and the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies. His recording of the Rachmaninov sonatas was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and his Ravel disc was recommended by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, The BBC Music Magazine and the Sunday Independent. Boris Berezovsky also won the BBC Music Magazine Awards in March 2006 as Best Instrumentalist. His solo live recording Chopin/Godowsky was highly praised.

His next engagements include, among others, concerts with : Russian National Rochestra/ Mikhail Pletnev, Orchestre de Paris/Andreï Boreyko, Les Siècles/François-Xavier Roth, Hong Kong Philharmonic/Jaap Van Zweden…, tours in Asia with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, in Europe with the Deutsches Symphony-Orchester/Tugan Sokhiev, in Russia (Mariinsky…) with the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra/Dimitri Liss, recitals and chamber music in the most prestigious halls and festivals (Royal Festival Hall of London, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Suntory Hall of Tokyo…). Boris Berezovsky took over the work of his friend Brigitte Engerer becoming artistic director of the Festival Pianoscope Beauvais.

The Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale is one of the most famous orchestras in Italy, highly esteemed by international audiences and demanding conductors alike. The Orchestra was founded in 1928 by Vittorio Gui, under the name “Stabile Orchestrale Fiorentina.” In 1933, the Orchestra created what would become one of the oldest and most prestigious music festivals in Europe : the “Festival del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino”, giving its name to the Orchestra. Milestones in the Orchestra’s history include the resident conductorships of Riccardo Muti (1969-’81) and Zubin Mehta; Zubin Mehta has been Principal Conductor since 1985, and, season after season, leads important symphonic productions and highly-prestigious tours. In 2012, he is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his début in Florence. The Orchestra later established a special relationship with Myung-Whun Chung and Semyon Bychkov, who have been Principal Guest Conductors since 1987 and 1992 respectively.

The Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino enjoys a superb reputation throughout the music world, and in the course of its history has been conducted by some of the finest musicians of all time, such as Victor De Sabata, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Tullio Serafin, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Carlo Maria Giulini, Georges Prêtre, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlos Kleiber, Georg Solti, Riccardo Chailly, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Seiji Ozawa. Famous composers have also conducted their own works in world-première performances in Florence appositely commissioned by Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; they include Richard Strauss, Pietro Mascagni, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, Goffredo Petrassi, Luigi Dallapiccola, Krzysztof Penderecki and Luciano Berio.

The Orchestra has made numerous musical recordings, many of which have received prestigious radio and television awards, including the Grammy Award. The Orchestra’s most recent successes include its third tour of Japan, headed by the Honorary Conductor for Life Zubin Mehta; Warsaw, the Musikverein in Vienna, Frankfurt and Baden-Baden. On the 80th anniversary of its inauguration, the Orchestra received the Fiorino d’Oro award from the City of Florence for outstanding artistic achievement. In 2011, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino was commended by the President of the Italian Republic Ambassador for its invaluable contribution to culture and was an essential part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. During 2011 the Orchestra had important tournées in more than 12 countries (France, Luxemburg, Spain, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, China, India, Hungary, Russia, Austria, Switzerland). In 2012 the Festival of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is hosting its 75th edition, which has as motif the voyage from Middle Europe to South America, and is taking place during the year which celebrates Amerigo Vespucci on the 500th anniversary of his death.

Of Croatian descent, Cecilia Radic is one of the most appreciated Italian cellists of her generation.

She won the Premio Stradivari-Concorso Caruana International Award in 1996 and has since appeared in countless performances.

Ms. Radic studied under the guidance of teachers such as Rocco Filippini, David Geringas, Mario Brunello and William Pleeth. As a soloist she toured with the Orchestra Rai (Radio) of Milan performing the Dvorak concerto as well as with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Filarmonici di Verona, Ensemble of La Scala Theatre, Balkan Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Ducale, the Italian Chamber Orchestra (as soloist with Salvatore Accardo) and I Solisti Filarmonici Italiani.

Ms Radic’s extensive international experience has reached far beyond Europe, with a variety of performances in Japan, South America, Middle East and the United States, where she participated in a chamber music festival. Her chamber music collaborations include performances with musicians such as Salvatore Accardo, Isabelle Faust, David Finckel, Bruno Giuranna, Wu Han, Keller quartet.

She currently plays in the Accardo Quartet and is co-founder of Estrio (piano trio).

She has recorded CDs for various labels (CPO, Decca, Chandos, Stradivarius and Sipario), radio and television programs. She plays an 1837 Bernardel cello.

Cho-Liang Lin was born in Taiwan. A neighbor?ÇÖs violin studies convinced this 5-year old boy to want the same musical toy. Thus began his musical lessons. At the age twelve, he moved to Sydney to further his studies with Robert Pikler, a student of Jen?æ Hubay. After playing for Itzhak Perlman in a master class, the 13-year old boy decided that he must try to study with Mr. Perlman?ÇÖs teacher, Dorothy DeLay. At the age fifteen, Lin traveled alone to New York and auditioned for the Juilliard School and spent the next six years working with Ms DeLay.

A concert career was launched in 1980 with Lin?ÇÖs debut playing the Mendelssohn Concerto with the New York Philharmonic and Zubin Mehta . He has since performed as soloist with virtually every major orchestra in the world. His busy schedule on stage around the world continues to this day. However, his wide ranging interests have led him into diverse endeavors. At the age of 31, his alma mater, Juilliard School, invited Lin to become faculty. In 2006, he was appointed professor at Rice University. He is currently music director of La Jolla SummerFest and the Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival. Ever so keen about education, he was music director of the Taiwan National Symphony music camp and youth orchestra for four years.

In his various professional capacities, Cho-Liang Lin has championed composers of our time. His efforts to commission new works have led a diverse field of composers to write for him. The list includes John Harbison, Christopher Rouse, Tan Dun, John Williams, Steven Stucky, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Bright Sheng, Paul Schoenfield, Joan Tower and many more.

Lin performs on the 1715 Stradivari named ?Ç£Titian?Ç¥ or a 2000 Samuel Zygmuntowicz. His many concerto, recital and chamber music recordings on Sony Classical, Decca, BIS, Delos and Ondine can be heard on Spotify or Naxos.com. His albums have won Gramophone Record Of The Year, Grammy nominations and Penguin Guide Rosettes.

Christophe Collette, First violin
Marc Vieillefon, Second violin
Vincent Deprecq, viola
Cédric Conchon, cello

The Debussy String Quartet has built a reputation graced with international acclaim through their many recordings and live performances. Since its creation in 1990, they have enlivened the chamber music world with their stylish and stimulating performances. Based in Lyon and honored as Winners of the Evian International String Quartet Competition, the quartet performs about 120 concerts a year all around the world (Europe, Asia, Australia, North America...).

The quartet’s recording schedule has included the release of more than 25 CDs in 25 years with works ranging from French Music (recently, around Debussy and Caplet which enriches its collection composed of Bonnal, Ravel, Faur., Witkowski or Lekeu) to Weber or Shostakovich with the complete string quartets recorded by Arion. It includes the acclaimed Decca label release of the landmark Mozart Requiem recording, in the 1802 transcription by Peter Lichtenthal (about which a documentary film has also been made). The quartet’s mixed chamber music repertoire includes its highly regarded CD of the Brahms and Webern clarinet quintets with clarinetist Jean Francois Verdier and a highly acclaimed collaboration with François Chaplin in several Mozart piano concertos.

Its members are the founders of “Les Cordes en Ballade” a chamber music festival and an academy of chamber music in the South of France, where they perform and teach each summer. You can learn more about The Debussy String Quartet on their website: www.quatuordebussy.com

Born in St Petersburg in 1975, Dmitri Makhtin started his musical education at the age of 4 with his parents, both professional violinists at the St Peterburg Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1981 he entered the Conservatory for highly talented children. In 1989 he won the prize of the National Competition for Young Violinists in Novossibirsk, Russia.

From 1992 to 1995 he continued his musical education with professors P.Hirshborn and H.Krebbers. He won the following international competitions : Kloster Schontal violin competition, Premio Paganini and Louis Spohr, Tibor Varga, Montréal, Sibelius and Pretoria.

Dmitri Makhtin made his French debut in Paris in 1997 with Maestro Svetlanov and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, then, his American debut in 1998, with the Cleveland Orchestra and Maestro Slatkin. From then on, he appeared with orchestras such as : Het Residentie, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, St Petersburg Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, Sydney Radio and TV Orchestras, Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, Montpellier National Orchestra, New Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Solistes Européens du Luxembourg and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.

He performed with conductors such as Evgeny Svetlanov, Leonard Slatkin, James de Priest, Sakari Oramo, Jiri Belohlavek, Alexander Dmitriev, Jerzy Semkow, Yuri Temirkanov, Nikolaï Alexeev, Jean-Claude Casadesus.

The Trio Boris Berezovsky, Dmitri Makhtin, Alexander Kniazev, recorded a DVD of Tchaïkovsky's Pieces for piano, violin and cello and Trio Elégiaque “A La mémoire d’un grand artiste” presented on ARTE TV Channel and NHK in Japan. They received for this DVD the 4-star Diapason award.

The CD (Warner Classics International) with B.Berezovsky and A.Kniazev, Chostakovitch's Trio n°2 and Rachmaninov's Trio Elégiaque n°2 received several highest awards like the Choc de la Musique in France, Gramophone in England, Echo Classic in Germany.

CD of Mendelssohn trios with A.Kniazev and B.Berezovsky received the « Echo » award.

His last disc recorded for Lontano is a selection of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas.

In 2011, Dmitri Makhtin was invited for a tour with the Orchestre National de Lille and Maestro Casadesus for the 25th anniversary of the orchestra, concerts at the Folle Journée de Nantes, and the Folle Journée Tokyo… He was also invited by Vadim Repin to play at his Carte Blanche.

His forthcoming projects include concerts at Folles Journées de Nantes, Tokyo, in Anvers with Andrei Korobeinikov, Moments Musicaux de La Baule with Boris Berezovsky, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and Dallas Symphony Orchestra with Jaap van Sweden.

Francesco Fiore, born in Rome, completed his studies at Santa Cecilia Conservatory, Rome, with Maestros Lina Lama and Massimo Paris. He subsequently improved his skills with Maestro Bruno Giuranna at the W. Stauffer Foundation in Cremona.

Winner of several prizes, he soon undertook an intense concert activity, being a regular guest of the most prestigious Associations and Festivals in Italy and abroad. As for the chamber music activity he has collaborated with artists like Salvatore Accardo, Boris Belkin, Uto Ughi, , Pierre Amoyal, Renata Scotto, Bruno Canino, Alfons Kontarskj, Alexander Mazdar, Michele Campanella, Andrea Lucchesini, Rocco Filippini, Alain Meunier, Bruno Giuranna, Franco Petracchi, Gabriele Pieranunzi, Rainer Kussmaul, Pavel Vernikov, David Lively.

He has recorded CDs for RCA, ASV, FONIT CETRA, FONÉ and MUSIKSTRASSE.

Since 1991 he has been principal viola of the Teatro dell’Opera Orchestra in Rome; he has also played as principal viola with the Milan Teatro alla Scala Philharmonic Orchestra, the National RAI Orchestra, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra and, invited by Salvatore Accardo, with the Orchestra da Camera Italiana.

He has taught in the Superior Courses at various Italian Conservatories (Rome, Latina, Fermo).

He plays a Joseph Hill viola, London 1774, and a Raffaele Fiorini viola d’amore, Bologna 1894.

Henri Demarquette, born in 1970, was thirteen when he attended the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, studying with Philippe Muller and Maurice Gendron. He was unanimously awarded a Premier Prix, and worked with Pierre Fournier and Paul Tortelier before taking lessons from Janos Starker in Bloomington, USA.

Familiar with the stage by the time he was fourteen, Demarquette made his concert debut at seventeen with a recital at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and a recording for France 3 Television with pianist Hélène Grimaud. He caught the attention of Lord Yehudi Menuhin, who invited him to play Dvorák’s Concerto in Prague and Paris with Menuhin conducting. His career has been international ever since, taking him to many capitals in the company of the greatest French and international orchestras – most recently the Orchestre National de France, the London Philharmonic, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Tokyo Symphony, the Orchestre National Bordeaux-Aquitaine, the Symphonia Varsovia, the Neue Philharmonie Westphalen – and he has appeared with his favourite piano-partners Brigitte Engerer, Michel Dalberto, Giovanni Bellucci and Boris Berezovsky.

His performance of Henri Dutilleux’s Concerto “Tout un monde lointain” with Mannheim’s Akademisches Orchester conducted by Frédéric Chaslin was filmed for France Europe Média with the aid of SACEM.

In 2011 and 2012, he performs with several orchestras : Orchestre National de France, Sinfonia Varsovia, Saint-Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Hanover, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre Français des Jeunes, Orchestre Philharmonique de Marseille, Orchestre de Cannes-Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur... He also plays at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées with Brigitte Engerer, at the Salle Pleyel, Berlin Philharmonie, Salle Gaveau, Opéra de Marseille... He has also been awarded the “Prix de la Fondation Simone et Cino del Duca” by the Académie des Beaux Arts. Henri Demarquette plays “le Vaslin”, cello created by Stradivarius in 1725, on loan from LVMH - Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

Marta has established herself as one of today's most highly regarded young violinists with a string of competition successes and an extensive concert experience. She performed around the world as a soloist and collaborated with musicians such as Maxim Vengerov, Barry Douglas, Arto Noras, Antoni Wit and Bruno Giuranna. He was recently described as a ‘simply superb regarding commitment, musicianship and technical command’ by London ‘The Times’.

Born in Poland, she began her violin studies at the age of 7. After graduating from the Chopin University of Music in Warsaw with Jan Stanienda Marta completed a Master of Arts with Distinction and the Advanced Diploma in Performance course from the Royal Academy where she studied with György Pauk. Currently she is a student of Maestro Salvatore Accardo in the Stauffer Academy in Cremona.

Recent and future appearances include recitals at London Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Hall in Amsterdam; solo concerts with Polish National Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Polish Radio Orchestra, Bratislava and Cracow Philharmonics.

Marta’s most recent achievements include the Royal Philharmonic Society Award, J&A Beare Bow Prize, and in September 2015 the 1st prize and Grand Prix with two Special Prizes at the Ludwig van Beethoven International Chamber Music Competition in Poland, alongside her pianist Lukasz Chrzeszczyk. She is also a laureate of numerous prizes at international competitions, including the Johannes Brahms Competition in Austria and China International Violin Competition.

The orchestra of I Virtuosi Italiani is considered one of the most lively and qualified ensembles in the international musical scene. The orchestra, born in 1989, is to the present day on the hotspot for its artistic excellence, for its innovative musical projects and for the managing strategies it has displayed through its history. It regularly performs in the most important theatres and musical venues in Italy, while being frequently invited all around the world for performances and tours.

Among the most relevant performances of the last three years we highlight the concert for the Senate of the Republic of Italy – broadcasted live on RAI 1; the “Concert for Life and Peace” – performed in Rome, Betlehem and Jerusalem and broadcasted worldwide on RAI 1; a concert in the Sala Nervi of Vatican city in presence of the Pope; a tour around South America, in the most important concert venues and musical seasons of the continent, and the debut in the prestigious Royal Albert Hall in London.

