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Klaus Hellwig first came to international attention after winning prizes at the “Marguérite Long – Jacques Thibaud” competition in Paris and the “Viotti” competition in Vercelli/Italy.
He studied with Detlef Kraus, Pierre Sancan (Paris), Guido Agosti (Accademia Chigiana Siena) and Wilhelm Kempff.
He has given concerts throughout Europe, the United States and Canada, Australia, Brazil, the Middle-East, and the Far East. He has appeared as soloist with important orchestras, such as the Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin (formerly Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin), the West German Radio Orchestra Cologne, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra Munich, among many other German orchestras; the Hungarian Radio Orchestra Budapest, the Bucharest and Cracow Philharmonic Orchestras; the Baltimore and San Francisco Symphonies, among many others in America; and several Japanese and Korean orchestras.
Klaus Hellwig’s chamber music partners have included the Philharmonic Octet and the principal wind players of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Cleveland Orchestra’s Octet, and the violinists Christiane Edinger and Young-Uck Kim. In addition, he has performed extensively with pianist Mi-Joo Lee as a piano duo.
Klaus Hellwig has recorded for all German radio stations, and for many others abroad. He appears on more than 25 records; the latest releases were the four concerti by Carl Reinecke.
After ten years as a professor at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen, Klaus Hellwig began teaching in 1980 at the Berlin University of the Arts. He has given masterclasses in Germany, France, the Ukraine, Rumania, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Australia, and the USA.
He has served as a jury member in many international competitions, such as the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, the Leeds, the ARD competition in Munich (solo and piano duo), the “Busoni” in Bolzano, the Vienna Beethoven competition, the Dublin, the “Viotti” in Vercelli/Italy, the “Robert Schumann” in Zwickau, the “William Kapell” at the University of Maryland, “José Iturbi” in Valencia, the Seoul “Dong-A”, and the Sendai (Japan) competition; others include those in Monza, Seregno, and Orléans.
Meanwhile, his students continue to garner top honors at major international competitions, including first prizes at the Queen Elizabeth, Gina Bachauer, Schumann Competitions.
With an innate musical sensitivity and naturalness to his artistry, 24-year old pianist Mao Fujita has already impressed many leading musicians as one of those special talents which come along only rarely, equally at home in Mozart as the major romantic repertoire.
Born in Tokyo, Fujita was still studying at the Tokyo College of Music in 2017 when he took First Prize at the prestigious Concours International de Piano Clara Haskil in Switzerland, along with the Audience Award, Prix Modern Times, and the Prix Coup de Coeur, which first brought him to the attention of the international music community. He was also the Silver Medalist at the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where his special musical qualities received exceptional attention from a jury of leading musicians.
Fujita has been invited to appear in recital at major international festivals including the Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Tsinandali and Riga-Jurmala festivals, among others, and he makes his highly-anticipated US recital debut at Carnegie Hall in January 2023. Recent and upcoming orchestral highlights include performances with the Gewandhausorchester, Munich Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw, Philharmonique de Radio France, Konzerthaus Berlin, Yomiuri Nippon Symphony, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony, Israel Philharmonic, RAI, Filarmonica della Scala, and Lucerne Festival orchestras, while his many conductor relationships include Vasily Petrenko, Christoph Eschenbach, Riccardo Chailly, and Andris Nelsons.
In November 2021, Fujita signed an exclusive multi-album deal with Sony Classical International. The new partnership sees him explore many facets of repertoire across several releases, starting with an eagerly-anticipated studio recording of Mozart’s complete piano sonatas, which is due for release in October 2022, following an acclaimed series of performances of the complete sonatas at the Verbier Festival in 2021. Fujita has been invited to perform the same set of works, interspersed with sets of Variations, over five concerts for his debut at London’s Wigmore Hall at the end of the 22/23 season.
