With a repertoire ranging from the baroque to the contemporary, American soprano Laura Aikin is a universally welcome presence on the world’s great operatic and concert stages. She began her over three-decade career as an ensemble member at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden (1992–98) under the artistic direction of Daniel Barenboim.
Aikin is a regular guest at venues including the Vienna State Opera, Milan’s La Scala, the Bavarian State Opera, the Zurich Opera, the Dutch National Opera, the Opéra National de Paris, the Semperoper in Dresden, the Gran Teatro del Liceu Barcelona, the Frankfurt Opera, the Chicago Lyric Opera, the Santa Fe Opera, the San Francisco Opera, and the Metropolitan Opera in New York.
As a frequently requested concert singer, Aikin performs together with orchestras such as the Berlin, Munich, and Vienna Philharmonics, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Wiener Symphoniker, the Cleveland Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, and the WDR, SWR, and MDR Radio Symphony Orchestras as well as with formations including Ensemble Intercontemporain, Les Arts Florissants, the Gürnzenich Orchestra Cologne, Concerto Köln, and Concentus Musicus Wien.
As a teacher, Laura Aikin has given numerous master classes such as at the Würzburg University of Music, the University Of Michigan, the Komische Oper Berlin Opernstudio, and 2022’s annual conference of the Bundesverband Deutsche Gesangspädagogen (Federal Association of German Voice Teachers). She has been on the faculty of the Lotte Lehmann Academy since 2020 and an instructor at the Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences’ Institute of Music since 2021, and October 2022 saw her appointed as a full professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

François Benda was born in Brazil, but his musical roots are in Europe. François Benda’s international career began in 1988, when he debuted as a clarinet soloist at Zurich’s prestigious concert venue Tonhalle and at the Victoria Hall in Geneva.

In 1991 François Benda was awarded the Premio internationale per le Arti dello Spettaccolo in Rome. Today François Benda performs at many of the most important music venues (Berlin’s Philharmonie, the Musikverein in Vienna, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall London, the Tonhalle in Zurich) and appears as clarinet soloist with all leading orchestras. François Benda regularly appears as a guest artist at music festivals such as the Pablo Casals Festival, the Berliner Festwochen, Styriarte, Musicades Lyon, and the Pentecost Concerts in Ittingen, Switzerland. He appears in chamber concert recitals with Heinz Holliger, Paul Badura-Skoda, Bruno Giuranna, Isabelle Faust, Josef Silverstein and Bruno Canino. He’s also a member of the Benda Musicians, the Weimar Soloists and the Variazioni Ensemble.

His comprehensive discography (for ECM, Fono, Pantheon, EPU, Hänssler und Genuin) includes also the clarinet concertos by Nielsen, Debussy, Busoni, and Rossini and most recently albums with the complete Schumann works and complete Brahms works. François Benda’s intensive study of recent instrument making developments led to the founding of the Clarinartis Company, in collaboration with instrument makers René Hagmann and Jochen Seggelke. His broad repertoar has been enriched in collaboration with contemporary composers Krzysztof Penderecki, Heinz Holliger, Elliott Carter, Luciano Berio, Georg Friedrich Haas, Wolfgang von Schweinitz and Bernhard Lang. In addition to his solo career, François Benda is one of the most highly sought after Professors of Clarinet. He teaches at the University of Arts in Berlin and the Hochschule für Musik der Stadt Basel, Switzerland.

