An internationally acclaimed violinist, who for many years had a respected duo partnership with her sister, cellist Eleonore Schoenfeld, she taught at USC Thornton School of Music, California, for almost 60 years. She was also the founder of the Harbin Schoenfeld International String Competition and Schoenfeld International Music Society.

Born in 1921 in Yugoslavia, Alice Schoenfeld studied the violin in Berlin under Karl Klingler, a student of Joseph Joachim, and made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic aged ten. In 1952 she and her family immigrated to the US, where in 1959 both she and Eleonore were invited to join the string faculty at USC. At first, they taught part-time while still maintaining their touring schedule, but eventually became full-time faculty members. Both Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky numbered among their colleagues at the school. Among Alice Schoenfeld’s students were Anne Akiko Meyers and Suli Xue.

The sisters received the USC’s Ramo Music Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the American String Teachers Association named them joint winners of the Artist Teacher Award in 1996.

In the 1980s both Alice and Eleonore were among the first internationally recognised musicians to visit communist China, after formal diplomatic relations had been established between the Chinese and American governments. On their recommendation, more than a hundred Chinese string students studying abroad received scholarship support.

One of the most outstanding Chinese-American violinists, Suli Xue enjoys an active career on today’s international music stage. He is a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, president of the Schoenfeld International Music Society, artistic director of the Schoenfeld International String Competition, artistic director of the Hong Kong International Music Festival, artist in residence at the Azusa Pacific University, artistic advisor of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, former professor of violin at the USC Thornton School of Music, and former concertmaster of the China National Symphony Orchestra. He is also the winner of two Gold Medals of Global Music Awards. Xue has earned high acclaim around the world for his unique artistry. 

Xue graduated from USC Thornton School of Music and Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He was a protégé of world-renowned violin professor Alice Schoenfeld. Xue has been frequently invited as a guest artist and faculty to teach and perform at International Music Festivals in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has also served as a juror for numerous international music competitions. He performed as a soloist with the YMF Debut Orchestra and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra for their New Year’s Concert Tour in China, and Pacific Symphony Orchestra for their Chinese New Year’s concert.

Recently, he has participated in many important performances as a soloist with the China National Symphony Orchestra, Harbin Summer Music Festival, and others. In 2014, Xue introduced the Schoenfeld International String Competition to Harbin. In 2017, the competition joined the United Nations ESCO “World Federation of International Music Competitions,” fortifying and promoting music cultural exchange internationally. In August 2017, Mr. Suli Xue collaborated with maestro Zubin Mehta as a soloist and concertmaster to perform in the gala symphony concert at the Harbin China-Russia Cultural and Arts Festival. Maestro Mehta described Xue as “a brilliant violinist and outstanding leader that performs with virtuosic musicality.”

Of Russian origin, Jean-Jacques Kantorow was born in Cannes in 1945. He began his violin lessons at the Nice Conservatoire, entering the Paris Conservatoire at the age of thirteen and winning the first violin prize there the following year. Between 1962 and 1968, he won major prizes including first prizes at the Carl Flesch (London), Paganini (Genoa), and Geneva international competitions, among others. He has appeared as a conductor and a soloist in all leading international centers in Europe, the United States, Canada, India, the Far East and Africa, winning critical acclaim everywhere. He has collaborated with musicians including Sir Georg Solti, Daniel Barenboim, Paul Tortelier, Krystian Zimerman, János Starker, Maria-João Pires, Gidon Kremer, Edith Wiens, and Renée Fleming. Ensembles with which he has served as conductor include the Orchestre de l'Auvergne, Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris and the Tapiola Sinfonietta. He has appeared with numerous ensembles including Orchestre National de Lille, Orchestre National de Lyon, Hallé Orchestra and Bamberg Symphony. His recordings, which number more than 130, have won many awards including the Grand Prix du Disque and the Grand Prix de l'Académie Franz Liszt. He currently teaches at the Conservatoires of Paris and Rotterdam and is, with Ton Koopman, Permanent Guest Conductor of the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra.

Arto Noras, one of Finland's best-known performers, enjoys the reputation of a world-class cellist. Praising his impeccable, natural, seemingly effortless virtuosity, critics have also commented on the powerful expressiveness of Noras' playing. His immense enthusiasm and consummate musicianship also extend to chamber music and teaching. Among his many musical projects is the Naantali Music Festival, which has developed into one of Finland's great musical institutions. Born in 1942, Noras first studied cello with Yrjo Selin at the Sibelius Academy. He later went to Paris to study with Paul Tortelier, graduating from the Paris Conservatory in 1964. Two years later, Noras won second prize at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, gaining international recognition and launching a concert career. Following tours in North and South America, Noras became professor of cello at the Sibelius Academy in 1970. A highly regarded teacher, Noras also found time for chamber music, notably as member of the Sibelius Academy Quartet. In 1980, Noras founded the Naantali Chamber Music Festival, also initiating the International Paulo Cello Competition 11 years later. Having mastered the traditional cello repertoire, Noras has played and recorded many works by distinguished contemporary composers, including concertos by Einojuhani Rautavaara, Henri Dutilleux, Leif Segerstam, and Erik Bergman.

Violinist Jinjoo Cho is an artist model of the 21st-century. Since her concert debut at age 7, she has been numerously recognized as the winner of world’s most prestigious competitions such as the International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Montreal International Musical Competition, Buenos Aires International Violin Competition, Alice Schoenfeld International String Competition, and a laureate of 2011 Isang Yun International Music Competition. As a charismatic female solo artist, a vibrant and engaging chamber musician, a devoted teacher, an innovative artistic director, and a published writer, Jinjoo is redefining what it means to be a consummate classical artist in the modern society.

Jinjoo can be found performing in distinguished international venues and festivals alike Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium, Aspen Music Festival, La Jolla Music Society, the Herkulessaal of Munich, Schwetzingen SWR Festspiele, Seoul Arts Center, and Teatro Colón of Buenos Aires, with world’s leading orchestras and musicians as The Cleveland Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Seoul Philharmonic, Orquesta Clasica Santa Cecilia de Madrid, Phoenix Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, James Gaffigan, Michael Stern, Kent Nagano, Peter Oundjian, Tan Dun, Jaime Laredo, Sharon Robinson, Tito Muñoz, Mathieu Herzog, Itamar Golan, and Roger Tapping. She regularly tours with creative programs that include works of living composers and lesser-known repertoire.

A passionate teacher, Jinjoo is on the violin faculty at the Schulich School of Music at McGill University and has previously taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and Oberlin Conservatory. She is also the Founder/Artistic Director of ENCORE Chamber Music, an intensive summer training program for talented young performers in Cleveland, and regularly gives master classes worldwide.

Jinjoo is an alumna of Cleveland Institute of Music (BM, MM, PS) where she studied with Paul Kantor and Jaime Laredo. She also received training at the Curtis Institute of Music, Kronberg Academy, Aspen Music Festival and School, Perlman Music Program, New York String Orchestra Seminar, Music@Menlo, and Banff Centre’s Chamber Music Residency Program. Jinjoo’s artistic personality was greatly influenced by the Cavani String Quartet, members of the Cleveland Quartet, the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, and conductor David Zinman. Jinjoo now lives in Montreal with her toy poodle, Miso, and enjoys visiting art galleries, collecting kitchen magnets and stationeries, and listening to Indie Rock in her spare time.

Soloist, chamber musician and violin pedagogue from Salzburg, Michael Frischenschlager is a descendant of a well-known family of musicians with longstanding traditions. He studied violin, conducting, and musicology at academies and universities in Salzburg, Cologne, Vienna, and Rome. His violin teachers included Theodor Müller, André Gertler, Franz Samohyl and Yehudi Menuhin.

After several years of experience with major orchestras (Wiener Solisten, Vienna Philharmonic), Frischenschlager entered into a period of intensive concert activity as a soloist and a chamber musician, performing in almost every European country, as well as in North America and Asia.

In 1971, he began to teach and is still teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna, where he was appointed Head of the string department in 1984, vice-chancellor in 1989, and where he served as chancellor from 1992 to 1996. He is in demand all over the world as a teacher for master classes, and has sat on the jury of many renowned violin and chamber music competitions.