Among the most recent recordings (December 2012) there is a CD entirely dedicated to Philip Glass's compositions, for the Orange Mountain Music records, and the first worldwide release in recent times of the Cantatas by Nicolò Porpora, for Brilliant Classic records.

Being focused on philological research, I Virtuosi Italiani often performs the baroque repertoire, at times with original baroque instruments.Very versatile and always open to new collaborations, the orchestra has worked with musicians such as C. Corea, G., Bregovic, M. Nyman, L. Einaudi, F. Battiato, C. Picco, U. Caine, P. Fresu, E. Rava, A. Ruggiero, G.Trovesi and R. Galliano.

I Virtuosi Italiani are both founders and principal performers of a musical season in Verona, where the orchestra is based, today at its XVIII year, and of a season of sacred music in the beautiful church of San Fermo Maggiore in Verona.

From the year 2011 on, I Virtuosi Italiani has been the ensemble-in-residence of the musical season held in the in the church of Ospedale della Pietà in Venice.
The artistic mission sees the Konzertmeister and principal violin Alberto Martini as the key figure, while the principal conductor is Corrado Rovaris.

www.ivirtuosiitaliani.it
www.chiesavivaldi.it
www.youtube.com/ivirtuosiitaliani

Such was the New York Times' impression of the Jerusalem Quartet. With their founding in the 1993/1994 season and subsequent 1996 debut, the Israeli musicians embarked on a journey of growth and maturation that has resulted in a wide repertoire and a stunning depth of expression: a journey still motivated by the energy and curiosity with which the ensemble began. The Jerusalem Quartet carries on the string quartet tradition in a unique manner. The ensemble has found its inner center in a warm, full, human sound and the balance between high and low voices, giving it the freedom both to refine its interpretations of the classical repertoire and to explore the works of new genres and epochs—all the while striving for perfection of sound. Collaborations with exceptional musicians such as Martin Fröst, Steven Isserlis, Sharon Kam, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Alexander Melnikov and András Schiff demonstrate clearly the ways in which the musicians benefit from their work, as each guest becomes an integral part of the indivisible ensemble.

The Jerusalem Quartet is a regular and beloved guest on the world's great concert stages. The ensemble has been especially well-received in North America, where it has performed in cities such as New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Cleveland and Washington. In Europe, as well, the quartet enjoys an enthusiastic reception, having appeared in prominent concert halls such as the Zürich Tonhalle, the Munich Herkulessaal, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Parisian Salle Pleyel, as well as special guest performances at the Auditorium du Louvre Paris, the Laeiszhalle Hamburg and as well festivals like Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Verbier Festival, Rheingau Musikfestival and many more.

The Jerusalem Quartet records exclusively for harmonia mundi. The quartet's recordings of Haydn's string quartets and Schubert's “Death and the Maiden” have been honored with numerous awards such as the Diapason d'Or, the BBC Music Magazine Award for chamber music, and the ECHO Klassik. In January 2014, the quartet's recording of string quartets by Leoš Janá?ek and Bed?ich Smetana was released to critical acclaim.

After a successful 2014/2015 season with concert tours in North and South America, Asia and Europe, the Jerusalem Quartet will celebrate its 20th anniversary in the 2015/2016 season with an artistic focus on Beethoven's op. 18 string quartets - works that are featured in the quartet's latest recording, released in August 2015.

The quartet's concert programmes will also include works by Dvorák, Haydn, Brahms and Bartók. Additionally, the quartet will celebrate its 20th anniversary by performing several concerts with well-known music partners and present special projects - including a Bartók string quartet cycle and piano quintet concerts with Sir András Schiff.

Katia and Marielle Labèque are sibling pianists renowned for their ensemble of synchronicity and energy. Their musical ambitions started at an early age and they rose to international fame with their contemporary rendition of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (one of the first gold records in classical music) and have since developed a stunning career with performances worldwide.

They are regular guests with the most prestigious orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Filarmonia della Scala, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle and Vienna Philharmonic, under the direction of Semyon Bychkov, Lionel Bringuier, Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Kristjan J.rvi, Paavo J.rvi, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Georges Prêtre, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas and Jaap van Zweden. They have appeared with Baroque music ensembles such as The English Baroque Soloists with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini, Musica Antica with Reinhard Goebel and Venice Baroque with Andrea Marcon, and recently toured with The Age of Enlightenment & Sir Simon Rattle. Katia and Marielle have had the privilege of working with many composers including Thomas Adès, Louis Andriessen, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, Gyürgy Ligeti, and Olivier Messiaen.

The Lab.ques play in festivals and renowned venues worldwide including the Vienna Musikverein, Hamburg Musikhalle, Munich Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, La Scala, Berlin Philharmonie, Blossom, Hollywood Bowl, Lucerne, BBC Proms, Ravinia, Tanglewood and Salzburg. A record audience of more than 33,000 attended a gala concert with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle at Berlin’s Waldbühne, now available on DVD (Medici). For their own label, KML recordings, they have just released Sisters with a selection of musical pieces from their personal and professional lives.

In May 2015 the new piece Star-Cross’d Lovers, written by David Chalmin, will be premiered at the Paris Philharmonie. This original composition for two pianos, electric guitar and drums is based on the Shakespearean drama Romeo and Juliet. It will accompany a choreography for 7 dancers created by world-renowned break-dancer Yaman Okur. Later that month, in Los Angeles at Walt Disney Hall, they will give the world premiere of Philip Glass’s new Concerto written for them, with Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel.

Born into a musical family, Laura Gorna graduated with honors from the Milan Conservatory, under the guidance of Gigino Maestri. She received further education from Salvatore Accardo. Winner of the 22nd "Città di Vittorio Veneto" Competition, she debuted at a young afe at the Sala Verdi in Milan, playing the Khachaturian Concerto with the Orchestra of the RAI. Her concert tours have seen her perform in major Italian and international venues: Sala Verdi in Milan, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Teatro San Carlo and Settimane Musicali Internazionali in Naples, Chigi Academy in Siena, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Teatro della Pergola in Florence, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Lincoln Center in New York, the Tokyo Opera House, and the Verbier and Menton Festivals.

As guest soloist In Italy and abroad, she has performed with orchestras such as the Orchestra of Padua and the Veneto, Tuscany Regional Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, I Solisti Aquilani, the Italian Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonic Sudwestdeutsche, under the direction of Stewart Robinson, Baldur Brönniman, Christopher Franklin, Salvatore Accardo and Piero Bellugi.

Her great passion for chamber music lead her to become a member of the Accardo Quartet and to play in different formations with Patrice Fontanarosa, Bruno Giuranna, Toby Hoffman, Bruno and Regis Pasquier, Rocco Filippini, Franco Petracchi, Bruno Canino, John Bellucci, Filippo Faes, Stephanie Santangelo. In 2005 she founded Estrio with cellist Cecilia Radic and pianist Laura Manzini. She has also performed and recorded the complete chamber works of Johannes Brahms (in Vicenza 2002-2004) and Robert Schumann (in Milan, Turin, Bologna, Palermo 2005-2008).

Laura Gorna is one of the minds behind the Festival "Notti Trasfigurate" taking place since 2003 in Vicenza and of "Lieber Schumann", an introspective journey around the chamber music of the great composer. The main feature of these projects is the direct participation from the public, especially young people, during rehearsals.

Laura Gorna records for the "Foné" label; her most recent recordings include monographic CDs of Astor Piazzolla, a recital (Ravel, Schumann, Paganini-Szimanowsky), with pianist Filippo Faes and a CD with Estrio (Schumann / Shostakovich). She has also made several recordings for television, including a music documentary for "Arte" and Bruch’s Concertos, Prokofiev 2nd, Khachaturian, for RAI TRE RADIO. Professor of violin at the Pareggiato "C. Monteverdi" Institute in Cremona, Laura Gorna plays a gorgeous Giorgio III violin by Giovanni Paolo Maggini (Brescia 1620).

Manu Comté started learning music at the age of 7 with the accordion of his father. Granted with a higher diploma for accordion and a first price for chamber music at the Royal Academy of Mons (Belgium), both magna cum laude, Manu Comté was also awarded with a first price at the "Lili and Nadia Boulanger" Academy in Paris. He then graduated from the Superior Institute of Music of Namur (Belgium) in musical pedagogy. Prize winner of many contests in Belgium and abroad, Manu Comté continued his studies with professors and pedagogues Jacques Mornet (Auvergne) and Frederic Deschamps (Paris), among others, and followed masterclasses in France and Italy with Richard Galliano. Manu Comté devotes a great part of his activity to the practice of the Bandoneon, under the advices of Alfredo Marcucci. Passionate by the work of Astor Piazzolla, he founded in 1995 the Soledad Ensemble (accordion/bandoneon, violin, piano, guitar, double bass), whose fame became rapidly international. Today, Manu Comté performs throughout the world (France, Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Finland, Scotland, Poland, Russia, Lithuania, Brasil, Japan, Taiwan, the United States, Lebanon, Argentina…) as a member of various ensembles and as soloist in a wide range of repertoires; from Tango Nuevo to contemporary music, from jazz to French songwriting. His musical activities are shared between performances, composition and arrangements for the stage.

Michael Guttman is an eminent violin soloist, conductor and music director of festivals around the world. At age ten, he became the youngest student ever to be admitted into the Brussels Royal Conservatory of Music. Encouraged by his late mentor Isaac Stern, Guttman studied at the Juilliard School in New York with Dorothy Delay, the Juilliard Quartet and Felix Galimir. Guttman has earned critical acclaim from the New York Times for his “incredible wealth of tone colors and his sound of melting beauty“, and was described by the Jerusalem Post as the “Chagall of violinists“. He has performed in halls such as London’s Barbican Centre, New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, Paris’s Salle Pleyel, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Tokyo’s Bunko Kaikan and Venice’s Teatro La Fenice. He collaborated with the late conductor and composer Lukas Foss at the Music Festival of the Hamptons, a relationship which initiated his conducting career.

Much in demand as a chamber musician, he is regularly invited to perform at festivals by Martha Argerich (Lugano), Yuri Bashmet (Elba), Natalya Gutman (Kreuth), Boris Berezovski (Moscow) or Salvatore Accardo (Vicenza), Claudio Abbado (Ferrara) as well as the Ravenna Festival and the Ravello Festival, where he is set to perform with Moni Ovadia in 2013. Recent highlights include appearances at the «Folles Journées» Festival in Nantes (France) and Tokyo as well as the Asian premiere of a double concerto for violin, cello and orchestra by Philip Glass with Wendy Sutter, Jaap van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philarmonic at the Hong Kong International Music Festival; a piece he also performed in Dallas with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Guttman was subsequently invited by Carnegie Hall in New York to perform in the Spring Festival of American Orchestras in 2014.

Mr. Guttman is the principal guest conductor of the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, the leader of the acclaimed Arriaga Quartet and of the Michael Guttman Tango Quartet, as well as the founder and artistic director of Pietrasanta in Concerto, the highly praised music festival in Tuscany. The Paris Camerata, an ensemble created by Guttman, made its Italian debut at both festivals in the summer of 2012. As a conductor, he has collaborated with such artists as Martha Argerich, Peter Serkin, James Galway and Richard Stolztman. His groundbreaking recordings of 20thcentury violin concertos with the Royal Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestras have been broadcast by the BBC in 110 countries. Following his recording of three concertos by Israeli composers with the London Philarmonic and the late David Shallon, Mr. Guttman performed with most Israeli orchestras and will play the concerto by Noam Sheriff with the Israel Philarmonic. Like his mentor Isaac Stern, Guttman is dedicated to helping young artists, notably at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Brussels, and has received the Fuga Prize from the Belgian government for his work with living Belgian composers. Michael Guttman was awarded the prestigious 2012 Scopus Prize from the Belgian Friends of the University of Jerusalem. He plays on a 1735 Guarneri del Gesù once owned by the great Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Battista Viotti.

Oleg Kaskiv was born in 1978 in the small Ukrainian village Kremenetz into a family of musicians. He began playing violin at the age of 7 under the guidance of his violinists parents and later entered M.Lysenko National Academy of Music in Lviv.

In 1996, Oleg won a scholarship to study in Switzerland at the famous “International Menuhin Music Academy” (IMMA), which was founded by Lord Yehudi Menuhin in 1977. At the Academy, Oleg's great mentor was Professor Alberto Lysy, who got his education directly from Lord Yehudi Menuhin and was his only pupil. Therefore the tradition of the great romantic violin playing was passed on to Oleg.

Today, Oleg Kaskiv is a soloist and artistic director at the IMMA.

As a soloist, Oleg Kaskiv regularly performs with great success in his native country with the National Symphony of Ukraine, Odessa Philharmonic and Lviv Philharmonic Symphony Orchestras and worldwide: with the Camerata Lysy, Camerata de Lausanne, Symphonisches Orchester Zürich, Orchestre National de Belgique, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal and Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden.

He is a laureate of many prestigious violin competitions such as Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition (Belgium); International Oistrakh Competition (Ukraine); International Kotorovych Violin Competition (Ukraine), International Spohr Competition (Germany); International Montreal Competition (Canada); International Premio Lipizer (Italy), International Niredgazi Violin Competition (Japan), International Dvarionas Violin Competition (Lithuania) and International Molinari Competition (Switzerland).

Plamena Mangova won second prize in the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2007 and embarked on an international career. Her initial studies were with Marina Kapatsinskaya at the Pancho Vladigerov Sofia State Music Academy in Bulgaria and then at the Queen Sofia Higher Music School, Madrid with the eminent teacher Dmitri Bashkirov. She has also worked with Abdel-Rahman El Bacha at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium and received the advice of renowned musicians such as Leon Fleisher, Rosalyn Tureck, Krystian Zimerman and Andras Schiff. She is a Laureate of various prestigious international piano and chamber music competitions, including “Paloma O’Shea” in Santander and “Vittorio Gui” in Florence, as well as the Juventus Festival in France.

Plamena performs with leading orchestras, such as the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, National Orchestra of Belgium, European Union Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, RAI Torino Orchestra, Moscow Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, Tatarstan National Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, St Petersburg Orchestra, MDR Orchester Leipzig, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Trondheim Symphony, Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, Verbier Festival Orchestra... Conductor collaborations include Sir Colin Davis, Myung-whun Chung, Sir Andrew Davis, Emmanuel Krivine, Walter Weller, Maxim Vengerov, Emil Tabakov, Tadaaki Otaka, Jaap van Zweden, Dmitri Jurowski, Jean-Jacques Kantorow,, Jean-Claude Casadesus.

A keen chamber music player, she has performed with Maria Joao Pires, Boris Berezovsky, Augustin Dumay, Mihaela Martin, Jian Wang, Pascal Moragues, Alexei Ogrintchouk, Alexander Kniazev, Frans Helmerson and the Ysaye String Quartet among others.

Plamena has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, BOZAR Brussels, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Kennedy Center Washington, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Munich Herkulesaal, Bonn Beethovenhaus, South Bank Center London, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Moscow Conservatory concert hall, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs Elysées and Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, Sala Verdi Milan and at major festivals such as Progetto Martha Argerich Lugano, Verbier Academy, La Folle Journée Nantes and Tokyo, La Roque d'Anthéron, Rostropovich Festival in Moscow and Baku, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, Santander, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Montpellier Radio France Festival, Festival de Menton, Pietrasanta in Concerto.

