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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.
After beginning his studies in 1957 with Mario Bigazzi and later working with Giuseppe Marchesi, Leo Nucci won several singing competitions in 1965 and 1966. In 1967, he won the A Belli competition at Spoleto after having made his debut as Rossini’s Figaro. In Milan, while singing in the La Scala chorus, Nucci studied the title role in Rigoletto with maestro Ottaviano Bizzarri and, in 1973, won the Concorso Internazionale Viotti di Vercelli. Nucci appeared at La Scala as Rossini’s Figaro in 1976, the first entry on a long list of leading roles he would sing there. At Covent Garden in 1978, he was called upon to substitute for an ailing colleague as Miller in Verdi’s Luisa Miller, a performance that resulted in re-engagement at Renato (Anckarström) in Un Ballo in Maschera. In 1979, Nucci made his debut at the Wiener Staatsoper as Figaro. Renato served as the agent of his debut at the Metropolitan Opera on February 23, 1980, and again for Paris in 1981 and Salzburg in 1989. Since his debut at the Met, Nucci has sung many of the Verdi roles there. In addition, he has appeared in both San Francisco and Chicago. Nucci has frequently appeared at La Scala, participating in several productions surrounding the centenary of Verdi’s death. For a production of La Forza del Destino, he sang after a short recuperation from a serious ailment. His activities in the recording studio have resulted in a half-dozen Grammys for Best Opera Recording. Nucci has recorded all the major Verdi baritone roles, some of them more than once, all with leading conductors; the list includes Abbado, Bartoletti, Chailly, Giulini, Karajan, Levine, Maazel, Mehta, Muti, and Solti.
Vincent Mons began his musical career playing the classical guitar, and went on to study audio recording at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional d’Annecy. Further studies at the École Louis-Lumière in Paris introduced him to the world of film and radio. At the same time, he developed his record and concert recording activities. It was then that he joined the sound team of Kali Son for the Verbier Festival, subsequently handling the audio post-production. A stint in Canada with The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity’s audio programme confirmed his desire to continue in this direction. On his return to France, he joined the network of independent sound engineers for classical recordings. Since then, he has worked in Europe for a number of labels, both as a recording engineer and producer, adding artistic direction to his work.
Marc Pasteau is Administrator and Associate Founder of Kali Son. While still a student, in 2002, Marc Pasteau founded Kali Son, a company specialising in recording and sound systems. Six years later, Kali Net branch, dedicated to high quality live webcasts, was created, followed shortly by Kali Vision—a live video capture and production solution, offering a complete audiovisual production and broadcasting. In parallel to the administration of the group and his activity as an operator, Marc Pasteau has worked with the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional d’Annecy since 2006 to develop a professional course for ‘sound professionals’ where he teaches recording and post-production to students in science and music. He is also involved in various professional training courses and conferences and is a fixture at the Verbier Festival each summer, where Kali son records all Mainstage concerts.
Golda was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1983. Her mother is a retired nurse, and her father is a retired university professor of Mathematics. Golda studied journalism at Rhodes University before switching to singing at the University of Cape Town, and then at the Juilliard School in New York. In 2011, Golda won a place at the Opera Studio of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich, after which her career developed rapidly.
From her base in Germany she has conquered the world’s opera houses and concert halls, from the Vienna State Opera to the Salzburg Festival; and from La Scala, Milan, to the Metropolitan Opera in New York, to name but four.
In 2020 Golda appeared at the Last Night of the Proms in London, and the following year the recording of Porgy and Bess, in which she portrayed the role of Clara, received a Grammy Award. In 2022 Golda was described as a “gifted soprano” when she received the Bavarian government’s Special Prize for Culture. She was also named Artiste Étoile by the Lucerne Festival the same year.
Her debut album with the pianist Jonathan Ware was likewise released in 2022: This Be Her Verse is devoted to female composers who until then had been ignored by music historians. Reviewers were enthusiastic: the Munich Merkur described it as “one of the most powerful lieder albums of the recent past”, while the Guardian welcomed it as a further demonstration of Golda’s versatility and musical intelligence. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung spoke of the soprano “singing with so much dramatic talent, such magnificent use of tone, colours, and such a feeling for swing that even Schubert and Schumann would have swallowed hard.” This album demonstrates Golda’s great love of lieder and concert singing, a world in which she is just as much at home as she is in the realm of opera.
Germain Umdenstock is a composer and multi-instrumentalist who currently performs with Nicolas Fraissinet and the group Elynn The Green.
Since 1996 Umdenstock has performed on stages such as Les Trois Baudets (Paris), le Flow (Paris), l’Auguste théâtre (Paris), Metro Al Madina (Beirut), Teatro Nacional Rubén Darío (Managua, Nicaragua), Teatro del Arte (San Salvador, El Salvador), Museo del Jade (San Jose, Costa Rica), Le festival Rockailles (Reignier), Maison du Peuple (Ouagadougou), Salle Métropole, D-Club, Festival de la Cité, Festi’Neuch, Venoge Festival, Casino-théâtre (Geneva), Théâtre du Passage (Neuchâtel), opening for artists including Placebo, Keziah Jones, Michel Bühler, Anthony B, Clarika, Christophe Willem, Julien Clerc and Laurent Garnier.
Umdenstock also composes and arranges music for shows, humanitarian projects, documentary films, dramas and, most recently, a France TV animated series. This production activity began in 2007 when he teamed up with Lausanne-based producer, musician and DJ Ripperton, who introduced him to electronic music. Together they wrote several tracks for his albums, Niwa (2010) and A Little Part Of Shade (2013), as well as several remixes for artists such as Phonique, Jimpster and Ellen Allien. Since then, Germain Umdenstock has set up his own recording studio in Geneva.