President of the International Fritz Kreisler Competition in Vienna since 1989, Frischenschlager founded the Prague-Vienna-Budapest Summer Academy in 1990, of which he was the director for 14 years before his retirement in 2004.

Linus Roth, who received the ECHO KLASSIK Award as 'Best Newcomer' 2006 for his début CD on the label EMI, was awarded his second ECHO award in 2017 for his recording of the violin concertos by Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky with the London Symphony Orchestra under Thomas Sanderling.

Linus Roth has made a name for himself internationally, not just with his acclaimed work in core repertoire, but also with his discovery / rediscovery of works that have undeservedly fallen into oblivion.  Roth's recording of the complete works for violin and piano by Mieczysław Weinberg, released in 2013 by Challenge Classics to wide public and critical acclaim was followed up by recordings of Weinberg’s Violin Concerto with the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester and his Concertino with the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn.  Both CDs were selected as 'Editor’s Choice' by Gramophone magazine.  Making Mieczysław Weinberg’s oeuvre known to a wider audience is also the aim of the International Weinberg Society, which Linus Roth founded in 2015.  This association organises and sponsors concerts, readings, exhibitions, interdisciplinary events and publications on the work and life of the Polish-Jewish composer.  For the 100th anniversary of Weinberg’s birth in 2019, Linus Roth will curate two days of events dedicated to the composer in the form of six concerts at Wigmore Hall in London.  
Linus Roth has played as a soloist with many leading orchestras including the Stuttgart State Opera Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn, the German Radio Symphony Orchestras of broadcasters SWR and Berlin, the Orquesta de Cordoba, the Orchestra della Toscana in Florence, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Chamber Philharmonic, the Bern Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra del Teatro San Carlo in Naples, the Cologne Chamber Orchestra and the Bruckner Orchester Linz.  Conductors with whom Roth has worked include Gerd Albrecht, Herbert Blomstedt, Andrey Boreyko, Dennis Russell Davies, Hartmut Haenchen, Manfred Honeck, James Gaffigan, Mihkel Kütson and Antoni Wit. A passionate chamber musician, he has performed fellow musicians such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Gautier Capuçon, Kim Kashkashian, Albrecht Mayer, Nils Mönkemeyer, Andreas Ottensamer, Itamar Golan and Danjulo Ishizaka, among others.  He has also worked closely for several years with the Argentinean pianist José Gallardo.
Linus Roth attended the preparatory class of Prof. Nicolas Chumachenco at the Musikhochschule in Freiburg, Germany, before going on to study with Prof. Zakhar Bron.  Subsequently, he pursued his studies for several years with Prof. Ana Chumachenco at the Universities of Music in Zurich and Munich.  Salvatore Accardo, Miriam Fried and Josef Rissin have also been important influences on him.  During his studies, Linus Roth held a scholarship from the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation.

In October 2012, Linus Roth was appointed Professor of Violin at the 'Leopold-Mozart-Zentrum' at Augsburg University and is also the artistic director of the 10th Leopold Mozart International Violin Competition, which will take place in 2019 in Augsburg. In addition, Linus Roth is the Founder and Artistic Director of the International Festival Ibiza Concerts and from 2020 on of the music festival Schwäbischer Frühling in Ochsenhausen /Germany. Linus Roth plays the Stradivarius violin 'Dancla' from 1703 on kind loan from the music foundation of the L-Bank Baden-Württemberg.

Dmitry Sitkovetsky is recognised throughout the world as having made a considerable impact on every aspect of musical life.  A prolific recording artist, with a career spanning more than four decades, he is celebrated globally as a violinist, conductor, creator, transcriber, and facilitator – and holds an undisputed and venerable position in musical society as a giant personality and educator.

As violinist and/or guest conductor, the 2019/2020 season and beyond sees Sitkovetsky perform extensively throughout Europe, North America, South America, and Asia.  Highlights include work with such orchestras as the Japan Century Symphony, Lucerne Symphony, Orchestra della Toscana, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Russian State Symphony Orchestra ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’, Sapporo Symphony, and the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, amongst others.  In 2019, he also celebrates the release of a new recital disc on the Melodia label, recorded with Tchaikovsky Competition-winner Lukas Geniušas – with a programme designed as an homage to the legendary duo of Fritz Kreisler & Sergei Rachmaninov. Sitkovetsky also enjoys a flourishing career as a conductor, having worked with such orchestras as Academy of St-Martin-In-The-Fields, Dallas Symphony, London Philharmonic, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, San Francisco Symphony Shanghai Symphony, and Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, amongst others.  In 1990, he founded the New European Strings Chamber Orchestra (NES) – bringing together the most distinguished string players from the top European ensembles, from both Russian and Western musical backgrounds (reflecting Dmitry’s own life story).  Since 2003, Sitkovetsky has served as the Music Director of the Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina, to whom he has brought such soloists as Emmanuel Ax, Yefim Bronfman, Garrick Ohlsson, and Pinchas Zukerman.  Previous positions of artistic leadership have included the Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y Leon (Artist in Residence, 2006-2009), Russian State Symphony Orchestra ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ (Principal Guest Conductor, 2002-2005), and the Ulster Orchestra (Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor, 1996-2001).

Sitkovetsky’s celebrated career as a violinist is documented in an extensive discography of more than forty recordings, reflecting the impressive breadth of his repertoire.  His recording collaborators to date include such orchestras as the London Symphony, Philharmonia, and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, working with such legendary maestros as Sir Colin Davis, Mariss Jansons, Sir Neville Marriner, and Yehudi Menuhin.  As soloist, he has performed with the world’s leading orchestras – including the Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland, LA Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus, New York Philharmonic, NHK Symphony, and Philadelphia, amongst others. Given his unmatched ability to turn any project into a highly anticipated artistic event, Sitkovetsky has also been invited to create, develop and lead a number of festivals, including the Korsholm Music Festival, Finland (1983-1993, and 2002), the Seattle International Music Festival (1992-1997), the Silk Route of Music, Azerbaijan (1999), and the Festival del Sole, Tuscany (2003-2006).  The 2018/2019 season saw Sitkovetsky take the title of Artist-in-Residence of Vadim Repin’s Trans-Siberian Festival, with other forthcoming festival visits of note including the Enescu, Ljubljana, and Verbier music festivals. 

Sitkovetsky is also in high demand as a Jury member, musical expert and educator.  Recent jury roles have included the Indianapolis International Violin Competition (2018), Concours musical international de Montréal (2019), XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition (2019), and the Enescu Violin Competition (2020), and the 2019/2020 season opens with the first of a series of teaching residencies at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.  Additional highlights include Sitkovetsky’s debut TEDx talk (The Power of Curiosity), the launch of his first book (Dmitry Sitkovetsky: Dialogues), and his interview series on Medici.tv (It Ain’t Necessarily So).  His iconic orchestral and string trio versions of J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations have taken on a life of their own – enjoying regular performances and acclaimed recordings by many of the leading performers of today.  Following this unprecedented success, Sitkovetsky has gone on to arrange over fifty works of major repertoire by such composers as Bartók, Beethoven, Brahms, Haydn, Schnittke, and Shostakovich.  In 2015, he unveiled his transcription of Stravinsky’s Le baiser de la fée, commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and premiered by Augustin Hadelich at Carnegie Hall.  The 2017/2018 season saw the successful premieres of a new multi-genre/multimedia work, Devil, Solider & Violin (inspired by Stravinsky’s A Soldier’s Tale), with sold-out performances across Russia.  Summer 2018 saw the world premiere of Sitkovetsky’s transcription of Sarasate’s Navarra Fantasy, commissioned by the Verbier Festival.  This performance – marking the Festival’s 25th anniversary – was broadcast live worldwide on Medici.tv, with an all-star line up of musicians, including Lisa Batiashvili, Leonidas Kavakos, Mischa Maisky, Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov, Tabea Zimmermann, and Pinchas Zukerman – as well, of course, as Dmitry Sitkovetsky himself.

