17 - 20 MAY 2024
JÜRG DÄHLER
Artistic Direction & Viola
Born in Zurich, international activity as violinist, violist, pedagogue, and chamber musician as well as organizer and curator of renowned festivals and concert series. Studies with Sándor Végh, Heribert Lauer and Pinchas Zukerman on the violin as well as with Christoph Schiller, Kim Kashkashian and Fjodor Druschinin on the viola. Formative longterm artist encounters with Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Heinz Holliger, Brenton Langbein and György Ligeti. After his debut in the Zurich Tonhalle with the world premiere of Daniel Schnyder's viola concerto dedicated to him, he was a guest with many renowned orchestras under conductors such as Giorgio Bernasconi, Douglas Boyd, Friedrich Cerha, Thierry Fischer, Beat Furrer, David Philip Hefti, Heinz Holliger, Brenton Langbein, Petri Sakari, Stefan Sanderling, Heinrich Schiff, Jac van Steen, Marcello Viotti and Thomas Zehetmair. Concert tours as a soloist and chamber musician have regularly taken him to Australia, the US and all over Europe with performances at the Wigmore Hall in London, the Salzburg Festival and the Wiener Festwochen, the City of London Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Venice Biennale and at the Montreux Jazz Festival. From1985-2000 he was a member and Primarius of the legendary Kammermusiker Zurich. In 1993 he co-founded of the Collegium Novum Zurich. Since 1993 he holds the position as principal violist at the Musikkollegium Winterthur and is a member of the Winterthur String Quartet. In 1999 he co-founded the Swiss Chamber Concerts and runs since 2015 the Pentecost Festival at Schloss Brunegg as its artistic director.
He received much international acclaim for his world premiers and first performances of solo and chamber music works - many of which are written and dedicated for him - by composers such as Birtwistle, Blank, Bodman-Rae, Braun, Cerha, Danner, Dayer, Drushinin, Dubugnon, Dusapin, Furrer, Gaudibert, Gervasoni, Haller, Hefti, Henze, Holliger, Jost, Käser, Kelterborn, Kür, Lehmann, Ligeti, Moser, Pärt, Polglase, Racine, Schnyder, Wyttenbach, Vassena and Zimmerlin. He produced over 30 CDs for labels such as ECM, NEOS, Genuin, Accord, Claves, Grammont, Jecklin and Cantando. Currently he teaches at the Kalaidos University and gave master classes at many renowned teaching institutes such as the Conservatorio di Musica "Arrigo Boito" di Parma, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music or the National Academy of Music in Melbourne.
In 2007 he obtained the title “Executive Master in Arts Administration” from the Faculty of Philosophy and Economics at the University of Zurich with summa cum laude. In 2008 he received the Zolliker Art Prize for his artistic work and his services to the Swiss cultural life, and in 2020 he was honoured with the Swiss Music Prize for his dedicated work for the Swiss Chamber Concerts. He plays a violin by Antonio Stradivarius, Cremona 1714, and a viola by Raffaele Fiorini, Bologna 1893.
ALFRED FELDER
Composer in Residence
Born in 1950 in Lucerne, Switzerland, Alfred Felder studied violoncello and composition at the Lucerne Conservatory. After receiving his teacher's diploma cum laude for violoncello he went on to gain his soloist's diploma from the Mozarteum University of Salzburg, Austria. From 1977 until 1983 he was a member of Festival Strings Lucerne. In addition to being solo ‘cellist of various chamber orchestras, Alfred Felder has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in most European countries, as well as in Canada, India, China, and Japan.
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Mr. Felder has received numerous composition commissions from the City of Zurich, Tonhalle Gesellschaft Zurich, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Festival Strings Lucerne, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Swiss Philharmonic Orchestra, Forum for New Music, and Theater am Gleis, to name but a few. His orchestral works have been performed at Lucerne Festival, in Tokyo, Osaka, South Africa, as well as in many cities of the USA, Canada, Russia, China, and in most European Countries. AÌ‚tesh (Persian for fire), for mixed choir, children`s choir, soprano, baritone and large orchestra was performed in two concerts in 2007 in Zurich to rave reviews. The concerts were under the patronage of the Swiss national commission for UNESCO. AÌ‚tesh was also performed 2012 in the Berlin Philharmonie. Khamush (silence) for Baritone, mixed choir and large orchestra has been performed with the Tonhalle Orchestra in the sold out Tonhalle Zurich. “...pasar por la calle...” for string orchestra has been played by SONYC (string orchestra of New York City), Festival Strings Lucerne, Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Les Solistes de GeneÌ€ve etc. 2006 and 2007 Alfred Felder composed the compulsory pieces for the International Shlomo Mintz Violin competition. Alfred Felder's composition, Delaram - music for Baritone and orchestra, was premiered in 2015 in Frankfurt.