Her first solo CD recording (Shostakovich) was awarded a “Diapason d'Or of the year 2007”. A chamber music disc by the same composer followed with soprano Tatiana Melnychenko, violinist Natalia Prischepenko and cellist Sebastian Klinger which was awarded the Superfonic Prize in Pizzicato magazine. Her Beethoven disc (sponsored by the Belgian Bank Fortis), was highly praised by France Musique and Diapason, as were her exceptional recordings of Strauss' Burleske (2008) and Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 (2010) with the Belgium National Orchestra and Walter Weller (Fuga Libera label). The latter was highly praised by Bryce Morrison in Gramophone magazine. The last CD, highly praised too, was recorded with the cellist Alexander Kniazev and dedicated to Franck and Ysaÿe.

Renowned around the most prestigious soloists and conductors on the international music scene, Salvatore Accardo gave his first professional recital at 13 with Paganini’s Capricci. At 15, he won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 he won the first Paganini Competition in Genoa. His vast repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary music. Composers like Sciarrino, Donatoni, Piston, Piazzolla and Xenakis have written for him. Accardo plays regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, alternating solo concerts and
recitals as conductor.

Following his strong inclination towards chamber music and an equally strong desire to promote young performers, in 1986 he founded the Master Courses of studies at the Fondazione Walter Stauffer in Cremona together with B. Giuranna, R. Filippini and F. Petracchi, and in 1992 he founded the Quartetto Accardo. In 1996 Accardo re-founded the Orchestra da Camera Italiana, which features the best pupils and ex-pupils of the Cremona “Walter Stauffer” Academy, and with which he regularly plays and records CDs.

Accardo’s recordings for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Sony are almost beyond count and form an unrivaled patrimony of the last decades. He has received many prizes, among which being named in 1982 by the President of the Republic, Pertini, as Cavaliere di Gran Croce. Accardo plays a Guarneri del Ges. violin (ex “Hart” 1730).

The Menuhin Academy Soloists are an outstanding chamber ensemble from the International Menuhin Music Academy (IMMA) Switzerland, known for their technical brilliance and inspirational musicality.

IMMA was founded by Lord Menuhin in 1977 “to ensure that the great heritage of violin mastery is passed to the next generation” and is a nonprofit organization that provides exceptional young string players from all over the world a 3-year scholarship. For almost 40 years the academy has been training violinists, violists and cellists from all over the world, with the help and guidance of past professors such as Lord Menuhin himself and Alberto Lysy. Today it has become one of the worlds most renowned Swiss music institutions with their base at Le Rosey, nr Geneva.

Touring worldwide, led by konzertmeister Oleg Kaskiv, The Menuhin Academy Soloists have already debuted in prominent musical centres, such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Theatre des Champs Elysees, the Concertgebouw, the Edinburgh Festival and the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, as well as concert halls in South America, the USA, Canada, Japan and China.

Since 2011 Maxim Vengerov has been the academy’s Maestro, performing regularly show-stopping concerts together, one of which was recorded and broadcast on Mezzo and Arte TV.

Born into a musical family, conductor and violist TOBY HOFFMAN began his musical training at the age of six studying the violin with his mother Esther Glazer. He continued his studies at the Juilliard School as a violist studying with Paul Doktor where he became the only two-time winner of the Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition. He subsequently began an international career performing with many of today’s most prominent musicians at prestigious international music festivals and concert halls including those of Salzburg, Ravinia, Taipei, Napoli, Athens, Stavanger, Marlboro, Saratoga, Mostly Mozart, Great Performers at Lincoln Center, La Jolla, Seattle, Chamber Music Northwest, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and La Scala, among many others. As a viola soloist, his orchestral appearances include performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Het Gelders Orchestra, Teatro di Genova, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica, Buffalo Philharmonic, Florida Orchestra and the Prague Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Hoffman has had a long association with the violin virtuoso Salvatore Accardo, with whom he recorded nearly all of the chamber music works of Mozart in addition to many other chamber works. As part of the Pollini project, he played chamber music with Maurizio Pollini at La Scala, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the 92nd Street Y in New York. His discography also includes a release of French chamber music with André Prévin, as well as recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Marlboro Music Festival. For ten years, Mr. Hoffman was an artistic director of Bargemusic in New York. He was a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and has been a guest violist with the Jerusalem, Fine Arts and Tokyo String Quartets. In 1988, he performed the world premiere of the Piano Quartet by Alfred Schnittke at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland. Mr. Hoffman studied conducting with Jorma Panula. Under his tutelage, he participated in masterclasses with many prestigious orchestras. As an educator, Mr. Hoffman has held the position of Artist in Residence at Harvard University and has been a member of the faculties of Carnegie-Mellon University and the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival. He has given master-classes at the New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Cincinnati College- Conservatory, Citta di Castello, Kuhmo, Turku, and the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. Mr. Hoffman is a teacher of the conducting class at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, a teacher at the Sibelius Academy with Jorma Panula, and the professor of chamber music at the Universidade do Minho in Braga, Portugal.

Vanessa Benelli Mosell is a rising star on the international music scene. She is continuously praised for her virtuosity, her technical brilliance and the sensitivity of her musical insight, which have been shaped significantly in mentorships with Karlheinz Stockhausen and Yuri Bashmet.

Benelli Mosell gave her debut appearance at eleven years old with pianist Pascal Rogé, who described her as “the most natural musical talent I have encountered in my entire life”. She has since performed with orchestras such as the Münchner Symphoniker, Berliner Symphoniker, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna. She has also performed often with the Moscow Soloists, and replaced Martha Argerich in 2012. In the same year, Vanessa gave her celebrated debut at London?s Wigmore Hall. Recent years have seen new encounters, including a tour to South America, concerts with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, as well as at Hamburg?s Laeiszhalle.

Vanessa Benelli Mosell is internationally renowned for her performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Klavierstücke. Following her recording of Klavierstücke I-IV, she was invited by the composer to study under him, as he believed that she “has the power to let people appreciate my music”. Vanessa worked closely with the composer and he remains an important influence on Vanessa?s music making, encouraging her passion for contemporary music and her championing of composers of today as well as the great classics.

Vanessa Benelli Mosell began her comprehensive musical studies when she was exceptionally admitted at the International Piano Academy in Imola at seven years old, where she studied with Franco Scala. In 2007 she was invited to the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory to study with Mikhail Voskresensky. Vanessa entered the Royal College of Music in London in 2007, where she graduated in 2012 studying with Dmitri Alexeev, generously supported by the Russell Gander Award. Vanessa was awarded the Elba Festival Prize by Yuri Bashmet and more recently she won the first Award of the Festival Pietrasanta as an outstanding young talent.

She furthermore collaborates in chamber music with partners as Massimo Quarta, Daishin Kashimoto, Radovan Vlatkovich, Julian Rachlin, Boris Andrianov, Renaud and Gautier Capucon, Linus Roth, Alain Meunier, Boris Brovtsyn, Alexander Chaushian, Henri Demarquette, Alexander Buzlov and Massimo Mercelli.

Vanessa?s debut recording received great international praise for her "extraordinary artistic talent" and "sparkling technique in demanding music” (Gramophone Magazine).In spring 2015, Vanessa Benelli Mosell released her recording, and debut on the DECCA label – a juxtaposition of Stockhausen and Stravinsky and will follow this in 2016 with a further disc in her Stockhausen series. Also in 2016, Vanessa will release her debut concerto CD for DECCA of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Kirill Karabits. Vanessa Benelli Mosell is a Young Steinway Artist.

Pianist Walter Delahunt is a Canadian citizen and an artist of broad and distinguished experience.

His career has taken him throughout Europe, the Middle East, North America and Asia. His musicianship is characterised by tremendous technical command of the instrument, unique sound quality, ease in chamber music, solo playing and accompanying and by a power of communication which immediately involves the listener. He has played with some of the world's greatest musicians, including Zara Nelsova, Gidon Kremer, Martha Argerich and the legendary violinist Ida Haendel, with whom he has played several times in Japan, Korea, Israel, the United States and Canada. He was professor at the Vienna Academy of Music between 1984 and 1997 and has recorded for Panton (Prague) and BMG Japan.

A live recording of Dvorak chamber music, performed at the "Progetto Martha Argerich" in Lugano in June 2002 has been released on EMI Classics. Mr. Delahunt currently resides in Canada and Germany.

Renowned around the most prestigious soloists and conductors on the international music scene, Salvatore Accardo gave his first professional recital at 13 with Paganini’s Capricci. At 15, he won the Geneva Competition and in 1958 he won the first Paganini Competition in Genoa. His vast repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary music. Composers like Sciarrino, Donatoni, Piston, Piazzolla and Xenakis have written for him. Accardo plays regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, alternating solo concerts and recitals as conductor.

Following his strong inclination towards chamber music and an equally strong desire to promote young performers, in 1986 he founded the Master Courses of studies at the Fondazione Walter Stauffer in Cremona together with B. Giuranna, R. Filippini and F. Petracchi, and in 1992 he founded the Quartetto Accardo. In 1996 Accardo re-founded the Orchestra da Camera Italiana, which features the best pupils and ex-pupils of the Cremona "Walter Stauffer" Academy, and with which he regularly plays and records CDs.
Accardo’s recordings for Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, EMI, Sony are almost beyond count and form an unrivaled patrimony of the last decades.

He has received many prizes, among which being named in 1982 by the President of the Republic, Pertini, as Cavaliere di Gran Croce.

Accardo plays a Guarneri del Gesù violin (ex “Hart” 1730).

Through his virtuosity, strength of personality and intelligence, Yuri Bashmet as given the viola a new prominence and motivated the leading composers of our time to expand the repertoire with significant new music. He is Artistic Director of the December Nights Festival, Moscow, Principal Conductor of the Novaya Rorriya State Symphony Orchestra, and the founder / director of Moscow Soloists.

Yuri Bashmet spent his childhood in Lviv in Ukraine before studying at the Moscow Conservatoire with Vadim Borisovsky (of the Beethoven Quartet) and Feodor Druzhinin. In 1976, he won the International Viola Competition in Munich. Since then he has appeared with the world’s great orchestras, including Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Boston, Chicago and Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, New York Philharmonic, London Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra. He has inspired many composers to write for him, and has enjoyed strong relationships with Alfred Schnittke and Sofia Gubaidulina. Concertos composed for him include works by Poul Ruders, Alexander Tchaikovsky and Alexander Raskatov. He has also given the world premieres of Styx by Giya Kancheli, The Myrrh Bearer by John Tavener and On Opened Ground by Mark-Anthony Turnage – all of which were written for him. In December 2002 Bashmet became Principal Conductor of the Symphony Orchestra of New Russia. Other orchestras with which he appears as conductor / soloist include the Dresdner Philharmoniker, Orquesta Ciudad de Granada, Tokyo Philharmonic, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, Camerata Salzburg, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Brussels Philharmonic. He is the founder of Moscow Soloists, an ensemble he has performed with and directed since 1992. In chamber music his closest collaborators have included Sviatoslav Richter, Gidon Kremer, Mstislav Rostropovich, Maxim Vengerov, Natalia Gutman, Viktoria Mullova and the Borodin Quartet. He formed a highly successful trio with mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet. Other recent chamber music projects include Beethoven trios with Anne Sophie Mutter and Lyn Harrell. He is a frequent visitor to summer festivals such as Elbe, Verbier and Martha Argerich’s festival in Japan.

Among his many CDs is a recording for Deutsche Grammophon of the Gubaidulina Concerto and Kancheli Styx, winner of a Diapason d’Or award and a Grammy nomination. Other notable DG discs are Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Anne-Sophie Mutter, Brahms’s Piano Quartet N° 1 with Argerich, Kremer and Maisky, and the recently released Bartók Concerto with Berliner Philharmoniker and Boulez. For Onyx he and Moscow Soloists have embarked on a critically-acclaimed series of recordings: chamber symphonies by Shostakovich, Sviridoc and Vainberg; music by Stravinsky and Prokofiev (which received a Grammy award); and a disc of music by composers from the Far East, as well as a recital disc of Encores with pianist Mikhail Muntian.

Boris Berezovsky has established a great reputation, both as the most powerful of virtuoso pianists and as a musician gifted with a unique insight and a great sensitivity.

Born in Moscow, Boris Berezovsky studied at the Moscow Conservatory with Eliso Virsala-dze and privately with Alexander Satz. Subsequent to his London debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1988, The Times described him as an artist of exceptional promise, a player of dazzling virtuosity and formidable power. Two years later, he won the Gold Medal at the 1990 Inter-national Tchaïkovsky Competition in Moscow.

Boris Berezovsky is regularly invited by the most prominent orchestras including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, Philharmonia of London, Orchestra Santa Ce-cilia Roma, New York Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Munich Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Bir-mingham Symphony Orchestra, and more.

Boris Berezovsky is often invited to the most prestigious international recitals series : The Berlin Philharmonic Piano serie, Concertgebouw International piano serie and the Royal Fe-stival Hall Internatinal Piano series in London, to the great stages as the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées and Salle Pleyel in Paris, Royal Festival Hall of London, Palace of fine Arts in Brus-sells, Konzerthaus of Vienna, the Megaron in Athena, and the most famous internatonal fe-stivals in Verbier, Salzbourg, la Roque d’Anthéron, and more.

With Teldec, Boris Berezovksy has recorded works of Chopin, Schumann, Rachmaninov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Medtner, Ravel and the complete Liszt Transcendental Studies. His recording of the Rachmaninov sonatas was awarded the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkri-tik and his Ravel disc was recommended by Le Monde de la Musique, Diapason, The BBC Music Magazine and the Sunday Independent. Boris Berezovsky also won the BBC Music Magazine Awards in March 2006 as Best Instrumentalist. His solo live recording Cho-pin/Godowsky was highly praised.

His next engagements include, among others, concerts with : Russian National Rochestra/ Mikhail Pletnev, Orchestre de Paris/Andreï Boreyko, Les Siècles/François-Xavier Roth, Hong Kong Philharmonic/Jaap Van Zwenden…, tours in Asia with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, in Europe with the Deutsches Symphony-Orchester/Tugan Sokhiev, in Russia (Mariinsky…) with the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra/Dimitri Liss, recitals and chamber mu-sic in the most prestigious halls and festivals (Royal Festival Hall of London, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Suntory Hall of Tokyo…). Boris Berezovsky took over the work of her friend Brigitte Engerer becoming artistic director of the Festival Pianoscope Beauvais.

Michael Guttman is an eminent violin soloist, conductor and music director of festivals around the world. At age ten, he became the youngest student ever to be admitted into the Brussels Royal Conservatory of Music. Encouraged by his late mentor Isaac Stern, Guttman studied at the Juilliard School in New York with Dorothy Delay, the Juilliard Quartet and Felix Galimir. Guttman has earned critical acclaim from the New York Times for his “incredible wealth of tone colors and his sound of melting beauty“, and was described by the Jerusalem Post as the “Chagall of violinists“. He has performed in halls such as London’s Barbican Centre, New York’s Avery Fisher Hall, Paris’s Salle Pleyel, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Tokyo’s Bunko Kaikan and Venice’s Teatro La Fenice. He collaborated with the late conductor and composer Lukas Foss at the Music Festival of the Hamptons, a relationship which initiated his conducting career.