The accomplished Chinese violinist Lina Yu gained instant acclaim when, at the age of 18, she premiered the ‘Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto. Since then she has recorded this concerto many times with orchestras such as the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Russian Philharmonic, and the Shanghai Symphony.

Since her first rise to attention, Lina Yu has been sought out to premiere many work by various composers and has won numerous awards for her outstanding performances. Led by her, the earliest Chinese string quartet participated and won a prize at Berlin’s 2nd Schumann International Competition in 1960. She appears frequently in recitals and as soloist with orchestras in the United States, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Australia, and China.

In 1962 Lina Yu was appointed to the faculty of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music where she is currently chairwoman of the Violin and Viola Department and professor of violin. Many of her students are top prize winners at the Paganini, Menuhin, Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski, Sendai, Lipizer, and Sibelius International Violin Competitions.

Professor Yu has made frequent guest appearances at major television and radio stations throughout the world. She starred in several documentary films, including ‘Passion for Life, Yu Lina’, a three-hour documentary film about her life made in 2001.

Professor Yu regularly teaches master classes throughout United States, Canada, Israel, Australia, Japan, and China. Professor Yu has served on the jury panel of many prestigious international violin competitions, including the 1998 and 2007 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in Moscow, Russia; the 2006 Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Poznań, Poland, the 2012 Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition, Hannover, Germany, as well as many international competitions in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, and her native China.

Professor Yu founded the Yu Lina Violin Foundation in 1993, in order to promote talented young violinists.

The German-born cellist of Peruvian-Uruguayan descent is one of the most sought-after musicians in his field. As a student of Boris Pergamenschikow, Claudio Bohórquez achieved success at an early age at international competitions such as the Tschaikowsky Youth Competition in Moscow and the Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris. This culminated in 2000 with three awards at the first International Pablo Casals Competition held under the auspices of the Kronberg Academy: Marta Casals Istomin presented Claudio Bohórquez with first prize, a special award for the best chamber music, and also the use of Casals’ Gofriller cello for a period of two years. He also won first prize at the International Music Competition in Geneva, an achievement that marked the start of his career as a soloist. Meanwhile he has become a teacher himself: from 2011 to 2016 he was professor at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart, in September 2016 he was appointed to the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin, where he has been a guest professor since 2003. 

Renowned conductors Claudio Bohórquez has worked with include Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Manfred Honeck, Sir Neville Marriner, Eiji Oue, Krzysztof Penderecki, Leonard Slatkin, Tugan Sokhiev, Lothar Zagrosek and David Zinman.

The past seasons have led the artist to many festivals, including: a. to the Rheingau Music Festival with the Columbian Youth Philharmonic under Andrés Orozco-Estrada, to the Dresden Music Festival with a Chamber Music Project together with the violinist Philippe Quint and the pianist Boris Giltburg, to the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and the Rheingau Music Festival. The upcoming season includes, among others, the Elbphilharmonie debut on November 8, 2018 and an Elgar cello concert with the Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg on February 15, 2019. In addition to numerous CD recordings, radio recordings and television appearances Claudio Bohórquez worked as an interpreter for the soundtrack of Paul English by to the film "Ten Minutes Older - The Cello", which was shown in theaters worldwide. Together with the painter Klaus-Peter Kirchner, Claudio Bohórquez developed the installation project "Raum für Pablo Casals" in homage to this great cellist. He was part of the ECHO-winning album "Four Seasons" (2017) of Daniel Hope, released by Deutsche Grammophon. In July 2018 Berlin Classics will release a new CD with the sonatas of Johannes Brahms and some bonus tracks together with Claudio Bohórquez's duo partner Péter Nagy. Since the season 2017/18 Claudio Bohórquez is Artistic Director of the Festival Winnenden.

Claudio Bohórquez plays a G. B. Rogeri violoncello presented to him by the Landeskreditbank Baden-Württemberg.

Young-Chang Cho was born in Seoul in 1958. He started cello lessons at the age of eight. In 1971 he began to study in the United States with David Soyer at the Curtis Institute of Music of Philadelphia, and later with Laurence Lesser at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. In 1980, he continued his studies with Siegfried Palm and Mstislav Rostropovich.

In 1981 he won a prize at the Concours de violoncelle Rostropovitch in Paris and was repeatedly invited to serve in its jury. He also received prizes at the International Cello Competition Pablo Casals in Budapest and at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich.

As a chamber musician he formed the Cho Piano Trio with his sisters Young-Mi Cho (violin) and Young-Bang Cho (piano), receiving prizes at the Geneva International Music Competition in 1977 and at the ARD competition in 1980. 

As a soloist he performed with the Washington National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Rostropovitch and in Tokyo, Sofia and Bologna, among others. He was invited for solo recitals and master classes to international music festivals as Academie Internationale de Musique de Montpellier or the Kronberg Academy (1993 in memory of Pablo Casals, 1995 in memory of Emanuel Feuermann and Jacqueline du Pré, 1997 celebrating the 70th birthday of Rostropovitch). He was a juror there for the first International Pablo Casals Cello Competition in 2000 and the second in 2004. 

Since 1987 he has been teaching violoncello at the Folkwang Hochschule, since 2010 Folkwang University.  His students have included Saerom Park and Graham Waterhouse.

Anne Gastinel is a French cellist and professor. She was born on October 14, 1971 in the town of Tassin-la-Demi-Lune. Tassin-la-Demi-Lune is in the south east of France close to Lyon. The population was less than 25,000 people when she was born there. She has three sisters and one brother. Both of her parents are musicians and passed their passion down to their children. Her father composes pieces and her mother plays the piano.

Her musical career started at the age of four when she began playing one of her sister’s cellos as well as began studying the piano and oboe. Her first televised concert with an orchestra was at the age of ten where she was a soloist (1981). One year after her televised solo, Gastinel entered the Lyons Conservatory School to begin her formal music education. At age 15 (1986), Gastinel finished first place in her class at the Musical Conservatory School in Lyon, France. After her time in Lyon she moved on to study at the more advanced National Musical Conservatory in Paris. In Paris her teachers included famous musicians and fellow cellists such as Yo-Yo Ma, Paul Tortelier, and János Starker; all of whom made their impression on her and her musical style.

In 1990 Gastinel competed on the Eurovision Tournament in Vienna, where she represented France. She has participated in many more international contests since then and has done extremely well in several including the Cheveningen, Prague, and Rostropovich Competitions. Gastinel was the first French artist to reach the finals in the Prague International Competition in forty years and won first place in the International Competition of Scheveningen. By the young age of 18 (1989), this child prodigy had already performed in more than 50 cities all over Europe. Later on she began a worldwide solo career. She has traveled worldwide around many different continents such as Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas and has won many prizes for her work. She has played at many famous musical halls around the world during her years of touring. Some of the more notable venues are Santori Hall in Tokyo Japan, Victoria Hall in Geneva Switzerland, Berlin Konzerthaus in Germany, the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris France, and Victoria Hall in London England.

Gastinel has been awarded many prizes for her performances and albums. She was named “Victore of Music” in all three categories of competition; most inspirational, best track of the year, and soloist of the year. She is the only musician who has completed this feat. She also has received awards early on in her musical career such as “Most Promising Young Talent” in 1994 and Best Recording of the year in 1995 as well as the Prix-Fnac in 1995 and 2000. She was named “Woman of Gold” in 2002 for her work in the performing arts category. In 1997, Gastinel was named the Ambassador of French cello and thus was chosen to play Pablo Casal’s Goffriller cello (valued at 5 million francs) for one year by Pablo Casal’s wife, New Yorker Marta Casals-Istomin. Currently, she plays on a 1690 Testore cello given to her by the Fonds Instrumental Francais Association. She has recorded 14 albums since 1989 and many of them have been collaborations. She is mainly associated with the recording label Naive but she has also worked with the record labels Valois and Ottavo. Gastinel has worked with several pianists including François-Frédéric Guy on several different albums and Claire Désert on her album Schubert: Arpeggione in 2006. She has also collaborated with a guitarist named Pablo Marquez on her Spanish influenced album, Iberica, in 2009. Gastinel mainly plays classical and baroque music and has played many pieces by famous musicians such as Haydn, Rachmaninov, Brahms, Strauss, Dvorak, Bach, Beethoven, and Debussy. Gastinel is still an active musician and has been invited to be a soloist at the Choeur Britten concert on the 15th of April this year (2014).

