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Semion Skigin was born in Leningrad and studied at its State Conservatory. In 1972, he appeared as a soloist with the Leningrad Philharmonic and three years later won first prize at the International Competition for Piano Accompanists in Rio de Janeiro.
Semion Skigin’s activity as a teacher led to his appointment as guest professor from 1978 to 1981 at the Carl Maria von Weber Musikhochschule in Dresden. Since 1990 he has been Professor of Song Accompaniment at the Musikhochschule “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin. In addition, he regularly gives master classes at leading conservatories in Germany, Holland, and the U.S.A, and Russia. He is a jury member of numerous international competitions and festivals, the Artistic Director of the music festival at Theaterkahn in Dresden, as well as Vice President and Artistic Director of the Piano Salon in Berlin.
Semion Skigin is one of the most sought-after song accompanists and appears in all the great concert halls of the world, accompanying world-class singers, such as Ekaterina Semenchuk, Evelina Dobračeva, Olaf Bär, Cheryl Studer, Robert Holl, Olga Borodina, and Sergei Leiferkus.
Hailed as ‘The latest phenomenon of the Russian piano school’ (Corriere della Sera), Moscow-born pianist Alexander Malofeev came to international prominence when he won the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2014, aged 13. In 2017 he became the first ever Young Yamaha Artist. He now performs with such orchestras as the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala and the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, appearing with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Riccardo Chailly, Mikhail Pletnev, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Susanna Mälkki, Alondra de la Parra and Kristjan Järvi. As a recitalist he plays in venues such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and the Philharmonie de Paris. Malofeev currently studies with Pavel Nersessian at the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory.
Born in Aachen, Germany on March 26, 1998, Simon quickly developed musical interest. Inspired by his father’s drumming and his mother’s singing he had a strong connection to all kinds of music right from the start. It didn’t take long for him to abandon children’s music and dive into the world of his fathers record collection which consisted of classic rock, blues and soul music.
Simon began playing the drums at the age of two and, just a couple of years later, discovered the Hammond B3 organ when his father brought home a concert DVD of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers with Tom Canning on organ. Simon was hooked after hearing the first couple of notes – it was the start of a deep connection to the organ and its musical surroundings.
During the first couple of years after his first encounter with the Hammond Organ, Simon developed his musicality by playing along to blues records by ear, eager to figure out what it was that his heroes played on the recordings. His progress was rapid and by the time he took his first classical piano lessons at the age of 8 he was already a capable blues pianist/organist and had gained his first experience playing in several local bands.
In the following years, Simon acquired more experience playing in local big bands and several other jazz ensembles in Germany and the Netherlands, won a number of Jazz awards and worked with great teachers and mentors, most notably one of his favorite pianists, Frank Chastenier.
Still in the middle of high school, 2010 was the year Simon started playing professionally at the age of 12. He teamed up with his close friend, drum virtuoso Jérôme Cardynaals and formed Twogether. The duo instantaneously won 3 awards at the prestigious Prinses Christina Jazz Concours in Amsterdam which served as a strong career start. In their 10 years of playing together, the dream team of Simon and Jérôme has toured all over Europe, worked with various greats of the Jazz world (Dr. Lonnie Smith, Nils Landgren a.o.) and produced two critically acclaimed albums.
At the same time, these events also started Simon’s career as a solo artist and sought-after session and live musician. At the age of 25, he is currently touring around the globe with some of the most acclaimed artists in the music world with the mission to make the world a more soulful place and spread love through music.
Just recently, Simon has become a member of German drumming legend Wolfgang Haffner’s band as well as saxophone icon Bill Evans’ new band “Bill Evans & The Spykillers!”. In 2019, he joined the Jazz quartet of world star singer Thomas Quasthoff with Wolfgang Haffner and Dieter Ilg. Another dream came true in 2022 when Simon joined Steve Gadd, Eddie Gomez and Ronnie Cuber (alongside the WDR Big Band, arranged and conducted by Michael Abene) to record the album “Center Stage” (Leopard) which received a Grammy nomination for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album.
After his auspicious debut on Leopard Records, 2020’s “About Time” (feat. Randy Brecker, Bill Evans, Ricky Peterson and more), Simon reveals more of himself on his sophomore release for the label, “Peace of Mind”. Backed by an international rhythm tandem of American bassist extraordinaire Will Lee and Germany’s most acclaimed jazz drummer Wolfgang Haffner, Simon displays his prodigious talents on acoustic piano, Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes electric piano and his signature synthesizer sounds while contributing wordless vocals to the compelling mix.
Brilliant young male soprano Bruno de Sá already has a string of glowing reviews to his name, his extraordinary voice and rare musicianship astonishing professionals, critics and public alike.
