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Caroline Dowdle has performed widely in Britain and in Europe, giving recitals with singers and instrumentalists at the Southbank Centre and the Wigmore Hall, in Paris for Radio France, and in Vienna and Moscow. She has appeared regularly in recital with baritone Sir Thomas Allen. Caroline works with the singers on the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme at the Royal Opera House and is a member of faculty at the Royal College of Music. She is also a guest coach at the National Opera of Estonia in Tallinn and at the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Programme in New York, and head the Opera Programme of the Verbier Festival Academy’s Atelier Lyrique.
American violist Blythe Teh Engstroem studied violin with Nelli Shkolnikova and viola with Atar Arad at Indiana University Bloomington. She subsequently studied with Andrés Cárdenes in Pittsburgh. A passionate chamber musician, she has collaborated with Menahem Pressler, Yuja Wang, Lisa Batiashvili, Joshua Bell, Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, Pinchas Zukerman, Lawrence Power, Nobuko Imai, Gautier Capuçon and the Quatuor Ébène. She was a member of the Quatuor Terpsycordes (Switzerland). Blythe has performed at numerous festivals in Europe and the Far East and is a regular soloist at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland. She is a founding member of the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra which, under Gábor Takács-Nagy, tours regularly with artists including Martha Argerich, Joshua Bell and Maxim Vengerov. She has been the Chamber Orchestra’s concertmaster and currently leads the viola section. Blythe plays on a beautiful Maggini viola, on generous loan from a private benefactor.
Recipient of the 2010 Avery Fisher Career Grant, and First Prize Winner of the Walter E. Naumburg Viola Competition, David Aaron Carpenter has emerged as one of the world’s leading young artists. He has been acclaimed by Die Welt as “A New Star at the Forefront of Violists”; by The Philadelphia Inquirer as “an overnight-star violist”; and by The Strad Magazine as a violist whose “soulful sound, committed playing and dazzling technique leaves little to desire.” Since making his debut of the Walton Viola Concerto in 2005 with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach, David has performed with leading musicians and orchestras in the United States and Europe. This past November, he made his debut in Germany with the Dresden Staatskapelle performing the Schnittke Viola Concerto. In 2008, he was Maxim Vengerov’s last-minute replacement for performances of Benjamin Yusupov’s Viola, Tango, Rock Concerto with the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland. He has performed in the United States at Carnegie Hall, Avery Fisher Hall, Chicago’s Krannert Center, and San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre, among other venues. In September, David released his first recording on the Ondine label of the Elgar Cello Concerto (arr. Lionel Tertis/Carpenter) and the Schnittke Viola Concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Maestro Christoph Eschenbach. The disc received international acclaim and received numerous awards such as the Editor’s Choice Award by Gramophone Magazine and Disc of the Month by The New Yorker. As a chamber musician, David has collaborated with renowned artists Emanuel Ax, Sarah Chang, Sol Gabetta, Leonidas Kavakos, Julian Rachlin, Dmitry Sitkovetsky, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, and Yuja Wang and performs regularly at the Schleswig-Holstein and Verbier Music Festivals.
David was born in New York in 1986 into a family of musical siblings. He began his musical studies on the violin at age six with Nicole DiCecco and later on the viola at the age of 11. He pursued both instruments at the pre-college divisions of the Juilliard and Manhattan Schools of Music in New York under the tutelage of Toby Appel, Lewis Kaplan, Isaac Malkin, and Christina Khimm. He continued his studies with world-renowned viola pedagogues Yuri Bashmet, Roberto Diaz, Nobuko Imai, Robert Mann, Pinchas Zukerman. In 2005, David was the First Prize winner of the Greenfield Young Artists Competition and in 2006 he won the highly coveted First Prize at the Walter E. Naumburg Viola Competition. David was presented with the Presidential Gold Medal at a performance in Washington’s Kennedy Center subsequent to his winning the first ever Gold Award from the National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (NFAA). In June 2007, he became the first American protégé for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative with mentor Pinchas Zukerman. In addition to his musical accomplishments, David received his A.B. degree in Political Science and International Relations from Princeton University in 2008.
Grammy nominated Ukrainian-British violist and conductor Maxim Rysanov has established himself as one of the worldʼs most vibrant and charismatic musicians. As a violist, he is principally known as a frequent guest of the crème of the international music scene, such as BBC Last Night of the Proms and the festivals of Edinburgh, Salzburg and Verbier.