Gastinel has played famous pieces in famous concert halls, she has played under the direction of several famous conductors, and she also has played with many other talented musicians including but not limited to German conductor Kurt Sanderling, French conductor Emmanuel Krivine, Russian conductor Semyon Bychkov, Israeli conductor Pinchas Steinberg, Russian violinist Yuri Bashmet, and English violinist Lord Yehudi Menuhin.

Gastinel is now not only a musician but has also been a professor of cello in Lyon at the National Conservatory of Music and Dance since 2003. This is the same school she started her formal musical education at many years earlier. In an interview Gastinel described the essence of music as the joy of personal exchange and sharing passion. She is married, has two children, Jules and Madeline, and still lives in Lyon.

Stefan Popov is an internationally recognised cellist of Bulgarian nationality. He started to learn the cello at the age of 12 and, having won a scholarship, continued his training at the Moscow Conservatory where he studied under Sviatoslav Knushevitsky and Mstislav Rostropovich from 1961 to 1966. He became a prize-winner in many competitions, including Geneva, Florence and Vienna. In 1966, as a finalist he won a medal in the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Cello. At the same time as the Tchaikovsky competition, he was also awarded a prize from the Union of Soviet Composers for his performance of Russian music.

From 1971 to 1975 he taught at Boston University and he was Head of the cello department of New England Conservatory. From 1977 to date, he has lived in the United Kingdom, where he still is a professor of cello at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He performs regularly and leads cello masterclasses at music festivals and in state conservatoires throughout the world.

He has had performances broadcast on radio and television, as well as having recorded numerous CDs. In 2006 he recorded and transcribed for cello Beethoven's violin concerto, to coincide with the 200 year anniversary of its first performance. He stated that he did this also in part "to compensate for the fact no Beethoven cello concerto was ever written" and to commemorate what is generally regarded as one of the greatest concertos for any instrument.

In 2008 he was awarded the "Chevalier du violoncelle" title at the Eva Janzer Memorial Cello Center for his contribution to the cause of cello playing.

Polish-born cellist Marek Szpakiewicz has been described by Yo-Yo Ma as an artist whose “energy, motivation, earnestness and generosity of spirit are evident through his work.” Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Corigliano stated, “(Szpakiewicz’s) performance of my ‘Fancy on a Bach Air’ is absolutely gorgeous.”

Szpakiewicz has drawn praise from critics in Europe, the United States and Japan, describing him as “a gifted player,” “with expansive vision and immense authority,” “no technical limitation,” and “a rare performer who internalizes a profound musical world within.” Polish and American radio stations have broadcasted his live performances, including the one-hour special program dedicated solely to his music on KUSC-Los Angeles, the largest non-profit classical music station in the country. Strad Magazine comments on Szpakiewicz’s live recording of Ernest Bloch’s Schelomo as “remarkably accurate realisation of the score.”

He began cello lessons at the age of six in Lublin, Poland. In his early years, he studied with Ryszard Losakiewicz and Stanislaw Firlej. He later studied with Stephen Kates at the Peabody Conservatory. Szpakiewicz completed his doctorate degree under the tutelage of Eleonore Schoenfeld at the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California. He also studied with such distinguished cellists as Daniil Shafran, Lynn Harrell, and Siegfried Palm.

Szpakiewicz currently teaches cello and chamber music at Azusa Pacific University, where he serves as Director of String Studies and Chamber Music. He is also on the faculties of Idyllwild Arts Academy Summer Program and Montecito International Music Festival. His students have won top prizes at numerous international and national competitions, including International Cello Competition in Chile, the American Protégé International Piano and Strings Competition, among others. In addition, his former students have been accepted by such schools as Juilliard School, Peabody Conservatory, New England Conservatory, Manhattan School of Music, and USC Thornton School of Music.

He has also contributed his talent to film orchestration as a collaborator with Polish composer Jan A.P. Kaczmarek. Among the scores he has worked on, the music for the critically acclaimed movie “Finding Neverland,” received the 77th Academy Award for Best Original Score in 2005.

In 2008, Szpakiewicz earned permanent residency from the U.S. government as an “Extraordinary Ability Artist.” The title means that he has “sustained national or international acclaim and the achievements have been recognized” in his field, according to the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

In 2011, Szpakiewicz received recognition from Los Angeles County Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Michael Antonovich for organizing a musical event to raise relief funds for the March 11 earthquake and tsunami victims in Japan. Szpakiewicz has been supporting the Soma Children’s Orchestra in Fukushima, Japan, organized by El Sistema Japan, since its inception in 2012 through various charity concerts. He also visited the orchestra in 2014 for musical guidance. He donated portions of his debut recital in Tokyo in 2015 and his return appearance in Tokyo in the following year to the Soma Children’s Orchestra in a form of a 1/2-sized cello and a 3/4-sized cello respectively. These gifts have been encouraging younger children to join the cello section of the orchestra.

An internationally acclaimed violinist, who for many years had a respected duo partnership with her sister, cellist Eleonore Schoenfeld, she taught at USC Thornton School of Music, California, for almost 60 years. She was also the founder of the Harbin Schoenfeld International String Competition and Schoenfeld International Music Society.

Born in 1921 in Yugoslavia, Alice Schoenfeld studied the violin in Berlin under Karl Klingler, a student of Joseph Joachim, and made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic aged ten. In 1952 she and her family immigrated to the US, where in 1959 both she and Eleonore were invited to join the string faculty at USC. At first, they taught part-time while still maintaining their touring schedule, but eventually became full-time faculty members. Both Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky numbered among their colleagues at the school. Among Alice Schoenfeld’s students were Anne Akiko Meyers and Suli Xue.

The sisters received the USC’s Ramo Music Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the American String Teachers Association named them joint winners of the Artist Teacher Award in 1996.

In the 1980s both Alice and Eleonore were among the first internationally recognised musicians to visit communist China, after formal diplomatic relations had been established between the Chinese and American governments. On their recommendation, more than a hundred Chinese string students studying abroad received scholarship support.

One of the most outstanding Chinese-American violinists, Suli Xue enjoys an active career on today’s international music stage. He is a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, president of the Schoenfeld International Music Society, artistic director of the Schoenfeld International String Competition, artistic director of the Hong Kong International Music Festival, artist in residence at the Azusa Pacific University, artistic advisor of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, former professor of violin at the USC Thornton School of Music, and former concertmaster of the China National Symphony Orchestra. He is also the winner of two Gold Medals of Global Music Awards. Xue has earned high acclaim around the world for his unique artistry. 

Xue graduated from USC Thornton School of Music and Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He was a protégé of world-renowned violin professor Alice Schoenfeld. Xue has been frequently invited as a guest artist and faculty to teach and perform at International Music Festivals in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has also served as a juror for numerous international music competitions. He performed as a soloist with the YMF Debut Orchestra and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra for their New Year’s Concert Tour in China, and Pacific Symphony Orchestra for their Chinese New Year’s concert.

Recently, he has participated in many important performances as a soloist with the China National Symphony Orchestra, Harbin Summer Music Festival, and others. In 2014, Xue introduced the Schoenfeld International String Competition to Harbin. In 2017, the competition joined the United Nations ESCO “World Federation of International Music Competitions,” fortifying and promoting music cultural exchange internationally. In August 2017, Mr. Suli Xue collaborated with maestro Zubin Mehta as a soloist and concertmaster to perform in the gala symphony concert at the Harbin China-Russia Cultural and Arts Festival. Maestro Mehta described Xue as “a brilliant violinist and outstanding leader that performs with virtuosic musicality.”