Dag Jensen was born in Horten, Norway and began bassoon lessons at the age of eleven with Robert Rönnes. He later studied with Torleiv Nedberg at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. He won his first orchestral position with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of sixteen and was promoted to co-principal of the same orchestra soon after. He continued to study with Klaus Thunemann in Hanover.
He was principal bassoonist of the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra from 1985 to 1988 and held the same position in the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1988 to 1997. Dag Jensen won a first prize at the Norwegian Youth Music Competition and won the coveted ARD Music Competition in Munich twice, in 1984 and 1990.
His numerous solo appearances include performances with renowned orchestras such as, among many others, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Royal Swedish Chamber Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra Manchester, and with conductors like Seiji Ozawa, Jeffrey Tate, Christopher Hogwood, and Iona Brown.
Chamber music plays an important part in his musical life, and he is a member of the Sabine Meyer Wind Ensemble and of the Ensemble Villa Musica. He is also a regular guest at several music festivals.
Dag Jensen was Professor at the Hanover Academy of Music and Theatre from 1997 to 2011, and since 2011 he has been Professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. He is also Professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music, Oslo.

Patrick Jüdt is a professor of viola and chamber music at the Bern University of the Arts, teaches at numerous international master classes, and serves as one of the artistic directors of ECMA (the European Chamber Music Academy) together with Hatto Beyerle and Johannes Meissl. In addition to chamber music, a further important emphasis of his concert activities is on contemporary music.
He is a member of Collegium Novum Zürich and forms the ensemble Le tre C’ together with Imke Frank and François Poly.

Born in Beirut (Lebanon) into a family of Armenian descent, Kouyoumdjian began his studies when he was 12 years old at the mdw ‒ University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where he studied with Dieter Weber, Noel Flores, Alexander Jenner and Georg Ebert. He continued his postgraduate work with Djanko Iliev, Stanislav Neuhaus and Alisa Kezeradze.
Since winning first prize at the Sixth International Beethoven Competition in Vienna in 1981, he has performed in famous concert halls in Europe, the United States, Canada and Japan. He has been a soloist with well-renowned orchestras around the world and taken part in many different festivals. He is a sought-after juror in major international competitions in addition to conducting master classes in many universities in Europe and Japan. His recordings express his artistry as a pianist and a chamber musician.
In 1997, he was appointed Professor of Piano and Chamber Music in the Keyboard Department of Piano at the mdw, which is where he began his pedagogical career as an assistant professor in 1987. He is the initiator and founder of the International Joseph Haydn Chamber Music Competition at the mdw and in 2002 he became the cofounder/director of the Joseph Haydn Chamber Music Institute of the university. Since the summer of 2004, he has been the Artistic Director of the Piano à Saint-Ursanne Festival in Switzerland.
In October 2010, he was appointed Dean of Instrumental Studies at the mdw. In October 2016, he was appointed Professor of Piano at the Queen Elizabeth Music Chapel in Belgum.

Andrea Lieberknecht was born in Augsburg, Germany. She studied music with Paul Meisen at the academy of music in Munich. In 1988, even before finishing her studies, she became the soloist flute player in the Munich Radio Orchestra. Three years later, she changed to the same position in The West German Radio Symphony Orchestra in Cologne, where she remained until 2002. As a soloist as well as a member of chamber music groups (ARCIS Quintet and with the pianist Jan Philip Schulze), she has won many national and international competitions including the Prague Spring International Flute Competition, the International Flute Competition Kobe, the German Music Competition, the ARD-Competition and international chamber music competitions in Colmar, Trapani and Belgrade.
Since then, recitals, solo concerts and chamber music concerts with well-known musicians have taken her around the world. She has played solo concerts and chamber music concerts at international festivals such as the Rheingau Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. Moreover, during the years 1993 to 1996, she was the solo flute player at The Richard-Wagner-Festival in Bayreuth. The clarinetist Sabine Meyer invited her for chamber music concerts at Luzern Festival, Schubertiade Festival Schwarzenberg, among others.
In Germany, she has given flute concerts with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, the German Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Munich Symphonists, and many others.
Numerous CD recordings with solo and chamber music, some of them prize-winning, document her versatile artistic activity.
She is also a passionate teacher: She taught at the Academy of Music in Cologne and was Professor of flute at the Academy of Music in Hannover until 2011. She is regularly asked to be a jury member at flute competitions and teaches masterclasses in Europe, Japan and Australia. Since 2011, she has been Professor of flute at the University for Music and Performing Arts Munich.