Several CDs of his work have been produced by VDE Gallo, Swiss Pan, Centaur Records and Roccosound. Alfred Felder's works are published by the Swiss Music Edition SME, Breitkopf & Härtel, Kano-Verlag, and Gilgenreiner-Verlag. All his manuscripts have been donated to Zurich's Central Library. In 2013, 2014 and 2015 he was invited to Charlotte North Carolina, USA for the Festival "Sensoria - a celebration of the arts“. There his music was performed, he gave lectures and taught at the University. The Zurich Chamber Orchestra commissioned “Timeless“ for their 2019 US-Tour. In 2018 Alfred Felder received the „Carl Heinrich Ernst Arts Endowment Award“ for his achievement as a composer. His Opera "Walpurgisnacht" (after Goethe’s Faust) will be premiered in 2025 by the Musikkollegium Winterthur, and Zurich Chamber Singers, Conductor: Christian Erny.
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THOMAS LOIBL
Artist in Residence
Actor
Thomas Loibl was born in Brüggen in 1969 and trained as an actor at the Westphalian Drama School in Bochum. He had his first engagement at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus from 1994 to 1996, where he worked with Werner Schroeter, among others. From 1996 to 1998 he was engaged at the Volkstheater in Munich, followed by the Schauspielhaus Zürich (1998) and the Stuttgarter Staatstheater (1998-2000). His greatest successes during these years include Shylock in "Lessing's Dream of Nathan the Wise" (1998/99) and the detective Stader in Musil's "The Enthusiasts" (1999/2000).
From 2001 to 2009, Loibl was a permanent member of the ensemble at the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel in Munich, where he took part in numerous productions of classics and contemporary plays, including Peter Handke's "Das Spiel vom Fragen", Schiller's "Maria Stuart" and Molière's "Der Misanthrop". In 2004, he received the Bavarian Arts Promotion Prize for the Performing Arts and the Kurt Meisel Prize. In 2005, he made a guest appearance at the Salzburg Festival in the role of Oskar in "Geschichten aus dem Wiener Wald". From 2006, Thomas Loibl also took on his first smaller television and cinema roles, for example in Nina Grosse's TV crime thriller "Franziska's Sense for Men" (2006) and as a policeman in the Hape Kerkeling comedy "Horst Schlämmer - Isch kandidiere!" (2009). In 2009, Loibl began working as a freelance actor. Since then, he has regularly appeared in front of the camera for cinema and television productions. He played a priest in Marcus O. Rosenmüller's TV two-parter "Gottes mächtige Dienerin" (2011), a Bhagwan confidant in Marcus H. Rosenmüller's culture clash comedy "Sommer in Orange" (2011) and a Nazi local group leader in Franziska Schlotterer's award-winning NS drama "Ende der Schonzeit" (DE/IL 2012).
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However, television became Loibl's main field of activity. In the real-time series "Zeit der Helden" (2013), he had a leading role as a man in his mid-forties going through a midlife crisis, in Aelrun Goette's drama "Im Zweifel" (2015) he plays an inspector who falls in love with a priest, and in "Simon sagt auf Wiedersehen zu seiner Vorhaut" he played a doctor. Loibl also took on guest roles in numerous series such as "Wilsberg", "Marie Brand" and "Unter anderen Umständen". For his role as an aspiring provincial politician in Vivian Naefe's "Spreewaldkrimi: Die Tote im Weiher" (2014), he received a nomination for the German Academy of Television Award. In the hit series "Charité" (2017), he played Bernhard Spinola, the administrative director of the famous clinic, for six episodes.