Germain Umdenstock holds a Master of Music diploma from the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève (2004) and a music pedagogy diploma from the Société Suisse de Pédagogie Musicale (2006), and teaches guitar at the Conservatoire de Vevey-Montreux Riviera and at Emagina-sons in Grand-Lancy. As part of these two institutions, he set up the Rock Workshops, which he has been running since 2009. The students in these workshops paid tribute to Claude Nobs at the Miles Davis hall in February 2013 and won the Senheiser prize at the 2014 Swiss Youth Music Competition, Pop/Rock section, and have performed every year since 2015 on the Music In The Park stage at the Montreux Jazz Festival.
Aude Hauser-Mottier specialises in global postural re-education (RPG) and the Mézières method (muscle chains). She has developed and implemented several personalised treatment programmes, tailored to each patient and to different artists (music, dance, visual arts).
A physiotherapist by profession and a musician by passion, Hauser-Mottier has always been sensitive to the problems of artists, for whom she has developed a personalised approach to care, including physical treatments and psychological support.
For over 30 years, Aude Hauser-Mottier has run her own physiotherapy practice, specialising in supporting artists, in particular using the ‘Artitude, l’École du Beau’ method she created.
Bo Skovhus studied at the Aarhus Music Institute, the Royal Opera Academy in Copenhagen and in New York. Significant engagements in his career were Reimann’s »Lear« at the Paris Opera, and Beckmesser in »Meistersinger« at the Bastille and at the Wagner Festival in Budapest. In addition, Titus in »Bérénice« by Michael Jarrell at the Paris Opera under the direction of Philippe Jordan, as well as in Dresden in the role of Mandryka in »Arabella«. He also sang the title role in »Wozzeck« at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein and Dr. Schön in »Lulu« at the Vienna State Opera, followed by Šiškov in “From a House of the Dead” at the Bavarian State Opera, Jean-Charles in “The Raft of the Medusa” (Werner Henze) in Amsterdam, and the title roles in “Karl V.” (Ernst Krenek) at the Bavarian State Opera, »Lear« at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and »Eugen Onegin« at the Hamburg State Opera. He recently performed as Ryuji in Henze’s “Das Verratene Meer” at Vienna State Opera, Hamburg State Opera as Eisenstein/FLEDERMAUS, Hamburg State Opera Berlin as Jaroslav Prus / VEC MAKROPULOS, in Boston and at Carnegie Hall in concert as WOZZECK, at the Cuvilliestheater in Munich as Father) / BLUTHAUS, and as Plato Kusmitsch Kovalev / DIE NASE at Semper Opera Dresden. In addition to appearances in operas, Bo Skovhus devotes himself to recital and concert singing with great personal commitment. Future engagements include Jochanaan/SALOME in Lübek, FLEDERMAUS in Genoa, Jaroslav Prus/VEC MAKORPULOS in Berlin, Father/BLUTHAUS in Lyon, Mandryka/SALOME in Dresden, Dr. Schön/LULU in Vienna and in Florence, Faninal/ROSENKAVALIER in Geneva, LEAR in Madrid, LEBEN MIT EINEM IDIOTEN (Alfred Schnittke) in Zürich; THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON in Hamburg. The artist has been awarded the title of “Österreichischer Kammersänger” as well as the title of “Bayerischer Kammersänger”.
Augustinas Rakauskas started to play accordion at the age of 7. He is considered as a laureate of more than 30 national, international competitions and championships worldwide since 2003. Among his most prominent international achievements are:
1st Prize in international competition Jeunes Talents-Montrond-les-Bains (France), Grand Prix in international Accordion Art Festival – ITALIA AWARD (Pineto, Italy), 1st Prize in international accordion competition Sion – 2014 (Switzerland). 1st Prize international classical accordion competition VAMO-2016 (Viena, Austria), 3rd Prize in Premio Soloists Category at “Premio Internazionale di Castelfidardo (Italy) 2018, 3rd Prize in Coupe Mondiale de l’accordéon 2018 in Lithuania 2nd Prize in Trophée Mondial 2018 in Canada.
He also received Swiss Awards: Prix Pale´o 2017 for his excellent Master’s recitals, 1st Prize of the Kiefer Hablitzel | Göhner Swiss foundation in 2018 1st Prize winner of the Kiefer Hablitzel | Göhner Swiss foundation in 2019.
He possesses a Master’s degree with excellence in concert performance at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne (Switzerland) where he is currently finishing his 2nd Master in Music Pedagogy. He has established a worldwide concert career in Europe, the USA and Asia where he regularly performs as a soloist and in chamber music duo Tutto a Dio.
Grégoire Blanc is a young French musician, mostly known for his work involving the theremin – this very unique musical instrument, invented in the 1920s, which remains until today one of the most expressive electronic instrument despite its very minimalistic design.
His musical journey started very early with the cello, providing him a strong classical background. His first encounter with the theremin in high school was decisive. Following the completion of two Master’s Degrees, one from the leading engineering school of Arts et Métiers and another one in sciences applied to music offered at Sorbonne University by IRCAM, he finally decided to pursue a career in music.
Grégoire Blanc is renowned as a promising artist, and is regularly invited to perform in various contexts: classical concerts, contemporary theater and dance performances, lectures, studio recordings all around the world, from Canada to Kazakhstan. His ongoing artistic research centres around expressiveness in electronic music, leading him to explore new perspectives, blending tones and techniques to develop his own musical and sonic vocabulary.