Johannes Meissl is a professor of chamber music and has been Vice Rector for International Affairs and Art at the mdw ‒ University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna since October 2019.
Prior to his appointment as vice rector, he headed the Joseph Haydn Department of Chamber Music, Early Music and Contemporary Music beginning in 2010 and also served as president of the mdw Senate from 2015 until September 2019. Furthermore, Meissl is artistic director of isa – the International Summer Academy of the mdw.
Johannes Meissl studied at mdw with Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Gerhart Hetzel, and Hatto Beyerle. In 1982, he joined the Artis Quartet (in which he continues to play). The quartet soon became a frequent guest of the world’s most important concert halls and festivals, and the numerous awards won by their approximately 40 recordings (such as the Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or, Deutscher Schallplattenpreis, Echo, etc.) as well as the successful “Artis Series” at the Musikverein in Vienna (running since 1988) bear witness to their international standing. Alongside his quartet work, Meissl also performs in solo recitals and as part of numerous international chamber music projects.
Meissl shares artistic direction of ECMA (European Chamber Music Academy) with Hatto Beyerle and gives master classes at numerous renowned schools and summer academies worldwide. He is currently serving as a visiting professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. And finally, recent years have seen Johannes Meissl achieve additional success as a conductor, regularly working together with orchestras in Japan, Romania, Lithuania, Austria, and Finland.

Praised by The Strad magazine and The New York Times, internationally renowned cellist Amit Peled is acclaimed as one of the most exciting and virtuosic instrumentalists on the concert stage today. Having performed in many of the world’s most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center in New York, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington D.C., Salle Gaveau in Paris, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Konzerthaus Berlin, Peled has released over a dozen recordings on the Naxos, Centaur, Delos, and CTM Classics labels. He is on the faculty of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and has performed in and presented master classes around the world including at the Marlboro and Newport Music Festivals and the Heifetz International Music Summer Institute in the US, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival in Germany, International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove in England, and Keshet Eilon in Israel. Embracing the new era of the pandemic, Peled has established the Amit Peled Online Cello Academy reaching out to cellists all over the world. Moreover, his home studio in Baltimore has turned into a virtual art gallery promoting and supporting local artists while teaching and livestreaming to a worldwide audience.

For more information, visit www.amitpeled.com.

Violinist Minna Pensola is known as an intense performer, invigorating soloist and energetic orchestra leader. As an inspiring fellow musician and teacher she is a regular guest at many international chamber music festivals.
Pensola is a versatile player in the music field and has established regular club evenings combining a casual bar night and classical live music in her hometown Helsinki, as well as PuKamaChamber concert series, which she runs together with her spouse, violinist Antti Tikkanen.
Active and close relationship with Finnish composers have produced many works dedicated to her. The upcoming seasons will bring premieres of a chamber work by Lotta Wennäkoski and double concertos by Iiro Rantala and Jukka Tiensuu.
Minna Pensola is the co-artistic director of Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival from 2021. During the seasons 2019-2022 Minna is the artistic partner of the Joensuu City Orchestra and was a member of the curating group for the Helsinki Festival’s Wonderfeel-weekend in 2020 and 2021.
She was the artistic director of Sysmä Summer Sounds from 2006 to 2012.
Pensola is a member of the award winning string quartet Meta4, teaches chamber music at the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA) and violin at the Sibelius Academy.
Her own studies started at the Helsinki Conservatory, continued at the Sibelius Academy and finally finished at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Zürich and the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA). Important guides on that journey include Leonid Mordkovich, Kaija Saarikettu, Ralf Gothoni, Ana Chumachenko, Josef Rissin, Hatto Beyerle, Johannes Meissl as well as countless inspiring colleagues along the way.
Minna Pensola’s instrument is a Carlo Bergonzi violin from 1732, owned by the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation.
Offstage the swinging up-tempo is maintained by two daughters, two cats and a hamster.

