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Haewon Lim, born in 2004, began playing the violin at the age of three. She studied at a centre for gifted students before attending Yewon Arts School. Since 2018, she has been a junior student at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin, where she has also pursued her bachelor’s degree since 2021, studying with Antje Weithaas and Ning Feng. She has received several international awards, including First Prize at the International Louis Spohr Competition for Young Violinists in Weimar, the Ysaye Prize, and Second Prize at the International Violin Competition Kloster Schöntal. In 2017, she appeared in the Kumho Prodigy Concert Series. Haewon has performed with ensembles including DITTO, the Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra at the Suwon Hwaseong Music Festival, and the Jena Philharmonic. She has participated in festivals and academies such as the Ishikawa Music Academy and the Great Mountains Music Festival, and has attended masterclasses with internationally recognised violinists.
Xinran Lai is a violist and violinist from Shenzhen, China. She is currently pursuing a high school diploma in Viola Performance at the Shenzhen Arts School, where she studies with Jiali Li, Co-Principal Viola of the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. She previously studied viola with Nisha Ren and Songyang Li at Shenzhen Arts School, following early violin studies with Xiaofei Chou of the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra. Xinran has received prizes in regional and international competitions, including Second Prize in the final round of the 15th Hong Kong International Violin Competition. Her awards also include Gold Prizes in viola and violin solo categories at the IACDA International Music Arts Association (2023), Gold Prizes in ensemble categories at the Guangdong Strings Competition (2023), and additional prizes at the Hong Kong International Violin Competition in China (2021), the NMCC International Music Invitational (2020–2021), and the Vienna International Music Competition in China (2019).
Qifan Jiang is a pianist born in Wuhan, China, in 2006. He is currently studying at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music in Singapore with Ning An. He won the championship of the ASEAN International Chopin Piano Competition and has received prizes in several major competitions in China, including the Steinway and Shenzhen competitions. He has also participated in international competitions such as the Gina Bachauer International Piano Competition (2020), the Khachaturian International Competition (2023), the Singapore International Piano Competition (2025), and the Hong Kong International Piano Competition (2025). Qifan has performed in the United States and across Asia, including a concerto performance at the Tianjin Juilliard Piano Festival. He has a strong interest in chamber music and was accepted into the Chamber Music Intensive Program at The Tianjin Juilliard School, where he performed in masterclasses led by Wu Han, David Finckel, and members of the Shanghai Quartet. He previously studied at the Wuhan Conservatory of Music and The Tianjin Juilliard School, with Congcong Chai and Xiaohan Wang.
Lu Chen (English name Luson) is a cellist from Guangzhou, China. He is currently studying cello performance at the Xinghai Music School. His early musical training was guided by Qingsheng Weng, a cello collector who owns historical Italian instruments, including cellos by Guarneri and Montagnana, which Lu Chen has had the opportunity to play during his studies. He has participated in several domestic and international competitions. In 2026, he has been invited to take part in overseas masterclasses led by Pablo de Naverán, Steven Bruns, and Troles Svane.
Fiona Zhonghan Chen is a violinist born in Shanghai in 2003. She began her musical studies at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music with Qing Zheng and Shuting Wu, before continuing her education at the Mozarteum University Salzburg Pre-College, where she studied with Paul Roczek. She is currently completing her bachelor’s degree at the Mozarteum with Lily Francis. Fiona has appeared as a soloist with the Salzburg Chamber Soloists Orchestra and the Wratislavia Chamber Orchestra. She has collaborated with musicians including Jeremy Menuhin, Mark Schumann, Piotr Szumiel, and members of the Berlin Philharmonic. She has participated in international festivals and academies such as the Kronberg Violin Masterclass, Villars Institute, and Morningside Music Bridge. Her artistic development has also been shaped through lessons with violinists including Leonidas Kavakos, Kolja Blacher, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Ingolf Turban, Hagai Shaham, Stephan Picard, and Kirill Troussov. Fiona performs on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin (1842).
Huiying Cao is a cellist currently pursuing her Master’s degree at The Tianjin Juilliard School, where she studies on full scholarship with Sihao He and Yeonjin Kim. She also serves as a mentor for the Pre-College Chamber Intensive Music Program. Huiying is a freelance cellist with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and a substitute cellist with the New World Symphony. A multiple prizewinner in competitions, she has performed at festivals including the Aspen Music Festival and School (as a Fellow), Kronberg Academy, and Cello Akademie Rutesheim. Huiying is a graduate of the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Li-Wei Qin and received the Geoffrey S. K. Yu Prize for Cello Performance. She also studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg with Sebastian Klinger, Solo Cellist of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Her early musical training took place at the Middle School of the Central Conservatory of Music, where she studied with Mingqing Yu and Jia Yu.
Since his gold medal win at the Thirteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2009, Haochen Zhang has captivated audiences in the United States, Europe, and Asia with a unique combination of deep musical sensitivity, fearless imagination, and spectacular virtuosity. In 2017, Haochen received the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant, which recognizes talented musicians with the potential for a major career in music.
Haochen has already appeared with many of the world’s leading festivals and orchestras including the BBC Proms with Long Yu and the China Philharmonic; the Munich Philharmonic with the late Lorin Maazel in a sold-out tour in Munich and China; The Philadelphia Orchestra with Yannick Nézet-Séguin; the Sydney Symphony and David Robertson in a China tour; and the NDR Hamburg and Thomas Hengelbrock in a tour of Tokyo, Beijing, and Shanghai.
