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Máté Szűcs is a Hungarian violist. He was born to a musical family and started his education at the age of five, playing the violin. He studied with Ferenc Szecsődi in Szeged, then switched to the viola and worked with Erwin Schiffer. Szűcs attended the Royal Conservatory in Brussels, the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth in Waterloo, and the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp, where he studied with Leo de Neve. In 1998, he was a finalist in the Jean Françaix Competition in Paris, and a laureate in the International Tenuto Competition in Brussels. Szűcs became an orchestral musician, and performed as a solo violist with the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Staatskapelle, the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, and the Royal Flemish Orchestra, eventually becoming the principal violist of the Berlin Philharmonic. Szűcs performs mostly in Europe as a soloist and chamber musician, and has recorded for TYX Art, Profil, and Phaedra.
Ian Anderson plays in many different ensembles, including Scottish Ballet (where he holds the position of Principal Viola), yllwshrk (alternative rock band ‘yellow shark’, where he plays a variety of instruments and writes music), and Berlin-based contemporary string quartet Sonar Quartett. He is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London (undergraduate viola), and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow (postgraduate composition).
In October 2020 yllwshrk released their debut album I AM ALADDIN, produced by Grammy-winner David Donaldson, and featuring collaborations with the London Contemporary Orchestra, Trondheim International Chamber Music Competition winners the Maxwell String Quartet, Mercury-nominated jazz pianist Fergus McCreadie, Andi Toma from Mouse on Mars, saxophonist Nick Roth, and composer Linda Buckley. I AM ALADDIN received 4 stars from The Scotsman newspaper, with the description “audacious debut… ravishing vocals”, and was described by influential music blog Record of the Day as “the sonic soundscapes of Radiohead meet the creative genius of Bowie’s Blackstar album”. The music video of their single Pyramids — starring BBC’s inaugural The Greatest Dancer winner Ellie Fergusson — won Best Music Video at the 2020 Paris Short Film Awards.
Other recent highlights include playing on albums such as Radiohead’s A Moon Shaped Pool, Frank Ocean’s Blonde, and Thom Yorke’s Anima, all as part of the London Contemporary Orchestra.
Ian is a former Principal Viola of the European Union Youth Orchestra, and plays on a 2003 John Dilworth viola, purchased with support from the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund.
In 2022 Jaren Ziegler won the BBC Young Musician Strings Final at age 16, becoming the first violist in the competition’s history to do so. In the Grand Final, he performed the Walton Viola Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Mark Wigglesworth. He has recently been awarded First Prize in the Junior Royal College Concerto Competition, Junior Academy Viola Prize and Bromsgrove Young Musicians’ Platform and was the youngest participant in the 2021 Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition. Jaren attends the Junior Royal College of Music (London). He began playing the viola at age six and studies with Jacky Woods. He has performed in The Royal Festival Hall, St John Smith Square, Brahms-Saal Musikverein and Victoria Hall Singapore. He is a member of LGT Young Soloists, having toured internationally and recorded with them at Abbey Road Studios. he plays a Stefano Scarampella viola, kindly loaned to him by the Beares International Violin Society.
Weiyi Zeng studies at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München with Roland Glassl. She began her studies at age 12 at the Affiliated High School of the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing), where she studied with Shaowu Wang. In 2017, she was leader of the Four Seasons Chamber Orchestra at the Conservatory. After being invited to Japan for the Seiji Ozawa Music Festival in 2018, Weiyi was admitted to the Morningside Music Bridge programme in Poland under full scholarship for two years. She has had lessons with Alexander Zemtsov, Mattiha Buhholz, Paul Colletti, John Abram, Atar Arad and Ori Kam, among others.
American violist Matthew McDowell began music studies on the violin at age four. His teachers have included Ettore Causa, Gérard Caussé, and Ivan Vukčević. In 2021 he completed his Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Music degrees in viola and violin at Columbus State University’s Schwob School of Music, graduating with the highest academic and artistic accolades. During this time, Matthew studied with Paul Coletti, Carol Rodland, Jeffrey Irvine, Csaba Erdelyi, Dr Susan Dubois, Sergiu Schwartz and Helen Callus. While studying at the International Menuhin Music Academy (Rolle), Matthew had the opportunity to play concerts across Europe. Matthew currently studies at the Yale School of Music.