Gottfried Johannes Pokorny is a principal bassoonist of the Tonkustler Orchestra of Lower Austria and professor of wind chamber music at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Formerly, he was a member of the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra and taught at the Josef-Matthias-Hauer Conservatory of the city of Wiener Neustadt.
Gottfried Johannes Pokorny studied with Karl Öhlberg and Dietmar Zeman at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and attended masterclasses at the Mozarteum Salzburg held by Milan Turkovic as well as Daniele Damiano and Michael Werba. A founding member of the “Wiener Bläser Akademie”, the “Collegium Viennense” and the “Zemlinsky Quintett Wien”, he has performed at numerous festivals in Austria and abroad, including the Festival Allegro Vivo, the Beethoven Festival Bonn, the Haydn-Biennale Vlaanderen, the Fjord Cadenza Classical Music Festival Skodje, the Nynorske Festival, the Mozartwoche in Osaka and the Grafenegg Festival, playing together with artists such as Marialena Fernandes, Walter Delahunt, Rudolf Buchbinder and Heinz Holliger.
Gottfried Johannes Pokorny has been involved in numerous radio and CD recordings and gives bassoon and chamber music courses in Austria, the Czech Republic, Finland, Norway, Ukraine, India and Japan. In concerts and on tours he has played with such conductors as wie Sándor Végh, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Georges Prêtre, Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, Sir Georg Solti, Sir Simon Rattle und Mariss Jansons. He has been a member of the Tonkunstler Orchestra of Lower Austria since 1987, holding the solo bassoon position since 1990.

Felix Renggli was born in Basel, Switzerland and studied flute with Gerhard Hildenbrand, Aurèle Nicolet, and Peter-Lukas Graf. He completed his formal training at the City of Basel Music Academy with a soloist diploma and went on to hold the solo flute post in various orchestras including the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Symphony Orchestra of St. Gallen, the Gulbenkian Orchestra of Lisbon, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and Camerata Bern.
Renggli has won prizes at national and international competitions and gives master classes on a regular basis in Europe, South America, Japan, China, and Australia. His busy performing career has seen him play as a soloist and chamber musician all over Europe as well as in South America, the USA, Japan, and China, including appearances at international festivals in Paris, Bourges, Lucerne, Lockenhaus, Rio de Janeiro, Akiyoshidai, Tokyo, and elsewhere.
His regular collaboration with the oboist, conductor, and composer Heinz Holliger has provided him with pivotal impulses for his musical work.
In 1994, Renggli assumed responsibility for the flute class taught, up to then, by Peter-Lukas Graf at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel. He also held a professorship at Freiburg University of Music from 2004 to 2014, and he has been teaching at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano since the autumn of 2015.
Renggli’s musical activities range from the contemporary music realm (including numerous world premières with the Swiss Chamber Soloists and Ensemble Contrechamps) to classical chamber music and solo repertoire and the performance of early music on original instruments. His CD productions (with ensembles and artists including the Swiss Chamber Soloists, Heinz Holliger, Camerata Bern, the Arditti Quartet, Jan Schultsz, and Nova Stravaganza (Cologne) have appeared on the ECM, Artist Consort/GENUIN, Philips, Montaigne, Accord, Discover, and Stradivarius labels. And in 1999, he joined forces with cellist Daniel Haefliger and violist Jürg Dähler to found and share artistic direction of the first all-Swiss chamber music series “Swiss Chamber Concerts”.

www.felixrenggli.com

First violinist and founding member of the Artis Quartet of Vienna.
Having recorded more than 40 CDs he received international awards including Echo Klassik, Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’ Or, Prix Caecilia, Indie Award, Wiener Flötenuhr and Midem Classical Award. Lully Award for the best chamber music performance of the season in NYC.
Chamber music partner of artists like Mischa Maisky, Nabuko Imai, Peter Frankl, Boris Berman, Christoph Eschenbach, Ralf Gothoni, Richard Stoltzman, Michel Lethiec, Sharon Kam, Frans Helmerson, Till Fellner, Stefan Vladar and Sol Gabetta.
1980-85 member of the Vienna String Soloists and guest performer with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra under conductors like K. Böhm, H. v.Karajan, C. Kleiber, C.Abbado, R.Muti, G.Solti, L.Maazel and D.Barenboim.