Of Russian heritage, French-born Jean-Jacques Kantorow received all his training as a violinist in the Franco-Belgian tradition at the Conservatoires of Nice and Paris: his teacher at Paris was René Benedetti, who had learnt at the École César Franck. This is reflected in his discography of over 130 recordings, which leans strongly towards the virtuoso repertoire often favored by French and Italian players throughout history. Within five years of graduating with a premier prix aged thirteen, Kantorow started winning prizes at major international competitions, including the London Carl Flesch, Genoa Paganini and Geneva International.

Combining the careers of soloist and conductor does not always work especially well. Kantorow appears to be one of the exceptions and has appeared to critical acclaim in both roles at all the major musical centres of Europe, North America, India, the Far East and Africa. He has held residencies with the Orchestre de l’Auvergne, the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, the Ensemble Orchestrale de Paris, the Tapiola Sinfonietta and the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, and made guest appearances with ensembles including the Orchestre National de Lille, the Orchestre de Lyon, the Hallé Orchestra and the Bamberg Symphony. Teaching (notably in Paris and Rotterdam) is another important activity for Kantorow, along with chamber music, in which he has perhaps given his most successful performances in a piano trio with pianist Jacques Rouvier and cellist Philippe Muller.

Whilst there are, certainly, more accurate violinists in this modern age of astonishingly high technical standards, there are few who communicate more powerfully and directly (whether or not the stylistic decisions suit everybody). Kantorow is a fiery and impassioned player, truly in the spirit of the best of violin virtuosity.

The Lithuanian cellist and conductor David Geringas belongs to the musical elite of today. An unusually broad repertoire from the early Baroque to the contemporary is testament to the flexibility and curiosity of the artist. His intellectual rigor, his stylistic versatility, his melodic feeling, and the sensuousness of his tone have brought him praise the world over.

The Rostropovich pupil and gold-medal winner of the 1970 Tchaikovsky Competition can now look back on a career that has spanned decades. David Geringas has performed world-wide with some of the leading orchestras, and important conductors of our time. His discography, which now approaches 100 CDs, includes many that have been honored with important prizes, including the Grand Prix du Disque, Diapason d’Or d’Année, Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and “Echo Klassik”. Well-known contemporary composers such as Sofia Gubaidulina, Ned Rorem, Peteris Vasks and Erkki-Sven Tür have dedicated cello concertos to him. He has premiered many works of the Russian and Lithuanian avant-garde in the West. As conductor, David Geringas appears regularly in Germany and abroad, and appears frequently in a dual role as cellist and conductor. 

Besides the invitations from the citadels of West and East European music centers, from Asia and the USA, David Geringas has for decades taught a world-famous cello class.  For his championing of Lithuanian music and composers, David Geringas has won the highest awards of his homeland. He was awarded the Verdienstkreuz 1. Klasse of Germany for his achievements as musician and cultural ambassador for the country on the international musical scene. David Geringas is honorary professor at the Moscow Conservatory, St. Petersburg Rimski-Korsakov Conservatory and at the Central Conservatory in Beijing, as well as having received an honorary doctorate from the Lithuanian Music and Theater Academy.

In 1990 Ole Bøhn gave the world premiere of Elliott Carter's violin concerto with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He has performed this concerto, which was written for and dedicated to him, with the leading orchestras in Europe and the United States. In 1994, this record won the prestigious "Grammy Award" in the category "Best Contemporary Composition".

Since his debut in 1969, Ole Bøhn has performed regularly with orchestras in Europe, USA and South America. In 1983 he toured the People's Republic of China. He has collaborated with conductors such as Moshe Atzmon, Herbert Blomstedt, James Conlon, Lukas Foss, Michael Gielen, Marek Janowski, Franz Welser-Möst, and Oliver Knussen.

Ole Bøhn is professor of violin at the Sydney Conservatory of music. He also holds position of concertmaster of the Norwegian National Opera. He has previously held a similar position with the Copenhagen Symphony Orchestra, and worked for shorter periods as concertmaster of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Teatro del Fenice in Venice, Theatro Municipal, Rio de Janeiro, the Residentie Orchestra in Den Haag and the Hamburg State Opera.In addition to his busy life as a performing musician Ole Bøhn is artistic coordinator of The summer concerts at the Vigeland Museum in Oslo. He is a Commander of the Order of the Norwegian Artists' Association and was awarded by King Harald V the King’s Order of Merit Medal in Gold.

Ole Bøhn uses a violin made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in 1766 which was acquired for his use by Nordea Bank of Norway.

Recognized worldwide as a musical phenomenon, Grammy-nominated Andrés Cárdenes parlays his myriad talents into one of classical music’s most versatile careers. An intensely passionate and personally charismatic artist, Cuban-born Cárdenes has garnered international acclaim from critics and audiences alike for his compelling performances as a violinist, conductor, violist, chamber musician, concertmaster, and recording artist.

Since capturing Second Prize in the 1982 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in Moscow, Mr. Cárdenes has appeared as a soloist on four continents with over 100 orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, St. Louis Symphony, Moscow Philharmonic, Dallas Symphony, Helsinki Philharmonic, Shanghai Symphony, Sinfonica Nacional de Caracas, Sinfonica de Barcelona, and the Bavarian Radio Orchestra. He has collaborated with many of the world’s greatest conductors, including Lorin Maazel, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Mariss Jansons, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir André Previn, Leonard Slatkin, Jaap van Zweden, David Zinman and Manfred Honeck.

As an ambassador for music of our time, Mr. CÁRDENES has commissioned and premiered over 70 works by American, Turkish and Latin American composers such as David Stock, Mike Garson, Erberk Eryilmaz, Leonardo Balada, Ricardo Thomas. His concerto repertoire includes over 100 works, ranging from the Baroque era to the present.

Mr. Cárdenes has thrice served as President of the Jury of the Stradivarius International Violin Competition and in 2011 joined the jury of the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition in St. Petersburg, Russia.

Mr. Cárdenes was appointed Concertmaster of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra by Maestro Lorin Mazzel in 1989 and departed after the 2010 season to concentrate on his conducting, solo and chamber music careers.

Kun HU is a legendary violinist, conductor and pedagogue. He has been described already in the 80s as “a great artist” (Le Monde), as having “Undoubted power” (The Times), as “HU Kun... Chinese musicians, especially violinist, are establishing an increasingly high profile on the Western concert scene.” (The New York Times/ International Herald Tribune), and as “One of the most individual string players to burst on to the scene... the fines to the younger generation of violinist.” (The Strad).

Kun has studied violin with his father Professor Hu Weimin and Professor Lin Yaoji, piano with his mother Professor Peng Shijun and conducting with Professor Xu Xin. Kun gained his first soloist post at age of thirteen in the Chinese Radio Symphony. He was the first mainland Chinese violinist ever to establish a solo career on the international stage after winning the fifth prize at the Sibelius Violin Competition at just seventeen years old in Helsinki 1980, raising Chinese flag on the international violin competition stage. 

He has toured around world, became the late Lord Yehudi Menuhin’s only private student for 15 years.  Kun has taking up conducting under the personal direction of late Sir. Colin DAVIS for 10 years and founded his own orchestra HUKUN and Friends in London. 

Kun currently enjoys touring as a conductor, a Professor/ Hon RAM at the Royal Academy of Music, giving masterclass at music festivals, chairing and serving as jury member at the world’s major violin competitions and building bridges for East and West cultural exchanges. There have also been a number of films and TV documentaries about his pioneering musical career.

“Virtuosity is so natural to him, in each tone, in each phrase, that he truly musically creates, he sings and lights up a myriad of colours.”

– NZZ Zürich 

One of Jascha Heifetz's last pupils (LA, 1978 to 1981) and first leader of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (until 1999), Dutch violinist Rudolf Koelman teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and is frequently invited as a juror and guest professor at international violin competitions and master courses around the world.

Rudolf KOELMAN regularly performs worldwide as a soloist with numerous internationally renowned orchestras, such as KBS Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, WDR Radio Orchestra, the Dutch Radio Philharmonic and Chamber Orchestra, Combattimento Consort and many others. He has also made numerous TV-, radio- and CD recordings among them a live recording of all 24 Paganini’s Capricci. In 2010, he performed in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and recorded live both Violin Concertos No. 1 & 2 by Paganini. These performances were released on Challenge Records and won the prestigious Edison Award 2010 in the Netherlands.

