Press Enter to search
Joshua Bell is a GRAMMY®-winning American violinist and one of the most celebrated artists of his generation. His career spans nearly four decades, during which he has performed as a soloist, chamber musician, conductor, and Music Director of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields since 2011, succeeding Sir Neville Marriner.
He performs with the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, and New York Philharmonic. Recent projects include tours in Europe, South America, and the U.S., as well as collaborations with artists such as Steven Isserlis, Jeremy Denk, Renée Fleming, Chick Corea, Sting, and Anoushka Shankar.
Bell champions contemporary music, premiering works by John Corigliano, Edgar Meyer, Behzad Ranjbaran, and Nicholas Maw. He has contributed to film soundtracks, notably The Red Violin (Oscar-winning score by Corigliano) and Ladies in Lavender, and has pioneered digital and educational initiatives, including VR experiences and a partnership with the Trala violin learning app.
He is deeply committed to music education through Education Through Music and Turnaround Arts, and has led masterclasses and family concerts under the The Man With The Violin project.
Joshua Bell plays the 1713 Huberman Stradivarius and has recorded over 40 albums, earning GRAMMY®, Gramophone, and OPUS KLASSIK awards. He began violin at age 4, studied with Josef Gingold, debuted with Riccardo Muti and the Philadelphia Orchestra at 14, and made his Carnegie Hall debut at 17.
Celebrated for combining consummate technique with rare sensitivity and depth, GRAMMY Award-winning Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov has made a spectacular ascent of the classical music world since taking both First Prize and the Grand Prix at the 2011 Tchaikovsky Competition. ‘He has everything and more … tenderness and also the demonic element. I never heard anything like that,’ pianist Martha Argerich has said. Further awards include Artist of the Year for Musical America (2019) and Gramophone (2016). His current season includes concertos with the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and Antonio Pappano, and the Israel Philharmonic under Lahav Shani, a two-piano programme at Milan’s Teatro alla Scala with Sergei Babayan, and solo recitals at Carnegie Hall and Vienna’s Konzerthaus. Trifonov records exclusively with Deutsche Grammophon, most recently Bach: The Art of Life.
Founder and Education Director of La Bulle d’Air—la musique qui se partage—, Martine Pernoud is a music therapist, psychologist, flutist, singer and business manager. She has been leading musical awakening workshops and giving flute lessons for more than 30 years. A specialist in Baschet instruments, she develops, coordinates and conducts musical projects for children and adults with disabilities. As an adult educator in early childhood institutions, in specialised institutions, in the context of higher education institutions and continuing education organisations in Switzerland and France, she also provides annual training courses for La Bulle d’Air team.
Augustin Dumay began his career in 1980 thanks to Herbert von Karajan who invited him to play as a soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker. Since then, he has gone on to perform with top orchestras, under the direction of famous conductors such as Seiji Ozawa, Charles Dutoit, Yuri Temirkanov and Kurt Masur, as well as with the leading conductors of the new generation. Augustin Dumay is also intensely active as a conductor all over the world. Since 2011, he has been the Music Director of the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra. Very involved with the next generation, he is Master in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, where he teaches young violinists of a very high level. His 50 recordings for EMI and Deutsche Grammophon have won multiple international awards. The French violinist plays a 1743 Guarnerius del Gesu, which was the violin of Leonid Kogan.
Hunju Sohnn has been the pianist and coordinator of the Verbier Festival Academy’s viola class for more than 20 years. She received her Master’s degree from New England Conservatory, and holds a Doctoral degree for Piano Performance from Rice University. Her teachers included John Perry, Russell Sherman and Robert Roux. HunJu performs throughout Europe and America, while holding a teaching position at the Conservatoire Populaire de Musique Danse et Théâtre in Geneva.
Tobias Koch’s extensive musical career has taken him across Europe, North America, the Middle East and far beyond as soloist, chamber musician and lied accompanist. He is the Music Prize Winner of the State Capital Düsseldorf and teaches at the Robert Schumann University of Düsseldorf and at the University of the Arts in Berlin. He has been pianist and coordinator of the Verbier Festival Academy’s violin class for a number of years and is a specialist in historical keyboard instruments.