Much in demand as a chamber musician, he is regularly invited to perform at festivals by Martha Argerich (Lugano), Yuri Bashmet (Elba), Natalya Gutman (Kreuth), Boris Berezovski (Moscow) or Salvatore Accardo (Vicenza), Claudio Abbado (Ferrara) as well as the Ravenna Festival and the Ravello Festival, where he is set to perform with Moni Ovadia in 2013. Recent highlights include appearances at the «Folles Journées» Festival in Nantes (France) and Tokyo as well as the Asian premiere of a double concerto for violin, cello and orchestra by Philip Glass with Wendy Sutter, Jaap van Zweden and the Hong Kong Philarmonic at the Hong Kong International Music Festival; a piece he also performed in Dallas with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Guttman was subsequently invited by Carnegie Hall in New York to perform in the Spring Festival of American Orchestras in 2014.

Mr. Guttman is the principal guest conductor of the Brussels Chamber Orchestra, the leader of the acclaimed Arriaga Quartet and of the Michael Guttman Tango Quartet, as well as the founder and artistic director of Pietrasanta in Concerto, the highly praised music festival in Tuscany. The Paris Camerata, an ensemble created by Guttman, made its Italian debut at both festivals in the summer of 2012. As a conductor, he has collaborated with such artists as Martha Argerich, Peter Serkin, James Galway and Richard Stolztman. His groundbreaking recordings of 20th-century violin concertos with the Royal Philharmonic, the London Philharmonic and the Philharmonia Orchestras have been broadcast by the BBC in 110 countries. Following his recording of three concertos by Israeli composers with the London Philarmonic and the late David Shallon, Mr. Guttman performed with most Israeli orchestras and will play the concerto by Noam Sheriff with the Israel Philarmonic. Like his mentor Isaac Stern, Guttman is dedicated to helping young artists, notably at the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Brussels, and has received the Fuga Prize from the Belgian government for his work with living Belgian composers. Michael Guttman was awarded the prestigious 2012 Scopus Prize from the Belgian Friends of the University of Jerusalem. He plays on a 1735 Guarneri del Gesù once owned by the great Italian violinist and composer Giovanni Battista Viotti.

“One of the most exciting formations to be touring on the international orchestra scene." (Fono Forum)

In the 30 years of its existence, the Basel Chamber Orchestra has developed into one of the leading chamber orchestras on the international music scene. Nowadays invitations to the most important concert arenas and festivals of the European classical music scene are just as much part of the schedule as the orchestra's own subscription concerts in Basel. Diverse CD recordings with famous labels like Sony, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, Warner Classics and OehmsClassics are evidence of the excellent quality of the orchestra.

The Basel Chamber Orchestra has a predilection for playing under the musical direction of its own concertmaster. The orchestra’s collaboration with its principal guest conductor Giovanni Antonini is especially fruitful. The highpoint of its collaboration with Antonini is the Beethoven Cycle which the orchestra and the Italian baroque specialist developed over the course of 10 years. Symphonies 1 – 8 have already been recorded by Sony; the recording of Symphonies 3 and 4 received the ‘Ensemble of the Year 2008’ award at the ECHO Klassik awards. Between now and 2032, the Basel Chamber Orchestra under Giovanni Antonini’s direction, together with the Italian ensemble ‘Il Giardino Armonico’, will take turns at performing all of Joseph Haydn’s 107 symphonies and recording them on CD.

In addition, the orchestra has a close relationship with conductors such as Trevor Pinnock, Heinz Holliger, Paul Goodwin or Mario Venzago. The list of soloists who have performed together with the orchestra is renowned: Emmanuel Pahud, Sol Gabetta, Andreas Scholl, Kristian Bezuidenhout, Matthias Goerne, Sabine Meyer, Angela Hewitt, Renaud Capuçon, Thomas Zehetmair, Sandrine Piau and many more.

The members of the orchestra are passionately committed to various projects aimed at promoting musical education in younger generations. Chamber music concerts complete its multifarious artistic activities in the city and the Basel region.

The 2015|2016 season will kick off with performances of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ under the baton of Trevor Pinnock in the Augusta Raurica Theatre. The musicians will make guest appearances, with Klaus Maria Brandauer as guest narrator, amongst other places at the Dresden Frauenkirche, the Lucerne Culture and Congress Centre and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival. The orchestra will go on concert tours with Sir András Schiff and Heinz Holliger to the renowned ‘George Enescu’ Festical in Bucharest, with Sol Gabetta to Australia and with Daniel Hope to South America. The Basel Chamber Orchestra is also looking forward to working with Franco Fagioli, Renaud Capuçon, Andreas Scholl, Hélène Grimaud, Christine Schäfer and many others. The programme will include both the orchestra’s core classical repertoire with symphonies by Schubert, Haydn, Beethoven and Mozart’s piano concertos as well as a baroque programme with cantatas by Bach, arias and concertos by Handel and Lully and violin concertos from the 17th century Bolognese School. Contemporary works by Heinz Holliger and the first performance of a commissioned work for solo violin and strings by the Swiss composer Stefan Wirth will round off next season’s programme.

Since 2013 Clariant International Ltd. is presenting sponsor of the Basel Chamber Orchestra.

The Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale is one of the most famous orchestras in Italy, highly esteemed by international audiences and demanding conductors alike. The Orchestra was founded in 1928 by Vittorio Gui, under the name “Stabile Orchestrale Fiorentina.”

In 1933, the Orchestra created what would become one of the oldest and most prestigious music festivals in Europe : the “Festival del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino”, giving its name to the Orchestra.

Milestones in the Orchestra’s history include the resident conductorships of Riccardo Muti (1969-'81) and Zubin Mehta; Zubin Mehta has been Principal Conductor since 1985, and, season after season, leads important symphonic productions and highly-prestigious tours. In 2012, he is celebrating the 50th anniversary of his début in Florence. The Orchestra later established a special relationship with Myung-Whun Chung and Semyon Bychkov, who have been Principal Guest Conductors since 1987 and 1992 respectively.

The Orchestra del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino enjoys a superb reputation throughout the music world, and in the course of its history has been conducted by some of the finest musicians of all time, such as Victor De Sabata, Gianandrea Gavazzeni, Tullio Serafin, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Bruno Walter, Otto Klemperer, Erich Kleiber, Dimitri Mitropoulos, Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Claudio Abbado, Lorin Maazel, Carlo Maria Giulini, Georges Prêtre, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlos Kleiber, Georg Solti, Riccardo Chailly, Giuseppe Sinopoli and Seiji Ozawa. Famous composers have also conducted their own works in world-première performances in Florence appositely commissioned by Maggio Musicale Fiorentino; they include Richard Strauss, Pietro Mascagni, Ildebrando Pizzetti, Paul Hindemith, Igor Stravinsky, Goffredo Petrassi, Luigi Dallapiccola, Krzysztof Penderecki and Luciano Berio.

The Orchestra has made numerous musical recordings, many of which have received prestigious radio and television awards, including the Grammy Award. The Orchestra’s most recent successes include its third tour of Japan, headed by the Honorary Conductor for Life Zubin Mehta; Warsaw, the Musikverein in Vienna, Frankfurt and Baden-Baden. On the 80th anniversary of its inauguration, the Orchestra received the Fiorino d’Oro award from the City of Florence for outstanding artistic achievement. In 2011, the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino was commended by the President of the Italian Republic Ambassador for its invaluable contribution to culture and was an essential part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Unification of Italy. During 2011 the Orchestra had important tournées in more than 12 countries (France, Luxemburg, Spain, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, China, India, Hungary, Russia, Austria, Switzerland). In 2012 the Festival of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino is hosting its 75th edition, which has as motif the voyage from Middle Europe to South America, and is taking place during the year which celebrates Amerigo Vespucci on the 500th anniversary of his death.

The orchestra made its debut on 19 May 1992 at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire and on 21 May the same year at Salle Pleyel in Paris. The orchestra has performed with great success at many famed and prestigious music venues such as Carnegie Hall in New York, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Barbican Hall in London, the Tivoli in Copenhagen, the Berliner Philharmoniker and in Wellington (New Zealand).

The orchestra has performed with soloists including Sviatoslav Richter (piano), Gidon Kremer (violin), Mstislav Rostropovich (cello), Viktor Tretyakov (violin), Maxim Vengerov (violin), Vadim Repin (violin), Sarah Chang (violin, USA), Barbara Hendricks (soprano, USA), James Galway (flute, USA), Natalia Gutman (cello), Lynn Harrell (cello, USA), Mario Brunello (cello, Italy) and Thomas Quasthoff (bass, Germany).

In 1994 the Moscow Soloists with Gidon Kremer and Mstislav Rostropovich recorded a compact disc for EMI. A disc of works by Dmitry Shostakovich and Johannes Brahms with Sony Classics was named “best recording of the year” by STRAD magazine critics and nominated for a Grammy. The orchestra received a repeat Grammy nomination in 2006 for a disc of chamber symphonies by Shostakovich, Georgy Sviridov and Mieczys?aw Weinberg. In 2007, the Moscow Soloists won a Grammy award for a recording of music by Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev.

The orchestra has frequently performed at the most prestigious music festivals, among them the Rostropovich Festival in Evian (France), the Music Festival of Montreux (Switzerland), Sydney Music Festival, Bath Music Festival (UK), The Proms at London’s Royal Albert Hall, Prestige de la

Musique at Paris’ Salle Pleyel, Sony-Classical at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées, Semaines musicales de Tours (France) and the December Evenings in Moscow.

The orchestra regularly appears on various television programmes in Russia and abroad. Their concerts have been broadcast and recorded numerous times by the world’s leading broadcasting companies, such as the BBC, Bavarian Radio, Radio France and Japan’s NHK corporation.

Denis Kozhukhin was launched onto the international scene after winning First Prize in the 2010 Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels at the age of 23. His playing is characterised by an extraordinary technical mastery balanced by a sharp intelligence, calm maturity and wisdom. Kozhukhin has that rare and special gift of creating an immediate and compelling emotional connection with his audience.

Kozhukhin has quickly established a formidable reputation and has already appeared at many of the world’s most prestigious festivals and concert halls including the Verbier Festival, where he won the Prix d’Honneur in 2003, Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Rheingau Music Festival, Jerusalem International Chamber Music Festival, Santander International Festival, Carnegie Hall, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Munich Herkulessaal, Rotterdam De Doelen, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Auditorio Nacional Madrid, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Milan, Palau de la Musica Valencia, Théâtre du Châtelet and Auditorium du Louvre Paris.
In the 2014/15 season, Kozhukhin makes his debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra/Morlot, Philadelphia Orchestra/Denève, BBC Symphony Orchestra/Oramo, Mariinsky Orchestra/Gergiev, Houston Symphony Orchestra/Hrusa, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic/Gimeno and Orquestra Sinfônica do Estado de São Paulo/Alsop. Kozhukhin will also tour to China with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra.

The 2013/14 season included performances with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony with Alsop, Philharmonia with Temirkanov, Oslo Philharmonic with Hrusa, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse with Kristjan Järvi, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony with Sinaisky, Royal Stockholm Philharmonic with Payare, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic with Gulberg-Jensen, Hallé with Ryan Wigglesworth, BBC Scottish Symphony with Dausgaard and Orchestre National de Belgique with Boreyko. In February 2014, Kozhukhin was Temirkanov’s soloist on his major US tour with the St Petersburg Philharmonic which included performances at the Carnegie Hall and Davies Hall, San Francisco.
As a recitalist, highlights of this season and beyond include returns to the Concertgebouw’s Master Pianists Series, Cologne Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Auditorium du Louvre in Paris and London’s International Piano Series, as well as debuts at the Lucerne Festival, Berlin Staatsoper, Pianos aux Jacobins, Flagey and Centro Cultural de Belém, Lisbon. Following the 2013 release of his debut recording with Onyx Classics of Prokofiev’s Piano Sonatas Nos 6, 7 and 8, Kozhukhin will release his recording of Haydn Sonatas in September 2014.

Born in Nizhni Novgorod, Russia, in 1986 into a family of musicians, Denis Kozhukhin began his piano studies at the age of four with his mother. As a boy, he attended the Balakirev School of Music where he studied under Natalia Fish. From 2000 to 2007, Kozhukhin was a pupil at the Reina Sofía School of Music in Madrid learning with Dimitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez-Mehner.

Upon graduating, he received his diploma personally from the Queen of Spain and was named best student in his year and twice best chamber group with his own Cervantes Trio. After his studies in Madrid, Kozhukhin was invited to study at the Piano Academy at Lake Como where he received tuition from amongst others Fou Ts’ong, Stanislav Yudenitch, Peter Frankl, Boris Berman, Charles Rosen and Andreas Staier. He completed his studies with Kirill Gerstein in Stuttgart. Kozhukhin has also been awarded 1st Prize at the Vendome Prize in Lisbon in 2009, and 3rd Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006.

Kozhukhin is a committed chamber musician and has worked with amongst others, Leonidas Kavakos, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Vadim Repin, Julian Rachlin, the Jerusalem Quartet, the Pavel Haas Quartet, Radovan Vlatkovic, Jörg Widmann and Alisa Weilerstein.

Denis Kozhukhin is represented worldwide by Intermusica.

Katia and Marielle Labèque are sibling pianists renowned for their ensemble of synchronicity and energy. Their musical ambitions started at an early age and they rose to international fame with their contemporary rendition of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue (one of the first gold records in classical music) and have since developed a stunning career with performances worldwide.

They are regular guests with the most prestigious orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Filarmonia della Scala, Philadelphia Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle and Vienna Philharmonic, under the direction of Semyon Bychkov, Lionel Bringuier, Sir Colin Davis, Gustavo Dudamel, Charles Dutoit, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Miguel Harth-Bedoya, Kristjan Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Zubin Mehta, Seiji Ozawa, Antonio Pappano, Georges Prêtre, Sir Simon Rattle, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Leonard Slatkin, Michael Tilson Thomas and Jaap van Zweden.

They have appeared with Baroque music ensembles such as The English Baroque Soloists with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Il Giardino Armonico with Giovanni Antonini, Musica Antica with Reinhard Goebel and Venice Baroque with Andrea Marcon, and recently toured with The Age of Enlightenment & Sir Simon Rattle.

Katia and Marielle have had the privilege of working with many composers including Thomas Adès, Louis Andriessen, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Philip Glass, Osvaldo Golijov, György Ligeti, and Olivier Messiaen.

The Labèques play in festivals and renowned venues worldwide including the Vienna Musikverein, Hamburg Musikhalle, Munich Philharmonie, Carnegie Hall, Royal Festival Hall, La Scala, Berlin Philharmonie, Blossom, Hollywood Bowl, Lucerne, BBC Proms, Ravinia, Tanglewood and Salzburg. A record audience of more than 33,000 attended a gala concert with the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Sir Simon Rattle at Berlin’s Waldbühne, now available on DVD (Medici).