While still a student in his native Brazil, he made his first professional appearance in 2013 as Der Knabe in Weill’s Der Jasager (Cultural Centre SESC Belenzinho, São Paulo). During the following season he performed in Joplin’s Treemonisha, and was soprano soloist in Bach’s St John and St Matthew Passions at the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus. 2015 saw his major role début, as Sesto in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito at the Teatro São Pedro in São Paolo: “ … a triumph … an international career awaits …” [concerto.com.br], and he further expanded his oratorio repertoire as soloist in Handel’s Messiah and Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle at the Teatro L’Occitane in Trancoso, Bahia.
In 2016 he again sang both of these works, making his German début with the Chorakademie, Lübeck, and was the first-prize winner at the 14th Maria Callas Competition in São Paulo. During the 2016/17 season he returned to the Teatro São Pedro as Gherardino (Gianni Schicchi), Harry (Albert Herring), Cherubino (Le nozze di Figaro) and First Lady (Die Zauberflöte). At the 20th Festival Amazonas de Ópera he was the Shepherd in Tannhäuser, and soloist in Triunfo da Voz, a concert celebrating the great castrato Farinelli: “Bruno de Sá drove the audience wild …” [L’Opera]. In April 2017, his appearances as Alberto in a rare revival of Giuseppe Balducci’s Il noce di Benevento also received rave reviews. Later that year, he received a Silver Prize at the 2nd Manhattan International Music Competition.
In June 2018 Bruno de Sá won the 19th Concorso Spiros Argiris in Sarzana, Italy, while in July, at the Passau Sommerakademie his performance in Rossini’s Petite messe solennelle again received critical acclaim: “Amongst the soloists, Bruno de Sá stood out … his tone quality is seductive. If this doesn’t make him famous, what will?” [Passauer neue Presse]. In the following months he made his début at the Teatro Municipal, São Paulo, as soloist in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms, and John Adams’ opera El niño. Bruno recently impressed a greater number with the role of Aci in Giovanni Bononcini’s Polifemo under the music direction of Dorothee Oberlinger with performances in Potsdam and Bayreuth.
During the season 2019/20, Bruno de Sá joined the young artist programme at Theater Basel where he sung Die Kleine Meerjungfrau in Jherek Bischoff’s Andersens Erzählungen under Thomas Wise (world première), and Barbarina in Le Nozze di Figaro conducted by Christian Curnyn. He also sung Sesto in Handel’s Giulio Cesare directed by Peter Konwitschny and under Michael Hofstetter (Oper Halle), as well as Isacio in Hasse’s Irene with Aapo Häkkainen and the Helsinki Baroque Orchestra (Musiikkitalo Helsinki and Theater an der Wien).
With the beginning of the 2020/21 season, he makes his debut at the Bayreuth Baroque Opera Festival as Berardo in Carlo il Calvo by Porpora staged by Max Emanuel Cenčic and conducted by George Petrou. The production is then presented in concert version at Theater an der Wien and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He then joins Oper Dortmund for their Baroque pasticcio Sehnsucht staged by Andreas Rosar and conducted by Philip Armbruster. Later, he takes on the role of Abel in Scarlatti’s Il Primo Omicidio conducted by Philippe Jaroussky (Metz, Versailles, Montpellier, Versailles and Salzburg), as well as Volusio in Hasse’s Cajo Fabricio with Martyna Pastuszka and {oh!} Orkiestra Historyczna! (Gliwice and Vienna). He sings also Nerone in Handel’s Agrippina (Drottningholm) staged Staffan Waldemar Holm and conducted by Francesco Corti.
Bruno de Sá is a Warner Classics exclusive artist. He recently won an OPER! Award 2020 in the category “Best Newcomer of the Year”.
Hailed as “the most promising of today’s up-and-coming song recitalists” (Financial Times), baritone Benjamin Appl is celebrated by audiences and critics alike for a voice that “belongs to the last of the old great masters of song’ with ‘an almost infinite range of colours” (Suddeutsche Zeitung), “exacting attention to text” (New York Times), and artistry that’s described as “unbearably moving” (The Times). Named Gramophone Award Young Artist of the Year in 2016, Appl was a member of the BBC New Generation Artist scheme from 2014 to 2016, as well as a Wigmore Hall Emerging Artist and ECHO Rising Star for the 2015/16 season, appearing at major venues throughout Europe, including the Barbican Centre London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wiener Konzerthaus, Philharmonie Paris and Cologne and the Laeiszhalle Hamburg. He was signed exclusively to SONY Classical between 2016 and 2021. He recently partnered up with Alpha Classics for a long term collaboration of multiple albums.
Teodor Currentzis was born in Greece, where he began studying music. In 1994, he entered St. Petersburg State Conservatory to study under the legendary professor Ilya Musin.
