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Discovered at the XV International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 2015, Lucas Debargue is today one of the most sought-after young pianists in the world and continues to impress with the originality of his musical talent. His encounter with Rena Shereshevskaya at the age of 10 marked the beginning of his commitment to a career as a concert pianist. Debargue draws his inspiration from literature, painting, cinema and jazz and offers interpretations that revisit the classics. He brings to light little-known parts of the repertoire, such as pieces by Karol Szymanowski, Nikolai Medtner or Milosz Magin. The Frenchman also devotes time to composition and has written about twenty pieces for solo piano and for chamber music ensembles.
Alexandra Conunova won in 2012 the first distinction of the Joseph Joachim of Hanover’s international violin competition : impressed by her master technique and her sensitivity, the jury unanimously commended her virtuosity. In 2015 ; while she was rewarded at the Singapour’s International Competition, she reached the final step of the prestigious Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, where she won the third prize – the first prize having remained non awarded – before becoming the 2016’s BorlettiBuittoni Fellowship laureate in London.
From then on, Alexandra makes it a rule as a leading soloist and performs alongside important orchestra such as Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra de la Svizzera Italiana, NDR Hannover, Radio Saarbrück, Mariinski Orchestra, Camerata Bern, Orchestre du Teatro Regio de Turin, Orchestre de Seville, Orchestre de Toulouse, Stuttgart and Vienna chamber orchestras, under the direction of Valery Gergiev, Theodor Curentzis, John Axelrod, Vladmir Spivakov, G. Noseda, …touring in Japan with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and Yuri Simonov, or even recently touring with Laurence Equilbey and her Insula Orchestra – Budapest, Aix en Provence, Paris, London.
Alexandra performs also in various festivals, such as Verbier, Montreux Septembre Musical, Gstaad, BBC London, Ferrara Musica, Accademia Santa Cecilia Roma, Hamburg Martha Argerich Festival, Bonn, Colmar, Menton, Radio France Montpellier, Aix-en -Provence Festival de Pâques, les Folles Journées de Nantes and Tokyo…and chamber music with Michail Lifits, Renaud Capuçon, Edgar Moreau, David Kadouch, Andreas Ottensamer, Gérard Caussé, Boris Brovtsyn, Jean Rondeau…
Appointed « Maitre ès Arts » by the Republic of Moldavia’s President, her native, country, she founded the charity « ArtaVie » , aiming to help disadvantaged families and children from her former school.
Discography : Prokofiev’s violon and piano sonatas with Michail Lifits (Aparté) . and the Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in C major op. 56 with the Insula orchestra under Laurence Equilbey, (Erato). Alexandra plays a « del Gesu » ca.1730 « von Vecsey ».
Leonardo García-Alarcón, originally from Argentina, moved to Europe in 1997 to study at the Geneva Conservatory under harpsichordist Christiane Jaccottet. His journey into Baroque music began with Gabriel Garrido, and soon after, he founded his ensemble Cappella Mediterranea. In 2010, he became the artistic director of the Namur Chamber Choir and formed the Millenium Orchestra to accompany the choir. Alarcón divides his time between Geneva, where he teaches at the Haute Ecole de Musique, and various European cities, including France, where he is a key figure at the Ambronay Festival and artist-in-residence at the Dijon Opera. He also makes occasional trips back to South America.
Alarcón is credited with reviving Cavalli’s operas, including Elena and Erismena at the Aix-en-Provence Festival, Eliogabalo at the 2016 Paris Opera season opener, Il Giasone in Geneva, and La Finta Pazza in Dijon. He also led the rediscovery of Antonio Draghi’s El Prometeo in 2018. As a conductor and harpsichordist, Alarcón is invited to prestigious festivals and concert halls worldwide. In 2018, he conducted Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the Berlin Staatsoper, and in 2019, he triumphed with Rameau’s Les Indes Galantes at the Opéra Bastille, marking the Royal Academy of Music’s 350th anniversary. He was recognized as the best conductor in Forum Opéra’s 2019 Palmarès.