For their own label, KML recordings, they have just released Sisters with a selection of musical pieces from their personal and professional lives.

In May 2015 the new piece Star-Cross'd Lovers, written by David Chalmin, will be premiered at the Paris Philharmonie. This original composition for two pianos, electric guitar and drums is based on the Shakespearean drama Romeo and Juliet. It will accompany a choreography for 7 dancers created by world-renowned break-dancer Yaman Okur. Later that month, in Los Angeles at Walt Disney Hall , they will give the world premiere of Philip Glass’s new Concerto written for them, with Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Gustavo Dudamel.

« Creative artist », « libertarian violinist », « passionate virtuoso»: such are some of the expressions used by a unanimous press to describe Lorenzo Gatto’s talent and passion and it has to be said that he maintains a vibrant relationship with his public.

A true revelation in the eyes of the greater public and international critics through his second prize and Public’s prize at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition (Concours Musical International Reine Elisabeth )2009, Lorenzo Gatto’s talent has also been recognized with his winning of many other prizes of which the first prize and Public’s Prize at the International RNCM Competition in Manchester (age 18) and first prize at the International Andrea Postacchini Competition in Italy (age 16).

Born in Brussels in December 1986, Lorenzo Gatto began studying the violin at the age of 5. At the age of 12 he joined the Brussels’ Royal Conservatory of Music in Véronique Bogaerts’ class where, at 17, he earned a diploma for violin with the highest distinction. After which he continued to perfect his playing under Herman Krebbers in Holland, Augustin Dumay at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, and Boris Kuschnir in Vienna.

He also worked with other great musicians such as Salvatore Accardo, Zakhar Bron, Pamela Frank, Robert Mann, Midori, Seiji Ozawa, Julian Rachlin, ...

Having been elected Rising Star 2010-2011, Lorenzo started to perform on the major European stages, such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Cité de la Musique in Paris, the Wiener Musikverein, and also in Athens, Baden-Baden, Barcelona, Birmingham, Cologne, Hamburg, Luxemburg, Newcastle and Stockholm.

In Belgium, he has become a major artist for Bozar - the Palais des Beaux-Arts (artist-in- residence for the 2010-2011 season), and Flagey in Brussels, as well as on the other major musical stages of the country. He is regularly invited as a soloist by the Belgian National Orchestra, the Flanders Philharmonic Royal Orchestra (de Filharmonie), the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia. In recent seasons, Lorenzo also played with the BBC Philharmonic, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Gelders Orkest, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Luxemburg, the Sinfonia Varsovia, the Moscow Virtuosi, the “New Russia” State Symphony Orchestra, and the Romanian National Radio Orchestra...

Outside Europe, Lorenzo Gatto recently performed in Japan, South Korea, the United States and Abu-Dhabi. Lorenzo has thus appeared as a soloist under the direction of J.C. Casadesus, A. Dumay, S. Goetzel, P. Goodwin, P. Herreweghe, E. Krivine, Y. Nézet-Séguin, V. Sinaisky, V. Spivakov, J. Van Zweden, G. Varga, and W. Weller ...

Lorenzo has also been Artistic Director of several original productions by the Brussels Chamber Orchestra and the Kamerorkest. His usual partners in chamber music are Roberto Giordano (piano), Denis Kozhukhin (piano), Eliane Reyes (piano), Denis Sungho (guitar), Jean-Claude Vanden Eynden (piano) and also Camille Thomas (cello) and Béatrice Berrut (piano) within the new Trio Saint-Exupéry.

In a more experimental venture, Lorenzo played in front of 50.000 people in the Royan open air festival “Un violon sur le sable” (“a Fiddler on the Sand”) in 2011; he also performs in the unusual trio, Trilogy, with his violinist friends Hrachya Avanesyan and Yossif Ivanov.

Lorenzo’s discography was recently enlarged with a recording of Martinu’s Concerto n°2 for violin with the Belgian National Orchestra under the direction of Walter Weller. In 2010 he recorded with the pianist Milos Popovic the works of Enescu, Martinu and Mokranjac (“Deconstructing the Wall” album), as well as Vieuxtemps’s Concerto n°4 with the Liège Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Patrick Davin. He had previously recorded Schubert’s String Trios and Trout, as well as Mozart’s String Trio “Divertimento”.

As a committed musician, in 2007 Lorenzo cofounded the Cl4ssiK association with the aim of raising young people’s awareness of classical music. An accomplished athlete, Lorenzo is also an airplane pilot and enjoys paragliding.

Lorenzo plays a 1864 J.B. Vuillaume violin.

Christophe Collette, First violin
Marc Vieillefon, Second violin
Vincent Deprecq, viola
Cédric Conchon, cello

The Debussy String Quartet has built a reputation graced with international acclaim through their many recordings and live performances. Since its creation in 1990, they have enlivened the chamber music world with their stylish and stimulating performances.

Based in Lyon and honored as Winners of the Evian International String Quartet Competition, the quartet performs about 120 concerts a year all around the world (Europe, Asia, Australia, North America...).

The quartet’s recording schedule has included the release of more than 25 CDs in 25 years with works ranging from French Music (recently, around Debussy and Caplet which enriches its collection composed of Bonnal, Ravel, Fauré, Witkowski or Lekeu) to Weber or Shostakovich with the complete string quartets recorded by Arion. It includes the acclaimed Decca label release of the landmark Mozart Requiem recording, in the 1802 transcription by Peter Lichtenthal (about which a documentary film has also been made). The quartet’s mixed chamber music repertoire includes its highly regarded CD of the Brahms and Webern clarinet quintets with clarinetist Jean Francois Verdier and a highly acclaimed collaboration with François Chaplin in several Mozart piano concertos.

Its members are the founders of “Les Cordes en Ballade” a chamber music festival and an academy of chamber music in the South of France, where they perform and teach each summer.
You can learn more about The Debussy String Quartet on their website: www.quatuordebussy.com

Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli started his musical education very young under the guide of his aunt, then entered the Giuseppe Verdi Conservatory in Milan, attending courses of Maestros Conter, Bettinelli and Gusella, and specializing in conducting with M° Franco Ferrara. He has conducted important orchestras both in Italy and Europe, such as the Orchestra Haydn of Bolzano and Trento, the Orchestra della Toscana, the Orchestra da Camera di Padova e del Veneto, I Pomeriggi Musicali and Angelicum of Milano, the Symphony Orchestras of RAI in Turin, Rome, Milan and Naples, the Orchestras of Teatro Regio di Torino, La Fenice di Venezia, Carlo Felice di Genova, S. Carlo di Napoli, the Orchestra of the Accademia di S.Cecilia, the Oslo Philarmonic, the Helsinki Philharmonic, the Göteborg Symphoniker, the MDR Kammerphilharmonie of Leipzig, the SWR Orchestra of Stuttgart, the Orchestre Phylharmonique de Montecarlo, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the Orquesta Sinfonica Ciudad de Oviedo, the Israel Youth Philarmonic Orchestra, the Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Israel Chamber Orchestra.

In recent years, he has privileged his interests in the French and classical repertoire, collaborating with orchestras that best enable him to express his inclinations. At this regard, it’s particularly significant his long-standing commitment with the Mantua Chamber Orchestra, that he conducted from 1984 to 2007. The artistic merits of this collaboration resulted in the award “Franco Abbiati” received from the Italian Musical Criticism in 1997, and in further international recognition received during his many tours all over the world.

It is important to highlight his collaboration with the Camerata Academica in Salzburg for a series of concerts at the Schubertiade in Feldkirch in 1996, and the three-year cycle with Kammerorchester Basel as chief guest conductor. In April 2004, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli realised a Beethoven cycle in collaboration with the Mantua Chamber Orchestra, including symphonies, concerts and some of his symphonic-choral works.

At the age of 25, Leonard Schreiber is one of the most exciting and promising soloists of his generation. He recently recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra works by Vieuxtemps, Franck, Ysaÿe and a world creation by Brossé conducted by the composer himself.
?In May Leonard was invited to play in Shanghai at the Oriental Arts Centre for the World Expo 2010. One of the performed works will be released on EMI this coming November.

Leonard has given concerts throughout Europe, USA, South America and China in prestigious venues such as: Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Cadogan Hall, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, St-Martin-in-the-Fields, St James Piccadilly, Vienna Konzerthaus, Salle Gaveau - Paris, Théatre des Variétés de Monaco, Palais de l'Europe, Parvis du Festival de Menton, Queen Elisabeth Hall - Antwerp, Herengracht Amsterdam, Teatro Verdi Trieste, Prince Felipe Auditorium Oviedo, Tel Aviv Opera House, Jerusalem and Haifa Auditoriums, Shanghai Oriental Arts Centre.

Orchestras Leonard has performed with, include the London Symphony Orchestra, Orpheus Sinfonia, London Soloists, Birmingham Philharmonic Orchestra, Arion Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, Prima la Musica, the European Philharmonic Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Lima Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional del Peru, Orchestre Romantique Européen, Collegium Musicum of Kiev, St Petersburg Orchestra to name a few.

Conductors he worked with include Dirk Brossé, Rani Calderon, Christopher Fifield, Achim Holub, Jason Lai, Richard Laing, Michael Lloyd, Sir Roger Norrington, Georges Octors, Jean Bernard Pommier, Brien Stait and Neil Thomson.

Leonard began the violin at age 5 and made his concerto debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders a year later.?At 11, he won the “Herman Krebbers International Violin Competition” in Maastricht, Netherlands, which gave him the opportunity to perform many concertos with various orchestras. Leonard then won a few international violin competitions including “Piccolo Mozart” in Italy, the “Junge Stars von Morgen” in Germany and the “Young Concert Artist Trust Competition” in the UK.
?He also participates in various Masterclasses with teachers such as Dr. Felix Andrievsky, Herman Krebbers and Boris Kuschnir, and soloists Shlomo Mintz and Maxim Vengerov.

At the age of 13, Leonard left his native country, Belgium, to study in the UK at the Purcell School of Music, where he was awarded a full scholarship. Subsequently, at only 16 years old, he received the “Foundation Scholarship” to study with Dr. Felix Andrievsky at the Royal College of Music in London, graduating with First Class Honours. He then completed a “Masters in Performance” with Dr. Levon Chilingirian also with First Class Honours and became soloist of the year by winning the prestigious “Concerto Competition” at the Royal College of Music.

Mischa Maisky invited Leonard to take part in a programme produced for the Japanese television company NHK. In June 2009, Radio France chose him as “Artist of the month”. This included interviews in the French magazine Classica, on the radio programme “Dans la Cour des Grands” and a recital broadcasted “live” by them.

He has had the honour to play for Prince Charles at Windsor Castle, at Spencer House and at Buckingham Palace for his 60th Anniversary. Leonard played at a Gala event for the European Commission and is often invited to give private concerts for Head of States and Royalties.

Leonard plays on an Italian violin by Alessandro Mezzadri, Ferrara 1710, kindly loaned by Georg Von Opel.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet, considered one of the best pianists in the world, has the rare ability to combine poetic musical sensibilities with dazzling technical prowess. His talent at coaxing subtle and surprising colors and textures from even old favorites led The New York Times to exclaim “…every note he fashions is a pearl…the joy, brilliance and musicality of his performance could not be missed.” Thibaudet, who has performed around the world for more than 30 years and recorded more than 50 albums, has a depth and natural charisma that have made him one of the most sought-after soloists by today’s foremost orchestras, conductors, and festivals. In 2010 the Hollywood Bowl honored Thibaudet for his musical achievements by inducting him into its Hall of Fame.

His recordings have been nominated for two Grammy Awards and won many prizes, including the Schallplattenpreis, the Diapason d’Or, Choc du Monde de la Musique, a Gramophone Award, two Echo Awards, and the Edison Prize. In 2010 Thibaudet released his latest CD, Gershwin, featuring big jazz band orchestrations of Rhapsody in Blue, Variations on “I Got Rhythm,” and Concerto in F live with the Baltimore Symphony and its music director, Marin Alsop. Thibaudet was the soloist on the Oscar- and Golden Globe-award winning soundtrack to Atonement and the Oscar-nominated Pride and Prejudice. In 2012 Jean-Yves recorded the soundtrack of the film Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, composed by Alexandre Desplat. Known for his style and elegance, Thibaudet wears a concert wardrobe designed by Vivienne Westwood. Previously a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, Thibaudet was awarded the title Officier by the French Ministry of Culture in 2012.

Jean-Yves Thibaudet's 2014-2015 season is an intriguing combination of a wide variety of music: a balance of orchestral appearances, chamber music, and recitals and a repertoire that includes familiar pieces, unfamiliar work by well-known composers, and new compositions. He also follows his passion for education and fostering the next generation of performers by becoming the first-ever resident artist at the Colburn School of Los Angeles this year and the following two. Summer 2014 sees him touring with Mariss Jansons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Edinburgh International Festival, the Lucerne Festival, and the Ljubljana Festival. Mr. Thibaudet then travels to play Gershwin paired with a new piano concerto “Er Huang” by Qigang Chen with Long Yu conducting to open the China Philharmonic season in Beijing—a program both artists will repeat in Paris with the Orchestre de Paris. In October, with the Philadelphia Orchestra and its Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin, he performs the Khachaturian Piano Concerto, which he also plays in the spring with the Cincinnati Symphony and on tour in Germany and Austria with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin under the baton of Tugan Sohkiev. After concerts in Prague, Mr. Thibaudet embarks on a US tour with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra in November, reaching both East and West coasts with a grand finale at Carnegie Hall, where he performs Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 2. The end of the year is a whirlwind of Gershwin, Ravel, and Liszt with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne.

Born in 1972, Vittorio Ceccanti began playing the cello at the age of five and studied with Mischa Maisky, David Geringas and Natalia Gutman, graduating with honours as a pupil of Natalia Gutman at the Hochschule fur Musik in Stuttgart. He also attended classes with Yo Yo Ma, Anner Bijlsma and Valentjn Berlinsky. He has studied conducting with Piero Bellugi and Martyn Brabbins.

Winner of several international prizes, he made his debut as a soloist at the age of seventeen, performing the Lalo Cello Concerto with the Austrian Radio Symphony Orchestra (ORF) conducted by Pinchas Steinberg at the Musikverein Saal in Vienna.His performance of the Saint-Saens Cello Concerto at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples,was televised by RAI-TV. Since then, he has been invited to perform regularly as a solo artist in Europe, the Americas and Asia. He has played and conducted innumerable world premieres and has close links with many of today’s foremost composers.

He has made a number of recordings including the Beethoven cello sonatas for EMI Classics, Chopin’s complete works for cello and piano and the Trio op.8 as part of the Chopin Edition monography for BRILLIANT Classics, plus the complete works for cello and piano and the cello concerto by Peter Maxwell Davies for NAXOS. He has also recorded both Mendelssohn and Faure?’s complete works for cello and piano with the pianist Bruno Canino on the CD attached to AMADEUS Music Magazine.

Professor at the Castelfranco Veneto Conservatory and at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, he has held master classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at Cincinnati University. In 2005 he received the silver medal from the President of Italy, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi.

