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Clara Yuna began playing the cello at age seven. Despite her young age of 15, she has already received multiple prizes in national and international music competitions, including the Polstjärnepriset (Sweden, 2023), the Bundeswettbewerb Jugend Musiziert (Germany, 2022), the International Anton Rubinstein Competition for Young Cellists (Germany, 2022), Ungdommens Musikkmesterskap (Norway, 2021) and the international Young Musicians Competition in Tallinn (Estonia, 2019). Concert highlights have included performances of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Delyana Lazarovay, and Bruch’s Kol Nidrei and Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major with several youth orchestras. Her teacher is Ole-Eirik Ree at the Barratt Due Academy in Oslo. From September 2023 Clara will be a guest student at the Kronberg Academy with Prof. Frans Helmerson. Clara plays a cello that has been generously made available by the Norwegian Dextra Musica Foundation.
Cellist Luka Coetzee made her solo debut in 2015 at age 11 with the Calgary Civic Symphony. Seven years later, in 2022, she received First Prize at the Pablo Casals International Award (Spain), First Prize at the Johansen International Strings Competition (USA), a special prize and Second Prize at the Dotzauer International Competition (Germany), and a special prize at the UNISA International Strings Competition (South Africa). She also performed last year as soloist with the University Symphony Orchestra in Dresden, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, and the National Philharmonic Orchestra. As a member of the LGT Young Soloists, Luka also recorded the Beethoven A Major Sonata on NAXOS. She has performed in concert halls including the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Berlin Philharmonie, the Tonhalle Zürich, Victoria Hall in Singapore, and at the Rheingau Musik Festival. She is currently studying at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.
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.
Claire Wells is the Mendelssohn-Prize First Prize and Commission Prize winner at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Competition (2021). She was also a prizewinner at the Indianapolis and Mirecourt International Competitions, among others. Now studying at the Kronberg Academy with Mihaela Martin, Claire previously studied privately with Brian Lewis, Sandy Yamamoto and Emanuel Borok. In 2017, she attended the Yehudi Menuhin School, where she worked with Lutsia Ibragimova. Claire has performed with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra, the Jalisco Philharmonic, the Shen Zhen Symphony Orchestra, the Nancy Lyric Symphony Orchestra and the Qingdao Symphony Orchestra, among others. A passionate chamber musician, she has worked alongside Nobuko Imai, Frans Helmerson, Christian Tetzlaff and Steven Isserlis, and has been coached by Ana Chumachenco, Boris Kuschnir, Andràs Schiff and Robert Levin. Claire Wells is an alumna of the Verbier Festival Academy (2023),
Mira Foron made her debut at age 14 at the Tonhalle Zürich, performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. She went on to represent Germany at the Eurovision Young Musicians competition in Edinburgh where she collaborated with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard in the Finals. Mira has given recitals at the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommerna and Copenhagen Summer Festival, and has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Konzerthaus and Göteborgs Konserthus. Upon invitation of Anne Sophie Mutter, she joined ‘Mutter’s Virtuosi’ for performances at the Salzburger Festspiele and the Festspielhaus in Baden-Baden. Mira is a student of Julia Fischer at the Musikhochschule in Munich and holds a scholarship from the Mozart Gesellschaft Dortmund and the Deutschen Stiftung Musikleben. Future engagements include concerts with the Dortmunder Philharmoniker and Staatsorchester Stuttgart.
Ilva Eigus started playing violin at age four with Liana Tretiakova at the Zakhar Bron School of Music in Zurich. She made her orchestral debut at age eight performing the Kabalevsky Violin Concerto. Since then, she has played as a soloist with Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Moscow Philharmonic and Novosibirsk Philharmonic, among others. She made her Tonhalle Zürich debut performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto with the Prague Royal Philharmonic earlier this year. Other highlights include performances at the Trans-Siberian Art Festival, the Menton Music Festival, Septembre Musical in Montreux, at Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, and at the Mozarteum Salzburg. Ilva was awarded First Prize at the XXI International ‘Nutcracker’ Competition in Moscow (2020) and Second Prize at the Wieniawski-Lipinski Competition (Lublin) in 2021. She is a Pre-College student of the Zurich University of Arts and plays a 1707 Omobono Stradivari on generous loan from Stradivari Stiftung Habisreutinger.