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Varvara Kutuzova began piano studies at age four at the Central Music School before moving onto the Gnessin school in Moscow. She is recipient of the Spivakov and New Names Foundations scholarships, and is winner of competitions including the New York Prima Artist, Astana Piano Passion and the televised Nutcracker International Competition. In addition to performances in Russia, Varvara has appeared at the festivals including Annecy Classic (France), ArtDialog (Switzerland), and the Arturo Benedetti Michelangelo (Italy). As soloist, she has appeared with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the Moscow Virtuosi, the Tchaikovsky Grand Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of Nice and the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra.
Oleksii Kanke studies with Milana Cherniavskaya at the Vienna University for Music and Performing Arts and is a scholar and a regular contributor to the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein, where he holds a Vere Music Foundation scholarship. Oleskii is the winner of several competitions, including the Juries in Competition (Salzburg) and the Vienna International Music Competition, both in 2019, Ettlinen’s International Competition for Young Pianists Competition (2018), Kiev’s International Vladimir Horowitz Memorial Competition (2016), the 2015 International Piano Competition in memory of Emil Gilels (Odessa), the Astana Piano Passion in Kazakhstan and the Step to Excellence in St Petersburg, both in 2013.
Dina Ivanova studied at the Central Music School in Moscow and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow with Alexander Mndoyants before her present teacher, Grigory Gruzman at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar. Dina has won numerous awards including Second Prize at the Liszt Competition in Weimar (2015), First Prize at the Tel Hai Competition in Israel (2016), the Artist Recognition Award at the 2017 International Keyboard Festival in New York, as well as Third Prize and the Capgemini Audience Prize at the Liszt International Competition in Utrecht (2017), after which she immediately embarked on a tour of the Netherlands.
Henry From was First Prize winner of the under age 17 piano category of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Manulife Competition (2018) and was named one as one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s ’30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30′ in 2019. As a collaborator in his piano trio, Trio Savyon, Henry has performed in Boston, Warsaw, Calgary, several cities in Israel, and at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival. He is an enthusiastic composer of chamber and orchestral music too. His orchestral pieces, Isle of Pic and Petawawa Gorges, have both been selected and premiered by the Winnipeg Symphony and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras. He has also had several choral pieces premiered by the Vancouver Chamber Choir. Henry’s current teachers include Sandra Payton, Amanda Chan and Edward Top. Henry previously took part in the Verbier Festival Academy in 2021. He was a co-recipient of the Tabor Foundation Award for piano that summer.
Sae Yoon Chon won First Prize at the 2018 Dublin International Piano Competition and has been a major prizewinner at international piano competitions in Hong Kong, Valencia, Los Angeles, and Seoul, in addition to the Hilton Head International Piano Competition and Young Concert Artists. He first studied piano in his native South Korea with Hyoung-Joon Chang and later received his Bachelor of Music and Artist Diploma at the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, studying with John O’Conor. He is now continuing his master’s degree at The Juilliard School (New York) with Robert McDonald. Sae Yoon made his New York debut at Carnegie Hall and has given solo recitals at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Seoul Arts Center in Seoul, and many others. Sae Yoon has performed with the Cleveland, Hong Kong and Valencia Orchestras, Dublin’s National Symphony Orchestra, and has worked with conductors Jahja Ling, Tania Miller, Bruno Aprea, John Morris Russell, Young-Min Park, Andrew Mogrelia, Erzhan Dautov, Ja Kyung Year and Denis Mastromonaco.
French-Canadian baritone Olivier Bergeron completed his studies at the École Normale de Musique de Paris in 2017. The same year, he sang the title role in La morte d’Orfeo at the Festival de Royaumont under Christophe Rousset. He made his professional debut the following season in Dido and Aeneas with Les Talens Lyriques at the Festival de musique de Menton. Recent performances include Il mondo alla roversa at the Opéra Grand Avignon, Opéra de Reims and the Philharmonie de Paris, Die stumme Serenade with Opera Fuoco and Les Pêcheurs de perles at the Festival d’Opéra de Québec. In recital, he made his debut at the Wigmore Hall and at Salle Cortot during the 2019/2020 season after taking part in the French Song Exchange under the tutelage of François Le Roux and Dame Felicity Lott. Olivier’s projects include a recital at the Petit Palais in Paris and a residency around Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin at the Musée d’art de Joliette, in Quebec. He receives generous support from the Jeunesses Musicales Canada Foundation and the Art Song Foundation of Canada.
Eira Huse’s first singing experience was as a member of the Norwegian Opera Children’s Choir. She has performed at several festivals such as the Oxford Lieder Festival, Kammeroper Schloss-Rheinsberg and Oslo Grieg Festival, among others: A Shepherd/Cat/Squirrel at L’Opéra de Lyon/ROH Muscat, 2nd Woman/2nd Witch (Dido and Aeneas) at the Norwegian Opera and Lady Capulet (Romeo and Juliet by B. Blacher) at the Studio de l’Opéra de Lyon. She has sung with musicians such as Henning Kraggerud and conductors including Titus Engel, Oliver John-Ruthven, Clemens Flick, Nicholas Kok and Emmanuelle Calef. She has also worked with directors Georg Quander, Jean de Lacornerie, Andreas Heise and James Bonas. Upcoming engagements include the role of Dido (Dido and Aeneas) at Ramme Gård. Huse composed and performed the chamber opera ‘Scenes from a Beehive’ about the global disappearance of bees.
Tenor Michael Bell had his first national competitive success when, in 2013, he won Ireland’s Catherine Judge Memorial Prize. He went on to read Music at Cambridge whilst singing with the world-famous Choir of St. John’s College with whom he toured and recorded extensively, most memorably as the Tenor soloist for the Choir’s recording of Janáček’s Otčenás, a performance described as “heroic” in a review by Nicholas Kerrison. Concurrent with his work with the Choir he appeared on the opera stage in roles as varied as Candide, Ferrando, Lysander and Tom Rakewell. In the sphere of contemporary opera he has recorded sketches of Gareth Glyn’s opera Wythnos yng Chymru Fydd for Welsh television channel S4C and created the roles of Gabelkhover and the Schoolmaster in Tim Watts’ Kepler’s Trial at its premiere at the V & A Museum in November 2017. Equally at home as a recitalist, he was a Scholar on Pembroke College Cambridge’s Lieder Scheme for the academic year 2017/2018 and was a prizewinner at the Camerata Ireland Academy in August 2018. He began studies with Russell Smythe at the Royal College of Music in September 2018 as a Big Give Scholar. He is an alumnus of the 2019 Verbier Festival Academy.
A recent graduate of the Opera Course at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and recipient of a number of major awards, British bass William Thomas is fast making a name for himself as one of today’s most promising young singers. As a Jerwood Young Artist he sang the role of Nicholas in the British premiere of Samuel Barber’s Vanessa at the Glyndebourne Festival, he has sung Shepherd Pelléas et Mélisande for Garsington Opera and he made his debut at the Vienna State Opera as Snug in a new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Other recent engagements have included Zweiter Priester/Zweiter Geharnischter Die Zauberflöte for Glyndebourne and Colline La bohème at Alexandra Palace for the English National Opera.