Koelman plays the "Woolhouse" Stradivari 1720 and a Pressenda 1829.

Grzegorz KOTOW founded “Liu-Kotow International Management & Promotion” with Shannen Liu in Hannover, Germany after 20 years of successful performing career as a violinist.  As the artist manager he works with an extensive roster of top performing artists like Midori, Pinchas Zukerman, Giuliano Carmignola, Nemanja Radulović, Isabelle Faust, Rudolf Buchbinder, Igor Levit to name a few.

His intense desire is to help young artists, using his experience, to develop their performing career, like recently the Korean violinist Bomsori KIM.  Before dedicating his life to the field of artist management, as a founding member of the Szymanowski Quartet, Mr. Kotow performed at world’s prestigious concert halls - New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Philharmonie de Paris and he regularly appeared at international festivals like BBC Proms, Rheingau, Schleswig-Holstein, Schwetzingen, Schubertiade, Lockenhaus, Bath and Cheltenham.

In the early years he won top prizes in many competitions including Melbourne, Osaka, Florence, Munich and Weimar.  Mr. Kotow studied violin and chamber music at “Hochschule für Musik und Theater” in Hannover with Krzysztof Wegrzyn and Hatto Beyerle and further musical development was sparked by pivotal encounters with such eminent musicians like Isaac Stern, Alfred Brendel, Gidon Kremer and the members of Amadeus, Guarneri and Juilliard Quartets.

Mr. Kotow can be heard on the recordings for Decca, Hyperion, Hänssler, SWR Classics, Avie labels.

He has been artistic director and advisor to the music festivals and concert series in Germany, Austria and Poland. In 2006, he was awarded with Medal of Honor for services to Polish culture.

Internationally celebrated violinist Alexander Markov has been hailed as one of the world’s most captivating and versatile musicians. 

Lord Yehudi Menuhin has written, “He is without doubt one of the most brilliant and musical of violinists… Alexander MARKOV will certainly leave his mark on the music lovers of the world and in the annals of the violin virtuosi of our day.” Awarded a prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant in 1987, Markov made his New York debut recital at Carnegie Hall in 1983. A Gold Medal winner at the Paganini International Violin Competition, he has appeared as a soloist with some of the world's most celebrated orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, the Montreal Symphony, Budapest Festival Orchestra and the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra. 

Markov 's musical journey goes beyond his work as a classical violin soloist. While attending high school he discovered and fell in love with rock music – a love affair that merged with his first love, classical music, when he has co-written The Rock Concerto with James V. Remington who also custom-designed Markov’s gold, 6-string electric violin. The new, patented electric violin is one-of-a-kind in the world and has a unique sound capable of creating the most extreme contrasts from the soft and sweet to the most powerful and dramatic. 

Alexander Markov was born in Moscow and studied violin with his father, concert violinist Albert Markov. By the time he was eight years old, he was already appearing as a soloist with orchestras and in double concertos with his father. The father and son team still perform together in duo-program repertoire in concert halls worldwide. Markov emigrated to the U.S. with his parents and received his United States citizenship in 1982.

Anne Gastinel took up the cello at the age of four. At just eleven years of age she entered the Lyon Conservatoire (CNSM). After being awarded her Premier Prix there in 1986, she went on to postgraduate studies at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM). Her teachers there, Yo-Yo Ma, János Starker and Paul Tortelier, had a profound influence on her personal and musical development, and already recognized in her the maturity of an exceptional artist. She won numerous prizes in major international competitions (Scheveningen, Prague, Rostropovich) and began to appear all over Europe, making a lasting impact on the general public in the 1990 Eurovision Competition.

Her career now takes her to the leading venues in Europe, as well as Japan, China, South Africa, Brazil, Indonesia, Canada, and the United States. She has appeared there with such great masters as Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Kurt Sanderling. During her travels she enjoys exchanging ideas and experiences with many distinguished musicians and composers, including Henri Dutilleux, Emmanuel Krivine, Josep Pons, Vladimir Spivakov, Pinchas Steinberg, Krzysztof Penderecki, Edmon Colomer, Michel Plasson, Yuri Bashmet, Tan Dun, and Michael Schønwandt. 

For nearly fifteen years now, her recordings have received the highest distinctions. In 2006, Anne Gastinel was awarded the Victoire de la Musique in the category ‘Soloist of the Year’ (after ‘Young Talent’ & ‘Best Recording’). Unanimously recognised as the ambassador of the French cello school, she was selected to play for one year the legendary Matteo Gofriller cello that once belonged to Pablo Casals. She now performs her programmes on a Testore instrument of 1690, combining the standard repertoire with regular performances of new works.

Winner of the First Prize and Gold Medal at the Third Tchaikovsky International Competition while still a student of Rostropovich at the Moscow Conservatoire, Karine Georgian is one of the outstanding exponents of the golden generation of Russian string playing. She has a vast chamber music and concerto repertoire and has many acclaimed recordings in the catalogue. 

Notable premiere performances in the course of her four decades of her international career have included the first US performances of her compatriot Aram Khachaturian’s Cello Rhapsody with the Chicago Symphony under the composer’s baton and Alfred Schnittke’s First Cello Concerto with the American Symphony Orchestra, both in Carnegie Hall, New York, and the Australian premiere of Britten’s Cello Symphony with the Sydney Symphony. Among several festival appearances in the Far East was the Festival of the August Moon in Beijing in 2000. 

For twenty years she served as Professor of Cello, succeeding André Navarra, at the Detmold Musikhochschule in Germany, and for the past eighteen years she has taught at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England, where in 2015 she was made an Honorary Fellow.

“a musical mind that is passionate, inventive, spontaneous, yet carefully reasoned and serenely assured.” – Boston Globe.

Praised internationally for his performances of the contemporary cello repertoire, Jakob Kullberg, is one of the most established and diverse Danish instrumentalists.  Top prize winner at international solo and chamber music competitions, Jakob was artist in residence at the International Carl Nielsen Competition and New Music Orchestra, Poland with which he enjoys a close and continued collaboration. In 2017 he was in residence with the 29^th International Krakow Composers’ Festival and at the Tivoli Garden Concert Hall in Copenhagen.

Jakob is halfway through a large-scale recording project with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he will release five concertos on two CDs. He is twice winner of the Danish Grammy, most recently in 2013 for his concerto CD ’Momentum’. This CD was also nominated for the Gramophone Award and Album of the Week with Q2 Music, New York.  Other high profile orchestras that he regularly appears with include the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, London, the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Ensemble Intercontemporain, as well as the Danish symphony orchestras and Sinfoniettas to mention a few.

Jakob enjoys a unique working relationship with the Danish composer Per Nørgård, who has composed and dedicated numerous works for him. The two have developed a rare dialogical collaboration facilitating the cellist as co-creator. Similarly Jakob is also a notable interpreter and collaborator of Bent Sørensen and Kaija Saariaho, who have both composed for him.

Professor of Cello at the Royal College of Music, London and Associate Professor and Head of Strings at the University of Stavanger, Norway, for a decade he taught at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. Between 2004 – 2015 he was artistic director of the Open Strings Academy, and has given numerous masterclasses throughout Europe and the USA. 

From the United States to Europe to the Middle East and Asia, Israeli cellist Amit Peled, a musician of profound artistry and charismatic stage presence, is acclaimed as one of the most exciting instrumentalists on the concert stage today. 

During the 2017/18 season, Mr. Peled will continue to share with audiences around the globe the sound of the historic cello of Pablo Casals. Mrs. Marta Casals Istomin, the widow of Maestro Casals, personally handed him this historic instrument, a Goffriler ca. 1733.  Mr. Peled has performed as a soloist with many orchestras and in the world’s major concert halls such as: Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall, New York; Salle Gaveau, Paris; Wigmore Hall, London; Konzerthaus, Berlin; and Tel Aviv’s Mann Auditorium. 

