Press Enter to search
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.
Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson is a prolific soloist and chamber musician, equally adept on modern and historical instruments, and widely respected as both performer and pedagogue. Highlights of 2025 include multiple appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall, performances as concerto soloist with the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and engagements at festivals such as Bath Mozartfest, Cumnock Tryst, Musikdorf Ernen, Festivalta, Lewes Chamber Music, Resonances, and Yellow Barn. His musical collaborators include Steven Isserlis, Viktoria Mullova, Pieter Wispelwey, and the Nash Ensemble.
Renowned for his sincerity and adventurous programming, Alasdair champions a broad repertoire with particular focus on Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann; the solo and chamber works of Gabriel Fauré, Bartók, and Janáček; concertos by Bach, Bartók, Britten, Fauré, Hindemith, Messiaen, and Mozart; and contemporary compositions including Thomas Adès’s piano quintet, George Benjamin’s Piano Figures and Shadowlines, and Harrison Birtwistle’s Harrison’s Clocks.
His recent recordings include the solo recital Aus Wien on Pentatone, featuring music by Schumann, Schoenberg, Ravel, Korngold, and Schubert, as well as works by Beethoven and Schubert for violin and fortepiano with Viktoria Mullova on Signum. These join a distinguished discography of solo and chamber recordings across labels including BIS, Champs Hill, Chandos, Claves, Evil Penguin, Onyx, Pentatone, and SOMM.
Alasdair teaches solo piano at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and regularly mentors through Chamber Studio and MusicWorks. From 2012 to 2018, he was founder and artistic director of Musique à Marsac, and since 2019 he has served as artistic director of the chamber music festival at Musikdorf Ernen in Switzerland.
Lang Lang, born on 14 June 1982 in Shenyang, is a world-renowned Chinese pianist.
He began studying the piano at the age of three and gave his first public recital at five. Lang Lang has won several prestigious competitions, including first prize at the Shenyang Piano Competition in 1987 and first prize at the Xing Hai Competition in Beijing in 1991. He was also admitted to the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where he studied under Professor Zhao Ping-Guo.
He made his U.S. debut in 1998 and quickly gained fame for his remarkable performances, extraordinary technique, and expressive interpretations. His foundation, the Lang Lang Music Foundation, was established in 2007 to support pianists around the world.
John Fisher studied at Glasgow University and the Royal Academy of Music & Drama and The London Opera Centre. His career, which began as Music Director of Welsh National Opera’s ‘Opera for All’ project, has included work at the Théâtre à la Monnaie (Brussels), Nederlands Opera (Amsterdam), La Scala (Milan), where he was also Artistic Administrator, and as the first non-Italian to be appointed Artistic Director in a state-funded Italian opera house, at the Teatro alla Fenice (Venice). He was Director of Opera and Vocal Productions and Executive Producer at Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, Hamburg, and Director of Music Administration at the Metropolitan Opera, New York. In 2006, he took up the post of Chief Executive and Artistic Director at Welsh National Opera, a role he held for five years. He subsequently returned to the Metropolitan opera as Assistant General Manager.
John has collaborated throughout his career with the industry’s most distinguished conductors, including Claudio Abbado, Carlos Kleiber and Sir Georg Solti. He has also worked extensively with many of the world’s greatest opera stars, notably José Carreras, Marilyn Horne, Luciano Pavarotti and Dame Joan Sutherland. John’s recent work in New York has also featured engagement with the Young Artists programme at the Metropolitan Opera and at the world-renowned Juilliard School. As Hodge International Chair in Opera since 2015 he has been a regular visiting artist at the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama working with many young singers on the College’s Masters programme in Advanced Opera Performance.
Described as ‘an amazingly talented pianist’ by Musica, Emma Abbate performs with many of the leading singers and instrumentalists of her generation.
Emma has made a series of acclaimed recordings devoted to Italian vocal chamber music, the latest of which is the world-première Franco Alfano: Songs with the leading Italian dramatic soprano Anna Pirozzi. Previously, Emma has recorded Sera d’inverno: Songs by Ildebrando Pizzetti with mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Shakespeare Sonnets with bass-baritone Ashley Riches, all on Resonus Classics.
Based in London, Emma is a professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, a staff coach at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, and is regularly invited to teach at the Verbier Festival Academy.
Israeli violinist Lir Vaginsky began playing the violin at the age of seven and has since performed internationally in venues such as Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Elbphilharmonie, and Berliner Philharmonie, with orchestras including the Hamburg Camerata and Sinfonie Orchester Berlin. She recently collaborated with Max Richter in Berlin. In 2024, she released her debut album with the Konzerthaus Berlin Kammerorchester, featuring Mozart’s violin concertos with her own cadenzas.
A former member of the LGT Young Soloists, she became the youngest violinist ever to record two solo albums under RCA Red Seal (Sony Music). Lir studied with Tomasz Tomaszewski, Latica Honda-Rosenberg, and Christian Tetzlaff, and took part in masterclasses with Ana Chumachenco, András Schiff, and Augustin Hadelich. A laureate of the Ysaye, Young Paganini, and Grand Prize Virtuoso competitions, she is supported by the Musikleben, Ponto, and Kalliope Foundations, and performs with an 1810 Louis Pajeot bow.