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Nicolas Hartmann studied at the Conservatoire à rayonnement départemental d’Orléans, then at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris with André Navarra and Philippe Muller. In 1983, he won a virtuosity prize at the Geneva Conservatoire and went on to perfect his skills in Cologne with Boris Pergamenschikow. After winning the Pablo Casals Competition in Barcelona in 1986, he became principal cellist of the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, before joining the Orchestre National de Lyon in 1992, where he holds the same position.
Nicolas Hartmann has performed as soloist with Franz Welser-Möst, Emmanuel Krivine, Alexandre Lazarev, David Robertson, Thierry Fischer, Tibor Varga and Roy Goodwin, and has played chamber music with Emanuel Ax, Éric Le Sage, Joseph Silverstein, Jennifer and Alan Gilbert, Harvey de Souza, Boris Garlitzky, Emmanuel Pahud and Bruno Pasquier. A keen student of early instruments, he was a member of the Chambre philharmonique, the orchestra founded by Emmanuel Krivine. Since 2001, he has taught the cello section of the Orchestre français des jeunes.
Austrian flautist Magdalena Bogner has been principal flute at the Komische Oper Berlin since September 2015. She studied at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna with Andrea Wild and Karl-Heinz Schütz. While studying for her concert diploma there she also completed a degree in instrumental teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She then went to Salzburg for a master’s degree with Michael Martin Kofler at the Mozarteum University, which she passed with distinction.
She gained her first orchestral experience as an intern with the Munich Symphony Orchestra in 2012. From 2013-2015 she was an academy student at the Bavarian State Opera, where she subsequently was given a temporary contract, receiving important artistic impulses.
As principal flautist, she has appeared as a guest with orchestras such as the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Staatsoper unter den Linden, WDR Cologne, NDR Hannover, DSO Berlin, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, SWR Stuttgart, Wiener Symphoniker and Kammerakademie Potsdam, and has worked with conductors such as Kirill Petrenko, Zubin Mehta, Sir Simon Rattle, Vladimir Jurowski, James Gaffigan, Philippe Jordan, Jakub Hrusa, Philippe Herreweghe and Marc Minkowski. She was a guest musician in the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2024, playing second flute.
As well as being awarded the Fidelio Prize in 2008, she received a scholarship from the Yamaha Music Foundation 2012. In the summer of 2012, she was a member of the Angelika Prokopp Summer Academy of the Vienna Philharmonic.
In addition to her varied chamber music activities, Magdalena has been a permanent member of the ensemble ‘Die 14 Berliner Flötisten’ since 2017. Eager to dive into the world of teaching and work with young flautists she is very happy to start as a lecturer for flute at the Franz Liszt University of Music in Weimar in April 2025.
Rémi Grouiller discovered the oboe at a very early age at the Ecole Nationale de Musique de l’Aveyron, thanks to his teacher Nathalie Lebrazidec. From 2004 he studied with Michel Giboureau and then Daniel Arrignon, before joining the Paris Conservatoire – CNSMDP in 2008 in the oboe class of David Walter, Jacques Tys and Frédéric Tardy. He obtained his Diplôme National Supérieur de Professionnel de la Musique de Hautboïste in 2011, his Licence de Musique de Chambre in 2012 and his Master’s degree in 2013.
A keen orchestral player, he was a member of the Orchestre Français des Jeunes in 2009 and 2010, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival Orchestra in 2012 and the Orchestre du Festival de Verbier in 2014 and 2015.
At the same time, in 2013 he became principal oboe with the Conservatoire Lauréats Orchestra, then principal English horn with the Orchestre de Limoges et du Limousin, before joining the Orchestre de Paris in 2015 as oboist playing the English horn.
As a chamber musician, he performs regularly with the ‘Néodyme’ wind quintet.
Keen to pass on his experience and passion, this year he is teaching at the CRR de Paris.
Simon Van Holen, Solo-Contrabassoon of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra enjoys a rich musical career made up of divers performing, recording and teaching engagements. He has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Luzern Festival Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and is regularly invited as both a soloist and teacher in Europe and Asia.