Among his concerto highlights are the Mariinsky Orchestra (Valery Gergiev), Russian National Orchestra (Mikhail Pletnev), BBC Symphony Orchestra (Jiří Bělohlávek), Residentie Orkest the Hague (Neeme Jarvi), Svetlanov State Symphony Orchestra (Vladimir Jurovsky), Seattle Symphony (Andrey Boreyko), Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León (Vasily Petrenko), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin (Tugan Sokhiev), Moscow Philharmonic (Yuri Simonov), Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (Vassily Sinaisky), Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne (Sir Mark Elder), Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra (Philippe Herreweghe), NDR Philharmonic Orchestra (Eivind Gullberg Jensen), Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra (Juraj Valcuha and again with Michał Nesterowicz), Adelaide Symphony Orchestra (Arvo Volmer), Danish National Symphony Orchestra (Michael Schoenwandt), Shanghai Symphony (Long Yu), European Union Youth Orchestra (Matthias Bamert), Czech Filharmonic (John Axelrod), Scottish Chamber Orchestra (Olari Elts), Spanish National Orchestra (Josep Caballe Domenech) and Beethovenorchester Bonn (Dirk Kaftan).
Maxim enjoys a busy career as a conductor parallel to playing the viola. Often he combines conducting and directing a concerto from viola. Maxim studied conducting with Alan Hazeldine at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and has taken part in several masterclasses with Gennady Rozhdestvensky and Jorma Panula. Here are some of the orchestras he conducted: Svetlanov State Symphony Orchestra, La Verdi Orchestra Milan, Basel Symphony Orchestra, Russian National Orchestra, Tatarstan State Symphony Orchestra, Spanish Radio Orchestra (RTVE), Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Dala Sinfonietta, Danubia Symphony Budapest, London Mozart Players, Southbank Sinfonia, Riga Sinfonietta, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, I Musici de Montreal, Detmold Chamber Orchestra, Musica Viva (Moscow), Voronezh Youth Orchestra, Kiev Soloists, Częstochowa Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra Chaarts, Budapest Festival Academy Orchestra, Classic FM Orchestra (Bulgaria), Georgian National Symphony Orchestra, Plovdiv Philharmonic, Sofia Opera Orchestra and Chorus, Sofia Philharmonic, Pfortseim Theatre Orchestra, Badische Philharmonie, Vivaldi Orchestra Morbegno.
Maxim is a keen chamber musician. His chamber partners include Maxim Vengerov, Janine Jansen, Mischa Maisky, Gidon Kremer, Nicola Benedetti, Vadim Repin, Augustin Dumay, Viktoria Mullova, Alexander Sitkovetsky, Sol Gabetta, Leif Ove Andsnes, Denis Matsuev, Alessio Bax, Michael Collins, Martin Frost, Alice Coote, Freddy Kempf, Yeoelom Son among others.
His enthusiasm for new music generates many exciting collaborations which extend the viola repertoire. This includes world premieres by Dobrinka Tabakova, Pēteris Vasks, Richard Dubugnon, Mate Balogh and Elena Langer. Other composers with whom Maxim has developed a close working relationship include Benjamin Yusupov, Leonid Desyatnikov, Giya Kancheli and most recently Gabriel Prokofiev. Gabriel is planning to write a symphony-concerto for Maxim, where the performer will have to combine skills of both soloist and conductor.
Maxim’s recordings have gained numerous award nominations including Gramophone Editor’s Choice, ECHO, ICMA. Maxim featured as both soloist and conductor on the debut disc of composer Dobrinka Tabakova (ECM) in 2013 – a disc that reached number 2 in the UK classical charts and was shortlisted for a Grammy Award. His last album “in Schubert’s company” was selected as Gramophone Critic’s Choice of the Year. New CD is planned for a spring 2020 release on BIS. Sinfonietta Riga under Maxim’s direction are performing music by Peteris Vasks. It will include the premier recording of the Viola Concerto written and dedicated to Maxim, coupled with the Symphony no 1.
Maxim is a recipient of various awards, including the Gramophone Young Artist of the Year Award and the BBC Radio 3 New Generation Award. He is also a prize-winner at the Geneva, Lionel Tertis and Valentino Bucchi competitions.
Maxim studied viola with Maria Sitkovskaya in Moscow and John Glickman at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama London.
He is delighted to play a 1780 Giuseppe Guadagnini Viola known as ‘II Soldato’, on private loan that was kindly arranged by Premiere Performances of Hong Kong.
In the 21/22 season, Antoine Tamestit was able to showcase the breadth of his talents in residencies with the London Symphony Orchestra (Artist Portrait), Staatskapelle Dresden (Capell-Virtuos) and the Cologne Philharmonie (Porträtkünstler). In 22/23, he will be Artist-in-Residence at the Prague Spring Festival.
In recent seasons, Antoine has performed with orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic, Boston Symphony, Bayerische Rundfunk, Orchestre de Paris, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestre National de France, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Mahler Chamber Orchestra or the Akademie Für Alte Musik Berlin among many others. He performs regularly with major conductors including Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, Klaus Mäkelä, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, Sir Antonio Pappano, Kirill Petrenko, Sir Simon Rattle, Francois-Xavier Roth, and Christian Thielemann.