As an active chamber musician, Peled is a founding member of the famed Tempest Trio with pianist, Alon Goldstein and violinist, Ilya Kaler. Mr. Peled is also a frequent guest artist, performing and giving master classes at prestigious summer music festivals such as the Marlboro Music Festival, Newport Music Festival, Seattle Chamber Music Festival, Heifetz International Music Institute, Schleswig Holstein and Euro Arts Festivals in Germany, Gotland Festival in Sweden, Prussia Cove Festival in England, The Violoncello Forum in Spain, and Keshet Eilon Festival in Israel, among others. 

One of the most sought-after cello pedagogues, Mr. Peled is a Professor at the Peabody Conservatory of Music of the Johns Hopkins University. A promising basketball player, at 6’5, Mr. Peled had to make a tough choice between the basketball arenas and the concert halls. As difficult as it was to leave the professional basketball behind, he enjoys following fanatically the NBA league and playing hoops with his kids.

The cellist, James Tennant, has enjoyed a wonderfully varied and fruitful career spanning over 35 years. He has performed concerts as a soloist, chamber musician and conductor in over 25 countries, and has made many recordings from Motown’s Michael Jackson to more recently award-winning CD’s of Russian and New Zealand music. 

As a conductor, he has collaborated with many distinguished orchestras and international artists such as Piers Lane, Wolfgang Schmidt, Li-Wei Qin, Julian Lloyd Weber and Daniel Blumenthal, and has conducted the world premieres of 5 operas by David Griffiths. Mr. Tennant has also been the principal cellist of many orchestras including: the Auckland Philharmonia, the Sinfonica Nacional de Colombia, the Michigan Opera Theatre, and has been a member of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

For the past 18 years James has devoted himself to teaching at the University of Waikato and giving master classes and workshops around New Zealand, China, Singapore, USA, England, Australia and Colombia. At the University, James created a unique Soloist programme designed specifically for extremely talented cellists to be groomed in media training, languages, the history of cellists and composers of cello music, while giving over 30 performances each year with New Zealand’s leading pianist Katherine AUSTIN, to prepare for competitions and a concert career. He has taught many wonderful cellists in this programme including Santiago Canon Valencia, who aged 13 in 2010 received the equal top prize in the Beijing International Cello Competition and more recently 3rd prize in the Queen Elizabeth 2017 Cello Competition.  James has also been at the forefront of musical development in New Zealand for over 30 years having been a founder of the Adams Festival of Chamber Music, the Waikato International Cello Fest, the Wallace International Cello Competition, the Millennium International Chamber Music Festival, Cellophonics and the Belle Celli.

Raphael Wallfisch is one of the most celebrated cellists performing on the international stage. At an early age, Raphael was greatly inspired by hearing Zara Nelsova play, and, guided by a succession of fine teachers including Amaryllis Fleming, Amadeo Baldovino and Derek Simpson, it became apparent that the cello was to be his life’s work. While studying with the great Russian cellist Gregor Piatigorsky in California, he was chosen to perform chamber music with Jascha Heifetz in the informal recitals that Piatigorsky held at his home.

At the age of twenty-four he won the Gaspar Cassadó International Cello Competition in Florence. Since then he has enjoyed a world-wide career playing with such orchestras as the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, English Chamber Orchestra, Hallé, City of Birmingham Symphony, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Berlin Symphony, Westdeutscher Rundfunk, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Indianapolis Symphony, Warsaw Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic and many others. He is regularly invited to play at major festivals such as the BBC Proms, Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Spoleto, Prades, Oslo and Schleswig Holstein.  Teaching is one of Raphael’s passions. He is in demand as a teacher all over the world and holds the position of professor of cello in Switzerland at the Zürich Hochschule der Kunst.

Britain’s leading composers have worked closely with Raphael, many having written works especially for him. These include Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Kenneth Leighton, James Macmillan, John Metcalf, Paul Patterson, Robert Simpson, Robert Saxton, Roger Smalley, Giles Swayne, John Tavener and Adrian Williams.

Raphael plays a 1760 Gennaro Gagliano, the 1733 Montagnana “Ex-Romberg” and an exquisite modern cello built for Raphael by Patrick Robin.

Raimund Trenkler was born and raised in Berlin. After completing his cello studies at Basel Music Academy (with Distinction), he continued his education at Folkwang University of the Arts and ultimately gained a diploma in solo performance at the Royal Academy of Music in London. In 1991 he took up the position of first solo cellist with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra until he founded the “Cellissimo” ensemble of five cellists in Frankfurt am Main, with which he performed in international festivals worldwide.

In February 1993, Raimund Trenkler founded Kronberg Academy together with private sponsors following an idea he had developed together with Marta Casals Istomin, the widow of Pablo Casals, and Mstislav Rostropovich, of celebrating Pablo Casals and his message of universal humanity by bringing together musicians of all generations from across the globe in Kronberg to make music together and learn from one another. From the outset, its aim was to support and train highly talented young musicians from all over the world. In autumn of the same year, Raimund TRENKLER directed Kronberg’s first Cello Festival with Marta Casals Istomin and Mstislav Rostropovich as patrons.

Today at Kronberg Academy, the most renowned teachers in their fields train gifted young artists to become soloists in the disciplines of violin, viola and cello.  Raimund Trenkler is Chairman of the Board of Directors and Artistic Director of the Kronberg Academy Foundation, as well as Chair of the Rostropovich Cello Foundation and the Gidon Kremer Stiftung.

He has regularly served on juries, and continues to do so, for several international music competitions, such as the International Pablo Casals Cello Competition in Kronberg and Frankfurt, the Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris, the Yuri Bashmet Viola Competition in Moscow, the Grand Prix Emanuel Feuermann in Berlin, the Beijing International Music Competition, the Isang Yun Cello Competition in Korea, the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition Sion Valais and the Leopold Mozart International Violin Competition in Augsburg.

An internationally acclaimed violinist, who for many years had a respected duo partnership with her sister, cellist Eleonore Schoenfeld, she taught at USC Thornton School of Music, California, for almost 60 years. She was also the founder of the Harbin Schoenfeld International String Competition and Schoenfeld International Music Society.

Born in 1921 in Yugoslavia, Alice Schoenfeld studied the violin in Berlin under Karl Klingler, a student of Joseph Joachim, and made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic aged ten. In 1952 she and her family immigrated to the US, where in 1959 both she and Eleonore were invited to join the string faculty at USC. At first, they taught part-time while still maintaining their touring schedule, but eventually became full-time faculty members. Both Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky numbered among their colleagues at the school. Among Alice Schoenfeld’s students were Anne Akiko Meyers and Suli Xue.

The sisters received the USC’s Ramo Music Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the American String Teachers Association named them joint winners of the Artist Teacher Award in 1996.

In the 1980s both Alice and Eleonore were among the first internationally recognised musicians to visit communist China, after formal diplomatic relations had been established between the Chinese and American governments. On their recommendation, more than a hundred Chinese string students studying abroad received scholarship support.

One of the most outstanding Chinese-American violinists, Suli Xue enjoys an active career on today’s international music stage. He is a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, president of the Schoenfeld International Music Society, artistic director of the Schoenfeld International String Competition, artistic director of the Hong Kong International Music Festival, artist in residence at the Azusa Pacific University, artistic advisor of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, former professor of violin at the USC Thornton School of Music, and former concertmaster of the China National Symphony Orchestra. He is also the winner of two Gold Medals of Global Music Awards. Xue has earned high acclaim around the world for his unique artistry. 

Xue graduated from USC Thornton School of Music and Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He was a protégé of world-renowned violin professor Alice Schoenfeld. Xue has been frequently invited as a guest artist and faculty to teach and perform at International Music Festivals in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has also served as a juror for numerous international music competitions. He performed as a soloist with the YMF Debut Orchestra and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra for their New Year’s Concert Tour in China, and Pacific Symphony Orchestra for their Chinese New Year’s concert.

Recently, he has participated in many important performances as a soloist with the China National Symphony Orchestra, Harbin Summer Music Festival, and others. In 2014, Xue introduced the Schoenfeld International String Competition to Harbin. In 2017, the competition joined the United Nations ESCO “World Federation of International Music Competitions,” fortifying and promoting music cultural exchange internationally. In August 2017, Mr. Suli Xue collaborated with maestro Zubin Mehta as a soloist and concertmaster to perform in the gala symphony concert at the Harbin China-Russia Cultural and Arts Festival. Maestro Mehta described Xue as “a brilliant violinist and outstanding leader that performs with virtuosic musicality.”