Loibl also remained very active in the theater. In 2012/13, he first made a guest appearance at the Schauspielhaus Zürich and was a permanent member of the ensemble there in the 2013/14 season. He made a guest appearance at the Residenztheater Munich in 2015 in a new production of "Antonius und Cleopatra"; the following year, he became a permanent member of the ensemble there and was seen as John Proctor in Arthur Miller's "Hexenjagd" (2016/17) and as the trans woman Elvira in Fassbinder's "In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden" (2017). He was again awarded the Kurt Meisel Prize in 2017.
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In the cinema, Thomas Loibl had a very distinctive role in Maren Ade's comedy "Toni Erdmann" (2016), as the smooth superior of Sandra Hüller's main character. He played a leading role as a father in the bitterly angry family portrait "Sommerhäuser" (2017). This was followed by smaller but striking appearances as a mortician in Sönke Wortmann's comedy "Sommerfest" (2017), as a forest ranger in the children's film "Die kleine Hexe" (2018) and as a doctor in the Hape Kerkeling film biopic "Der Junge muss an die frische Luft" (2018).
Loibl's major television roles include a murderous policeman in the "Tatort" episode "Die Pfalz von oben" (2919), an ice-cold gangster in the thriller "Jackpot" (2020) and the husband of the title character in the comedy "Annie - kopfüber ins Leben" (2020). In the highly acclaimed mini-series "Schneller als die Angst" (2021), he had a leading role as a police officer, and in the historical drama "Die Wannseekonferenz" he played the Nazi ministerial director Friedrich Wilhelm Kritzinger. After a somewhat longer break from cinema, Loibl was part of the main ensemble in Sönke Wortmann's 2022 comedy "Eingeschlossene Gesellschaft", about a group of very different teachers who unexpectedly find themselves confronted by an irritable father in the staff room.
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SOPHIE KLUSSMANN
Soprano
Born in Freiburg / Germany, Sophie Klussmann studied at the music conservatories of Detmold with Thomas Quasthoff and Köln with Klesie Kelly-Moog. Awards include the Mozart Competition Würzburg and the Trude Eiperle Stiftung.She is a versatile concert, opera and recital singer, who is internationally in demand. Her work with conductors such as Vladimir Jurowski, Helmuth Rilling, Ingo Metzmacher, Marek Janowski, Christoph Eschenbach and Marcus Bosch has taken her to some of the most distinguished orchestras of Europe, including both Radio Orchestras of Berlin, the Konzerthaus Orchestra Berlin, SWR Orchestra, Staatsphilharmonie Nürnberg, Orchestre de chambre de Paris, Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich and the Wiener Akademie. In 2023 she performed Verdis Requiem at the Tonhalle of Zurich, Switzerland.
Early in her career, she was member of the opera Halle, singing the leading soprano parts such as Pamina, Nannetta, Dorinda but also Wellgunde and Waldvogel in Wagners Ring. In 2021/22 she sang the leading role of „The merry widow“ by Franz Léhar at the State Theatre of Cottbus.
With the Akademie für alte Musik/Marcus Creed, Collegium 1704/Václav Luks and the Orchestra of the Eighteenth Century/Daniel Reuß, she worked intensively in the field of ancient music. Together with Lutinist Hopkinson Smith, Sophie Klussmann created a strong renaissance program, which they perform at different international festivals such as Lübeck and Weimar, Germany, Montserat
Spain and Bogotá Columbia. Sophie performed and recorded a number of contemporary pieces by composers such as György Kurtág, György Ligeti and Karl-Heinz Stockhausen at venues as MaerzMusikFestival Berlin and Milano Musica. Composers such as Christian Jost and Xavier Dayer wrote pieces for her. Some of them she recorded at the Swiss Radio together with the american pianist Gilles Vonsattel and the violist and director of the Swiss Chamber Soloists.
Her passionate love for chamber music and Lied repertoire brings her frequently to chamber music venues such as Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, Kempten Festival and the Stift Festival Holland. Sophies’s artistic activity is documented on many recordings including, among others, Dixit Dominus/ Händel under Marcus Creed (Harmonia Mundi), first recording of songs by Zemlinsky-student Karl Weigl with Oliver Triendl, piano (Capriccio) and song cycles by Stefano Gervasoni (Cini Forum Venezia). In 2023 her newest CD will appear at Hänssler Classics with Orchestra Songs by Grete von Zieritz.
Since 2023, Sophie Klussmann is professor at the University of Arts Berlin.