Antoine Tamestit was a founding member of Trio Zimmermann with Frank Peter Zimmermann and Christian Poltera. Together they have recorded a number of acclaimed CDs for BIS Records, including Bach’s Goldberg Variations in their own arrangement, and have played in Europe’s most famous concert halls and series. Other chamber music partners include Emmanuel Ax, Isabelle Faust, Martin Fröst, Leonidas Kavakos, Nikolai Lugansky, Yo-Yo Ma, Emmanuel Pahud, Francesco Piemontesi, Cédric Tiberghien, Yuja Wang, Jörg Widmann, Shai Wosner and the Ébène Quartet.
Among the most important world premieres by Antoine Tamestit are Jörg Widmann’s Viola Concerto, Thierry Escaich’s La Nuit des Chants, Bruno Mantovani’s Concerto for Two Violas with Tabea Zimmermann, as well as Gérard Tamestit’s Sakura and Olga Neuwirth’s Remnants of Songs and Weariness Heals Wounds.
Together with Nobuko Imai, Antoine Tamestit continues to be the co-artistic director of the Viola Space Festival in Japan for 10 years, focusing on the development of viola repertoire and a wide range of education programmes.
Antoine records regularly with Harmonia Mundi as he continues to expand his vibrant scope of discography. Of the many of his acclaimed albums, Round Midnight with Quatuor Ebène was recently crowned with Chamber Award 2022 by the coveted Gramophone Award. His recent releases include Johannes Brahms’s Sonatas for Viola and Piano with Cédric Tiberghien and a Telemann album with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. His other most notable release was the Widmann Concerto, recorded with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Daniel Harding in February 2018. The recording was selected as Editor’s Choice in BBC Music Magazine and also won the Premier Award at the BBC Music Magazine Awards in 2019.
Born in Paris, Tamestit studied with Jean Sulem, Jesse Levine, and with Tabea Zimmermann. He was the recipient of several prizes including first prize at the William Primrose Competition in 2001, and the ARD International Music Competition in 2004 as well as being awarded the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2008. In November 2022 he will receive the Paul-Hindemith-Preis of the City of Hanau.
Antoine Tamestit plays on the very first viola made by Antonio Stradivarius in 1672, generously loaned by the Habisreutinger Foundation.
Praised for his remarkable range of colours, his confident and concentrated stage presence, his virtuosity and technical poise as well as the beauty of his tone Josef Špaček has gradually emerged as one of the leading violinists of his generation. His performances of a wide range of repertoire demonstrate his “astonishing articulation and athleticism” (The Scotsman) and “a richness and piquancy of timbre.” (The Telegraph).
He appears with orchestras including the Orchestre de Paris, the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI Torino, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, the Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen and the Kammerakademie Potsdam.
Josef Špaček collaborates with eminent conductors such as Jakub Hrůša, Semyon Bychkov, Manfred Honeck, Valery Gergiev, Thomas Adès, Krzysztof Urbański, James Gaffigan, James Conlon, Maxim Emelyanchev, Jiří Bělohlávek, Thomas Søndergård, Cornelius Meister, Michael Sanderling, David Zinman, Eliahu Inbal, Tomáš Netopil, Marc Albrecht, Aziz Shokhakimov, Christian Vasquez and Lio Kuokman.
He equally enjoys giving recitals and playing chamber music and is a regular guest at festivals and in concert halls throughout Europe (among others at the Rudolfinum in Prague, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ in Amsterdam, the Kronberg Academy, the Evian Festival, the Kaposfest and at Schloß Elmau), Asia and the USA (among others at Kennedy Center, Washington D.C., 92Y in New York, La Jolla in San Diego, the ChamberFest Cleveland and the Nevada Chamber Music Festival).
His chamber music partners include Gil Shaham, Kian Soltani, James Ehnes, Clemens Hagen, Yuja Wang, Noah Bendix-Balgley, Máté Szücs, Miroslav Sekera, Tomáš Jamník, Suzana Bartal, Kristóf Baráti and Sharon Kam.
Supraphon released a highly praised recording of the violin concertos of Dvořák and Janáček, coupled with the Fantasy of Suk, with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Jiří Bělohlávek. The Sunday Times wrote: “The violinist’s individual, deeply considered and virtuosic account of Dvorak’s solo part is the highlight of this keenly conceived programme”, adding that “in this repertoire, Špaček is second to none today.” It was the “Recording of the week” of The Sunday Times, “Recording of the month & of the year” of MusicWeb International and it received 5* in Diapason. Other recordings to date are a recital disc with works for violin and piano by Smetana, Janáček and Prokofiev with pianist Miroslav Sekera (Supraphon), works for violin solo and violin and piano by H.W. Ernst (Naxos) and an early CD with the complete Sonatas for Solo Violin by Eugène Ysaÿe.