Born in Belgium, Simon Van Holen received his first bassoon lessons at the age of eight. Although not yet big enough to master the instrument his ambition was well defined. In 2003, Van Holen entered The Royal Conservatory in The Hague and went on to complete his studies in 2010 at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Düsseldorf, graduating with the Highest Distinction under the tutelage of Prof. Gustavo Núñez. He further enriched his studies with Brian Pollard, Klaus Thunemann, Dag Jensen, Stefan Schweigert, Sergio Azzolini and Marion Reinhard.
Van Holen’s career as a professional orchestral musician began even before completing his musical studies. He has been a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Jugend Orchester, and has been invited to play in the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra de l’ Opera de Rouen and the Norrköpings Symfoniorkester. In 2007 he won the Academy Position with the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker where he was later appointed Solo-Contrabassoonist in 2011.
An active chamber musician since a young age, Van Holen became the recipient of the prestigious ‘Villa-Musica Rheinland-Pfalz’ Scholarship. He also took part in the Zermatt Festival Academy and the Gustav Mahler Academy, and had the pleasure of performing with some of the most legendary musicians such as Menahem Pressler, Ingo Goritzki, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Jürgen Kussmaul and Wolfgang Boettcher.
In 2013, Simon Van Holen was awarded the prize ‘Prix de Salon’ by the business circle of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra for his extraordinary musicianship. The award made it possible for the commission of a new work for contrabassoon and stringquintet by Dutch composer Kees Olthuis and the recording of his debut-album ‘Pro Contra!’, which has been released at Challenge Records.
Aside from his orchestral career, Simon Van Holen is Professor for Bassoon and Contrabassoon at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam and regularly gives masterclasses around the globe. In October 2017 he has also been appointed contrabassoon teacher at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Cologne.
A horn player with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande since 2014, Clément Charpentier-Leroy is also a member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and a founding member of the horn quartet HORNormes.
A graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, the Université Paris-Sorbonne as well as the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève and laureate of the Chieri International Competition, Clément had the opportunity to travel throughout Europe and Asia during his studies, being invited by youth orchestras such as the European Union Youth Orchestra, the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester or the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.
He is now regularly invited to perform with prestigious European orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra, the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and the Orchestre de Paris, under the baton of the greatest conductors including Klaus Mäkelä, Riccardo Chailly, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Antonio Pappano, Daniel Harding and Myung-Whun Chung.
His keen interest in teaching led him to take on the role of tutor for the Diploma of Advanced Studies at the OSR. He is regularly asked to tutor students’ dissertations at Geneva’s Haute Ecole de Musique, where he will take up the post of horn professor in 2023-2024. Clément also coaches the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra.
The Amatis Trio was founded in Amsterdam in 2014 by German violinist Lea Hausmann, British cellist Samuel Shepherd and Dutch/Chinese pianist Mengjie Han.
Only weeks after forming, the trio won the audience prize in Amsterdam’s Grachtenfestival- Concours, which quickly led to their debut in Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw Hall – to which they returned in 2018/19 season as ECHO (European Concert Hall Organisation) Rising Stars artists.
Between 2016 – 2018 the Amatis Trio were selected by BBC Radio 3 on to the BBC New Generation Artists scheme. In Spring 2020 the Amatis were awarded a Fellowship from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust at the same time that their debut disc on the AVI label was released featuring works of Enescu, Britten and Ravel.
The Amatis Trio today emerges as one of the leading piano trios among the new generation. Their commitment to new music, bringing lesser known trio works to more prominence (as reflected in their debut disc) to education projects and bringing Western music to audiences less exposed has led the Trio to undertaking tours in 2018 to Abu Dhabi and India to where they would have returned (including to Mumbai’s National Centre for the Performing Arts) had the Corona Virus pandemic not prevented it. Also In 2020 the Trio were appointed to the Irene R. Miller Piano Trio Residency at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Music and they are Resident Faculty Chamber Ensemble at Cambridge University.