In 2020, despite disruptions due to the pandemic, Alarcón adapted his concert programs and participated in virtual festivals. He conducted Rossi’s Il Palazzo Incantato in a video recording that was widely praised. His acclaimed discography includes I 7 Peccati Capitali (2016), De vez en cuando la vida (2018), and El Prometeo (2018). His 2021 releases include Rebirth with soprano Sonya Yoncheva, Lamenti & Sospiri with sopranos Mariana Flores and Julie Roset, Monteverdi’s Orfeo, and Le violon selon Bach with violinist Chouchane Siranossian.
Alarcón is a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
An artist greatly in international demand, Mariana Flores has established herself as one of the most versatile and passionately engaged singers of her generation, as much at ease in Baroque and Mozartian repertoire as in the popular music of Argentina and of Latin America in general. A native of Argentina, she began her studies at the National University of Cuyo in Mendoza, before moving to Basel to study Baroque music at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis: today she follows the advice of her teacher Fernando Cordeiro Opa. Mariana has notably taken on the roles of goddesses, witches and heroines in major operatic productions at leading opera houses and concert halls throughout Europe, America and Australia. She recently triumphed at the Opéra Royal in Versailles in the title role of La Finta pazza by Francesco Sacrati, and in Canada with a concert tour of tangos by Astor Piazzolla. She is featured on numerous award-winning recordings, including the 2021 release of d’India’s Lamenti & Sospiri, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo and Sacrati’s La Finta pazza in 2022.
In 2023, she released Alfonsina, a highly personal album of Argentine folk songs recorded with Quito Gato, a repertoire she has been touring with ever since. More recently, she can be heard in Amore Siciliano, an emblematic Cappella Mediterranea program released by Alpha, which will continue to be distributed in 2025, as well as Handel’s Dixit dominus and Colonna’s Mass in E Minor by Ricercar.
In 2024, Mariana Flores returns to the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence to sing Amore and Minerva in Monteverdi’s Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria, directed by Pierre Audi, before taking part in Seasons, Fabrice Murgia’s audacious creation at the Cité Bleue, combining cinema, theater and singing, in which she performs both Baroque and contemporary pop music. In November and December, she sings Bach’s Mass in B minor on an international tour of Canada and Brazil, which she will repeat at the prestigious Verbier Festival in summer 2025.
Mariana Flores’ artistic season in 2025 will be rich and international, with the revival of the musical theater creation Amour à Mort directed by Jean-Yves Ruf at the Opéra national de Lorraine, numerous recitals and her roles in Monteverdi’s operas l’Orfeo and l’Incoronazione di Poppea on tour in Germany, Canada and New York, but also in Cavalli’s Pompeo Magno, premiered at the Bayreuth Festival and followed by a very successful tour, and Mozart’s Requiem at the Radio France auditorium. With lutenist and guitarist Mónica Pustilnik, she is preparing the recording of “Muse e Sirene”, a program focusing on 17th-century women composers.
Although her resemblance to Catherine Deneuve can’t be denied, it is indeed the spirit of Jacqueline Maillan—the great French comedic actress who excelled in playing exuberant, strong and powerful women in vaudeville—that inhabits Catherine D’Oex. A regular performer at the famous drag cabaret Chez Maman in Brussels, she boldly and freely sings ‘le grand répertoire de la chanson populaire française’ without taking herself too seriously.
With an innate musicality and overwhelming talent, Seong-Jin Cho has established himself worldwide as one of the leading pianists of his generation and most distinctive artists on the current music scene. His thoughtful and poetic, assertive and tender, virtuosic and colourful playing can combine panache with purity and is driven by an impressive natural sense of balance.
Seong-Jin Cho was brought to the world’s attention in 2015 when he won First Prize at the Chopin International Competition in Warsaw, and his career has rapidly ascended since. In January 2016, he signed an exclusive contract with Deutsche Grammophon. An artist high in demand, Cho works with the world’s most prestigious orchestras including Berliner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, New York Philharmonic and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Conductors he regularly collaborates with include Myung-Whun Chung, Gustavo Dudamel, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Andris Nelsons, Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Simon Rattle, Santtu-Matias Rouvali and Esa-Pekka Salonen.