JAN KOBOW
Tenore
The Berlin-born tenor Jan Kobow was a boy soloist with the State and Cathedral Choir as a child, won first prize at the 1998 Leipzig Bach Competition after studying music in Paris, Hanover and Hamburg and made his debut in the Bach Year 2000 as the Evangelist in the St. Matthew Passion under Masaaki Suzuki at Suntory Hall in Tokyo. Invitations to perform Johann Sebastian Bach's vocal works in many countries under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sigiswald Kuijken, Philippe Herreweghe, Nicolaus Harnoncourt, Lars Ulrik Mortensen, Frans Brüggen, Gustav Leonhard, Frieder Bernius, Michel Corboz and others soon followed, enabling him to quickly build up a reputation as an Evangelist not only of Bach's works. Jan Kobow was associated with the RIAS Chamber Choir in his home city of Berlin for many years as a soloist under its principal conductors Marcus Creed, Daniel Reuss and Hans-Christoph Rademann and has also worked with orchestras such as the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, the Deutsches Sinfonierorchester Berlin (DSO), the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Concentus Musicus Wien, Concerto Köln, the Batzdorfer Hofkapelle, the SWR-Sinfonierorchester, the Lautten Compagney, Concerto Copenhagen, Das Kleine Konzert, Capella Coloniensis, Orchester des 18. Century, English Baroque Soloists, Petite Bande, Orchestre des Champs Elysées, Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, Ricercar Consort, Bach Collegium Japan, Anima Eterna Bruges, MDR-Sinfonieorchester, Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra, Violons du Roy, Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra, Nederlandse Bachvereniging, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Munich Radio Orchestra, New Japan Philharmonic, les Talens Lyriques, Capella Augustina and others.
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Invitations as a soloist, primarily for Bach's oratorios and cantatas, have taken Jan Kobow to the world's most renowned concert halls such as the Musikverein and Konzerthaus Vienna, the Tonhalle Zurich, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Tokyo Opera City, Carnegie Hall New York, Philharmonie and Konzerthaus Berlin, Philharmonie Munich and Cologne, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Palais des Beaux Arts Brussels, Concertgebouw Brugge, Barbican Center and Buckingham Palace London, Victoria Hall Geneva, Cité de la Musique Paris, Palau de la Musica Barcelona, Gulbenkian Center Lisbon, Tchaikovsky Hall Moscow, Konzerthaus Blaibach and many more. Jan Kobow has sung at renowned festivals such as the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, Bremen Music Festival, Saintes Festival, Vlaanderen Festival, Knechtsteden Festival, Stuttgart Baroque Festival, Baden-Baden Easter Festival, Kissinger Sommer, Eichstätt Music Festival, Franconian Summer, Europäische Wochen Passau, Barocktage Stift Melk, Melbourne Festival, MDR-Musiksommer, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Potsdamer Festspiele, Boston Early Music Festival, Internationale Orgelwoche Nürnberg, Lucerne Festival, Festival d'Île de France, Music Festival "Klang und Raum" Kloster Irsee, Mozartfest Würzburg, Mozartwoche Salzburg, Festival de Lausanne, La Folle Journée Nantes and Lisbon, Brühler Schlosskonzerte, Beethoven-Woche Bonn, Festival Oude Muziek Utrecht, Tage Alte Musik Innsbruck, Herne and Regensburg, Händelfestspiele Göttingen, Halle & Karlsruhe, Mosel-Festwochen, Rheinvokal, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, Klavierfestival Ruhr, Köthener Bachfesttage, Bachfest Leipzig, Bachwoche Ansbach, Bach-Festival Montréal, Telemann-Festtage Magdeburg, to name but a few. In addition to works by Bach and Handel, his repertoire also includes the oratorios of Joseph Haydn, as evidenced by CD recordings and numerous concerts of "The Seasons" and "The Creation" under Haydn specialists such as Andreas Spering and Bruno Weill. Concerts, recordings and radio broadcasts of operettas (Léhar: "Die blaue Masur"), Weber ("Abu Hassan"), Meyerbeer ("Alimelek") and various baroque operas in which he sang the comic part with great success ("Almira" by Handel etc.) underline the fact that Jan Kobow also has a talent for light-hearted roles.