Together with his ensembles, Teodor Currentzis regularly tours Europe and the world with performances in numerous prestigious venues including Vienna Konzerthaus, Berlin Philharmonic, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Munich Philharmonic, Philharmonie de Paris, Kölner Philharmonie, Auditorio Nacional, Baden-Baden Festspielhaus, and La Scala. As a stage conductor and musical director, Teodor Currentzis has worked with the leading opera theatres including Opéra de Paris, Bayerische Staatsoper, Opernhaus Zürich, Teatro Real, and the Bolshoi Theatre.
He has also collaborated with the key figures in modern Western theatre: Robert Wilson, Romeo Castellucci, Peter Sellars, Dmitri Tcherniakov, Theodoros Terzopoulos, and others. Teodor Currentzis is a Resident Artist at the Salzburg Festival as well as at the RUHRtriennale Festival, festivals in Lucerne and Aix-en-Provence.
Works by Mozart, Mahler, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Rameau, and Stravinsky released by Teodor Currentzis on Sony Classical record label have received numerous international music awards: ECHO Klassik, Edison Klassiek, Japanese Record Academy Award, and BBC Music Magazine’s Opera Award. Teodor Currentzis has received the Toepfer Foundation’s prestigious KAIROS Award. He has also been awarded the Greek Order of the Phoenix and the international Musikfest Bremen Award.
South African pianist James Baillieu, winner of prestigious international song and Lied competitions, has partnered with leading singers and instrumentalists around the world. His programming skills have proved their worth at festivals in the UK and Australia, including the Wigmore Hall, at the request of its artistic director. His recordings range from Lieder to the complete works for piano and violin by C.P.E. Bach. In addition to his extensive teaching activities (Royal Academy of Music, Jette Parker Young Artist Programme of the Royal Opera House, Royal Northern College of Music), he leads the Song Programme of the Verbier Festival Academy’s Atelier Lyrique.
Stanislav Kochanovsky, Chief Conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hannover as of the 2024/25 season, is one of the most interesting artistic personalities of our time. His heart beats for both symphonic music and opera. And with both genres, he has caused quite a stir in the international music world in recent years. His guest conducting engagements have taken him to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Oslo Philharmonic, the Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, the Japanese NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Philharmonie, the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, the Cleveland Orchestra and the Philharmonia Orchestra London, among the others.
In the course of his career, he has also conducted the major orchestras of his native country, including the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Russian National Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the Moscow Philharmonic and the Mariinsky Orchestra.
With more than thirty operas in his repertoire, recent opera engagements have included The Pique Dame and Evgenij Onegin at the Opernhaus Zürich, Iolanta at the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Prince Igor at the Dutch National Opera Amsterdam, working with distinguished directors and singers such as D. Tcherniakov, B. Kosky, L. Davidsen, M. Goerne, C. Gerhaher, E. Nikitin, V. Sulimsky, I. Abdrazakov, P. Mattei.
Since 2017, Kochanovsky is a regular guest at the Verbier Festival where he conducted opera in concerts (Evgenij Onegin, Rigoletto, Die Zauberflöte, Hansel and Gretel) and symphonic programme with soloists Lucas Debargue and Mikhail Pletnev.
In addition to the classical repertoire, Kochanovsky has conducted rare performed works and new compositions, such as Ligeti’s Requiem, Scriabin-Nemtin’s Prefatory Action Mysterium, Kodály’s Psalmus Hungaricus, Shostakovich’s unfinished opera The Gamblers, Myaskovsky’s Silence, Weinberg’s Symphony No. 21 “Kaddish” and works by living composers such as Dean, Fedele, Broström, Tawfiq, Visman, Campogrande, Martinsson, Golijov, Thorvaldsdottir, Tarnopolski, Rääts, Vasks.
In the 2024/25 season, besides the programs, tours and recording projects with his NDR Radiophilharmonie Orchestra, he will continue his regular collaborations with the Orchestre de Paris, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the NDR ElbPhilharmonie Orchestra, the DR Danish National Symphony, the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, the Teatro La Fenice Orchestra, among others.
Stanislav Kochanovsky attended the Glinka Choir School in his hometown of St. Petersburg before going on to graduate with honours at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatoire, where he studied choral conducting, organ and opera-symphonic conducting.