Katie Liu is a Master of Musical Arts student at the Yale School of Music in the studio of Ettore Causa. She received her Master of Music degree at the Colburn School and her undergraduate degree from Princeton University, concentrating in Operations Research and Financial Engineering with minors in Musical Performance and Computer Science. Katie picked up the viola and made her solo debut in 2019 with the Princeton University Orchestra. Aside from her musical pursuits, Katie has had corporate working experiences in asset management and fintech consulting and wrote her senior thesis on the intersection of classical music pattern recognition, machine learning, and neural networks. She is currently a section violist at the New Haven Symphony Orchestra and was selected to compete in the Hindemith International Viola Competition (2021) and Tokyo International Viola Competition (2022).
Sumin Kim began playing the violin at age eight and made her solo debut at the Seoul Arts Center at age 11. Since then, she has performed many recitals and has won top prizes in several major national competitions including the Chunchu and Yewon Music Competitions (South Korea). She attended Yewon School and graduated with the highest honours in violin. She entered the Curtis Institute of Music as a Sandra G. and David G. Marshall Violin Fellow in 2017, where she studied with Aaron Rosand, Midori, Arnold Steinhardt and Shmuel Ashkenasi. As orchestral musicians, she has performed in the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, Juilliard Orchestra, Symphony in C, and the New York String Orchestra under the direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Osmo Vänska. Sumin is currently pursuing her master’s degree at the Juilliard School on the viola with Steven Tenenbom.
Australian violist Isabella Bignasca is completing a master’s degree with Paul Neubauer and Heidi Castleman at The Juilliard School, where she also completed her undergraduate studies. Last year, she attended the Perlman Music Program Chamber Music Workshop, was on the artist roster for Parlance Chamber Concerts, and was a substitute violist with the Florida Orchestra. She has collaborated and performed alongside Itzhak Perlman, the Borromeo Quartet and members of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Isabella has taken part in Music Academy of the West, Kneisel Hall Chamber Music Festival, Aspen Music Festival and School, and the Heifetz International Music Institute, where she later became part of the Heifetz on Tour series.
Amihai Grosz looks back on a very unusual career path: At first a quartet player (founding member of the Jerusalem Quartet), then and until today Principal Violist with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and also a renowned soloist.
Initially, Amihai Grosz learned to play the violin, before switching to the viola at age 11. In Jerusalem, he was taught by David Chen, later by Tabea Zimmermann in Frankfurt and Berlin as well as in Tel Aviv by Haim Taub, who had a formative influence on him. At a very early age, he received various grants and prizes and was a member of the “Young Musicians Group” of the Jerusalem Music Center, a program for outstanding young musical talents.
As a soloist, Grosz has collaborated with renowned conductors such as Zubin Mehta, Tugan Sokhiev, Klaus Mäkelä, Ariel Zukermann, Daniel Barenboim, Sir Simon Rattle, Alexander Vedernikov and Lionel Bringuier. He performs internationally with orchestras such as the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Danish National Symphony Orchestra, the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra.
In the world of chamber music, Amihai Grosz collaborates with artists such as Yefim Bronfman, Mitsuko Uchida, Daniel Hope & Friends, Eric le Sage, Janine Jansen & Friends, Julian Steckel, Daishin Kashimoto and David Geringas. Internationally, he can be heard regularly at the most prestigious concert halls such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Tonhalle Zurich, the Wigmore Hall in London and the Philharmonie Luxembourg, as well as at leading festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Evian, Verbier and Delft Festivals, the BBC Proms and the Utrecht International Chamber Music Festival.
Philipp Sussmann began playing violin at age three. Nine years later he changed to viola and became a Precollege student at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. He was principal violist of the National Youth Orchestra of Germany under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle and, in 2021, won an audition for a fixed position in the NDR Radio Symphony Orchestra. Philipp studied with Veronika Hagen at Mozarteum Salzburg and Volker Jacobsen at Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover. He has won several First and Special Prizes at international viola competitions, including the Szymon Goldberg and the MingClassics International Competitions. As a soloist he has performed with ensembles including the Berliner Camerata, Philharmonie Bad Reichenhall and Münchner Kammerphilharmonie DaCapo. Last year, he joined the Moritzburg Festival Orchestra as principal violist and received a Villa Musica Rheinland Pfalz scholarship.