Starting piano lessons at the age of three, Fujita won his first international prize in 2010 at the World Classic in Taiwan, and became a laureate of numerous national and international competitions such as the Rosario Marciano International Piano Competition in Vienna (2013), Zhuhai International Mozart Competition for Young Musicians (2015), and the Gina Bachauer International Young Artists Piano Competition (2016). Mao Fujita is moving to Berlin for further studies with Kirill Gerstein.
The multi-award-winning clarinetist Alexander Bedenko is one of the most prolific artists of his generation and has performed with major conductors of leading orchestras, ensembles and festivals in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Born in Ukraine, into a family of musicians, Alexander Bedenko graduated from the prestigious Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, where he studied clarinet with Donald Montanaro and chamber music with Pamela Frank, Peter Wiley and Joseph Silverstein.
Alexander Bedenko has won first prizes at the || Moscow International Young Artist’s Competition in 1994, the Interlochen Center for the Arts “Concerto Competition” (1995-1996), the Grand-Prix and Laureate at the International Selmer Clarinet Competition in Kiev, (1999) and was a recipient scholarship of the “New Names” Charity Foundation, Vladimir Spivakov’s Foundation and the named scholarship of The President of Ukraine, from (1997-1999).
In the past seasons, Alexander Bedenko has appeared in such recital venues as the Carnegie’s Weill recital Hall, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Steinway Hall in New York City, the Chicago Cultural Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C, the Great Hall at Moscow Conservatory and UNESCO in Paris. He has collaborated with world-renowned artists such as Vladimir Spivakov, Christoph Eschenbach, Nikolai Lugansky, Elena Bashkirova, Kirill Gernstein, Itamar Golan, Daniel Hope, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Frans Helmerson, Nobuko Imai, Eugenia Zukerman, Maxim Rysanov, Gautier Capucon and worked with the Borodin, Jerusalem, Ying, Alma, Endellion and Orion string quartets.
Alexander Bedenko has also performed as a soloist with Kremlin Chamber Orchestra, Romanian National Radio Orchestra, the National Orchestra of Ukraine, the Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and appearanced at the Colmar, Verbier, Spoleto, Sarasota, Miami and Schubertiade music festivals.
Mr. Bedenko has also been broadcast on television in France, Sweden, Romania, Russia, Ukraine and has been featured on RAI Radio Classica, on WQXR Radio (New York), WRTI Radio (Philadelphia), and the “Voice of America” in Washington D.C.
In 2007, Alexander Bedenko appeared together with Richard Stoltzman on a recording of the music of J.S. Bach for the RCA/BMG Japan label.
As an orchestra musician, Mr. Bedenko was invited by Riccardo Muti to perform as principal clarinet on a highly acclaimed European tour with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (in 2014) and has also performed as guest principal clarinet with the London Symphony Orchestra, both at the Barbican Centre and on tour in Germany under the baton of Daniel Harding, with the Philharmonia Orchestra (London) and with the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of Franz Welser Most.
From (2008 – 2018) Alexander Bedenko has served as a co-principal clarinetist with the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra, directed by Gabor Takacs-Nagy.
Alexander Bedenko plays on Selmer Signature clarinets and became Selmer Paris Artist in 2015, as well as D’Addario woodwinds Artist in 2019.
Timothy Chooi is a Canadian violinist whose international career has continued to expand since being named a Prix Yves Paternot laureate at the Verbier Festival. In recent seasons, he has appeared with major orchestras across Europe, North America, and Asia, and in the 2025/26 season makes major appearances with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. He also undertakes an extensive European tour with the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing across Germany, Austria, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the Czech Republic. Alongside his concerto activity, he has returned regularly to the Verbier Festival for chamber-music projects and has appeared as a guest at the Verbier Festival at Schloss Elmau. Further highlights include his appointment as Artistic Partner of the Wiener Concert-Verein for the 2025/26 season, with performances at the Musikverein Wien..
Gerhard Schulz studied with Franz Samohyl in Vienna, Sándor Végh in Düsseldorf, and Shmuel Ashkenasi in the USA. He was a founding member of the Salzburg String Trio, the Schulz Ensemble, and the first violinist of the Düsseldorf String Quartet.