“Super-soloist” is the way France Musique introduced Dmitry Masleev when he made his debut with the Orchestre National de France at the beginning of 2020, playing the Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1, the work that helped launch his international career, when he won the 2015 Tchaikovsky International Piano Competition in Moscow. Diapason described the same concert as “the Triumph of Dmitry Masleev at Radio France. Masleev delivered a soaring interpretation, with his transcendent virtuosity augmented by his delicate touch.” In the autumn of this year Dmitry makes his debuts at the Golden Hall of Musikverein and on the main stage of the Berlin Philharmonic. He returns to Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg with the Ural Philharmonic Orchestra on their second joint tour of Germany and to the Philharmonie de Paris with a solo recital featuring recently discovered early works of Dmitry Shostakovich, which the young pianist world-premiered in July 2020 in a virtual concert presented by the International Shostakovich Festival in Gohrisch and broadcast by ARTE, Mitteldeutsche Rundfunk, and Deutsche Grammophon. Dmitry’s tour plans for the 2020-21 season also include multiple performances at René Martin’s Moments Musicaux Festival at La Baule and at the Verbier Festival’s residence at Schloss Elmau. His Verbier Festival debut in 2019 was among many of his performances broadcast on Medici TV to thousands of people worldwide. In the recent seasons Dmitry has also been invited to perform at the Lucerne Festival, Klavierfestival Ruhr, as well as at the La Roque d’Anthéron, Montreux, Rheingau, Bad Kissingen, Bodensee, and Stars of the White Nights festivals. Dmitry particularly appreciates festivals for the opportunities to play chamber music. His regular partners include Boris Berezovsky, who has described him as “a discovery and a brilliant pianist”, Marc Bouchkov, Alexander Ramm, and the Borodin Quartet. Later in the season Dmitry returns to Basel, where he debuted in 2016, jumping in at the last minute for the indisposed Maurizio Pollini. This time, he will perform with the Sinfonieorchester Basel under the direction of Ariane Mathiakh with Rachmaninov’s Variations on the Theme of Paganini. Dmitry’s orchestral collaborations also include the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra (Robert Trevino), Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France (Mikko Franck), Orchestre National de Lyon (Tan Dun), Bamberg Orchestra (Christoph Eschenbach), and Orquestra Cadaqués (David Robertson). Dmitry continues to perform regularly throughout Russia, appearing in recital and with orchestras, including the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Yuri Simonov, at the Tchaikovsky Hall, the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Mariinsky Concert Hall, and other venues. Rising to the challenge of Covid 19 crisis, Dmitry has been actively collaborating with the Moscow Philharmonic Society, offering numerous performances via their digital concert hall, reaching hundreds of thousands of people worldwide at the time of great physical, emotional and economic difficulties. His recent media activities also include the release of his second album, Rapid Movement, on Russia’s legendary label Melodia, famous for its recordings of Richter, Gilels, Davidovich and other great Russian pianists. Recorded with Siberian State Symphony and VladimirLande, it features Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1 alongside the Jazz Suite by Alexander Tsfasman and the Piano Concerto No. 2 by a contemporary Russian composer Nikolai Kapustin (Dmitry’s performance of Kapustin’s Toccatina has over 350,000 views on YouTube). Shostakovich and Tsfasman enjoyed an artistic friendship: Tsfasman consulted with Shostakovich on the orchestration of his themes, while Shostakovich sought his opinion on his own forays into jazz. Mr. Masleev’s previous album, launched with a performance at the recital hall of the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and featuring solo and orchestral repertoire, has made the Spotify Top Classical 2017 charts and received the prestigious German Critics’ Prize (Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik) in the solo piano category, where it was nominated alongside Krystian Zimerman’s Schubert album (DG). “One can only revel in the poetic spontaneity of this Scarlatti recording, not least because of the brilliance, precision and ease of Masleev’s playing” (Westdeutsche Rundfunk). Within the first six months of the release, Mr. Masleev’s own arrangement of Shostakovich’s Elegy from the Ballet Suite No. 3 has been downloaded on iTunes over 43,000 times. In acknowledgement of these achievements, ARTE’s primetime TV show Stars von Morgen, hosted by Rolando Villazon, featured Dmitry Masleev as the pianist to watch. “It is fascinating to witness his artistic development. One cannot be taught to play like this. It takes a lot of natural musicality… Masleev shows how within a small space one can open up an entire cosmos of a soul. That is great art and that is what you always want and rarely get as a listener: watching the artist looking for himself and listening to him find it,” wrote Helmut Mauró in Süddeutsche Zeitung in 2019 North America fell in love with Dmitry Masleev when he made his Carnegie Hall recital debut at the Isaac Stern Auditorium in January 2017 and repeated the same program at Toronto’s Koerner Hall in March. In 2018, he toured coast-to-coast with the Moscow State Symphony and Pavel Kogan. Annual visits to South America have established Dmitry as an audience favorite in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and Ecuador. This season Dmitry collaborates with Allegro HD, the main arts and culture TV network of the continent, to deliver music to his fans despite the travel restrictions. Dmitry regularly performs in the Asian capitals, both with orchestras such as Seoul Philharmonic, New Japanese Philharmonic, and National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan, as well as in recital. A solo recital tour of China and Japan is planned for this season, along with a return to Taipei for a performance with NSO Taiwan and Joshua Weilerstein. Born and raised in Ulan-Ude (a Siberian town between Lake Baikal and the Mongolian border), Dmitry was educated at the Moscow Conservatory in the class of Professor Mikhail Petukhov, and at the International Music Academy at Lake Como.