Born into a musical family, conductor and violist TOBY HOFFMAN began his musical training at the age of six studying the violin with his mother Esther Glazer. He continued his studies at the Juilliard School as a violist studying with Paul Doktor where he became the only two-time winner of the Juilliard Viola Concerto Competition. He subsequently began an international career performing with many of today’s most prominent musicians at prestigious international music festivals and concert halls including those of Salzburg, Ravinia, Taipei, Napoli, Athens, Stavanger, Marlboro, Saratoga, Mostly Mozart, Great Performers at Lincoln Center, La Jolla, Seattle, Chamber Music Northwest, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and La Scala, among many others. As a viola soloist, his orchestral appearances include performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Het Gelders Orchestra, Teatro di Genova, Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de Costa Rica, Buffalo Philharmonic, Florida Orchestra and the Prague Chamber Orchestra. Mr. Hoffman has had a long association with the violin virtuoso Salvatore Accardo, with whom he recorded nearly all of the chamber music works of Mozart in addition to many other chamber works. As part of the Pollini project, he played chamber music with Maurizio Pollini at La Scala, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and the 92nd Street Y in New York. His discography also includes a release of French chamber music with André Prévin, as well as recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and the Marlboro Music Festival. For ten years, Mr. Hoffman was an artistic director of Bargemusic in New York. He was a member of the Boston Chamber Music Society and has been a guest violist with the Jerusalem, Fine Arts and Tokyo String Quartets. In 1988, he performed the world premiere of the Piano Quartet by Alfred Schnittke at the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival in Finland. Mr. Hoffman studied conducting with Jorma Panula. Under his tutelage, he participated in masterclasses with many prestigious orchestras. As an educator, Mr. Hoffman has held the position of Artist in Residence at Harvard University and has been a member of the faculties of Carnegie-Mellon University and the Steans Institute at the Ravinia Festival. He has given master-classes at the New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, Cincinnati College- Conservatory, Citta di Castello, Kuhmo, Turku, and the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam. Mr. Hoffman is a teacher of the conducting class at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, a teacher at the Sibelius Academy with Jorma Panula, and the professor of chamber music at the Universidade do Minho in Braga, Portugal.

Born into an artist’s family, Dominique Corbiau became involved with music from the age of four, playing piano. Later on, he learnt flute and cello, but it is in singing that he was completely fulfilled and where he found his favourite means of expression. Drawn to the baroque period early on, the choice to develop his counter-tenor voice became obvious. After having sung in the Children’s Choir of Belgian Radio-Television he was admitted to the Conservatoire de Musique de Liège and continued his studies at the Conservatoire de Musique de Mons, graduating with honours in July 2001, having been awarded three First Prizes: Concert Singing, Chamber Music and Opera Singing. In 2003, he received a First Prize in Lyric Arts at the Conservatoire Royal de Musique de Bruxelles.

Since 1994, Dominique Corbiau has performed in concerts in many renowned places, in Belgium as well as abroad, accompanied by numerous ensembles and orchestras in a wide repertoire ranging from early music to contemporary musical creations through opera and film music. In 2008, he came to public attention through ‘Memoria’, an album of original compositions, the fruit of his musical collaborations with French composer Cyril Orcel. Very attentive to developing the creative aspect of his profession, Dominique Corbiau regularly performs in spectacular visual acts creating a bridge between different artistic disciplines. It is in this spirit that he founded the ensemble "Sferarte" and "Sferartefact" his own company, which offers a wide range of projects from small costumed productions of baroque operas to a more contemporaneous mix of music, visual art, theater or dance, most often inspired and nourished by encounters and exchanges between artists from different backgrounds.

Dominique Corbiau is a multi-disciplinary artist, curious about everything, who doesn’t hesitate to make spectacular appearances in unusual places such as the Grand Place of Brussels, the Rambla of Figueres, in the Haydn hall of the palace Estherazy, at the Paris Opera or at Teatro Castro Alves in Bahia (Brazil).

The Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina was founded in 1981 by Maestro Giuseppe Lanzetta, its current chief conductor, with the aim of spreading the knowledge of symphonic and chamber music. Within a few years the Orchestra has gained importance at the national and international level thanks to numerous concerts played for important musical institutions in Italy, and in various tours in the United States, Mexico, Europe and Brazil. It consists of about 40 instruments that can also form chamber music groups. It organizes national and international competitions. It has performed more than 1,350 concerts, many of which for RAI and for important international networks, receiving acclaim from audiences and critics who called it "one of the best chamber orchestras in Europe".

The orchestra has recorded several discs of rare music and baroque music under the direction of Maestro G. Lanzetta, also for the Amiata Records label. It hosted musical formations and internationally renowned soloists such as Mario Brunello, Augusto Vismara and Christiane Edinger, Jorge Demus, Eduard Brunner, David Garrett, Aldo Ciccolini, Rolando Panerai, Andreas Blau, Bruno Canino, Daniele Damiano, Cristiano Rossi, Vincenzo Mariozzi, Domenico Pierini, Piero Bellugi, Alessandro Mirrors, Umberto Clerici, Gary Karr, Andrea Nannoni, Filippo Maria Bressan, Ilya Grubert, The Athestis Chorus, Choir of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Chamber Orchestra of the Berlin Philharmonic, the Cameristi del Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Ensemble Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, and the soloists of La Scala in Milan. It also invited conductors from around the world, chamber ensembles and chamber orchestras. For the City of Florence, it is in charge of the Suono dell’anima festival, the Festival Firenze Classics and the New Year. It received the Beato Angelico award in 2005 and the Florence Prize in 2006 for its 25 years of activity.

Giuseppe Lanzetta
Maestro Giuseppe Lanzetta is the founder and chief conductor of the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina. Born in Montecorvino Rovella (SA) in 1960, while studying humanities he graduated in choral music and choral conducting, sacred vocal polyphony under the guidance of Maestro Pierluigi Zangelmi; and in band instrumentation with Maestro Lorenzo Semeraro at the Conservatory "L. Cherubini" in Florence, where he studied composition with Maestro Franco Cioci. He studied conducting with Maestro Bruno Campanella and Sir George Solti, both of which he assisted, before perfecting with Maestro Franco Ferrara in Rome, Assisi, Verona and Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and in choir direction with George Robef and Samuil Vidas.

He has conducted the most prestigious chamber and symphonic orchestras, in Italy and Europe. He debuted with great success in 2003 in Berlin with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, and in May 2006 at Carnegie Hall in New York where he returned in 2008-2009. Since 1987 he is a guest conductor in major orchestras of Mexico City. He has directed famous choirs such as the Teatro Comunale of Florence and the International Choir of Leuven (Belgium) and the Madrigal Choir of Bucharest. Since 1986 he conducts major American orchestras with symphonic repertoire. Since 1981 he has been music director of the Orchestra da Camera Fiorentina, performing more than 1,350 concerts of varied repertoire under the aegis of prestigious musical institutions and for RAI. In America and in Europe, he has conducted famous soloists; among which Leon Spierer, Johan Hye, Sergio Fiorentino, Andrej Kalarus, Margarita Hohenrieder, Nicolae Tudor, Augusto Vismara, Martin Dimitri Sgouros, Marie Luise Neunecker, Gary Karr, Eduard Brunner, Rolando Panerai, David Garrett, Andreas Blau, Ilya Grubert, Daniele Damiano, Michele Campanella, Bruno Canino, Giuseppe Andaloro, Giovanni Sollima, and many others. He also worked with Roberto Benigni on a memorable concert at Piazzale Michelangelo, in addition to directing in the same Piazzale, in Piazza Signoria, Piazza Pitti and Piazza Santa Croce, the New Year concerts of the City of Florence.

He is also artistic director of the Musical Wednesdays of the Ente Cassa di Risparmio in Florence and of the Music and Art project of the CR Firenze, Intesa San Paolo bank. His chamber and symphonic music performances have been broadcast by RAI, and he has done numerous recordings. In 2005 he was awarded the Medal Beato Angelico, and in 2006 was awarded the Florence Prize for Music and the Arts, and in 2010 the prestigious "A Life in Music". He is Professor of Orchestral Training at the Conservatory of Music Santa Cecilia in Rome. In 2012 he was appointed Officer of the "Merit" Order by the President of the Italian Republic Giorgio Napolitano. He was recently appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Mid-American Production, performing in Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center in New York.

Of Croatian descent, Cecilia Radic is one of the most appreciated Italian cellists of her generation.

She won the Premio Stradivari-Concorso Caruana International Award in 1996 and has since appeared in countless performances.

Ms. Radic studied under the guidance of teachers such as Rocco Filippini, David Geringas, Mario Brunello and William Pleeth. As a soloist she toured with the Orchestra Rai (Radio) of Milan performing the Dvorak concerto as well as with the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, Filarmonici di Verona, Ensemble of La Scala Theatre, Balkan Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Ducale, the Italian Chamber Orchestra (as soloist with Salvatore Accardo) and I Solisti Filarmonici Italiani.

Ms Radic’s extensive international experience has reached far beyond Europe, with a variety of performances in Japan, South America, Middle East and the United States, where she participated in a chamber music festival. Her chamber music collaborations include performances with musicians such as Salvatore Accardo, Isabelle Faust, David Finckel, Bruno Giuranna, Wu Han, Keller quartet.

She currently plays in the Accardo Quartet and is co-founder of Estrio (piano trio).

She has recorded CDs for various labels (CPO, Decca, Chandos, Stradivarius and Sipario), radio and television programs. She plays an 1837 Bernardel cello.

Francesco Fiore, born in Rome, completed his studies at Santa Cecilia Conservatory, Rome, with Maestros Lina Lama and Massimo Paris. He subsequently improved his skills with Maestro Bruno Giuranna at the W. Stauffer Foundation in Cremona.

Winner of several prizes, he soon undertook an intense concert activity, being a regular guest of the most prestigious Associations and Festivals in Italy and abroad. As for the chamber music activity he has collaborated with artists like Salvatore Accardo, Boris Belkin, Uto Ughi, , Pierre Amoyal, Renata Scotto, Bruno Canino, Alfons Kontarskj, Alexander Mazdar, Michele Campanella, Andrea Lucchesini, Rocco Filippini, Alain Meunier, Bruno Giuranna, Franco Petracchi, Gabriele Pieranunzi, Rainer Kussmaul, Pavel Vernikov, David Lively.

He has recorded CDs for RCA, ASV, FONIT CETRA, FONÉ and MUSIKSTRASSE.
Since 1991 he has been principal viola of the Teatro dell’Opera Orchestra in Rome; he has also played as principal viola with the Milan Teatro alla Scala Philharmonic Orchestra, the National RAI Orchestra, the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia Orchestra and, invited by Salvatore Accardo, with the Orchestra da Camera Italiana.

He has taught in the Superior Courses at various Italian Conservatories (Rome, Latina, Fermo).

He plays a Joseph Hill viola, London 1774, and a Raffaele Fiorini viola d’amore, Bologna 1894.

Born into a musical family, Laura Gorna graduated with honors from the Milan Conservatory, under the guidance of Gigino Maestri. She received further education from Salvatore Accardo. Winner of the 22nd "Città di Vittorio Veneto" Competition, she debuted at a young afe at the Sala Verdi in Milan, playing the Khachaturian Concerto with the Orchestra of the RAI. Her concert tours have seen her perform in major Italian and international venues: Sala Verdi in Milan, Teatro Comunale in Bologna, Teatro San Carlo and Settimane Musicali Internazionali in Naples, Chigi Academy in Siena, Teatro La Fenice in Venice, Teatro Carlo Felice in Genoa, Teatro della Pergola in Florence, Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Lincoln Center in New York, the Tokyo Opera House, and the Verbier and Menton Festivals.

As guest soloist In Italy and abroad, she has performed with orchestras such as the Orchestra of Padua and the Veneto, Tuscany Regional Orchestra, the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana, I Solisti Aquilani, the Italian Chamber Orchestra, the Philharmonic Sudwestdeutsche, under the direction of Stewart Robinson, Baldur Brönniman, Christopher Franklin, Salvatore Accardo and Piero Bellugi.

Her great passion for chamber music lead her to become a member of the Accardo Quartet and to play in different formations with Patrice Fontanarosa, Bruno Giuranna, Toby Hoffman, Bruno and Regis Pasquier, Rocco Filippini, Franco Petracchi, Bruno Canino, John Bellucci, Filippo Faes, Stephanie Santangelo. In 2005 she founded Estrio with cellist Cecilia Radic and pianist Laura Manzini. She has also performed and recorded the complete chamber works of Johannes Brahms (in Vicenza 2002-2004) and Robert Schumann (in Milan, Turin, Bologna, Palermo 2005-2008).

Laura Gorna is one of the minds behind the Festival "Notti Trasfigurate" taking place since 2003 in Vicenza and of "Lieber Schumann", an introspective journey around the chamber music of the great composer. The main feature of these projects is the direct participation from the public, especially young people, during rehearsals.

Laura Gorna records for the "Foné" label; her most recent recordings include monographic CDs of Astor Piazzolla, a recital (Ravel, Schumann, Paganini-Szimanowsky), with pianist Filippo Faes and a CD with Estrio (Schumann / Shostakovich). She has also made several recordings for television, including a music documentary for "Arte" and Bruch’s Concertos, Prokofiev 2nd, Khachaturian, for RAI TRE RADIO. Professor of violin at the Pareggiato "C. Monteverdi" Institute in Cremona, Laura Gorna plays a gorgeous Giorgio III violin by Giovanni Paolo Maggini (Brescia 1620).

Born in Siberia in 1971, Vadim Repin was eleven when he won the gold medal in all age categories in the Wienawski Competition and gave his recital debuts in Moscow and St Pe-tersburg. At 14 he made his debuts in Tokyo, Munich, Berlin, Helsinki; a year later in Carne-gie Hall. At 17 he was the youngest ever winner of the Reine Elisabeth Concours.

Since then he has performed with all the world’s greatest orchestras and conductors. Among the highlights of his career in the past few seasons have been tours with the London Sympho-ny Orchestra and Valery Gergiev, the NHK Orchestra and Dutoit; a tour of Australia with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and Vladimir Jurowski, and acclaimed premières in London, Philadelphia, New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Salle Pleyel in Paris and Amsterdam's Concert-gebouw of the violin concerto written for him by James MacMillan, culminating in a BBC Prom at the sold out Royal Albert Hall last summer.

Vadim Repin recorded the great Russian violin concerti by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky on Warner Classics. For Deutsche Grammophon he recorded the Beethoven Violin Concerto, the Brahms Violin Concerto and Double Concerto (Truls Mørk, cello) with the Gewandhaus Orchester, the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov trios with Mischa Maisky and Lang Lang (which won the Echo Classic) and works by Grieg, Janacek and César Franck with Nikolai Lugansky, which won the 2011 BBC Music Award.

In 2010 he received the Victoire d’Honneur, France’s most prestigious musical award for a lifetime’s dedication to music, and became Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres.

Highlights of the current season include concerts in Hong Kong and Beijing, a European tour with Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Neeme Jarvi, and concerts in Vienna with Kent Nagano and Lionel Bringuier. In April 2014 Vadim Repin as Artistic Director presents the first Trans-Siberian Festival of the Arts in Novosibirsk's magnificent new concert hall.
Vadim Repin plays on the 1736 'Lafont' violin by Guarneri del Gesù.