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Jan Kobow has appeared as a soloist on around 100 CD recordings and has already recorded nine solo albums, including Schubert's three song cycles (with Kristian Bezuidenhout and Christoph Hammer), as well as songs by Mendelssohn, Siegmund von Seckendorff, Johann Krieger, Carl Loewe, John Dowland and others with pianists such as Cord Garben and Ludger Rémy.
He can be heard as a soloist in the complete Bach recordings of the cantatas by the Bach Collegium Japan, La Petite Bande and the English Baroque Soloists as well as in the Schubertlied series by Naxos, the complete Carl Löwe recording by cpo and the complete Schütz recording by CARUS. BACH 333", the new complete edition of all Bach works from Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft, includes numerous recordings of cantatas and the Mass in B minor with Jan Kobow. He has also participated in the Nederlandse Bachvereniging's "All Of Bach" and has sung well over fifty performances of Bach's St. Matthew Passion and other Bach works with this ensemble alone, primarily as Evangelist. Some works are already available in various recordings, such as Bach's Mass in B minor in a solo version under Lars Ulrik Mortensen. Many other baroque composers such as Reinhard Keiser (St. Mark Passion and various operas), Georg Conradi (opera Ariadne), Johann Pachelbel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel, C.P.E. Bach, Gottfried August Homilius (St. John Passion with the Dresdner Kreuzchor), Christoph Graupner and Jan Dismas Zelenka complete his extremely extensive discography. A premiere recording of songs and duets by Johann Erasmus Kindermann with soprano Ina Siedlaczek and the United Continuo Ensemble was recently released to excellent reviews. A recording of 16th century music with soprano Dorothée Mields and lutenist Andreas Arend will be released soon.
Lieder recitals with works such as Schubert's Schöne Müllerin (with Christoph Hammer) & Schwanengesang (with Arthur Schoonderwoerd), songs and duets by Schubert (with Tobias Koch, among others) have been recorded for radio and works such as Monteverdi's Marienvesper (under Ph. Herreweghe) and Christmas cantatas by J.S. Bach (with Concerto Copenhagen) have been produced for television.
Jan Kobow is co-founder of the soloist ensemble Die Himlische Cantorey, which has performed with ensembles such as the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Wiener Akademie, the Capella Coloniensis, Echo du Danube, Hamburger Ratsmusik, Les Amis de Philippe, Concerto Melante (Berliner Philharmoniker) and repeatedly with the Knabenchor Hannover. Over ten CD recordings and numerous radio recordings have documented this work, one of which received an Echo Klassik award. The Himlische Cantorey's latest CD production with as yet unrecorded Magnificat settings by Johann Pachelbel will soon be released by cpo. Kobow has also been active with other soloist ensembles, such as Gli Angeli Geneve (Stephan MacLeod), Weser Renaissance (Manfred Cordes) or the Collegium Vocale Gent (Ph. Herreweghe), which has been documented in numerous CD recordings, radio and video recordings with these ensembles. In the 2019/2020 season, Jan Kobow performed an opera and CD production of Christoph Graupner's Antiochus & Stratonica at the Boston Early Music Festival, including at Musikfest Bremen, which got produced on CD in early 2020. Further engagements include at the Bésançon Festival with Arthur Schoonderwoerd and with Andreas Spering in Seville (Bach Mass in B minor). Jan Kobow hosts a summer concert series in his home town of Schloss Seehaus and passes on his vocal knowledge at masterclasses and at the Bayreuth University of Church Music. In 2016, he was honored with the "Artist of the Month" award from the Nuremberg Metropolitan Region for his artistic impulses in his home region.
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FELIX RENGGLI
Flute
Felix Renggli was born in Basel (Switzerland) and studied flute with Gerhard Hildenbrand, Aurèle Nicolet and Peter-Lukas Graf. He completed his studies at the Basel Music Academy with a soloist's diploma and subsequently played in various orchestras as solo flutist, including the IMF Lucerne Festival Orchestra, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra, the Orquesta Gulbenkian Lisbon, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Camerata Bern.
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Renggli has won prizes at national and international competitions and regularly gives masterclasses in Europe, South America, Japan, China and Australia. A busy concert schedule takes him as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, South America, the USA, Japan and China, with appearances at international festivals such as in Paris, Bourges, Lucerne, Lockenhaus, Rio de Janeiro, Akiyoshidai, Tokyo.
His regular collaboration with the oboist, conductor and composer Heinz Holliger has given him decisive impulses in his musical work.