Highlights of Seong-Jin Cho’s 2022/23 season include performances of the Brahms piano concerti at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden with Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin. He notably returns to the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, to the Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons and performs the world premiere of Thierry Escaich’s new piano concerto with the Czech Philharmonic and Semyon Bychkov. A highly sought-after touring soloist, Cho embarks on several international tours, including those with the London Symphony Orchestra and Sir Simon Rattle to Japan and Korea, with the Dresden Staatskapelle and Myung-Whun Chung in Dresden and in Korea. He also performs with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, touring throughout Germany in Spring 2023.
An active recitalist very much in demand, Seong-Jin Cho appears in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls including the main stage of Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Berliner Philharmonie, Konzerthaus Vienna, Prinzregententheater München, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Walt Disney Hall Los Angeles, Festival International de piano de la Roque d’Anthéron, and Verbier Festival. During the coming season he is engaged to perform solo recitals at the likes of Carnegie Hall, Boston Celebrity Series, Walt Disney Hall, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Liederhalle Stuttgart, at Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Berliner Philharmonie, Musikverein Wien and he debuts in recital at the Barbican London. Cho also returns, three times this season, to Japan where he first appears in recital performances in Nagoya, Tokyo and Yokosuka in August 2022.
Seong-Jin Cho’s latest recording is his solo album entitled The Handel Project, released in February 2023, and in August 2021, he released Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and Scherzi with the London Symphony Orchestra and Gianandrea Noseda for Deutsche Grammophon. He had previously recorded his first album with the same orchestra and conductor featuring Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 1 as well as the Four Ballades. His solo album titled The Wanderer was released in May 2020 and features Schubert’s “Wanderer” Fantasy, Berg’s Piano Sonata op. 1 and Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor. A solo Debussy recital was also released in November 2017, followed by a Mozart album with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2018. All albums have been released on the Yellow Label and have garnered impressive critical acclaim worldwide.
Born in 1994 in Seoul, Seong-Jin Cho started learning the piano at the age of six and gave his first public recital aged 11. In 2009, he became the youngest-ever winner of Japan’s Hamamatsu International Piano Competition. In 2011, he won Third Prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow at the age of 17. From 2012-2015 he studied with Michel Béroff at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. Seong-Jin Cho is now based in Berlin.
Roberto Fonseca is a Cuban pianist, vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, producer and bandleader. Havana-born and based, he has released nine solo albums, collaborated across genres, been nominated for a Grammy Award and toured the world several times over. Along the way he has achieved the aim with which he began his professional career in the early 1990s: “Wherever people are, I want them to hear my music and say, ‘This is Roberto Fonseca’.”
Born in Havana in 1975, the son of a drummer father and dancer/singer mother, Fonseca started playing drums aged four and the piano aged eight. His tastes were always eclectic: hard rock. American jazz. Funk and soul. Music made in Africa and Brazil. Classical music. Reggaeton, electronica, hip-hop. The music of Cuba: Fonseca’s deep AfroCuban roots underpin a sound that builds bridges between the ancient and modern and takes Cuban music – all music – forward.
Fonseca was 15-years-old when he made his live solo debut at the Jazz Plaza Festival in Havana. He graduated from the Institute Superior del Arte and joined award-winning jazz outfit Temperamento, his collaborators for 15 years.
Fonseca’s 1999 solo debut, Tiene Que Ver was followed by 2000’s No Limit: AfroCuban Jazz, and Elengó (2001). He composed the soundtrack for Black, a film by French director P. Maraval, and produced an album for hip-hop act Obsesión. In 2001 Fonseca joined that famed ensemble, the Buena Vista Social Club ®, taking over from Ruben Gonzalez (1919 – 2003) then touring with singer Ibrahim Ferrer (1927 – 2005) then with evergreen diva Omara Portuondo.
After co-producing and playing on Ferrer’s posthumously released Mi Sueño: A Bolero Songbook (2006), Fonseca unleashed his 2007 jazz-roots solo album Zamazu, a landmark work involving 20 guest collaborators. 2009’s Akokan featured Cape Verdean vocalist Maya Andrade and American guitarist Raul Midon. 2010’s Live in Marciac was recorded at the eponymous festival town in southwest France.
Tastemakers eyed him: iconic French designer Agnes B began kitting Fonseca out in sharp suits and his trademark leather Byblos hats in 2006. British-based impresario Gilles Peterson asked him to arrange and co-produce the groundbreaking 2010 Havana Cultura project. Fonseca’s music has graced several upmarket advertising campaigns.