In 1986 Mario Brunello was the first Italian ever to win the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, which launched him into a stunning international career. Brunello has played with some of the most prestigious orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, London Symphony, Kioi Sinfonietta, Orchestre National de France, NHK Symphony Tokyo, Filarmonica della Scala, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, DSO Berlin. He has also collaborated with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Yuri Temirkanov, Riccardo Chailly, Riccardo Muti, Vladimir Jurowski, Ton Koopman, Daniele Gatti, Antonio Pappano, John Axelrod, Myung?Whun Chung, Seiji Ozawa and Claudio Abbado. Abbado has, over the years, invited Brunello several times to play with him and the Orchestra of the Lucerne Festival and the Mozart Orchestra. With both orchestras Brunello has appeared as a soloist and also as a conductor.

He often takes on the dual roles of conductor and soloist, and in 1994 he founded the Orchestra d'Archi Italiana with whom he tours intensively both in Italy and abroad. Chamber music plays an important role in his artistic life and he collaborates with artists including Gidon Kremer, Martha Argerich, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Yuri Bashmet, Maurizio Pollini, Valery Afanassiev, Andrea Lucchesini, the Borodin and the Alban Berg Quartets. Brunello also devotes much time to projects involving diverse art forms (literature, philosophy, science, theatre). Through new ways of communication he tries to attract new audiences, creating interactive performances of music, images and words. A large number of these activities take place in Antiruggine, a remodelled workshop that is ideal for these experiments.

The diverse artistic genres with which Brunello experiments are reflected in a wide ranging collection of recordings which include the Beethoven Triple Concerto conducted by Claudio Abbado (Deutsche Grammophon), the Bach Suites and Sonatas by Brahms, Beethoven and Chopin, contemporary works for solo cello, and a five?CD “Brunello Series" on Egea Records: “Odusia”, a musical Odyssey through Mediterranean culture, “Brunello and Vivaldi”, dedicated to the cello Concertos by Vivaldi, “Violoncello and” for solo cello, “Schubert e Lekeu” with the pianist Andrea Lucchesini and a double CD with the Bach Suites. This last one was awarded the prestigious Italian Critic Award 2010. The major engagements of the 2012/13 season include a tour with violinist Gilles Apap, Shostakovich Concerto nr. 2 conducted by Valery Gergiev in Paris, concerts with the Liverpool Philharmonic, Philharmonique de Radio?France, Tenerife and Stavanger Symphonies, and a Residency at the Gstaad Sommets Musicaux Festival. In October 2012 a new CD with Dvorak’s Concerto recorded live in Rome with the Accademia di Santa Cecilia Orchestra conducted by Antonio Pappano will be released by EMI. Mario Brunello plays a precious Maggini cello from the 1600s.

The chamber orchestra of Cameristi della Scala was founded in 1982 and is formed by musicians from the orchestra of Teatro alla Scala.
In 2012 they received from the Province of Milan the Isimbardi Prize dedicated to those institutions which, with their important international activity, have contributed to the prestige of the city of Milan in the world.

Cameristi della Scala has performed concerts in the most prestigious theatres and concert halls in the world.

The next Summer the orchestra will be for the second time on tour in China and next October will be back in the U.S. for a new tour that will see Cameristi performing once again at the Carnegie Hall in New York and then in Washington, Boston, Stanford and Mexico City. Other concerts will lead the orchestra in Dresden, London, Paris and Riga.

In 2013 they performed in the magnificent setting of Hagia Irene for the Istanbul Festival, at the Auditorium National of Madrid, at the Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires and opened the Festival delle Nazioni in Citta? di Castello. The last October the celebrations for the Year of Italian Culture and the Bicentenario Verdiano brought the orchestra on tour in the most important venues in the United States and, in November, in Russia, performing a unique repertoire of unpublished music dedicated to Giuseppe Verdi. With the same compositions Cameristi della Scala have recently recorded a CD.

In recent years the concert venues where Cameristi performed have included: the Paris headquarters of Unesco and Salle Gaveau also in Paris, the Warsaw Opera Theatre, the Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Tonhalle in Zurich and has toured Spain, Germany, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Latvia, Serbia and Turkey.

In 2010 the Cameristi went on a tour of four concerts in Israel, including one in the Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, and they also performed four concerts before a large audience in Shanghai with great success when they represented the city of Milan at Expo 2010. In 2011 they played in the Sony Center in Toronto and they opened the 2011 Emilia Romagna Festival in Imola.

From 2007 and 2009 the Cameristi were the protagonists of the Grand Summer Concert in Piazza del Duomo in Milan, in front of over 10,000 people. For this concert, the Cameristi della Scala commissioned an important Italian composer to composer a piece dedicated to the Cathedral: in 2008 they played a piece commissioned from Carlo Galante, and in 2009 a composition by Giovanni Sollima.

In 2011, for the celebrations of the 150th anniversary of the Unity of Italy and in collaboration with the Associazione Musica del Risorgimento, the Cameristi carried out important research on the new 19th century repertoire and they made a CD, 20,000 copies of which were available in newsagents, dedicated to Italian music in the Risorgimento. In September 2011, for the MiTo Festival, the Cameristi performed Mass for King Charles Albert by the composer from Novara Carlo Coccia (1849) for the first time in modern times. They also edited three volumes on music from the Risorgimento for the publisher Carisch.

The orchestra’s repertoire includes the principal compositions for chamber orchestras from the 18th century to today, including particular attention to the lesser known Italian instrumental pieces of the 19th century, often characterised by solo parts of great virtuosity which fit well with the instrument characteristics of the group’s soloists, all first musicians in the first sections of the La Scala Philharmonic Orchestra and also well-known concert performers at international level.

The constant and many years of attendance of the greatest conductors on the international scene, from Riccardo Muti to Daniel Barenboim, have contributed to shape the sound of the Cameristi della Scala and allowed their musical timbre and phrasing characteristics to emerge – all characteristics that are definitely unique in the Italian musical panorama of chamber orchestras.
The activity of Cameristi della Scala abroad is supported by Eni, orchestra’s Major Partner.

Born in Moscow, Anton Martynov graduated from the Special School of Music and at the Academy of Moscow Gnessin (violin classes, chamber music and string quartet, where he won First Prize), studying with E. Malkin, I. Svetlova, V. Spivakov and V. Berlinsky. At the age of 16, he played as guest soloist with orchestras in Russia. At 21, he became a violinist in the Moscow State Chamber Orchestra. In 1993, he obtained a scholarship from the Foundation Romanini and became concertmaster of the Grand Symphony Orchestra of Milan under the guidance of Alun Francis and Ricardo Chailly. He also gave concerts as soloist in Russia and Italy (CNS Orchestra Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Milan Symphony Orchestra in Minsk ...). In 1994 he became a laureate of International Competition in Stresa (Italy) in chamber music. In 1995, he performed the complete Sonatas and Partitas of Bach in Milan, received a scholarship to Boston University and became a member of the “Anton Quartet” in Paris (Grand Prix Award SACEM Evian International Competition, First Prize in the International Shostakovich in St. Petersburg), with which he participated in many festivals in France, Germany and Switzerland, recorded works by Stravinsky, Weinberg, Shostakovich and Haydn and contributed to the restoration of the Schoenberg Chapel. From 1997 to 2005, he was part of the Orchestre des Champs Elysees under the direction of Philippe Herreweghe and “Musicians of the Louvre” under the direction of Marc Minkowski. After studying conducting with G.V. Dumanescu (State Opera in Cluj, Romania), in 2000 he staged a contemporary work and “La Traviata” as assistant conductor. From 2001 to 2005, he is regularly invited as concertmaster for the "Musicians of the Louvre" for programs on modern instruments, and as a soloist and conductor. From 2006 to 2008 he dedicated himself to studies of the organ, including works by J.S. Bach, of which he has performed multiple transcripts. In 2009/2010 his chamber music partners are pianists Elena Rozanova and Boris Berezovsky, violinist Michael Guttman, cellist Diana Ligeti and the Manfred Quartet.

Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Brett began his dance training at the age of five at the Fort Wayne Ballet School under the direction of Michael Tevlin. He later continued his training at the Virginia School of the Arts under the direction of Petrus Bosman and David Keener.

Directly after graduating from Virginia School of the Arts, Brett joined Alonzo King's LINES Ballet in San Francisco, CA in 2002. For eight years, Brett worked closely with Alonzo King, having been a part of many creations and performing his works all over the world.

In 2010 Brett joined Netherlands Dans Theater 1. Since then he has been dancing works by Paul Lightfoot and Sol Leon, Jiri Kylian, Crystal Pite, Marco Goecke and Medhi Walerski amongst others.

A native of Puerto Rico, Arias moved at age eight with his family to New York City, where he was exposed to multiple dance styles and studied intensively at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School (LaGuardia Arts). Upon graduation, Arias received the school’s Jacques d’Amboise ballet award, going on to perform in New York with Complexions Contemporary Ballet and internationally with Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and Kidd Pivot.

Arias has originated roles in and performed works by notable choreographers including Ji?í Kylián, Ohad Naharin and Crystal Pite; he received First Place and Audience Choice awards for his work Without Notice at the Sixth Copenhagen International Choreography Competition, and the Audience Favorite Award for his work at New York City’s Dance Gallery Festival.

He has choreographed for dancers at the Juilliard School, The Peridance Company, LaGuardia Arts, and “Switch,” NDT’s annual choreographic workshop and charity benefit.

Arias full-evening production, a place where something flourishes, premiered to sold-out audiences in November 2013.
Arias is currently a freelance artist, exploring dance through choreography, collaboration, and education.

Drew Jacoby was born in Boise, Idaho in 1984. She went on to study at School of American Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet. She began her professional career in 2002 with Lines Ballet in San Francisco, where she was a principal dancer and had nume-rous original works created on her by award winning choreographer Alonzo King. In 2005 she was invited on Sylvie Guillem’s Japan tour, where she performed principal roles alongsi-de dancers from the Royal Ballet and Paris Opera Ballet. She won a 2005 Princess Grace Award and in 2006 was voted Dance Magazine’s “It Girl.”

She has performed works by acclaimed choreographers including George Balanchine, Sir Kenneth MacMillan, William Forsythe, Christopher Wheeldon, Lar Lubovitch, Dwight Rho-den, Mia Michaels, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, Itzik Galili, Andrea Miller, Mauro Bigonzetti and Lightfoot Leon.

In 2008 she co-founded her independent partnership, “Jacoby & Pronk,” with former Dutch National Ballet dancer Rubinald Pronk. The duo was featured on the August 2009 cover of Dance Magazine. They made a collection of films together with fine art photographer Alvin Booth, entitled “Le Beau est Toujours Bizarre,” which premiered at American Dance Festi-val’s 2009 Dance on Camera Film Festival. Jacoby and Pronk have guested with Dutch Na-tional Ballet and have performed multiple seasons with Morphoses/The Wheeldon Company, as well as engaging in their own projects all over the world. In 2010, Jacoby and Pronk for-med a small touring company which was presented at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, Holland Dance Festival, Belgrade Dance Festival, and New Orleans Ballet Association.

Drew continues to perform at prestigious international galas and joined Nederlands Dans Theater 1 in August 2012. She also founded a media website in 2010 called DancePulp.com (also on Hulu.com in the U.S.), featuring video interviews with high profile dance industry professionals she’s encountered during her travels.

The twin brothers Daniel and Alexander Gurfinkel, duo clarinetists, have already established themselves as among today's most important artists. Born in 1992, they began their musical education in the year 2000 and by age 12, they were invited by Zubin Mehta to appear as soloists in the annual concert for young musicians with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

In recent seasons, Duo Gurfinkel were re-engaged with Mehta and the Israel Philharmonic and performed abroad with the Zagreb Philharmonic, Belgrade Philharmonic, Vienna Ton-künstler Orchestra, and in Kiev as well as on tour in France with the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire under Nader Abbassi and with the Moscow Virtuosi and the Israel Sympho-ny Orchestra Rishon LeZion.
Duo Gurfinkel's past engagements have included performances in Switzerland (Mendelssohn concerto) at the “Moscow Meets Friends” festival, with the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Or-chestra under Vladimir Spivakov, in Los Angeles under the auspices of Zubin Mehta, and with Yuri Bashmet and the Moscow Soloists at the Tchaikovsky Hall, in Ekaterinburg, and the Capella Istopolitana at the Rheingau Festival. They have appeared as well across the USA as well as in Hong Kong, Slovenia, Italy, Russia, Germany, Azerbaijan, Slovakia, Croatia, Austria, and South Africa.

Daniel and Alexander Gurfinkel preserve a rich family tradition of three generations. Their grandfather Arkady Gurfinkel was a well-known clarinet player, teacher, and arranger, while their father, Michael Gurfinkel, is among the leading clarinet players in Israel as the principal of the Israel Symphony Orchestra and Israeli Opera.

Among recent engagements of Duo Gurfinkel may be counted a tour of Russia with the Hal-born Chamber Orchestra in 2013. In addition, as Duo Gurfinkel are keen on exploring the music of today, they look forward to several commissions in the coming season, including Rashid Kalimulin's concerto for two clarinets and orchestra at the Gewandhaus with the Leipzig Symphony Orchestra as well as with Mozartiana de Rome chamber orchestra at the Vatican; a concerto by Gil Shohat with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra; and Doron Toi-ster's klezmer concerto with the Raanana Symphony Orchestra Israel.

“..technically excellent musicians and artists capable of both unsettling and relaxing, playing under the name of Estrio: solidity and imagination, culture and instinct in the beauty of sound...” (Lorenzo Arruga)

Right from the start, Estrio has captured the attention of audiences and critics alike as one of the best Italian chamber music groups.

Laura Gorna (violin), Cecilia Radic (cello) and Laura Manzini (piano) have taken and reinterpreted the tradition of the great Italian school made famous by their maestri, Salvatore Accardo, Rocco Filippini and Bruno Canino.

Estrio has to its credit numerous concerts for the main Italian concert seasons, including Serate Musicali of Milan, Unione Musicale of Turin, Amici della Musica of Padua, Vicenza, Siracusa and Palermo, Filarmonica Laudamo of Messina, Società dei Concerti of Milan, Festival of Ravello, Musica Insieme of Bologna, Mito Festival, Accademia Chigiana of Siena, Teatro San Carlo of Naples, Amici della Musica of Florence and Accademia di Santa Cecilia Rome. For several of these associations Estrio has performed chamber music integrals by Schumann and Mendelssohn.

As soloist, Estrio has interpreted the Beethoven Triple Concerto and the “Albatro Concerto” by G.F.Ghedini with the Balkan Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Ducale and the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana.

In March 2009 Estrio gave a performance at the Quirinal Palace in the presence of the Italian President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, which was broadcast live on the national Radio 3 network.

The international experience of the musicians extends far beyond the European borders - from Japan to the United States, from South America to the Middle East, playing alongside such instrumentists as Salvatore Accardo, David Finckel, Bruno Canino, Rainer Kussmaul, Bruno Giuranna, Toby and Gary Hoffmann, Rocco Filippini and Franco Petracchi.

