Press Enter to search
Amy Goto began the cello at age three and has studied with Philippe Muller since the age of 12. In 2020 she became the youngest member of the Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle de Gautier Capuçon at the Fondation Louis Vuitton. Her debut as soloist with orchestra took place at age 9 with the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, and in 2015 she received the ‘Hope’ Award at the IX International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians. She has been featured on NPR’s From the Top and TEDx University of Rhode Island. At Musica Mundi in 2016, she performed in the closing gala concert as soloist with the festival orchestra and was the youngest semifinalist at the Mazzacurati Competition in 2019. During the summers, Amy has studied at Musica Mundi, Music@Menlo, and Domaine Forget. She currently resides in Rhode Island (USA).
In 2013, Kevin Chen was listed in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Top 30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30.” He has won multiple international piano competitions, including the International Piano-e-Competition (2019), the Hilton Head International Piano Competition (2020), the Mozart International Piano Competition in Lugano, Switzerland (2020), and the Franz Liszt International Piano Competition in Budapest, Hungary (2021) as both the youngest competitor and the youngest ever winner of the competition. Since his orchestral debut with the Abbotsford Youth Orchestra at the age of seven, Kevin has performed concerts with many symphonies in Canada, including the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vancouver Island Symphony Orchestra, and the Okanagan Symphony Orchestra, many of which featured Kevin’s own orchestral works. As well, he has performed with the Astana Opera Symphony Orchestra (Kazakhstan), the Minnesota Orchestra, the Hilton Head (South Carolina) Symphony Orchestra, and the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra.
Yumeka Nakagawa is the 2021 Prix Clara Haskil recipient (Concours International de Piano Clara Haskil), as well as winner of the prestigious competition’s Audience Award and Children’s Corner Award. She was also the first prizewinner at the 2019 International Robert Schumann Competition (Düsseldorf) and second prizewinner at the International Franz Liszt Competition for Young Pianists (Weimar) in 2014. After winning the federal Jugend Musiziert Competition in 2014, Yumeka was granted a scholarship by the Carl Bechstein Stiftung which led to invitations from numerous venues across Germany. Since 2019 she has appeared on the stages of the Wigmore Hall in London, Tonhalle Düsseldorf and Rachmaninoff Hall at the Mariinsky Theater. Yumeka currently pursues her bachelor’s degree at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar with Grigory Gruzman.
Michał Prószyński is a member of Bühnen Bern’s opera ensemble, as part of which he made his debuts as Pelléas in Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande and Mime in Wagner’s Das Rheingold. Born in Gdów, the Polish tenor studied at Hanover Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien with Marek Rzepka, who already supervised him at the Akademia Muzyczna im. Krzysztofa Pendereckiego w Krakowie. Prior to this, he studied classical guitar at the Fryderyk Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw. Michał made his stage debut in 2015 singing the leading role of Antonio in Moniuszko’s Nocleg w Apeninach and, as a guest at Staatstheater Braunschweig between 2018 and 2020, performed Alfred in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus at Schlossfestspiele Ettlingen. A dedicated Lied singer, he performed at the Second Voice and Piano Chamber Music Festival in Kraków and at the Eighth Festival of Polish Music with the Kraków Philharmonic. Michał was a finalist in the Robert Schumann Singing Competition in 2021.
German baritone Dennis Chmelensky has been praised for his “carrying power as well as subtle sensitivity to sound” (Philadelphia Inquirer). He is a former member of the Washington National Opera’s Cafritz Young Artist Program and an alumus of the Curtis Institute of Music. This season, he made his debut at the Philips Collection with Beethoven’s An die ferne Geliebte and workshopped the role of Sensor in Jeanine Tesori’s new opera Grounded that was commissioned by the Metropolitan Opera. Recent highlights include appearances with Opera for Peace and his debut as Don Giovanni in a Curtis / Opera Philadelphia co-production under the baton of Karina Canellakis. A devoted recitalist, Dennis has performed extensively throughout the United States and Europe, in venues such as the National Gallery of Art and at Konzerthaus Berlin. He was a National Semifinalist of the 2022 Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition and is the recipient of numerous awards. His debut album, DENNIS, was released by Sony Music.