Sought-after as a song accompanist and chamber musician, Jonathan Ware is a regular feature across the world’s leading venues, with recent appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall, New York’s Carnegie Hall, Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Luxembourg’s Philharmonie, Barcelona’s L’Auditori, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris’ Théâtre des Champs-Élysées and Berlin’s Pierre Boulez Saal.
Ware opens the 2021/22 season with a string of dates in the UK alongside violinist Randall Goosby, violist Timothy Ridout and cellist Maciej Kułakowski, performing at St David’s Hall, Cardiff, St George’s Hall, Bristol, Leeds Town Hall and Wigmore Hall. European appearances follow including at Kölner Philharmonie with countertenor Bejun Mehta, Staatsoper unter den Linden and Lied Festival Würzburg. Devised with soprano Golda Schultz, the long-standing duo present their new programme of female composers to venues across Europe and North America, including Philadelphia, San Francisco, London, Edinburgh, Berlin, Cologne and Aix-en-Provence. Titled ‘This Be Her Verse’, the programme was recorded for CD release on Alpha Classics in 2022.
Randall Goosby, an American violinist signed exclusively to Decca Classics in 2020 at the age of 24, is renowned for his sensitive and intense musicianship, and his commitment to making music more inclusive and accessible. He champions under-represented composers and inspires others through his artistry.
Highlights of Goosby’s 2023/24 season include debut performances with the Boston Symphony, National Symphony, and European debuts with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Danish National Radio Symphony, and Oslo Philharmonic. As Artist in Residence at London’s Southbank Centre, Goosby will perform Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3 with the London Philharmonic and appear in recitals across Europe and the U.S.
Goosby made his Mostly Mozart Festival debut in 2023, performing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto. He has previously collaborated with leading orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, and Royal Scottish National Orchestra. His debut concerto album with Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Philadelphia Orchestra features works by Max Bruch and Florence Price, with Gramophone praising his expressive playing.
His first album, Roots, is a celebration of African-American music, exploring its evolution from spirituals to modern compositions. The album includes world-premiere recordings of music by Florence Price and works by William Grant Still and Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson, along with a newly commissioned piece by Xavier Foley.
A passionate advocate for education and outreach, Goosby has worked with organizations like the Opportunity Music Project and Concerts in Motion. He hosted a residency with the Iris Collective in Memphis, connecting family history to music and fostering community collaboration.
Goosby has been recognized with numerous awards, including the 2018 Young Concert Artists International Auditions and the 2022 Avery Fisher Career Grant. He has studied at the Juilliard School under Itzhak Perlman and plays the 1708 “ex-Strauss” Stradivarius, generously loaned by the Samsung Foundation of Culture.
A multimedia artist born in Athens in 1967, Marc Philippin began his career as an actor before devoting himself entirely to his passion for the arts. He studied at the Ecole Supérieure d’Art Visuel in Geneva, graduating in 1992. He then embarked on a career as a painter. In 2006 he founded Kitchen-Project with his partner Soômi Dean, a duo of multimedia artists who use video as a means of scenic expression.
They developed a visual instrument with four hands, offering a new form of cinema that is both experimental and accessible to a wide audience. Today, Marc Philippin is continuing this artistic project on his own, and in 2013 opened KP, a virtual space for contemporary art that can be viewed on the web. He is currently offering courses for children at the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute and is taking part in the Verbier Festival’s UNLTD by creating art and animation workshops for young audiences.
Born in Lancashire in 1955, Stephen Johnson studied at the Northern School of Music, Manchester, and under Alexander Goehr at Leeds University.
After a brief period working for BBC Radio 3 – listening to LPs for clicks prior to transmission – he did a postgraduate course at Manchester University (subject: Shostakovich’s String Quartets). Then two friends – the composer Robert Simpson and the record producer Andrew Keener – suggested he try musical journalism. This soon grew into a full-time career.
Since then he has broadcast frequently for BBC Radio 3, 4 and World Service, major projects including 14 programmes about the music of Bruckner for the centenary of the composer’s death (1996), and has written regularly for The Independent, The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone.