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Sam Hird studies at the Royal College of Music (RCM) in London for a Master of Performance with baritone Peter Savidge. Recent engagements include baritone soloist in a special RCM concert to celebrate the life of composer Joseph Horovitz, L’Ambasciatore in Respighi’s opera La Bella Dormente nel Bosco, and Jesus in Bach’s St John Passion with Milton Keynes Chorale. Previous experience includes baritone solo in Vaughan Williams’ A Sea Symphony conducted by Jonathan Willcocks, London Song Festival masterclass with Sir Thomas Allen, a Winter’s Night Recital of songs by Schubert, Britten and Fauré for baritone and guitar at All Saint’s Church (York), and baritone solo in Handel’s Messiah with the Orchestra of St John’s at Dorchester Abbey conducted by John Lubbock. Sam is a Richard Silver Scholar and is supported by the Josephine Baker Trust.
Yulia Matochkina opens her 2024/25 season with Verdi’s Requiem in Rome with the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, conducted by Daniel Harding. She returns to the Bayerische Staatsoper München as Ulrica Un ballo in maschera and Santuzza in a new production of Cavalleria rusticana. She will also return to ROH Covent Garden as Azucena Il trovatore and to Deutsche Oper Berlin as Amneris Aida. Later, she will perform Carmen with Ópera de Las Palmas and Santuzza in Cavalleria rusticana with the Lyric Opera of Chicago.
Matochkina’s recent appearances include debuts as Venus Tannhäuser and Azucena Il trovatore at Bayerische Staatsoper, and her return to Deutsche Oper Berlin as Amneris Aida and Ortrud Lohengrin.
Other recent highlights include Eboli Don Carlo at The Metropolitan Opera, Semperoper Dresden, The Royal Ballet and Opera, Amneris Aida and Ulrica. Un ballo in maschera at the Spring Festival Tokyo with Riccardo Muti, Dalila Samson et Dalila with Opera de Tenerife. Verdi’s Requiem at Opernhaus Zürich, the Verbier Festival, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, the Dutch National Opera, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, Carmen at Arena di Verona, Azucena Il trovatore at Opernhaus Zürich, Ulrica Un ballo in maschera at Teatro alla Scala, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Marfa Khovanshchina with Opéra national de Paris, Federica Luisa Miller at Staatsoper Hamburg and the Salzburg Festival.
Yulia took the first steps of her career with the Mariinsky Theatre and soon became its leading soloist. In her home theater she had the opportunity to build an extended repertoire of the main mezzo-soprano roles such as Amneris Aida, Eboli Don Carlo, Principessa de Bouillon Adriana Lecouvreur, Dido Les Troyens, Dalila Samson et Dalila, Venus Tannhäuser, Ortrud Lohengrin, Brangäne Tristan und Isolde, Wellgunde Das Rheingold, Kundry Parsifal, Polina Pique Dame, Ascanio Benvenuto Cellini, Dulcinée Don Quichotte, Marguerite La damnation de Faust, Joanna The Maid of Orleans and Marfa Khovanshchina, among others.
She is the first prize-winner of the Golden Medal of the XV International Tchaikovsky competition and the first prize-winner of the 9th Rimsky-Korsakov International Competition for Young Opera Singers.
Yulia Matochkina was born in Mirny in the Arkhangelsk Region and graduated from the Petrozavodsk State Conservatoire, named after Glazunov, where she studied with Professor Viktoria Gladchenko. She was also a member of the Mariinsky Academy of Young Opera Singers between 2009–2015.
Oleksandr Yankevych began playing the piano at age 10 and graduated with honours at the Music Academy of Bydgoszcz in Poland. Later, he joined the Opera Studio of the Warsaw State Opera and the Opera Studio of the Zurich Opera House before working as korrepetitor and assistant conductor at the Royal Swedish Opera in Stockholm. Yankevych is Laureate of several international competitions, including the HSBC Académie d’Aix-en-Provence (2018), and won Second Prize and the Orchestra Prize at the 2021 Arturo Toscanini Competition (Parma).
Gerald Karni enjoys a diverse career in music, regularly traveling around the world with leading instrumentalists and conductors. Born in Israel, he began violin at a young age before switching to the viola, which he plays as member of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, led by Daniel Barenboim. As a conductor, he has worked with orchestras in the United States, Finland, Bulgaria, Hungary and Switzerland under the guidance of teachers such as Jorma Panula, Benjamin Zander and Marc Kissozcky. Gerald is mentored by both Daniel Barenboim and Jorma Panula. In 2021, he was awarded a Silver Medal as well as a Special Mention at the Third International Antal Doráti Conducting Competition in Budapest.
In February 2023, French conductor Samy Rachid was appointed the new Assistant Conductor of Boston Symphony Orchestra under Music Director Andris Nelsons for a two-year term, effective in October 2023. He will debut with the orchestra during the Tanglewood Music Festival 2024, followed by subscription concerts at Symphony Hall during Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2024/25 season. Currently working as Assistant Conductor of the Opéra National du Rhin in Strasbourg, Samy Rachid was a Conducting Fellow in the Verbier Festival Conducting programme in 2022, where he worked with such renowned conductors as Klaus Mäkelä and Gianandrea Noseda, and took part in the Gstaad Conducting Academy, where he worked closely with Jaap von Zweden and became the first French conductor to be awarded the Academy’s Neeme Järvi Prize.