Shlomo Mintz is considered by colleagues, audiences, and critics one of the foremost violinists of our time, esteemed for his impeccable musicianship, stylistic versatility, and commanding technique. He has long been acclaimed as a celebrated guest artist with many of the great orchestras and conductors on the international stage and continues to enchant audiences with his playing.

Awarded with many prestigious international prizes including the Premio Internazionale Accademia Musicale Chigiana, the Diapason D’Or, the Grand Prix du Disque, the Gramophone Award, the Edison Award and the Cremona Music Award, in 2006 he received an Honorary Degree from the Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba (Israel).

Born in Moscow and immigrated when he was 2 to Israel, he studied with Ilona Feher who introduced Mintz to Isaac Stern becoming this his mentor. He was also a student of Dorothy DeLay in New York.

On stage from an early age and along his career, he has collaborated with such a famous artists like Isaac Stern,  Mstislav Rostropovich, Zukerman, Itzhak Perlman, Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini, Riccardo Muti, Yuri Temirkanov, Ida Haendel and Ivry Gitlis, among many others, and played with the best orchestras in the world as the Berlin, Vienna, Concertgebouw, Chicago, Los Angeles,  Philadelphia and New York Philharmonic 

At 18 years old, Mintz launched a parallel career as a conductor, and has since led acclaimed orchestras worldwide including the Royal Philharmonic (United Kingdom), the NHK Symphony (Japan), and the Israel Philharmonic.

Regularly invited by the most prestigious international competitions, Mintz has served as a jury member of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition in Brussels and the International Henryk Wieniawski Competition in Poznań, Poland. He was also invited to be jury president of the Munetsugu Angel Violin Competition in Japan, for several years.  From 2002 to 2011, he was jury president of the Sion Valais-International Violin Competition in Switzerland and from 2012 to 2018, the Artistic Director of Crans-Montana Classics, a high-level violin Mastercourse and Festival, also in Switzerland.

Currently, he is the Mentor and President of the Jury of the International Violin Competition Buenos Aires in Argentina, President of Jury and Artistic Director of Tucuman (Argentina) Festival and National Violin Competition, as well as the president of the Ilona Fehér Budapest Violin Competition in Hungary.

Cellist Lynn Harrell, one of the finest and most prominent American classical musicians of his generation, has died. He was 76 years old.

His death was initially announced by his wife, violinist Helen Nightengale, on social media. She did not disclose the cause of his death. In a statement provided Wednesday by Columbia Artists, the company that managed Harrell, Nightengale said that the cellist's death was unexpected.

Over the course of his wide-ranging career, Harrell performed as a soloist with just about every major orchestra in the U.S. and Europe. Within the classical music world, Harrell was also widely beloved as a generous chamber music colleague, a respected teacher and a musician's musician.

When he made his debut at Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) at age 20 in 1964, the New York Times enthused: "He has music in his bones, plus a technique that a cellist two or three times his age can envy."

Harrell was born Jan. 30, 1944, in New York City. He was the son of two notable musicians: baritone Mack Harrell, a regular presence at the Metropolitan Opera for many years, and violinist Marjorie McAlister Fulton. His godfather was the revered choral conductor Robert Shaw. When he was 12, the family moved to Dallas, but spent summers in Aspen, Colo., while Mack Harrell taught and performed at the Aspen Music Festival and School. Throughout his own career, Lynn Harrell maintained a deep relationship with the Aspen festival as well.

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Celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2016. Founded  by students of the Ferenc Liszt Academy, Budapest,  the quartet took on the name of the  Hungarian  composer  Zoltán Kodály in 1972.

They have been  ambassadors of  Hungarian string quartet culture both  domestically  and  internationally. In the last few decades they have toured with great success in almost every European country, as well as in the United States, Japan, China, India, Australia and  New Zealand.

„The Kodaly’s rich tone was assured….the playingwas so elegant… a brilliant lesson in the string quartet’s first quartercentury… intelligent ensemble”  The Washington Post

„Immensely satisfying”  The Strad

International critics have been full of praisefor the Kodály Quartet’s numerous (some 70) recordings, including the monumental undertaking of the complete cycles of Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert for Naxos.  The interpretation of Haydn’s Op. 64 was called by  Classic CD Magazine „ Best chamber music release of 1993”, Vol. VI of  the Beethoven series was  BBC Music Magazine’s “Pick of the Month” and gave it five stars for both performance and sound, calling it an “extraordinary achievement.”

 „The Kodaly’s playing throughout the last of the Rasumovsky trilogy, op.59/3 in C, is spellbinding. There is an Olympian breadth and intensity here… Op.127 is a triumph for these players.” BBC Music Magazine on the Quartet’s rendering of Beethoven Octets of Bruch and Mendelssohn received  “10 out of 10” for both artistic and recording quality from ClassicsToday.com.

In addition to its standard classical repertoire the Kodály Quartet regularly includes in its programmes works by Hungarian composers –  Kodály, Bartók, Dohnányi and others.

An internationally acclaimed violinist, who for many years had a respected duo partnership with her sister, cellist Eleonore Schoenfeld, she taught at USC Thornton School of Music, California, for almost 60 years. She was also the founder of the Harbin Schoenfeld International String Competition and Schoenfeld International Music Society.

Born in 1921 in Yugoslavia, Alice Schoenfeld studied the violin in Berlin under Karl Klingler, a student of Joseph Joachim, and made her debut with the Berlin Philharmonic aged ten. In 1952 she and her family immigrated to the US, where in 1959 both she and Eleonore were invited to join the string faculty at USC. At first, they taught part-time while still maintaining their touring schedule, but eventually became full-time faculty members. Both Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky numbered among their colleagues at the school. Among Alice Schoenfeld’s students were Anne Akiko Meyers and Suli Xue.

The sisters received the USC’s Ramo Music Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching, and the American String Teachers Association named them joint winners of the Artist Teacher Award in 1996.

In the 1980s both Alice and Eleonore were among the first internationally recognised musicians to visit communist China, after formal diplomatic relations had been established between the Chinese and American governments. On their recommendation, more than a hundred Chinese string students studying abroad received scholarship support.

One of the most outstanding Chinese-American violinists, Suli Xue enjoys an active career on today’s international music stage. He is a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, president of the Schoenfeld International Music Society, artistic director of the Schoenfeld International String Competition, artistic director of the Hong Kong International Music Festival, artist in residence at the Azusa Pacific University, artistic advisor of the Young Musicians Foundation Debut Orchestra, former professor of violin at the USC Thornton School of Music, and former concertmaster of the China National Symphony Orchestra. He is also the winner of two Gold Medals of Global Music Awards. Xue has earned high acclaim around the world for his unique artistry. 

Xue graduated from USC Thornton School of Music and Shanghai Conservatory of Music. He was a protégé of world-renowned violin professor Alice Schoenfeld. Xue has been frequently invited as a guest artist and faculty to teach and perform at International Music Festivals in the United States, Europe, and Asia. He has also served as a juror for numerous international music competitions. He performed as a soloist with the YMF Debut Orchestra and the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra for their New Year’s Concert Tour in China, and Pacific Symphony Orchestra for their Chinese New Year’s concert.

Recently, he has participated in many important performances as a soloist with the China National Symphony Orchestra, Harbin Summer Music Festival, and others. In 2014, Xue introduced the Schoenfeld International String Competition to Harbin. In 2017, the competition joined the United Nations ESCO “World Federation of International Music Competitions,” fortifying and promoting music cultural exchange internationally. In August 2017, Mr. Suli Xue collaborated with maestro Zubin Mehta as a soloist and concertmaster to perform in the gala symphony concert at the Harbin China-Russia Cultural and Arts Festival. Maestro Mehta described Xue as “a brilliant violinist and outstanding leader that performs with virtuosic musicality.”

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