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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).
French soprano Mariamielle Lamagat is a recent graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris. She began her musical journey studying classical piano, percussion and jazz piano. She went on to the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles, where she studied French early music. In 2018, she received Third Prize at the Cesti Competition and was awarded several prizes at the Concours International de la Mélodie de Gordes with her duo partner Virgile Van Essche. In 2019, she sang the role of Teofane in Haendel’s Ottone for the Innsbrücker Festwochen der Alten Musik and Clarisse in Haydn’s Il mondo della luna. Lamagat’s passion for ensemble music led her to co-found the vocal quartet L’Archipel and the baroque Ensemble Théodora.
Canadian mezzo-soprano Jillian Tam has just finished her second year as an undergraduate student in vocal performance at McGill University in Montreal under the direction of Dominique Labelle. She is a member of the McGill University Schulich Singers Ensemble conducted by Jean-Sebastian Vallée. Tam was a student at the Boston University Tanglewood Institute in 2018 and this summer, is the youngest singer accepted to the Verbier Festival Academy’s Atelier Lyrique.
Alejandro Viana began his cello studies at age seven. He studied with María de Macedo and with Lluis Claret in Barcelona. He is currently studying at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía (Madrid) with Ivan Monighetti. Alejandro took part in the Verbier Festival Academy in 2021 and, in 2018/19 was a member of Gautier Capuçon’s classe d’excellence de violoncelle. He received first prizes at several competitions, including the Manhattan International Music Competition, the Llanes International Cello Competition (Spain) and the Karl Davidov International Competition (Latvia). He has participated in festivals including IMS Prussia Cove, the Rutesheim Festival and the Santander Festival. As a soloist, Alejandro has performed with the Chamber Orchestra Andrés Segovia, The Zagreb Soloists and the Freixenet Symphonic Orchestra, among others. He recently made his Carnegie Hall debut.
After studying with Jérôme Pernoo at the Conservatoire national Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris and then in Gautier Capuçon’s Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Caroline Sypniewski perfected her skills with Clemens Hagen at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She was named Classical Revelation by Adami (2017) and Young Talent of the Music and Wine Festival in Clos-Vougeot (2019) and was awarded the Ginette Neveu Prize at the Carl Flesch Academy (2015) and Grand Prix of the Académie Ravel (2018). Caroline is supported by the Safran Foundation.