Jaehyuck Choi is a conductor-composer, and artistic director of the ensemble blank. After having his debut with the London Symphony at the Lucerne Festival in 2018, Choi has been invited to Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Trondheim Symphony, etc. He was assistant conductor to Paavo Järvi’s Korean Tour, Vienna Opera Academy, and guest assistant to Ensemble Intercontemporain. Winning the First prize of the Concours de Genève with his clarinet concerto in 2017 and conducting the London Symphony at the Lucerne Festival with Sir Simon Rattle on Stockhausen’s Gruppen in 2018, brought him international recognition as both composer and conductor. Choi’s works are represented by Universal Edition in Wien, which have been performed and commissioned by Menuhin Competition, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Parker Quartet, Divertimento ensemble, Chamber Music Columbus, Banff Centre for the arts and creativity, etc. Graduate of The Juilliard School and the Barenboim-Said Akademie, Jaehyuck makes his home in Berlin and Seoul.
Israeli conductor Rotem Nir currently serves as the Conductor in Residence and Head of Music at the Israeli Opera, while also working as the assistant to the music director at the Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion. With extensive experience, he has previously worked as an assistant conductor at the Israel Chamber Orchestra and has conducted numerous Israeli orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Chamber Orchestra, and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra. Rotem’s repertoire spans from Handel’s Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno with the Georgisches Kammerorchester in Ingolstadt to Verdi’s La traviata at the Israeli Opera. He has garnered recognition through awards such as the Golden Baton conducting competition of the Buchmann Mehta School of Music and the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and the New Conductors competition of the Israel Chamber Orchestra. Rotem’s musical education includes studies at the Nes Ziona Conservatory, the Thelma Yellin High School for the Arts, and the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music, where he studied conducting with Yoav Talmi and bassoon with Daniel Mazaki. 2024 marks Rotem’s second year as a Fellow of the Verbier Festival’s Conducting Programme.
Gabriel Le Magadure has been fascinated by chamber music and more particularly by the world of the string quartet since he was very young. He is the violinist of Quatuor Ébène.
As a member of the quartet, Le Magadure has performed in the most prestigious concert halls in the world: Carnegie Hall in New York, Berlin Philharmonic, Wigmore Hall in London, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Musikverein and Konzerthaus in Vienna, Tonhalle in Zürich, Mozarteum in Salzburg, Salzburger Festspiele, Théâtre des Champs-Elysées, Théâtre du Châtelet and Salle Pleyel in Paris. He regularly performs in Japan, the United States and throughout Europe.
Born in 1981, Gabriel Le Magadure started playing the violin at age 6 at the CNR of Nantes. In 1999, after obtaining a first prize in violin (in the class of Colette Bord) and two first prizes in chamber music, he entered the CNR of Boulogne-Billancourt in the class of Maryvonne Le Dizès. In 2001 he obtained first prize in violin with unanimous approval and the following year he entered the CNSMD in Lyon in the class of Christophe Poiget. In 2003, after winning 2nd prize (1st prize not awarded) at the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition with Quatuor Ébène, Le Magadure devoted himself entirely to the quartet.
Within this ensemble he has worked with great teachers including the Ysaÿe Quartet, Gábor Takács-Nagy, Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Eberhard Feltz and the composer György Kurtag. The quartet has also had the chance to share the stage with renowned partners such as Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Mitsuko Uchida, Nicholas Angelich, Alexandre Tharaud, Franck Braley, Daniel Müller-Schott, Antoine Tamestit, Bertrand Chamayou, Nicolas Altstaedt, Andràs Schiff and Menahem Pressler among them.
Le Magadure has also led masterclasses throughout the world: at the Freiburg and Stuttgart Hochschule, at the Lake District Festival in England, at the Colburn School in Los Angeles, and at the CNSM in Paris. In 2021, he became professor in residence at the Munich Hochschule.
Recorder player and baroque violinist Yasaman Mashhouri was born in Tehran. At age ten, she began her first musical education and soon thereafter began playing the recorder and taking her first violin lessons. The recorder impressed her so much that she learned it autodidactic. She went on to study biology at Tehran University, from which she graduated with a Bachelor of Science. In 2017, she returned to a focus on music with studies in Vienna, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in recorder performance at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna with Carsten Eckert. She continued studies in recorder at the Hochschule für Musik Nuremberg, with a focus on singing. She has been pursuing her master’s in recorder there since 2021, in the class of Jeremias Schwarzer. Since 2022, she has also been studying baroque violin with Pauline Nobes at the Würzburg University of Music.
Classical music, jazz, contemporary music—for Maxine Troglauer, these are not genres that can be easily separated from one another. They are organically interconnected resonance spaces that give the German bass trombonist the opportunity for a self-confident dialogue with the past. Maxine graduated with a master’s degree in Contemporary Performance from the Manhattan School of Mujsic in 2021, where she studied bass trombone with Dave Taylor. A year later was Finalist in the Young Concert Artist Trust auditions (London) and was named winner of The Ritter Prize, awarded each year by the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation (Germany) for outstanding achivements by musicians. Her broad range of experience across musical genres has created a foundation for diverse portfolio randing from productions for NDR, BR, Deutsche Oper Berlin and the jazz label ECM, to solo concerts with orchestras, feminist musicals and TikTok operas.