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Born in Madrid in 1995, Sara Ferrández is one of the most exciting violists of her generation. A graduate of the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía, the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler under Tabea Zimmermann, and the Kronberg Academy with Nobuko Imai, she has performed with major orchestras including the Spanish National Symphony, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and Marseille Philharmonic, under conductors such as Kazuki Yamada, Cristian Macelaru, and Alondra de la Parra. A passionate chamber musician, she has shared the stage with Janine Jansen, Renaud Capuçon, Beatrice Rana, and Pinchas Zukerman. Formerly a member of the Berlin Philharmonic’s Karajan Academy, she performs with Anne-Sophie Mutter’s “Mutter’s Virtuosi” and joins the Orpheum Foundation in 2025. Sara plays a 1730 David Tecchler viola and a Nicolas Léonard Tourte bow, generously loaned by Stephan Jansen and the Stretton Society.
Founded in 1967 by Jean-Charles Dorsaz, the Ensemble de Cuivres Valaisan (ECV) is a Brass Band of around thirty amateur musicians, ranked among Switzerland’s finest. Regularly competing at the national level, the band has worked with renowned conductors and soloists such as James Watson, Philip Harper, Roger Webster, and Estelle Revaz. ECV also stands out for its annual “Brass Band & Classical” concert at Le Baladin Theatre in Savièse, showcasing musical excellence, passion, and strong team spirit. Since 2024, it has been led by Jean-François Bobillier.
Johannes Kammler is one of the most sought-after baritones of his generation, celebrated for his stylistic versatility and captivating presence on opera, concert, and recital stages worldwide, from Canada and Europe to Korea. He made his breakthrough at the Salzburg Festival in 2018 with Der Prozess and has since performed at prestigious venues such as Staatsoper Stuttgart, Bavarian State Opera, Bregenz Festival, and Glyndebourne, in leading roles including Papageno, Conte, Marcello, and Guglielmo.
On the concert stage, he has been acclaimed in works such as Carmina Burana, Mahler’s Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, Brahms’ Requiem, and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, working with renowned conductors like Kirill Petrenko, Simon Rattle, and Gustavo Dudamel, and top orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra. A passionate recitalist, he regularly collaborates with distinguished pianists at venues like Wigmore Hall. Born in Augsburg, he studied in Freiburg, Toronto, and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London, and is a prizewinner of major international competitions including Neue Stimmen and Operalia.
Hera Hyesang Park, a South Korean soprano of remarkable ascent, began her studies at Seoul National University before continuing at New York’s Juilliard School, from which she graduated in 2015. That same year, she won second prize at the prestigious Operalia competition. Soon after, she joined the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera, making her Met debut in 2017 as the First Wood Sprite in Dvořák’s Rusalka. She has since appeared there as Barbarina (Le Nozze di Figaro), the Dew Fairy (Hansel and Gretel), Amore (Orfeo ed Euridice), Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), and Nannetta (Falstaff).
During the 2017–2018 season, she also made her debut at the Bavarian State Opera, further establishing herself as one of the most captivating young voices on the international opera scene.
In 2020, Hera Hyesang Park signed with Deutsche Grammophon, marking a new chapter in a career defined by elegance, artistry, and global reach.
Frank Dupree, winner of the International Classical Music Award and Opus Klassik, is one of the most dynamic pianist-conductors of his generation. Celebrated for his infectious energy and genre-defying creativity, he performs worldwide both as a soloist and play/direct artist, leading major orchestras as well as his own jazz ensemble, the Frank Dupree Trio. His acclaimed recordings of Nikolai Kapustin’s piano concertos have been praised internationally, with The New York Times calling them “one of the most entertaining and put-on-repeat recordings of the year.”
As Artistic Partner of the Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn since 2023, Dupree performs each season as conductor and soloist. In 2024–25, he makes his solo debut with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Antonio Pappano, and appears with the hr-Sinfonieorchester, Gothenburg Symphony, and others across Europe. His schedule also includes returns to major German and Swiss orchestras, alongside chamber performances at venues such as the Tonhalle Zürich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, and Konzerthaus Wien.
A frequent guest at leading festivals and halls including Verbier, Lucerne, the Philharmonie de Paris, and the Royal Albert Hall, Dupree moves fluidly between classical and jazz worlds. With his Trio, he explores the fusion of these genres, and collaborates closely with rising stars such as Kian Soltani, Vivi Vassileva, and Noa Wildschut.
Dupree’s recordings continue to focus on the music of Nikolai Kapustin, with recent and upcoming releases on Capriccio earning widespread critical acclaim. Born in 1991 in Germany, he studied piano and conducting in Karlsruhe and was mentored by Péter Eötvös and Hans Zender. His artistry, combining virtuosity with imagination, places him among the most innovative musicians of his generation.
Sunwook Kim came to international recognition when he won the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition in 2006 at just 18, becoming the youngest winner in 40 years and the first Asian winner in the competition’s history. Since then, he has built a reputation as one of the finest pianists of his generation, appearing as a concerto soloist in the subscription series of many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Staatskapelle Dresden, Chicago Symphony, and the NHK Symphony.