After concluding their season as ECHO Rising Stars in 2019/20 season which saw the Trio perform in Europe’s major concert halls the Amatis Trio return to London’s Wigmore Hall, Edinburgh, Barcelona’s L’Auditori and Dortmund’s Konzerthaus. The Trio also appear for the Norfolk and Norwich, Champs Hill, and Malvern concert societies in the UK and make a return tour to Sweden.
Summer 2019 saw the Amatis Trio make their BBC Proms debut and with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Jamie Phillips at the 2019 Kings Lynn Festival. In an “Amatis and Friends” programme they made their 2019 Edinburgh International Festival debut. In 2020 the Trio will return to the Mecklenberg Vorpommern Festival.
The Amatis Trio’s commitment to contemporary music led to the foundation in 2015 of the ‘Dutch Piano Trio Composition Prize’. Encouraging young composers to expand the piano trio repertoire they have most recently premiered a piano trio, “Moorlands”, from swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi.
Since 2015 the trio has worked intensively with Wolfgang Redik (Vienna Piano Trio) and Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) and is currently enrolled in the Piano Trio Master Studies at the Mozarteum University in Salzburg. The Trio is part of the European Chamber Music Academy.
Other important musical influences include Hatto Beyerle, the Trio Jean Paul, Lukas Hagen, Fabio Bidini, Ilya Grubert, Anner Bylsma, Christian Schuster, Ib Hausmann, Imre Rohmann, Menahem Pressler and Sir András Schiff, with whom they worked at the Artists Academy Verbier.
Other prize-winning accolades include the 2018 Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the 2015 International Parkhouse Competition at the Wigmore Hall, 2nd prize winners of the International Joseph Joachim Competition in Weimar, Germany and they were named Dutch Classical Talent in 2015/2016.
He was born Peter Alexander Freiherr von Ustinow on April 16, 1921 in Swiss Cottage, London, the son of Nadezhda Leontievna (Benois) and Jonah Freiherr von Ustinow. His father was of one-quarter Polish Jewish, one-half Russian, one-eighth Ethiopian, and one-eighth German descent, while his mother was of one-half Russian, one-quarter Italian, one-eighth French, and one-eighth German ancestry. Ustinov had ancestral connections to Russian nobility as well as to the Ethiopian Royal Family. His father, also known as “Klop”, was a pilot in the German Air Force during World War I. In 1919, Peter’s father joined his own mother and sister in St. Petersburg, Russia. There he met his future wife, artist Nadia Benois, who worked for the Imperial Mariinsky Ballet and Opera House in St. Petersburg. In 1920, in a modest and discreet ceremony at a Russian-German church in St. Petersburg, Ustinov’s father married Nadia. In February 1921, when she was seven months pregnant with Peter, the couple emigrated from Russia in the aftermath of the Communist Revolution.
Young Peter was brought up in a multilingual family. He was fluent in Russian, French, Italian and German, as well as English. He attended Westminster College (1934-37), took the drama and acting class under Michel St. Denis at the London Theatre Studio (1937-39), and made his stage debut in 1938 in a theatre in Surrey. The following year, he made his London stage debut in a revue sketch, then had regular performances with Aylesbury Repertory Company. In 1940 he made his film debut in Hullo, Fame! (1940).
From 1942 to 1946 Ustinov served as a private soldier with the British Army’s Royal Sussex Regiment. He was batman for David Niven, and the two became lifelong friends. Ustinov spent most of his service working with the Army Cinema Unit, where he was involved in making recruitment films, wrote plays and appeared in three films as an actor. At that time he co-wrote and acted in L’héroïque parade (1944) (aka “The Immortal Battalion”).