In 2012 came his Grammy-nominated masterwork Yo, a turbocharged album aided by 15 musicians from Cuba, the US and Africa. Among them, Malian singer-songwriter and guitarist Fatoumata Diawara, with whom Fonseca embarked on an acclaimed live collaboration that resulted in 2015’s At Home, also recorded live at the Jazz in Marciac festival.
2016’s ABUC told the story of Cuban music past, present and future with a sprawling cast of over 30 guests, and was released in the same year that Fonseca became Artistic Director of the Inaugural Jazz Plaza Festival in Santiago de Cuba.
Fonseca’s headline live appearances have ranged from the world’s most prestigious concert halls to his twice-weekly residency at Havana jazz club Zorro y el Cuervo (Fox and the Crow). There Fonseca and his trio – drummer Raúl Herrera and double bass player Yandy Martínez Rodriguez – develop and explore new compositions, so shaping much of Fonseca’s new album Yesun.
Released on Wagram on 18 October 2019, Yesun features guests including Grammy-winning saxophonist Joe Lovano, lauded French-Lebanese trumpeter Ibrahim Maalouf and rising star Cuban rapper Danay Suarez alongside retro-modern keyboards, electronic beats and AfroCuban rhythms. Having long proved himself exceptional (in June 2019 he was awarded the distinguished Ordre des Arts Letters from the French Ministry of Culture), Roberto Fonseca is making the music he has always wanted to make.
Multi award-winning French cellist Gautier Capuçon is celebrated internationally for his expressive musicianship and exuberant virtuosity. His 2021/22 season includes invitations with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and Alain Altinoglu, the Cleveland Orchestra and Michael Tilson Thomas, and the Mariinsky and Valery Gergiev. He is Artist-in-Residence at the Paris Philharmonie as well as the Wiener Konzerthaus. Current new music collaborators include Lera Auerbach, Richard Dubugnon, Danny Elfman and Thierry Escaich. Committed to supporting young musicians, Capuçon founded the Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and is ambassador for the Orchestre à l’École association, featured during his annual French odyssey Un Été en France. He records exclusively for Erato (Warner Classics) and plays a 1701 Matteo Goffriller cello, ‘L’Ambasadeur’.
Dance music was always about having fun. It’s an ethos that has not escaped Cesar Merveille, the Paris-born enchanter whose ascent through the ranks of house and techno has been powered by an irrepressible joie de vivre, matched only by a desire to be challenged by everything he does.
Encouraged by creative freedom during his formative years, Cesar learnt to listen to his instincts and keep a healthy dose of soul in everything he turned his hand to.
The following years, spent immersed in London’s underground, soon found Cesar holding residencies for such fabled parties as Lo-Kee and the T-Bar. It was his later partnership with Cadenza that propelled really Cesar to the world stage, providing a platform for his music to reach a broad audience and enabling him to command dancefloors big and small the world over.
Such exposure has also given rise to new artistic ventures, most notably working with long-time friend Ryan Crosson on the “DRM” project. The full-length album from the pair came to light on Visionquest, providing space for them to explore textures and moods unconstrained by the dancefloor’s demands.
From his current base in Berlin, Cesar has embraced the natural workflow of hardware production, immersing himself in a studio powered by machines and intuition. His new label Roche Madame is a product of this, channeling the creative energy of musical allies to give rise to new collaborations. Inspired by a secret family location off the coast of Brittany, the label is both a tribute to his roots and a celebration of the here and now, a moment that Cesar is forever living in.
Born in Tel Aviv, violinist Guy Braunstein studied with Chaim Taub before moving to New York to work with Glenn Dicterow and Pinchas Zukerman. At a very young age, he performed as a soloist and chamber musician and accumulated a wide range of prestigious partners, accompanying the greatest international orchestras and conductors. In 2000 he became the youngest concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic, a position he held for 12 years before leaving to pursue his solo career. Artist-in-Residence with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra for the 2017/18 season and with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra for the 2019/20 season, he is also developing a rich career as a conductor, touring regularly. The Israeli plays a rare violin by Francesco Ruggieri (1679).