Kim enjoys close artistic partnerships with renowned conductors such as Daniel Harding, Paavo Järvi, Myung-whun Chung, Marek Janowski, Sir Mark Elder, and Jakub Hrůša. Recent highlights include an extensive tour across Europe and Korea play-directing Beethoven concerti with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, with performances at Lotte Concert Hall, the Berlin Philharmonie, Salle Philharmonique de Liège, Halle aux Grains in Toulouse, and the Barbican in London. Additional concerto engagements have included performances with the London Symphony Orchestra (with Michael Tilson Thomas), the Los Angeles Philharmonic (both with Nathalie Stutzmann and as part of the Seoul Festival curated by Unsuk Chin), and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic under its Music Director Karina Canellakis. In November 2025, he will appear as soloist with the Berliner Philharmoniker and Kirill Petrenko for their Korean tour. In recital, Kim performs regularly at venues such as Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall (London International Piano Series), the Philharmonie de Paris and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in the “Piano 4 Étoiles” series, the Piano aux Jacobins Festival, Aix Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron International Piano Festival, as well as the Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festspiele, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Kioi Hall in Tokyo, Symphony Hall Osaka, and Seoul Arts Centre. He also collaborates frequently with Janine Jansen, including a recent tour of Italy with performances in Venice, Milan, Cremona, and Turin, as well as concerts in Düsseldorf and Lugano with an all-Brahms and Schumann programme.
Kim’s debut recital album was released on the Accentus label in October 2015, featuring Beethoven’s Waldstein and Hammerklavier Sonatas. This was followed by a recording of Franck’s Prelude, Chorale and Fugue paired with Brahms’s Sonata No. 3. He has since released further recordings of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas (No. 8 “Pathétique,” No. 14 “Moonlight,” No. 23 “Appassionata,” and Nos. 30–32), and his most recent chamber music release features the complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas with Clara-Jumi Kang. His discography also includes several concerto recordings: with the Staatskapelle Dresden under Myung-whun Chung he recorded Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 (2019) and Six Piano Pieces (2020). For Deutsche Grammophon, he has recorded with the Seoul Philharmonic under Myung-whun Chung, including Unsuk Chin’s Piano Concerto (2014)—a critically acclaimed release that received awards from BBC Music Magazine and the International Classical Music Awards—and Beethoven’s Concerto No. 5 (2013). In 2023, the Berliner Philharmoniker released a box set of Unsuk Chin’s works, featuring her Piano Concerto performed by Kim and conducted by Sakari Oramo.
Born in Seoul in 1988, Kim completed an MA in conducting at the Royal Academy of Music and was later named a Fellow (FRAM) of the institution in 2019. In addition to Leeds, he has won major international awards including First Prize at the 2004 Ettlingen Competition (Germany) and the 2005 Clara Haskil Competition (Switzerland). In 2013, Kim was selected by the Beethoven-Haus Bonn as the first beneficiary of its newly established mentoring programme.
After a preparatory 2019/2020 season, during which he conducted the opening concert and led a tour of major Russian cities (February 2020), Danish conductor Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider became the seventh Music Director of the Orchestre National de Lyon (ONL) in September 2020. Two years later, his initial four-year term was extended by three additional years, running through June 2027.
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider’s appointment to the ONL marks a major milestone in an outstanding career where the baton and the violin bow have long gone hand in hand. In addition to his close ties with the London Symphony Orchestra, he is a frequent guest with many of the world’s leading ensembles, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Dresden Staatskapelle, Montreal Symphony Orchestra, Bamberg Symphony, and the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra. He is also establishing himself as an opera conductor: following his triumphant debut at the Semperoper Dresden with The Magic Flute, he was immediately invited back for Der Rosenkavalier. In the 2020/2021 season, he made his debut at the Royal Danish Theatre in a new production of The Magic Flute.
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider is also one of the foremost violinists of our time and continues to maintain a busy schedule of solo and recital performances. He has recorded the great concertos of the repertoire with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Zubin Mehta, Mariss Jansons, Riccardo Chailly, Colin Davis, and Alan Gilbert. He has also recorded the complete works for violin and piano by Brahms with Yefim Bronfman, and the complete Mozart violin concertos with the London Symphony Orchestra, which he directed from the violin — The Strad praised these recordings as “quite possibly one of the most beautiful violin sounds ever committed to disc.”
Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider performs on a 1741 Guarneri del Gesù violin, the “Kreisler”, on generous loan from the Royal Danish Theatre, made possible through the support of the Velux Foundations, the Villum Foundation, and the Knud Højgaard Foundation.
Maria de la Paz returned to tango after leaving Argentina. For the past ten years, she has regularly traveled between her two horizons: the childhood of the New World and her life as a musician in old Europe. In Switzerland, she met Alexandre Cellier, a passionate explorer of world music and musical encounters. Her instrument of choice is the piano, but the musical journey continues with unusual instruments such as the Hang and the Fujara, and surprising improvisations may emerge from instruments built on stage or from everyday objects—borrowed from her garden or a household that suddenly becomes enchanted.