Press Enter to search
After starting his career as a teacher, René-Claude Emery changed direction in 2002 and became an actor. He graduated from the Serge Martin Theatre School in 2005.
At the Teatro Comico in Sion, Les Artpenteurs and Le Pulloff in Lausanne, and the Théâtre des Osses in Fribourg, he has tried his hand at classics such as Le Roman de Renart, Le Fabuleux La Fontaine, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Gorky’s Les Bas-Fonds, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, various Molière plays, Seneca and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.
In a more contemporary vein, he has performed plays by Louis Calaferte, Blandine Costaz, Jean-Claude Blanc, Eric Masserey, Bastien Fournier, Julien Mages, Howard Barker and, most recently, Coline Ladetto and Jon Fosse. He has also taken part in a clown duo in a selection of classics of the genre.
In 2015, he staged his first professional production of Antonin Artaud’s radio play Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu in the gardens of the Malévoz psychiatric hospital. At the same time, he writes for the theatre and has founded his own company: La Compagnie du CHARIOT-MIROIR.
Russian-American Soprano Erika Baikoff is in her second year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. This season at the Met, she sings the roles of Xenia in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (debut), conducted by Sebastian Weigle; and Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, under the musical direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Other engagements this season include Marzelline in Fidelio with North Carolina Opera.
From 2018 to 2020, Erika was a member of the Lyon National Opera Studio, where her roles included Le Feu/ Princesse/ Rossignol in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Juliet in Boris Blacher’s Romeo and Juliet. She was also featured as the soprano soloist in Mahler’s 4th Symphony with the Lyon National Opera Orchestra, conducted by Daniele Rustioni. Most recently, she sang the role of Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème, as part of the Verbier Festival’s Atelier Lyrique. In 2022, she will make her debut at Musikverein Graz as Anna in Verdi’s Nabucco.
Erika was a 2021 Queen Sonja International Music Competition Finalist and a 2020 Metropolitan Opera Competition Semifinalist. She is also the first prize recipient at the 2019 Helmut Deutsch International Lied Competition and the 10th Concours Nadia et Lili Boulanger with her duo partner, Gary Beecher. Other awards include the 2019 Career Bridges Grant, 2018 Mondavi Young Artist Founders’ Prize, and 2013 Bouchaine Young Artist Scholarship.
Erika holds a Bachelor of Arts in French Studies from Princeton University and a Master of Music from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Né à Hyères en 1999, Kim BERNARD étudie le piano dès l’âge de 5 ans avec Michelle MARY. Il rencontre début 2008 Bernard d’ASCOLI et Eleanor HARRIS et devient dès lors étudiant de “Piano Cantabile”. Il intègre parallèlement la même année le conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Toulon en troisième cycle dans la classe de Célimène DAUDET. En juin 2011, il obtient, à tout juste 12 ans, son D.E.M de piano à l’unanimité avec félicitations du jury. En mars 2012, il remporte le Premier Prix du Concours International de Montrond-les-Bains dans la catégorie des moins de 17 ans. Deux mois plus tard, il obtient le Prix “jeune talent” au Concours International d’Ile-de-France et remporte en août le Premier Prix du Concours National des “Nuits Pianistiques” d’Aix-en Provence, face à des concurrents deux fois plus âgés que lui. En mai 2015, il remporte le Prix Kurtàg au Concours International “brin d’herbe” d’Orléans. A l’automne 2013, a 14 ans il est admis avec dérogation au concours d’entrée du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon. Dans la classe de Florent BOFFARD Il obtient en juin 2016 sa licence puis en 2018 son MASTER II avec Laurent CABASSO. En novembre 2018, il entame un cycle concertiste au CRR de Paris avec Jérôme GRANJON et il est finaliste du concours CZIFFRA ou il obtient le 3ème prix ex-æquo. Il a joué au MuCEM de Marseille et a des festivals en pays varois cet été 2019, puis dans le cadre « Jeunes Talents » a Versailles (septembre 2019) et a l’auditorium du Petit Palais – Musée des Beaux Arts de la ville de Paris (octobre 2019).
Acknowledged for his “virtuosic poetry” (Tiroler Tageszeitung) and “extraordinarily subtle and intoxicating playing” (Liechtensteiner Volksblatt), David Bergmüller is regarded as one of the most adventurous and exciting lutenists of his generation. He is committed to creating a new legacy for the lute. His approach is to bridge the gap between historically informed/inspired practice and contemporary performance.
David Bergmüller has performed at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Berlin, Philharmonie Cologne, Vienna Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein, Zurich Tonhalle, Alte Oper Frankfurt. He has appeared as a soloist at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, Utrecht Ode Musik Festival, Bozar Brussels, 20 fast forward, Schubertiade Hohenems, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Barocktage Melk, Wien Modern & LIGITA Liechtensteiner Gitarrentage.
He has collaborated extensively with Maurice Steger, Avi Avital, David Orlowsky, Sergio Assolini, Hille Perl & Rolf Lislevand and with ensembles ZKO- Zurich Chamber Orchestra, ensemble resonanz, Bach Consort Vienna & Company of music, among others.