Ustinov had a stellar film career as actor, director, and writer. Among his numerous screen acting gems were his unparalleled, Academy Award-nominated interpretation of Nero in Quo Vadis (1951) and roles in Max Ophüls’s masterpiece Lola Montès (1955), Barefoot in Athens (1966), Les comédiens (1967), Robin des Bois (1973) and L’Âge de cristal (1976). He also wrote and directed such brilliant films as Billy Budd (1962), Lady L (1965) and Memed My Hawk (1984). He was awarded two Oscars for Best Supporting Actor, one for his role in Spartacus (1960) and one for his role in Topkapi (1964), and received two more Oscar nominations as an actor and writer. His career slowed down a bit in the 1970s, but made a comeback as Hercule Poirot in Mort sur le Nil (1978) by director John Guillermin. In the 1980s, Ustinov recreated Poirot in several subsequent television movies and theatrical films, such as Meurtre au soleil (1982) and Rendez-vous avec la mort (1988), while his cinema work in the 1990s also includes his superb performance as Professor Gus Nikolais in George Miller’s excellent dramatic film Lorenzo (1992), a character partially inspired by Hugo Wolfgang Moser, a research scientist who had been director of the Neurogenetics Research Center at the Kennedy Krieger Institute and Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University.
His expertise in dialectic and physical comedy made him a regular guest of talk show hosts and late-night comedians. His witty and multidimensional humor was legendary, and he later published a collection of his jokes and quotations summarizing his wide popularity as a raconteur. He was also an internationally acclaimed TV journalist. Ustinov covered over 100,000 miles and visited more than 30 Russian cities during the making of his well-received BBC television series Russia (1986).
In his autobiographies, “Dear Me” (1977) and “My Russia” (1996), Ustinov revealed his observations on his life, career, and his multicultural and multi-ethnic background. He wrote and directed numerous stage plays, successfully presenting them in several countries. His drama, “Photo Finish”, was staged in New York, London and St. Petersburg, Russia, where Ustinov directed the acclaimed production, starring Elena Solovey and Pyotr Shelokhonov.
In addition to his acting and writing, Ustinov served as a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and a president of WFM, a global citizens movement. He was knighted in 1990. From 1971 until his death in 2004, Ustinov lived in a château in Bursins, Vaud, Switzerland. He died of heart failure on March 28, 2004, in a clinic in Genolier, Vaud, Switzerland. His funeral service was held at Geneva’s historic Cathedral of St. Pierre, and he was laid to rest in the village cemetery of Bursins. He was survived by three daughters (Tamara, Pavla, and Andrea) and one son (Igor). His epitaph may be gleaned from his comment, “I am an international citizen conceived in Russia, born in England, working in Hollywood, living in Switzerland, and touring the World”.
In 2011, Alain Dufaux joined the MetaMedia Center (MMC) launched by the Vice-Presidency for Innovation and Valorization (VPIV) at EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne, Switzerland). Acting as project manager, his activity was split between the operational tasks of the Montreux Jazz Digital Project, and the numerous innovation projects initiated by the MMC in partnership with the labs of EPFL working around acoustics, signal processing or multimedia. Since 2014, he is the operation & development director of the Metamedia Center, renamed Cultural Heritage & Innovation Center in 2020.