In 1996 he joined the faculty of the mdw in Vienna teaching chamber music and violin. 1993-98 guest professor for chamber music at the University of Music Graz. Frequent guest teacher at the Royal College of Music London, Eastman, Yale, Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth, Central Conservatory Beijing, SNU Seoul, Sibelius Academy, ISA, ECMA and MISQA Montreal. His students are members of many international orchestras and prizewinners at Competitions like Tchaikovsky, Fritz Kreisler and New York Concert Artist.

He studied at the University of Music in Vienna with H. Binder, J.Suk, H. Beyerle, privately with A. Staar and at the CCOM Cincinnati with W.Levin and the LaSalle Quartet. 2019 given the title Professor by the Austrian President.
Member of the Artistic Advisory Board of the Gottfried- von- Einem Foundation.

From the age of nine, she was accepted as a child prodigy in the “Stoliarsky School for gifted children”. During her early years in Odessa, she played for Isaac Stern and Ivry Gitlis and regularly performed as soloist with orchestra.
She pursued her studies at the Moscow State Conservatory, where she graduated under the guidance of Yuri Yankelevich and studied string quartet with Valentin Berlinsky (Borodin Quartet).
She won first prize at the Carl Flesch Competition in London, ARD Violin Competition Munich, Romano Romanini Brescia, and was prize winner at Paganini Competition and ARD Duo Competition.
As a soloist, Dora Schwarzberg has performed with many renowned orchestras, including the Israel Philharmonic, New York Philharmonic, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic and under such conductors as Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovich, Alexander Vedernikov, Adam Fischer,  in Concert Halls such as Carnegie Hall and Avery Fisher Hall NY, Musikverein Hall and Konzerthaus Vienna, Royal Albert Hall and Queen Elisabeth Hall London, Salle Pleyel Paris, Herculessaal Munich, Mann Auditorium Tel Aviv, Benyaney Hall Jerusalem, among others.
Her chamber music partners along her career have included, among others, Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Yuri Bashmet, Valentin Berlinsky, Nobuko Imai, David Geringas, Alexander Rabinovich, Paul Badura-Skoda, etc., with whom she has performed in Festivals such as Salzburger Festpiele, Martha Argerich Festival Lugano, Aspen Music Festival and Pablo Casals Festival Puerto Rico.
She began teaching at the Mannes School of Music in New York and from 1989 at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she is currently Professor Emeritus. She is regularly invited as a juror at international competitions. Since 2018 she is Professor at the Buchmann Mehta School of Music.
Her students are prize winners of numerous international competitions, and most of them are concertmasters of some of the famous orchestras in the world.