As a member of the world-renowned Alban Berg Quartet, he performed regularly for over 30 years in the most important music centers around the world. As an exclusive artist with EMI, the quartet recorded a large portion of the string quartet repertoire and was awarded numerous prizes for its work. After the Alban Berg Quartet concluded its concert activities in the summer of 2008, Gerhard Schulz founded the Waldstein Ensemble (Piano Quartet). In November 2009, he debuted as a conductor with the Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra and continues to equally enjoy performing on stage and working with his students. Since 1980, Gerhard Schulz has been a professor of violin at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Vienna and since 1993, a guest professor of chamber music at the Hochschule für Musik Köln.
Hungarian violinist Kristóf Baráti is recognised increasingly across the globe as a musician of extraordinary quality with a vast expressive range and impeccable technique. In 2014, at the age of 35, Baráti was awarded Hungary’s highest cultural award, the Kossuth Prize, following in the footsteps of revered Hungarian artists such as András Schiff, György Ligeti and Iván Fischer. Applauded repeatedly for the poetry and eloquence that he brings to his playing, he has been described as “a true tonal aesthete of the highest order”.
In recent seasons, Baráti has performed at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, at London’s Royal Festival Hall with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and in 2019 he was the featured soloist in the opening concert of the Verbier Festival. Baráti has played with orchestras such as Zurich Tonhalle, Oslo Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, BBC Philharmonic and Hague Philharmonic orchestras. He performs regularly with Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra both in Russia and on tour around the world including in the US and China. Highlights of his 19/20 season include debuts with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Hallé Orchestra, Haydn Orchestra and at Zarydye Hall with the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra.
A regular recital and chamber music player, Baráti has performed with partners such as Mischa Maisky, Bashmet, Pace, Bavouzet, Kocsis and Kashkashian amongst others. He performs every year at the White Nights Festival and in 2019 made his debut at the Seattle Chamber Music and Aspen Festivals. In 2016 he made a sensational debut at the Verbier Festival when he performed the complete solo Sonatas and Partitas of Bach, and has since been back every year. Recital highlights in 2019/20 include a tour of North America including performances in New York City and Washington and his debut at Mexico’s International Festival Cervantino.
Baráti has an extensive discography which includes the five Mozart concerti, the complete Beethoven and Brahms sonatas with Klára Würtz, and Ysaÿe solo sonatas for Brilliant Classics, and Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for Solo violin on the Berlin Classics label. Of his disc of encores “The Soul of Lady Harmsworth” recorded in 2016, Gramophone magazine said “for those who like to hear the violin played at its sweet and acrobatic best, then Baráti is out of the top drawer.”
Having spent much of his childhood in Venezuela, where he played as soloist with many of the country’s leading orchestras, Baráti returned to Budapest to study at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music and was later mentored by Eduard Wulfson, himself a student of Milstein and Menuhin. Still resident in Budapest, Baráti performs regularly across Hungary and together with István Vardái, Baráti is Artistic Director of the Kaposvár International Chamber Music Festival. Baráti plays the 1703 “Lady Harmsworth” Stradivarius, by kind arrangement with the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.
source: https://kristofbarati.com/about/
“Barenboim makes it all sound easy, though, with performances spilling over with life and drama. Every work’s soul has been ignited and revealed, every second telling a story, all unmarred by a single glitch in intonation or articulation […] this is indisputably exciting playing across an indisputably effective programme.” – Gramophone
Michael Barenboim’s 1995 performance of Schoenberg’s Violin Concerto with Pierre Boulez in the Cologne Philharmonie was the beginning of a remarkable career. Following this celebrated debut, he has since performed the Schoenberg concerto with the Vienna Philharmonic under Daniel Barenboim, the Chicago Symphony under Asher Fisch, the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, and the Berlin Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko. Michael regularly gives solo recitals in the world’s most prestigious concert halls, such as Wigmore Hall in London, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Sydney Opera House, and Teatro di San Carlo in Naples. He presented a program with works by Pierre Boulez in Carnegie Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Opéra National de Paris, the Barbican Centre in London, the Dortmund Konzerthaus, and the Salzburg Festival.
