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Currently a master’s student at Rice University, Adam Cantangui studies with Nova Thomas. Recent roles at the Shepherd School of Music include Lenksy (Eugene Onegin) and First Sailor (Dido and Aeneas). A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, Adam’s stage credits include Arcadio (Florencia en el Amazons), Oronte (Alcina), Jack (Into the Woods) and Miles Zegner (Proving Up). Other roles include Spoletta (Tosca), the first armoured man (The Magic Flute) with the Opera Theatre of St Louis, and Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni) with the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory.
Isabelle Barthélemy has worked in a variety of art restoration and craft trades, including floral painting on furniture and leatherwork.
In 2016, she founded the Insolite Lights company with François Monnet: creating and making sculptures / lanterns, giant animals made of wicker and paper, for street shows. Following this rich experience, she created a series of interior lamps and other wicker and paper creations. At the same time, she is developing her own way of creating giant lanterns and light masks for theatre, street shows and installations for towns and cities.
Since 2019, she has been training as a prop maker, working in costume design workshops for opera companies.
“Yilian is one of the most incredible talents of the new generation of Cuban musicians. She is a virtuoso, she is expressive, spontaneous and with a grace that makes her the favorite of all of us.” — Chucho Valdés
Yilian Cañizares is one of the most intriguing contemporary violinists, singers and composers. Always staying true to her origins, she skilfully blends jazz, classical and Afro- Cuban rhythms with her otherworldly voice. Whether on stage or in a recording studio, there are few talented artists like Yilian – who was born in Havana and settled in Switzerland – with such great respect for the past and sensitivity towards the future, accompanied by a smile to die for.
Pianist and composer Nicolas Namoradze came to international attention in 2018 upon winning the triennial Honens International Piano Competition in Calgary, Canada—among the largest prizes in classical music. His recitals around the globe have been met with universal critical praise, and recent album releases have received extraordinary accolades, including the Choc de Classica, Record of the Month in Limelight, Instrumental Disc of the Month in BBC Music Magazine, Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, Editor’s Choice in Presto Classical and Critics’ Choice in International Piano.
His current activities include residencies at the Konzerthaus Dortmund, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra and Toronto Summer Music; recitals at concert halls including New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin and the Tokyo Bunka Kaikan; festival appearances at Tanglewood, Banff, Gstaad, Santa Fe and more; and performances with orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Sinfonieorchester Basel and the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, with conductors such as Iván Fischer, Karina Canellakis, Hans Graf, John Axelrod, Ken-David Masur, Finnegan Downie-Dear and Daniele Rustioni.
After completing his undergraduate in Budapest, Vienna and Florence, Namoradze moved to New York for his master’s at The Juilliard School and his doctorate at the CUNY Graduate Center. His teachers and mentors have included Emanuel Ax, Yoheved Kaplinsky, Zoltán Kocsis, Matti Raekallio, András Schiff and Eliso Virsaladze in piano, and John Corigliano in composition. He also holds a postgraduate degree in neuropsychology from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King’s College, London, where his research interests included the effects of mental practice and mindfulness on musical performance. Namoradze is the author of the book “Ligeti’s Macroharmonies”, published by Springer in the Computational Music Science series, and his compositions are published by Muse Press.
After serving on the faculty of Queens College, where he taught chamber music, composition and music history, Nicolas Namoradze now teaches piano and chamber music on the faculty of the CUNY Graduate Center and The Juilliard School.
Hamburg’s exceptional talent Niklas Paschburg has developed his own musical style in which neo-classical, ambient and serious music merge into a sound that is both meditatively moving and symphonically uplifting. The artist, who now lives in Berlin, plays his favourite instrument, the piano, with a twist, in churches and clubs. Like a DJ, his music mixes synthesiser, piano, accordion and bass drums with a computer to create video and light shows. Niklas Paschburg loves nature and draws inspiration from it, creating sound-painting journeys through deep soundscapes with club-ready intensity.
Born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Louis Jucker obtained a degree in architecture in Lausanne, and from then on, as a “full-time DIY musician”, he set up his do-it-yourself tricks. As the powerful lead singer of the mathcore band Coilguns, he toured Europe and overseas. He still writes theatre music and poetic folksongs for himself and his growing circle of artists, and enjoys inventing and building instruments, tinkering with recording techniques and collaborating on cross-disciplinary projects, notably with visual artist Augustin Rebetez and actors Joël Maillard and Camille Mermet. Louis Jucker is co-founder of the Hummus Records label and the Mono Hobo association, a production platform that networks artists across disciplines through workshops, recordings and performances. He is the winner of the Swiss Music Prize 2021.
Meigui Zhang is a Chinese soprano whose international career has developed significantly since being named a Prix Yves Paternot laureate in 2019. In recent seasons, she has appeared at major opera houses including the Metropolitan Opera, San Francisco Opera, and the National Centre for the Performing Arts in Beijing, singing roles such as Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro), Oscar (Un ballo in maschera), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), and Susanna (Le nozze di Figaro). She returned to the Verbier Festival in 2024 as Barbarina in Le nozze di Figaro. Her recent and upcoming engagements also include projects with the Paris Philharmonic, Minnesota Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, and a return to San Francisco Opera for the world premiere of Huang Ruo and David Henry Hwang’s The Monkey King. Alongside her operatic work, she maintains an active international concert career across Europe, North America, and Asia
A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, Sandrine Piau was first discovered by William Christie and has since become one of today’s most captivating sopranos. Equally at home in Baroque and modern repertoire, she has sung leading roles at the Opéra de Paris, Salzburg Festival, Covent Garden, and La Scala. Her wide-ranging career includes performances with conductors such as Philippe Herreweghe, Raphaël Pichon, Emmanuelle Haïm, and Laurence Equilbey. A passionate recitalist, she appears with pianists David Kadouch and Alexandre Tharaud and has recorded numerous acclaimed albums for Alpha Classics. Her latest release, Quintette imaginaire with the Quatuor Psophos, explores the world of Schubert through voice and strings.