David Bergmüller has released numerous recordings of early, contemporary and electronic music. Not only does he play his own compositions for his instruments, combining acoustic with electronic sounds, but he is also the dedicatee of numerous contemporary works by composers including Pia Palme, Arturo Fuentes, Gilad Hochman, Manuel Durauo and Franz Bauer.
As a sought-after basso continuo player he has performed with such renowned ensembles as Concentus Musicus Vienna, Collegium 1704, I Baroccisti, La Cetra Barockorchester, Barucco & Ars Antiqua Austria and has worked in opera productions at Theater an der Wien, Staatsoper Hannover, Opera de Lille, Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, Theater Bonn, Nationaltheater Mannheim and The Bolshoi Theatre Moscow.
Forthcoming engagements include concerts at Verbier Festival, Philharmonie Essen, Innsitu: BTV Innsbruck, West Cork Music Festival , Grafenegg Festival, Shakespear Festival Neuss, Köthener Bachfesttage, MITO Settembre Musica etc.
David Bergmüller was the first lute player to win the Franz Aumann Preis at the HIF Biber Early Music Competition. With his ensemble sferraina he was nominated for Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik in the category “Grenzgänger” (breaking boundaries). Born in Hall in Tirol/Austria in 1989 he began learning the guitar at the age of eight. During his time in Stefan Hackl’s guitar class he became fascinated by the lute. He studied with Hopkinson Smith and Rolf Lislevand. After graduating from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Hochschule für Musik Trossingen, he became one of the youngest ever appointed music professors in 2018, teaching lute at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. He is currently based in Vienna.
Musician, gamba-player, has played music as long as she can think. For her, music is the foremost means of communication between human beings, more precise and intense and unmistakable than language, of greater emotional significance than any other experience besides love. To her, music is a means of connecting not only the past and the future but also a way of socially integrating the most conflicting aspects of existence.
She travels the world, playing concerts and recording CDs with different groups or soloizing, or with her main partner, the lutenist and composer Lee Santana. They mostly perform in the field of 17th and 18th century music, but they also let the music take them to places they never even dreamed of.
When she is not travelling she lives in a farmhouse in northern Germany with her family and a few chickens, horses, cats and rabbits.
She passionately teaches her twelve students at the Hochschule der Künste in Bremen, Germany, everything she knows about music, playing the gamba, and how not to be jealous if someone plays better than you.
People of the world: relax…
Sebastian Wienand lives in Basel and performs worldwide on historic keyboard instruments as a soloist, chamber music partner, and continuo player. He has collaborated with musicians and ensembles such as the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin, Les musiciens du Louvre, Millennium Orchestra, Maurice Steger, Gottfried von der Goltz, Rebeka Rusó and many others.
Prior to studying harpsichord, fortepiano and figured bass he founded the ensemble L’Ornamento. This work was rewarded by successes such as first prize and audience award for the ensemble at Musica Antiqua Bruges and the audience award at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern festival, where the ensemble has been an almost annual guest ever since.
As musical assistant to the Belgian conductor René Jacobs, he has contributed to internationally acclaimed opera productions at venues such as the Theater an der Wien or La Monnaie in Brussels. He has been invited several times to join his most important partner, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, for example to play Beethoven’s „Chorfantasie“ at Berlins Philharmonie to celebrate the anniversary of the fall of the wall in 2014. A further highlight was a concert moderated by Andreas Staier with an all-Haydn programme at the Schwetzinger Festspiele in 2013, where he was invited again in 2016 to lead the six Brandenburg concertos together with La Cetra Basel.
Some CDs feature him as a soloist and chamber musician, for example Cembalo concertos of the Bach family with the Brandenburg State Orchestra and Howard Griffiths as well as Bach’s fifth Brandenburg concerto with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra.
Sebastian Wienand has been a scholarship recipient of the German Music Council, the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, the Credit Suisse Emerging Artists Series, the Mozart Foundation Dortmund, and the Arts Foundation Baden-Württemberg.
Catherine Edwards has a varied career on both piano and organ, performing, broadcasting and recording as chamber pianist, accompanist and soloist. Her chamber music experience with groups such as Capricorn, The Nash Ensemble, Endymion and Composers’ Ensembles includes standard and contemporary repertoire, and she has worked closely with composers such as Pierre Boulez, Luciano Berio, Steve Reich and John Adams. Edwards studied the piano with Phyllis Sellick and Vlado Perlemuter, and the organ with Ralph Downes and Gillian Weir. She has been the pianist and coordinator of the Verbier Festival Academy’s cello class for several years.
Bass Yannick Spanier studied at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media and at the Conservatoire de Toulouse. The young singer has already been cast in many important roles, including Sarastro (Die Zauberflöte), Arkel (Pelléas et Melisande) and Dr Bartolo (Il Barbiere di Siviglia). From the 2017 / 18 season, Spanier was part of the Junge Oper Hannover and, in 2019 / 20, he joined the ensemble of the Hannover Staatsoper, where he just finished a run as Don Alfonso in Così fan tutti. He is an alumnus of the Verbier Festival Academy’s Atelier Lyrique (2018).