As a member of the Boulez Ensemble, Michael has premiered numerous new works by composers such as Jörg Widmann, Kareem Rouston, and many others. He is a professor for violin and chamber music at the Barenboim-Said Akademie in Berlin, and has since 2020 been the academy’s Dean. In addition, he and seven other selected members of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra founded the West-Eastern Divan Ensemble in 2020 and were able to complete a 13-concert tour of the USA shortly before the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic. Among Michael’s last solo performances before the lockdown were Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under Robert Trevino and Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel.
Michael Barenboim’s first solo album featured compositions by Bach and Bartók as well as Boulez’s Anthèmes 1 & 2. In 2018 there followed a CD with works by Tartini, Berio, Paganini, and Sciarrino. For Deutsche Grammophon, Michael has recorded the Mozart piano quartets and trios as well as the complete Beethoven piano trios – together with Kian Soltani and Daniel Barenboim.
Winner of the 2019 prestigious Carl Nielsen Competition, Swedish-Norwegian violinist Johan Dalene “is not just a virtuoso like many others, he is a voice. He has a tone, a presence” (Diapason). At the age of 24, he has performed with leading orchestras and in celebrated recital halls both at home and abroad. His ability to “make his Stradivarius sing like a master” (Le Monde), coupled with his refreshingly honest musicality and engagement with musicians and audiences alike, has won him countless admirers. In 2022, he was named Gramophone’s Young Artist of the Year.
After simultaneous residencies with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Gavle Symphony, Johan takes on a new collaboration with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, working with conductors such as Antonello Manacorda and Robert Trevino. An advocate for new music, he continues to perform the concerto written for him by Tebogo Monnakgotla, notably with the Berlin Radio Symphony and Giedrė Slekyte, having given the world premiere with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and John Storgards in April 2023.
Johan’s other recent and forthcoming highlights include debut performances with the Minnesota Orchestra and Thomas Sondergaard, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Sakari Oramo and San Francisco Symphony and Esa-Pekka Salonen; return appearances with the Bergen Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, London Philharmonic, and Warsaw Philharmonic.
Johan is equally passionate about chamber music and will be going back to North America to give recitals, notably on the Vancouver Recital Series, San Francisco Performances and at the Gardner Music in Boston, as well as making his debut tour in Australia. He is otherwise making return appearances at the Verbier and Rosendal festivals, as well as London’s Wigmore Hall, where he is now a regular guest.
Recording exclusively for BIS, Johan released his fourth album on the label in October 2023, a recital disc comprising Ravel’s Sonata and Prokofiev’s Second Sonata, alongside short pieces by Arvo Part, Lili Boulanger and Grazyna Bacewicz. The Strad hailed this album as ‘interesting by its repertoire and marvellous by its quality’.
His previous recording featured the Nielsen and Sibelius Concerti, with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic with John Storgards, and garnered Johan his third coveted ‘Editor’s Choice’ from Gramophone Magazine, as well as a prestigious Swedish Grammis Award.
Johan began playing the violin at the age of four and made his professional concerto debut three years later. In Summer 2016, he was student-in-residence at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival (where he made his performance debut in 2021) and in 2018 was accepted on to the Norwegian Crescendo programme, where he worked closely with mentors Janine Jansen, Leif Ove Andsnes and Gidon Kremer. Andsnes subsequently invited Johan to play at the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival and they performed together again in May 2019 at the Bergen International Festival. In 2019 he joined Janine Jansen and other members of the Crescendo Programme for a performance at the Wigmore Hall in London, and at the International Chamber Music Festival in Utrecht.