As successor to P.-L.Graf, Renggli took over a training and concert class at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel in 1994. From 2004 to 2014, he was also a professor at the State University of Music Freiburg i. Br. Since fall 2015, he has also been teaching at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano.
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His musical activities range from new music (numerous world premieres with the "Swiss Chamber Soloists" and the "Ensemble Contrechamps"), to the classical chamber music and solo repertoire, to the performance of early music on historical instruments. His CD recordings (with the "Swiss Chamber Soloists", Heinz Holliger, Camerata Bern, Arditti Quartet, Jan Schultsz, "Nova Stravaganza/Köln", among others) have been released by ECM, "Artist Consort"/GENUIN, Philips, Montaigne, Accord, Discover, Stradivarius. Together with cellist Daniel Haefliger and violist Jürg Dähler, he founded the first Swiss chamber music series "Swiss Chamber Concerts" in 1999 and shares the artistic direction with them.
IRENE ABRIGO
Violin
Winner of the Respighi Prize 2015, the young violinist made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2016 with the Chamber Orchestra of New York. She performed the violin concerto "Black, White and in Between" by Dirk Brossé as a NY premiere. In 2016, she gave the South American premiere of Respighi's 1st Violin Concerto in Brazil. In the same year, she made her debut with the West Czech Symphony Orchestra in Prague with Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5. After her first violin lessons at the age of four at the Aosta Suzuki School, she studied with Marie-Annick Nicolas in Geneva, with Pierre Amoyal in Lausanne and Salzburg and with Corina Belcea in Bern. She received important influences at master classes with Thomas Füri, Itzhak Rashkovsky, Viktor Pikayzen, Benjamin Schmid, Mayumi Seiler and Zakhar Bron.
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Deeply convinced of the social role and responsibility of the arts, Irene Abrigo founded the POURQUOIPAS association in 2012, which focuses primarily on musical and artistic projects with a conscious social mission. Thanks to a dissertation on Niccolò Paganini, she also holds a doctorate in Art, Literature and Performance (DAMS) from the University of Turin. She has been director of the Lucignano Music Festival (Tuscany, Italy) since 2021. In 2023, under the patronage of the Italian Consulate and the Istituto di Cultura in Zurich, she founded the Italian Swiss Music Society with the aim of bringing the cultural wealth of the two neighboring countries into closer contact and exchange. Irene Abrigo has been leading the violin class for pre-college studies at the Winterthur Conservatory since 2023.
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She plays a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Milan 1758.
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HANNA WEINMEISTER
Violin
Hanna Weinmeister was born in Salzburg in 1969. She began her training with Bruno Steinschaden at the Mozarteum Salzburg while still at school. After graduating from high school, she first studied with Gerhard Schulz at the Vienna University of Music and then for two years in the class of Zakhar Bron in Lübeck. Hanna Weinmeister won several first prizes in the "Jugend musiziert" competition at an early age. In 1989, she won first prize at the Stefanie Hohl Competition in Vienna. In 1991 she won the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg and in 1994 the Concours International Jacques Thibeaud in Paris. In 1995 she won the International Parkhouse Award in London.
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As a soloist, she has worked with conductors such as Heinrich Schiff, Heinz Holliger, Franz Welser Möst, Christian Zacharias, Michale Gielen, Eliahu Inbal and Hans Graf and has been a guest with the Munich Philharmonic, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, Südfunk Stuttgart, the Zurich Opera Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra, the Bruckner Orchestra, the Calgary Symphony Orchestra, the St. Louis Chamber Orchestra and the English Chamber Orchestra.
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One focus of her artistic activity is chamber music, and she has worked with musicians such as Heinrich Schiff, Leonidas Kavakos, Heinz Holliger, Gidon Kremer, Benjamin Schmid, Clemens Hagen, Alexander Lonquich, Lars Vogt, Alexey Lubimov and Dénes Várjon. She is also a member of the Tetzlaff Quartet and the Trio Weinmeister.