Estrio’s eclecticism and desire to experiment has led the group to collaborate with artists from mixed backgrounds of expression, such as theatre, choreography and jazz. This spirit of research gave rise to a joint project with Sonia Bergamasco and choreographer Antonella Agati, named Pochi Avvenimenti, Felicità Assoluta, a concert dedicated to the artistic and human bond between Robert and Clara Schumann, which was performed for the first time ever in Italy at the MiTo Festival.

The name Estrio is a fusion of different references: the German E flat Es, the Es of Freudian conception and the concept of estro: the passion of fantasy and imagination in the classic Greek culture.

Estrio records on the Foné label.

Henri Demarquette, born in 1970, was thirteen when he attended the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, studying with Philippe Muller and Maurice Gendron. He was unanimously awarded a Premier Prix, and worked with Pierre Fournier and Paul Tortelier before taking lessons from Janos Starker in Bloomington, USA.

Familiar with the stage by the time he was fourteen, Demarquette made his concert debut at seventeen with a recital at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and a recording for France 3 Tele-vision with pianist Hélène Grimaud. He caught the attention of Lord Yehudi Menuhin, who invited him to play Dvorák’s Concerto in Prague and Paris with Menuhin conducting.
His career has been international ever since, taking him to many capitals in the company of the greatest French and international orchestras – most recently the Orchestre National de France, the London Philharmonic, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Tokyo Symphony, the Orchestre National Bordeaux-Aquitaine, the Symphonia Varsovia, the Neue Philharmonie Westphalen – and he has appeared with his favourite piano-partners Brigitte Engerer, Michel Dalberto, Giovanni Bellucci and Boris Berezovsky.

His performance of Henri Dutilleux’s Concerto «Tout un monde lointain» with Mannheim’s Akademisches Orchester conducted by Frédéric Chaslin was filmed for France Europe Média with the aid of SACEM.

In 2011 and 2012, he performed with several orchestras : Orchestre National de France, Sin-fonia Varsovia, Saint-Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, Ural Philharmonic Orchestra, NDR Hanover, Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre Français des Jeunes, Orchestre Philharmoni-que de Marseille, Orchestre de Cannes-Provence Alpes Côte d’Azur, among others. He also played at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées with Brigitte Engerer, at the Salle Pleyel, Berlin Phi-lharmonie, Salle Gaveau, Opéra de Marseille, among others.

He has also been awarded the «Prix de la Fondation Simone et Cino del Duca» by the Aca-démie des Beaux Arts. Henri Demarquette plays "le Vaslin", cello created by Stradivarius en 1725, on loan by LVMH.

Amsterdam-born Jaap van Zweden has risen rapidly in little more than a decade to become one of today’s most sought-after conductors. He has been Music Director of the Dallas Sym-phony Orchestra since 2008, and in September 2012 he took up the position of Music Direc-tor of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. Appointed at nineteen as the youngest con-certmaster ever of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, he began his conducting career in 1995 and held the positions of Chief Conductor of many major Dutch orchestras. In Novem-ber 2011 van Zweden was named as the recipient of Musical America's Conductor of the Year Award 2012 in recognition of his critically acclaimed work as Music Director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and as a guest conductor with the most prestigious US orche-stras.

Jaap van Zweden has appeared as guest conductor with many leading orchestras across the globe, including the Chicago Symphony, Cleveland and Philadelphia Orchestras, the Munich Philharmonic, WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne, Orchestre National de France, Oslo Phi-lharmonic, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and London Philhar-monic Orchestra. Aside from an extensive symphonic repertoire, opera also plays an impor-tant part in Maestro van Zweden’s career, and he has conducted La Traviata and Fidelio with the National Reisopera, Madama Butterfly at the Netherlands Opera, and concert performan-ces of Verdi’s Otello, Barber’s Vanessa and Wagner’s Die Meistersinger, Parsifal and Lo-hengrin at the Concertgebouw with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic.

Recent highlights have included highly acclaimed debuts with the Vienna Philharmonic, To-nhalle-Orchester Zurich, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Boston, San Francisco and London Symphonies, and his BBC Proms debut conducting the Netherlands Radio Phi-lharmonic in Bruckner’s Eighth symphony. Future highlights include subscription debuts with the Deutsches Sinfonieorchester Berlin and Budapest Festival Orchestra and return visits to the Orchestre de Paris and the Rotterdam and London Philharmonic Orchestras. He will curate with the Chicago Symphony a three-week festival entitled "Truth to Power" that will focus on music of Britten, Prokofiev and Shostakovich, tour China with the Hong Kong Phi-lharmonic, and return to the Verbier Festival.

Karin Lechner was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. She spent most of her youth in Caracas, Venezuela, where she began her musical studies with her mother, Lyl Tiempo. She made her first public appearance at the age of five, and her debut with orchestra when she was 11.

She moved to Europe and continued her piano studies with Maria Curcio and Pierre Sancan and received musical advice from Martha Argerich, Nelson Freire, Daniel Barenboim, Nikita Magaloff and Rafael Orozco. At 13, Lechner performed in Washington and appeared at the opening concert of the Holland Festival in the Concertgebouw with the Amsterdam Philharmonic.

She has since undertaken an active international career playing in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland, as well as frequent appearances in the USA, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Venezuela,Mexico and Japan. Karin Lechner has performed in major concert halls all over the world, including Kennedy Center in Washington, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Philharmonie in Berlin, Suntory Hall in Tokyo or Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires and she participates in important international festivals such as Menton, Toulouse, Montpellier, Colorado, Verbier, Lugano and Schlesswig-Holstein.

Karin Lechner frequently collaborates with other distinguished artists in chamber music performances such as Martha Argerich, Janos Starker, Barbara Hendricks, Viktoria Mullova, and she regularly performs two-piano music with her brother, Sergio Tiempo, with whom she forms a permanent duo and has recorded several CD’s.

She has recently played recitals with Mischa Maisky in Spain, Germany and Salzburg. She made her first record at the age of 13, for EMI, with works by Bach, Schumann and Chopin. When she was 15 she recorded for CBS the Beethoven first piano concerto and Mozart K. 467 and later a recital including works by Beethoven, Schumann and Ravel. She recorded Mozart piano concertos K. 413, 414 and 415 in a CD with the Franciscan Quartet. She made two more CD’s with the Berliner Symphoniker playing Brahms piano concertos nº 1 and nº 2.

Since winning the Echo Klassik Award for his EMI debut album in 2006, Linus Roth has made a name for himself both as one of the most interesting violinists of his generation and as a champion of wrongly forgotten works and composers. His live performances and his recording of Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s complete works for Violin and Piano for Challenge Classics have brought him both critical and public acclaim. Roth’s commitment to Weinberg is further documented in his recording of Weinberg’s Violin Concerto with the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin.

After joining Prof Nicolas Chumachenco’s pre-college division at the Music Academy Frei-burg, Linus Roth continued his studies with Prof. Zakhar Bron in Lübeck and with Prof. Ana Chumachenco at the Academies of Zurich and Munich. Salvatore Accardo, Miriam Fried and Josef Rissin all strongly influenced his development as a player as did Anne-Sophie Mutter, whose Foundation awarded him a scholarship for the duration of his studies. In 2012 he was appointed Professor for Violin at the “Leopold-Mozart-Centre” of the University of Aug-sburg, Germany.

Linus Roth has performed with the Radio Symphony Orchestras of the SWR and Berlin, Bruckner Orchester Linz, Orchestra della Teatro San Carlo Napoli, Royal Liverpool Philhar-monic, Vienna Chamber Philharmonic, Cologne Chamber Orchestra and the Munich Cham-ber Orchestra and has shared the stage with the conductors Gerd Albrecht, Herbert Blom-stedt, Andrey Boreyko, Dennis Russell Davies, Hartmut Haenchen and Antoni Wit, among others. A passionate chamber musician, he can be heard with Nicolas Altstaedt, Julius Ber-ger, Gautier Capucon, José Gallardo, Kim Kashkashian.

Linus Roth has been awarded several high-ranking prizes, including 1st prize at the "Interna-tional Novosibirsk Violin Competition", 2nd prize at the International Music Competition "Joseph Szigeti" and the 1st prize of the German Music Competition. Linus Roth plays the A. Stradivari “Dancla” 1703, kindly loaned to him by the “L-Bank, Staatsbank of Baden-Württemberg, Germany”.

Luc Tooten is first cello soloist of the Brussels Philharmonic. He studied at the Brussels Royal Conservatory and perfected his art with Reine Flachot and Mstislav Rostropovitch. Afterwards he established
himself as a chambrist and soloist.

As a chambrist he performed with the Arriaga Kwartet, the Trio Portici and piano player Stéphane De May in Europe, Israel, Canada, China, Mexico and the USA. As a soloist he played under the direction of conductors like Andrzej Borejko, Jan Latham-Koenig, Yoel Levy, Alexander Rahbari and Tan Dun. At Tan Dun’s request, he played in the Belgium premiere of the cello concerti Crouching Tiger and The Map.

His discography with “Pavane Records” comprises the cello sonatas by Saint-Saëns, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, George Onslow, Edouard Lalo and Franz Schubert, as well as the entire cello oeuvre of Franz Liszt. Kalidisc released a CD on which Luc Tooten plays previously unpublished works by tango composers like José Bragato and Ástor Piazzolla.

Michail Lifits, already compared to the legendary Wilhelm Kempff and praised for "his inspirational tone and his wise maturity", as well as for "the breathtaking beauty of his playing", has increasingly captured public attention since his debut at the age of 13 with Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto.

Winner of the 57th Ferruccio Busoni International Piano Competition in Bolzano (2009), he had already collected first prizes in other international competitions in Italy and the USA, such as Pianello val Tidone (2003), Treviso (2004), Monza (2006) and Hilton Head (2009).

Solo engagements have brought Michail Lifits to Carnegie Hall's Weill Recital Hall and Lincoln Center in New York, the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, to the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, the NCPA in Beijing, the Tonhalle in Zurich and the Sala Verdi in Milan. He is a regular guest at international festivals in France, Germany, Poland, Italy and the United States, including the Festival d'Auvers-sur-Oise, the Annecy Festival, the Kissinger Sommer, Rheingau Music Festival, the Ruhr Piano Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and the Chopin Festival in Duzhniki Zdroj. Among his appearances with Orchestra he has played with the Hilton Head Symphony, the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha, the Orchestra del Teatro Verdi di Trieste and the Orchestra Sinfonica Siciliana in Palermo. In 2011 he made his debut with the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (DSO).

The same year saw his debut in London's Wigmore Hall, in the `Keyboard Trust Prizewinners Series' which exhibits the cream of this international foundation's new talent. Critics described his performance as "Perfection itself".

Since 2011 Michail Lifits has been under contract with the classical label
DECCA/Universal Classics. In 2012 DECCA will release his debut CD dedicated to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

Michail Lifits was born in 1982 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He studied with Karl-Heinz Kammerling and Bernd Goetzke at the University for Music and Drama in Hanover and with Boris Petrushansky at the International Piano Academy Incontri col Maestro in Imola (Italy).

A native of Puerto Rico, Arias moved at age eight with his family to New York City, where he was exposed to multiple dance styles and studied intensively at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School (LaGuardia Arts). Upon graduation, Arias received the school’s Jacques d’Amboise ballet award, going on to perform in New York with Complexions Contemporary Ballet and internationally with Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and Kidd Pivot.

Arias has originated roles in and performed works by notable choreographers including Ji?í Kylián, Ohad Naharin and Crystal Pite; he received First Place and Audience Choice awards for his work Without Notice at the Sixth Copenhagen International Choreography Competition, and the Audience Favorite Award for his work at New York City’s Dance Gallery Festival.

He has choreographed for dancers at the Juilliard School, The Peridance Company, LaGuardia Arts, and “Switch,” NDT’s annual choreographic workshop and charity benefit.

Arias full-evening production, a place where something flourishes, premiered to sold-out audiences in November 2013.

Arias is currently a freelance artist, exploring dance through choreography, collaboration, and education.

Natasha Binder, age 13, is the fifth generation of musicians in her family. Since age three she has studied with her Grandmother, Lyl Tiempo. Since age 7, she has performed in St Johns Smith Square, in London, Belgium Conservatoire, Palais des Beaux Arts and The?a?tre de la Monnaie, Buenos Aires Teatro Colon, Venezuela and the Pietrasanta Festival in Italy. Coming from a family of pianists, Natasha enjoys perform- ing with her mother as conductor Karin Lechner, and her uncle, Sergio Tiempo in the Mozart Triple Piano Concerto and together with her grand- mother, the Bach Concerto for 4 pianos. Most recently, Natasha has performed in Venezuela Liszt and Ravel, and the Ravel Piano Concerto with the Brussels Choral Society in the Palais de Beaux-Arts, Brussels.

Ronald Guttman will appear in Welcome to New York this October (dir. Abel Ferrara) and Nina (with Zoe Saldana portraying jazz icon Nina Simone), as well as in the PBS three-hour series Mystery of Matter. Recent film credits include Girl Most Likely, Pawn, and 13, as well as Green Card, The Hunt for Red October, Avalon, and Danton. Recent television credits include Elementary, The Good Wife, Mad Men, and the HBO miniseries Mildred Pierce with Kate Winslet. Recent stage credits include the title role in Bauer at the San Francisco Playhouse, Woland (the Devil) in The Master and Margarita at Bard SummerScape 2013, and the narrator Brother Dominic in Arthur Honegger’s oratorio Jeanne d'Arc au Bûcher at Carnegie Hall with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Mr. Guttman performed the role of the narrator in Leonard Bernstein’s Kaddish with Karita Mattila at Salle Pleyel in Paris many years ago and will be performing the role again next year with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. Past New York theater credits include work at Second Stage, Circle in the Square, Classical Stage, The Mint, and Long Wharf. Mr. Guttman began his acting career in Brussels, Belgium, where he performed at The National Theatre in plays by Beckett, Schnitzler, Racine, Turgenev, and Camus, among others.

Further acting credits can be found at IMDB.com and acting clips at vimeo.com/ronaldguttman.

The multi-faceted bass-baritone Werner van Mechelen has achieved great success in grand opera as well as concerts and the more intimate Lieder (Art Song).

His lyric repertoire extends from the Baroque to Puccini and Verdi as well as the masterpieces of the 20th century such as Berg's Wozzeck and new world-creations.

At la Monnaie in his native Belgium he has sung many important parts in major productions as well as in the royal flemish opera in Antwerp and Gent.

He is also a frequent guest in Amsterdam at the Nederlandse Opera.

He is world reknowned for interpretation of Wagner in Meistersinger , Parcifal, Tristan und Isolde...

as well as his Richard Strauss interpretations in the operas Rosenkavalier, Salome...

His career is important in Europe where he sings in the opera houses of Zurich, Cologne, Paris, Barcelona, Venice, Montecarlo...
Werner van Mechelen studied at the Lemmens Institute at Leuven with Roland Bufkens and has participated in the Masterclasses of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwartzkopf, Robert Holl, Mitsuko Shirai, Hartmut Holl and Malcolm King. He has gained several international singing prizes, having participated in the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Prize (Brussels), the international Vocalists Competition ('s- Hertogenbosch), the international Singing Competition (Toulouse), the Vinas Competition (Barcelona) and the Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.