Highlights of this season include his recital debut at Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris, tours with the Munich and Hong Kong philharmonics, and reengagements with The Philadelphia Orchestra and Melbourne Symphony. Haochen was appointed as Artist-in-Residence at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing which includes an Asian tour with the NCPA Orchestra and concerts of the complete Liszt and Rachmaninov concertos.
In 2019, Haochen released his debut concerto album on BIS Records performing Prokofiev’s second piano concerto and Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto with the Lahti Symphony Orchestra under Dima Slobodeniouk. His debut solo album was released by BIS in February 2017, which includes works by Schumann, Brahms, Janacek, and Liszt. These were followed by a recording with The Philadelphia Orchestra of the complete Beethoven concerti and a solo album of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes.
In recent seasons, Haochen debuted with the New York Philharmonic, Lucerne Festival Orchestra, Swiss Romande Orchestra, Santa Cecelia Orchestra, Luxembourg Philharmonic and Melbourne Symphony. He has perfomed with the Filarmonica della Scala, NHK Symphony Orchestra and Staatskapelle Berlin, and toured Asia with The Philadelphia Orchestra. In October 2017, Haochen gave a concerto performance at Carnegie Hall with the NCPA Orchestra, which was followed by his recital debut at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall.
Haochen Zhang has performed with Munich Philharmonic, London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Frankfurt Radio, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Sydney Symphony, Japan Philharmonic, Singapore Symphony, Mariinsky Orchestra, Warsaw Philharmonic, Taiwan Philharmonic, and Hong Kong Philharmonic orchestras, among others. In recital, he has performed at Spivey Hall, La Jolla Music Society, Cliburn Concerts, and Wolf Trap Discovery Series, among others.
Haochen is an avid chamber musician, collaborating with colleagues such as the Dover, Shanghai, Tokyo, and Brentano Quartets. He is frequently invited by chamber music festivals in the United States including the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and La Jolla Summerfest.
Haochen’s performances at the Cliburn Competition were released to critical acclaim by Harmonia Mundi in 2009. He is featured in Peter Rosen’s award- winning documentary chronicling the 2009 Cliburn Competition, A Surprise in Texas.
Haochen is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia where he studied under Gary Graffman. He has also been studying periodically with Andreas Haefliger in Vienna. He was previously trained at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and the Shenzhen Arts School, where he was admitted in 2001 at the age of 11 to study with Professor Dan Zhaoyi.
Born in Tel Aviv, cellist Daniel Mitnitsky trained for 17 years under his mentor, Zvi Harell. He studied at the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music in Tel Aviv, the New England Conservatory in Boston in the classes of Paul Katz and Natasha Brofsky, and then at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Rolle, where he received guidance from Pablo de Naverán. He also had the privilege of working daily for nearly a month with the great musician Bernard Greenhouse.
Early on, Daniel received support from the ‘David Goldman Outstanding Young Musicians Program’ of the Jerusalem Music Centre and the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Since then, he has won numerous awards and scholarships, including the ‘Rachel and Dov Gottesman Cello Prize’ from the Aviv Competition, the ‘Dan Ben-Bassat Scholarship,’ and First Prizes in Concerto and Chamber Music from the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music.
Chamber music quickly became his preferred means of expression. During his studies in Boston, he immersed himself in the string quartet repertoire and joined the ‘honors ensemble’ program.
In 2015, he moved to Europe to join the Aviv Quartet, with whom he performs in Europe, the USA, Israel, Canada, and South America. Last season, the quartet dedicated itself to Beethoven’s string quartets and performed the complete cycle during a series of concerts recorded by Swiss Radio and Television.
He has performed as a soloist and in chamber music at Victoria Hall in Geneva, the Tonhalle in Zurich, the KKL in Lucerne, the Rosey Concert Hall, the Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, de Doelen in Rotterdam, Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht, the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Jerusalem Theatre, Jordan Hall in Boston, and the Lviv National Philharmonic.
He performs with the Menuhin Academy Soloists and has been invited to the prestigious Perlman Music Program, the Cello Biennale Amsterdam, the Gstaad Festival, and the Aspen Music Festival.
He has had the pleasure of sharing the stage with accomplished artists, such as Maxim Vengerov, Itzhak Perlman, Shani Diluka, and members of the Juilliard String Quartet, the Talich Quartet, and the Jacques Thibaud String Trio.
Also dedicated to orchestral repertoire, he led the cello section of the Menuhin Academy Soloists before joining the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne in 2017.
This 2020/2021 season, an Aviv Quartet recording dedicated to Schubert’s music, featuring the String Trio D. 581 and the Quintet D. 956, is being released on the Naxos label, as well as a recording titled ‘Live at Zentrum Paul Klee Bern’ with the ensemble ‘Tharice Virtuosi’ on Claves.
Daniel plays a 1856 Giuseppe Rocca cello, which is generously made available to him.
Daniel Cho was born in New Jersey (USA) and began playing the violin in South Korea at the age of six. He received his bachelor’s degree from The Juilliard School in the class of Hyo Kang and David Chan. He then continued his studies with Kolja Blacher at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. He won numerous international competitions, including the Max Rostal Competition 2019, in which he received the top prize.
As a soloist he played with orchestras such as the Hamburger Camerata, the Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra and Sejong Soloists. In 2010 he made his New York debut in the Weill Hall of Carnegie Hall, presented by the Korea Music Foundation, and in 2013 he made his European debut at the Musée du Louvre in Paris as part of the “Concerts du Jeudi”. He also appears as a member of Sejong Soloists and has worked closely with artists such as Gil Shaham, Cho-Liang Lin and Vadim Repin.
As concertmaster he played with The Juilliard Orchestra, the Verbier Festival Orchestra and the Budapest Festival Orchestra. From the 2021/22 season he joined the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra as first concertmaster.