Johan studied with Per Enoksson, Professor at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, as well as with Janine Jansen, and has also participated in masterclasses with several distinguished teachers, including Dora Schwarzberg, Pamela Frank, Gerhard Schulz, and Henning Kraggerud. He has been awarded various scholarships and prizes, notably from the Royal Swedish Academy of Music, The Anders Wall Giresta Scholarship, Queen Ingrid’s Honorary Scholarship, The Håkan Mogren Foundation Prize, Equinor Classical Music Award, Norwegian Soloist Prize, Sixten Gemzéus Stora Musikstipendium, Expressen Cultural Prize Spelmannen and Rolf Wirténs Kulturpris.
Johan plays the 1725 ‘Duke of Cambridge’ Stradivarius, generously on loan from the Anders Sveaas’ Charitable Foundation.
Augustin Hadelich is one of the great violinists of our time. Known for his phenomenal technique, insightful and persuasive interpretations and ravishing tone, he tours extensively around the world. He has performed with all the major American orchestras as well as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Concertgebouworkest, Orchestre National de France, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, and many others.
Augustin Hadelich’s engagements in the 2022/23 season include concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, The Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Atlanta, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston, Pittsburgh, Seattle and Toronto. He performs with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, Wiener Symphoniker, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Danish National Symphony Orchestra, São Paulo Symphony and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. As this season’s Artist-in-Residence of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Augustin Hadelich began the season by joining the orchestra on a summer festival tour to London, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Bonn, in addition to other festival appearances in Aspen, Lucerne and Salzburg. He returns to the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra in Hamburg as its Associate Artist, and performs on tour with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. In June 2023, he will join the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra on a concert tour to South Korea.
Augustin Hadelich is the winner of a 2016 GRAMMY Award – “Best Classical Instrumental Solo” – for his recording of Dutilleux’s Violin Concerto, L’Arbre des songes, with the Seattle Symphony and Ludovic Morlot (Seattle Symphony MEDIA). A Warner Classics Artist, his most recent release is “Recuerdos”, a Spain-themed album featuring works by Sarasate, Tarrega, Prokofiev and Britten with the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln and Cristian Măcelaru. Writing about his GRAMMY-nominated 2021 release of Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas, the Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany’s most prestigious newspapers, boldly stated: “Augustin Hadelich is one of the most exciting violinists in the world. This album is a total success.” Other albums for Warner Classics include Paganini’s 24 Caprices (2018); the Brahms and Ligeti violin concertos with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra under Miguel Harth-Bedoya (2019); and the GRAMMY-nominated “Bohemian Tales”, which includes the Dvořák Violin Concerto with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Jakub Hrůša (2020).
Augustin Hadelich, now an American and German citizen, was born in Italy, to German parents. He studied with Joel Smirnoff at New York’s Juilliard School. Hadelich made a significant career leap in 2006 when he won the International Violin Competition in Indianapolis. Other distinctions include an Avery Fisher Career Grant (2009); a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in the UK (2011); an honorary doctorate from the University of Exeter in the UK (2017); and being voted “Instrumentalist of the Year” by the influential magazine “Musical America” (2018).
Augustin Hadelich is on the violin faculty of the Yale School of Music at Yale University. He plays violin from 1744 by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, known as “Leduc, ex Szeryng”, on loan from the Tarisio Trust.
Hailed for his emotional intensity, bold energy and remarkable musical colours, Sergei Babayan brings a deep understanding and insight to an exceptionally varied repertoire making him one of the greatest pianists of our time. Montreal’s Le Devoir declared, “Babayan is a genius. Full stop.” Born in Armenia into a musical family, Sergei Babayan began his studies there with Georgy Saradjev and continued them at the Moscow Conservatory with Mikhail Pletnev, Vera Gornostayeva and Lev Naumov. After a first trip outside the USSR in 1989, he won several first prizes in major international competitions, including the Cleveland International Piano Competition, the Hamamatsu Piano Competition and the Scottish International Piano Competition.