Daniel Barrett is a baritone from Glasgow who is in his first year on the master’s course at the Royal College of Music and studies with Russell Smythe. Daniel is a Drapers’ de Turckheim Scholar and a Drake Calleja Trust Scholar, as well as an associate artist with the Josephine Baker Trust. He previously studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, winning and placing in multiple competitions and graduating with a First class honours degree. This year, Daniel won First Prize at the Royal College Music (RCM) Lieder Competition. He recently appeared as baritone soloist in Brahms’ Ein deutsches Requiem, performed by the RCM Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall, under the direction of Thomas Zehetmair.
Lara Villanueva is a Maryland-based audio engineer and multi-instrumental musician known for her resourcefulness and attention to detail. Music and physics are two sides of the same coin, and Lara has always been intrigued by the relationship of sound with spaces. She has worked in a variety of environments ranging from studio and location recordings to sound reinforcement, and across genres from classical and orchestral to jazz and pop. Some of the organisations that she has recorded and mixed for are the Heifetz International Music Institute, zFestival, and various freelance projects. Originally from the northern suburbs of New York City, Lara currently studies at the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University for her bachelor’s degrees in Bassoon Performance and Recording Arts and Sciences, and her master’s degree in Audio Sciences-Acoustics, and is a member of the Audio Engineering Society’s Student Delegate Assembly.
Atena Carte is a pianist born in Timisoara, Romania. She graduated from the University of Music in Timisoara, where she studied with Maria Bodo. Later on she obtained Concert and Soloist Diplomas studying with Jean-François Antonioli at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne, and a Concert Diploma in Chamber Music with Ulrich Koella and Peter Solomon at the Zürcher University or Arts.
A Swiss Confederation scholarship holder, she received as well the Paderewski Society Prize. She attended masterclasses with Jaques-Saint Yves, François René Duchable, Axel Bauni. She also earned a Certificate of Advanced Studies in cultural project management from the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève.
Since 2007, Carte has a pianist position at the Zürcher University of Arts and since 2018 she is a piano professor at the Conservatoire de Musique de Lausanne. She is also the artistic director of the ACRISCO Festival (CrissierArts Switzerland).
Atena Carte performs regularly in concerts and has won 9 national and international awards. She appears in various festivals (St Prex Festival, Murten Classics, Musique et Montagne, Septembre musical Montreux, Piano à Saint-Ursanne ,Musique en Ecrins,France, Festival de Oravita, Roumanie, Carnegie Hall,New York, with ensemble Altaïr) and collaborates with prestigious orchestras such as Tonhalle Zürich, Opernhaus Zürich, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre de chambre de Lausanne, Bern Symphonie Orchestra. As an orchestra and chamber music musician she collaborated with conductors like Paavo Järvi, Charles Dutoit, Jaap van Zweden, John Eliot Gardiner, David Reiland, and for contemporary music with John Adams, Helmut Lachenmann, Matthias Pintscher, and Pierre-André Valade.
She has recorded several CDs, including works by Piazzola, Messiaen and Raphael.
Carte has been the Coordinator of the Verbier Festival’s piano class since 2o21.
Sébastien Jurczys is a music director, pianist, composer, arranger and stage director. In 2011, he created his first multidisciplinary show with symphony orchestra, choirs and soloists (including Natacha Kowalski). He has also created numerous musical projects at the Le Moderne theatre with director Sarah Cerri (Le Cabaret des Hommes Perdus, Into the Woods, Once Upon a Mattress). Jurczys has performed with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège in L’Orchestre à la portée des enfants and with Musiques Nouvelles (Jean-Paul Dessy) as a laureate of the Young Composers Forum 2013. In 2017, he wrote Bottez Le Chat, a musical tale with Didier Colfs, among others. Since 2018 to 2021, he has taught accompaniment at the Conservatoire Royal de Liège, from which he graduated in piano and music education. He is also a graduate of the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel (composition). Currently, Mr Jurczys is preparing for Various Voices 2026 (the European LGBTQ+ choir festival) with the choir ‘Sing Out Brussels’.
Errollyn Wallen — ‘renaissance woman of contemporary British music’ (The Observer) — is as respected a singer-songwriter of pop influenced songs as she is a composer of contemporary new music. Communication is at the centre of both worlds: engaging the audience, speaking directly to hearts and minds.
Born in Belize, Errollyn Wallen gave up her training at the Dance Theater of Harlem, New York to study composition at the universities of London and Cambridge. She founded her own Ensemble X, and its motto ’We don’t break down barriers in music… we don’t see any’ reflects her genuine, free-spirited approach and eclectic musicianship. She has been commissioned by outstanding music institutions from the BBC to the Royal Opera House and performed her songs internationally.