Born in 1996 in Geneva, Gabriel Esteban grew up in a family of musicians. After studying with François Abeille, he benefited from the teaching of François Guye at the Haute École de Musique de Genève and is currently studying with Giovanni Gnocchi at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. At the same time, he received advice from cellists such as Christophe Coin, Marc Coppey, Enrico Dindo, David Geringas, Thomas Grossenbacher, Frans Helmerson, Clemens Hagen, Gary Hoffman, Maria Kliegel, Reinhard Latzko, Philippe Muller, Raphaël Pidoux, Troels Svane, István Vardái and Wen-Sinn Yang. Gabriel Esteban won the 2nd prize at the David Popper International Competition in Hungary, numerous 1st prizes at the Swiss Youth Music Competition, where he also received the SUISA Foundation prize for the best interpretation of a work by a Swiss composer, and was also a laureate of the Enrico Mainardi Competition in Austria. He has been invited to perform at the Festival Lavaux Classic with Tedi Papavrami, at the Kronberg Academy with Jehye Lee and István Várdai and regularly gives recitals in Switzerland, Austria and Italy. As a soloist, he has already performed with several orchestras in Europe and will tour with the Swiss Youth Symphony Orchestra in 2019 in some of the country’s largest concert halls. Gabriel Esteban is the cellist of the Aurora Piano Quartet, the first piano quartet in residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium. The ensemble performs regularly in concerts in Switzerland, France, Belgium and Austria. The quartet works regularly with members of the Artemis, Danel, Ébène, Takács and Ysaÿe quartets, the Trio Wanderer, as well as with Nobuko Imai, Tedi Papavrami, Jean-Claude Pennetier and Pavel Vernikov. Winner of the Illzach International Chamber Music Competition and the Orpheus Chamber Music Competition, the ensemble toured Brazil and Argentina in 2016. The Aurora Piano Quartet has been invited to perform at the Festival de Piano de la Roque d’Anthéron, the Swiss Chamber Music Festival, the Académie Villecroze and the Festival Piano à Porrentruy. Gabriel Esteban has been principal cellist of the Verbier Festival Orchestra and the Swiss Youth Symphony Orchestra. He has performed with conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Iván Fischer, Valery Gergiev, Daniel Harding, Manfred Honeck, Paavo Järvi, Jesús López-Cobos, Zubin Mehta, Gianandrea Noseda, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Michael Tilson Thomas and is a regular member of various Swiss orchestras.
Nathalie Stutzmann has just been announced as the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new Principal Guest Conductor from season 21/22. The three-year tenure will involve a regular presence in the orchestra’s subscription series in Philadelphia and at its Summer festivals in Vail and Saratoga. Nathalie is also entering the third season of a highly successful tenure as Chief Conductor of the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra, a tenure which has just been extended by a further two seasons, to the end of 22/23.
Nathalie Stutzmann is considered one of the most outstanding musical personalities of our time. Charismatic musicianship, combined with unique rigour, energy and fantasy, characterise her style. A rich variety of strands form the core of her repertoire: Central European and Russian romanticism is a strong focus — ranging from Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Dvorak through to the larger symphonic forces of Tchaikovsky, Wagner, Mahler, Bruckner and Strauss — as well as French 19th century repertoire and impressionism. Highlights from her partnership with the Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra include acclaimed performances of Bruckner’s Symphony No.7, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.6 and a complete cycle of Beethoven’s symphonies.
Nathalie was also Principal Guest Conductor of the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland 2017-2020. Her sold-out performances with the RTE NSO in Dublin attracted outstanding accolades from the press, with particular praise for her performances of Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No.5, and Mahler’s complete Das Knaben Wunderhorn.
As a guest conductor, Nathalie began the season 20/21 with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra and returns to them twice during the season. Other guest conducting highlights over the next two seasons include performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, Orchestre Métropolitain Montreal, NDR Elbphilharmonie, London Symphony, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orquesta Nacional de España and Finnish Radio Symphony.
Nathalie has also established a strong reputation as an opera conductor. She will open her 21/22 season with a conducting debut at the Metropolitan Opera (Iphigenie en Tauride). Last season she was due to conduct Tchaikovsky’s Pikovaya Dama at La Monnaie in Brussels (cancelled due to COVID-19), which has now been re-scheduled in 22/23. In recent years she conducted critically acclaimed performances of Wagner’s Tannhäuser (2017, Monte Carlo Opera), Boito’s Mefistofele (2018 Chorégies d’Orange festival in Provence).
Nathalie started her studies at a very young age in piano, bassoon, cello and studied conducting with the legendary Finnish teacher Jorma Panula. She was mentored by Seiji Ozawa and Sir Simon Rattle who says that “Nathalie is the real thing. So much love, intensity and sheer technique. We need more conductors like her”. Nathalie continues to keep a few projects as a singer each season, primarily recitals and performances with her own ensemble. In January 2019 she was elected a Chevalier in the ‘Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur’, France’s highest honour. France had previously honoured her unique contribution to the country’s cultural life by electing her ‘Commandeur des Arts et Lettres’ and ‘Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite’.
Nathalie is an exclusive recording artist of Warner Classics/Erato. Her next album, Contralto, will be released in January 2021.