Josef Špaček studied with Itzhak Perlman at The Juilliard School in New York, Ida Kavafian and Jaime Laredo at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and with Jaroslav Foltýn at the Prague Conservatory. He was laureate of the International Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels, and won top prizes at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand, the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in Denmark and the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York.
He has served as concertmaster of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, the youngest in its history. The orchestra named him “Associate Artist” as of January 2016. He left this post at the end of the 2019/20 season to devote himself exclusively to his solo career.
Josef Špaček performs on the ca. 1732 “LeBrun; Bouthillard” Guarneri del Gesù violin, generously on loan from Ingles & Hayday.
He lives in Prague with his wife and their three children. In his spare time he enjoys cycling.
Greek bass Alexandros Stavrakakis is the First Prize Winner of the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition, and is a member of the ensemble at Semperoper Dresden, where his roles this season include Chelio (The Love for Three Oranges) Filippo II (Don Carlo) and Colline (La bohème) amongst others.
In seasons past, Alexandros marked his house debuts at Metropolitan Opera, New York, Bayerische Staatsoper, Munich, Opéra national de Bordeaux, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, Teatro Massimo di Palermo, Teatro dell’Opera di Roma, Schloss Elmau, Verbier Festival and Festival d’Aix-en-Provence as well as Carnegie Hall and Symphony Hall Boston.
This season he will make important house and role debuts with Hermann (Tannhäuser) at Houston Grand Opera and Vodnik (Rusalka) at Teatro del Liceu Barcelona. On the concert scene, he will sing a new commission by Fazil Say and Mozart’s Requiem with the Luzerner Symphonieorchester. Future seasons will see his return to the Metropolitan Opera New York, as well as house debuts at Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, L’Opéra de Montreal, L’Opéra national de Paris and Festspielhaus Baden-Baden.
As a soloist, Alexandros has appeared in opera productions of the Greek National Opera and the Megaron Athens Concert Hall, worked in numerous radio broadcasts and recitals in Athens, Thessaloniki, Ioannina, Syros (Apollo Theater), Corfu, Kefalonia, Delphi, Dresden, Berlin, Baden-Baden, Kaiserslautern, Landau, Bad Elster, Istanbul, collaborating with orchestras such as the Greek Symphony Orchestra of ERT, Thessaloniki State Orchestra, Deutsche Philarmonie Orchester SWR, Staatskapelle Dresden,
He collaborated with conductors including Christian Thielemann, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Ivan Repušić, Omer Meir Wellber, John Fiore, Andris Nelsons, Andres Orozco-Estrada, Nikolaj Znaider, Michele Mariotti, Damiano Michiletto Jonathan Darlington, Daniele Rustioni, Joana Mallwitz, Marco Armiliato, Antonello Manacorda and Mark Wigglesworth. Notable stage directors include Damiano Michiletto, Christof Loy, David Mc Vicar, Katharina Thalbach, Andreas Homoki, Nikolaus Lehnhoff, Grischa Asagaroff and Dmitry Bertman.
Alexandros’ recital programmes range from Schubert, Brahms, and Schumann to Mussorgsky, Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.
He began his musical education at an early age receiving piano lessons from his mother. At the age of eight, he became a member of the Children’s Choir of ERT (Hellenic Broadcasting Corporation). Two years later he joined the ”Manolis Kalomiris Children Choir” of the National Conservatory, which allowed him to participate in numerous opera productions of the Greek National Opera. In 2014, he graduated with honours and special prize and in the same year he was awarded the Maria Callas Scholarship.
In addition to his victory at the 2019 International Tchaikovsky Competition, Alexandros won the 3rd Wagner International Competition in Leipzig and is a winner of the Second Prize and the Audience Prize at the prestigious Hans Gabor Belvedere Competition (Riga, 2018).
Highlights of the upcoming season include Brander La Damnation de Faust at the Gergiev Festival, Mahler’s Symphony No. 8 at the Konzerthaus Berlin under Christoph Eschenbach, Shostakovich 14 with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and with the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, The Fiery Angel at Theater an der Wien, and Elektra with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet-Séguin.
Hungarian cellist Miklós Perényi first studied cello with Miklós Zsámboki, a student of David Popper. In 1963 he became a prizewinner at the Pablo Casals International Cello Competition in Budapest, after which Casals invited him to his master classes in Puerto Rico in 1965 and 1966. Since then, Perényi has performed around the world with the best orchestras, while one of his closest chamber music partners is the pianist András Schiff. Beyond performing, Perényi also holds a professorship at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest, whose faculty he first joined in 1974, and is a composer of works for solo cello and for instrumental ensembles. One recent notable project was his 2020 recording of the six Bach Suites for Hungaroton, made exactly forty years after he first recorded the set. His numerous awards include, in 2014, the Hungarian Artist of the Nation Award.