Displaying a dazzling combination of technical brilliance and a uniquely profound musical personality, Hagai Shaham is internationally recognized as one of the astonishing violinists who have emerged from Israel. Hagai Shaham began studying the violin at age of six and was the last student of the late renowned Professor Ilona Fehér. He also studied with Elisha Kagan, Emanuel Borok, Arnold Steinhardt and the Guarneri Quartet.
First prize winner of ARD Munich Competition in 1990, Ilona Kornhouser competition, the Israeli Broadcasting Authority Young Artist competition, the Tel-Aviv Rubin Academy competition, Clairmont Awards, and an annual scholarship from the American-Israel Cultural Foundation.
As a soloist he has performed with many of the world’s major orchestras, including the English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, RPO, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, RTE Ireland, Belgian National, Taipei, Singapore and Shanghai Symphonies, SWF Symphony Orchestra, Czech Radio and philharmonic, Slovak Philharmonic, Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires and the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra under Zubin Mehta. In 1985 he was invited to join Isaac Stern and Pinchas Zukerman in a gala concert at Carnegie Hall, following which Zubin Mehta invited him to perform Brahms’ Double Concerto at Carnegie Hall.
In 2006 he performed once again this work under Mehta, at the Israel Philharmonic 70th anniversary’s celebrations with cellist Mischa Maisky.
Hagai Shaham is in great demand as a recitalist. He regularly tours throughout Europe, North and Central America and performs at international recital series and festivals.
Hagai Shaham recorded for Hyperion, Decca International, Chandos, Biddulph, Naxos, Champs Hill and AVIE. He records regularly for Nimbus, where his CDs received critical acclaim.
Hagai Shaham is a member of the Shaham-Erez- Wallfisch trio. The trio performs on major stages including London’s Wigmore and Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw. They recorded several albums for Nimbus Records, including the complete Beethoven trios.
Hagai Shaham is professor at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University and an Artist in Residence at Stony Brook University, New York.
Together with his colleague, violinist Ittai Shapira, he is co-founder of The Ilona Feher Foundation.

Armenian-born Marianna Shirinyan is one of the most creative and sought-after pianists in Europe today. Her vibrant and virtuos musicianship puts her in demand, both as soloist and as chamber musician. Shirinyan plays with great sensitivity, understanding, technical brilliance and beauty of tone, which allows her to offer a wide range of repertoire. Her love for the music and her joy in sharing it with a larger audience are apparent in her performances.
She has received the Danish Broadcasting Corporation’s prestigious P2 award for her contribution to Danish music life and the critics prize of the association of Danish critics. She is a frequent guest at a string of international music festivals, among them the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Bodensee Festival, the Schwetzinger Festspiele, MDR Summer Music Festival, Festspillene in Bergen.
Simultaneously she has won the reputation of being one of this generations leading pianists through solo appearances with orchestras as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Oslo, Helsinki and Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestras, Munich Symphony Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Kammerakademie Potsdam, Göteborg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice to name a few. She enjoyed collaborations with conductors such as Michael Balke, Lawrence Foster, Zoltan Kocsis, Antonello Manacorda, Jun Märkl, Eva Ollikainen, Daniel Raiskin, Lan Shui, Thomas Søndergård, Marc Soustrot, Krysztof Urbanski and Joshua Weilerstein.
Shirinyan is a professor of piano at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, a Steinway artist and artistic director of the Oremandsgaard Chamber Music Festival in Denmark. From the summer 2020 also co-artistic director of the Valdres Sommersymfoni in Norway.
Shirinyan has a bright discography. All the CD’s have been received enthusiastically by international reviewers and listeners alike. Her latest release Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra by Louis Glass, which she has recorded together with the Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz under the baton of maestro Daniel Raiskin, has been awarded the P2 prize of the Danish radio in 2018.

Swedish cellist Torleif Thedéen is one of the most distinguished instrumentalists in the Nordic countries and enjoys an international profile as a recitalist, concerto soloist, recording artist and pedagogue. He is a first prize winner of international cello competitions, including the Casals Competition. He is Visiting Professor of cello at the Royal College of Music in London and Professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.
In a career spanning four decades, Torleif has performed with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, among them the Czech Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, DSO Berlin, Vienna Symphony Orchestra, The Hallé Orchestra, Moscow Philharmonic, City of Birmingham SO,Dresden philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic and BBC Philharmonic.

He has worked with conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Paavo Berglund, Kirill Petrenko, Neeme Järvi, Paavo Järvi, Franz Welser-Möst, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Osmo Vänskä, Mario Venzago and Leif Segerstam. He continues to perform with all the major Nordic orchestras and enjoys a burgeoning relationship with orchestras and festivals in the Antipodes.
As a chamber musician, Torleif is familiar with the prestigious stages of the Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, Philharmonie in Berlin and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has appeared at the Prague Spring and the Verbier Festivals, and at the chamber music festivals in Schleswig-Holstein, Bordeaux, Oslo, Bath, Stavanger, Kuhmo and beyond. His collaborators have included Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, Itamar Golan, Maxim Rysanov, Leif Ove Andsnes, Marc-André Hamelin, Lars Anders Tomter, Henning Kraggerud,
Roland Pöntinen and Martin Fröst.

Torleif’s recordings have attracted numerous accolades. He was awarded the Edison Prize in 2018 for his recording of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time with Martin Fröst, Lucas Debargue and Janine Jansen on the Sony label. His recording of the Shostakovich Cello Concertos won a Cannes Classical Award and his account of the Bach Cello Suites was selected as a ‘Choice of the month’ by BBC Music Magazine. His discography also includes the concertos of Dvořák, Elgar, Saint-Saens, Lalo,Kabalevsky,Lutoslawski and a wealth of contemporary music. He plays the 1783 Guadagnini cello on loan from the Norwegian Dextra foundation, previously owned by M. Rostropovich.

The Swedish violinist Ulf Wallin studied at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm with Sven Karpe and at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Wolfgang Schneiderhan.
Concert tours have taken him to Asia, Europe and the United States. He has worked with such eminent conductors as Jesús Lopéz Cobos, Manfred Honeck, Paavo Järvi, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Franz Welser-Möst. Always in great demand as a chamber player, Ulf Wallin has worked with artists like Bruno Canino, Barbara Hendricks, Heinz Holliger, Roland Pöntinen, and András Schiff.
Ulf Wallin has appeared at numerous major festivals including the Lucerne and Berlin music festivals, Marlboro Music Festival, among others. He has performed in the world’s leading venues, including the Berlin Philharmonie, La Scala di Milano, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées Paris, London’s Wigmore Hall and the Musikverein in Vienna.
Ulf Wallin’s dedication to contemporary music is highlighted by his close contacts with several distinguished composers such as Anders Eliasson, Alfred Schnittke and Rodion Shchedrin.
He has made numerous radio, and television appearances and more than 50 CD recordings (BIS, cop, EMI and BMG) have gained much acclaim and attention from the international media.
Ulf Wallin is professor of violin at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and professor at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. He has served on juries for major international competitions including the ARD Competition in Munich and the Fritz Kreisler Violin Competition in Vienna.
In 2013, he was awarded the Robert-Schumann-Prize of the city of Zwickau and was elected in 2014 into the Royal Swedish Academy of Music.

Christian Wetzel is professor for oboe at the Cologne University of Music. Outside of teaching and performing internationally as soloist, he is a devoted chamber music player, performing at various renowned festivals around the world. As oboist and founding member of the internationally acclaimed Ma’alot Wind Quintet he has won First Prize at numerous international competitions, including the ARD Munich Competition. With a concert career spanning over 30 years, the Quintet has recorded a range of award-winning CDs.
In 1997, after nine years as solo oboist with the National Theatre Orchestra of Mannheim, he obtained his first professorship at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig and has since been a dedicated and successful supporter of young international oboists. In 2008, he was appointed to the faculty of the Cologne University of Music.
Many of his students have gone on to prominent positions in renowned orchestras all over the world.
Christian Wetzel teaches at numerous international masterclasses worldwide and is a visiting lecturer at such renowned music schools as the Royal Academy of Music in London, the Julliard School in New York, the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He holds an oboe class at the Higher School of Music of the Basque Country, “Musikene”, in San Sebastian (Spain).
Numerous recordings and premieres as well as a close collaboration with acclaimed contemporary composers also show his dedication to “New Music”.