HANNES BÄRTSCHI
Viola
Hannes Bärtschi studied viola with Nicolas Corti in Zurich and then with Wolfram Christ in Freiburg, graduating in both cases with distinction. Since 1999, Hannes Bärtschi has been the violist of the Amar Quartet, with which he has performed at more than a thousand concerts at home and abroad (Concours de Genève, String Quartet Competition London, Schubert-Wettbewerb Graz und Migros Kulturprozent Zürich). He has recorded 12 CDs with the Amar Quartet, several of which have been awarded a Diapason d'Or. He was principal viola of the Camerata Zurich for 10 years and deputy principal viola of the Basel Symphony Orchestra from 2010 to 2022. He is a member of the Tacchi Alti ensemble and a guest performer in various orchestras, festivals and chamber music groups. In addition to music, Hannes Bärtschi is intensively involved in IT and runs a software company in Zurich.
JOËL MAROSI
Cello
The Swiss cellist from Zurich Joël Marosi studied with Heinrich Schiff in Basel, Claus Kanngiesser in Cologne and Arto Noras in Helsinki. He completed his studies in 1996 and received a distinction for his soloist diploma. He completed numerous master classes with Harvey Shapiro, Ralph Kirschbaum, David Geringas and Yo Yo Ma, among others. He completed his training with Janos Starker. In 1991, Joël Marosi won first prize at the "Concours de la Venoge" in Lausanne, one year later he was awarded the Federal President's Sponsorship Prize and the Weizäcker Prize at the Mendelssohn Competition of the German Music Academies in Berlin. Numerous concerts followed, which were recorded and documented in broadcasts by Hessischer Rundfunk, among others.
Joël Marosi has performed as a soloist with the Hanover Orchestra Association of the NDR, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Prague Chamber Philharmonic and the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra. He made his debut in the Munich Philharmonic with the orchestra "I Fiamminghi" with Beethoven's Triple Concerto. Since 1999 he has played numerous concerts as solo cellist and chamber music partner with the Camerata Bern, as well as with the Camerata Salzburg ("Begegnung Johann Sebastian Bach" 2005 and the Salzburg Festival 2006). From 2000 - 2003 he was 1st solo cellist of the Basel Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber music partner, Joël Marosi has played with the Skampa Quartet, with members of the Alban Berg Quartet, with Ursula Holliger, Dimitri Ashkenazy, Christian Zacharias and others. In a duo with his wife, the Finnish pianist Marja-Liisa Anttikoski, Joël Marosi devotes himself in particular to the dissemination of works by contemporary and unknown Finnish and Scandinavian composers.
Joël Marosi is a founding member of the Zurich Piano Trio, which is one of the leading young ensembles in Switzerland and has gained a firm place in the chamber music world in recent years. In 1994, the trio won first prize at the Concours Charles Hennen in Holland. This was followed by first prize at the Mendelssohn Competition in Berlin and third prize at the International Chamber Music Competition in Osaka (Japan). The ensemble studied with the Alban Berg Quartet at the Cologne Musikhochschule from 1996-2002. In 2001 it won first prize at the International Piano Trio Competition and the Grand Prize of the Konzertgesellschaft München. Numerous invitations followed from renowned organizers in Germany, Israel, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland and the USA. In 1996, the trio was invited to the Tanglewood Festival (USA) as "Trio in Residence". In 1997, the trio accepted Isaac Stern's invitation to the "Isaac Stern Chamber Music Workshop" at Carnegie Hall. The trio has recorded for all major German radio stations and the Swiss label Claves. It is a guest at festivals such as the Kissinger Sommer, the Schwetzingen Festival, the Lucerne Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival and others.
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Joël Marosi has been 1st solo cellist of the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne since 2005.
SEBASTIAN BONHOEFFER
Cello
Sebastian Bonhoeffer studied cello at the Basel Music Academy under Heinrich Schiff, where he graduated with a teaching and concert diploma. At the same time, he studied physics in Munich and Vienna, and completed a doctorate in evolutionary biology in Oxford. He has been a full professor of theoretical biology at ETH Zurich since 2006. Since 2021, he has also been Director of the Collegium Helveticum, the joint Institute of Advanced Study of ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of the Arts. In addition to his profession as a researcher and university lecturer, he has remained active as a chamber musician and regularly gives concerts with musician friends.
JOSEPH GILGENREINER
Bass
Josef Gilgenreiner is double bass player (substitute, first desk) in the Musikkollegium Winterthur and double bass lecturer (major) at the Kalaidos Musikhochschule Zurich. Since 2015, he has also been principal bass in Le Concert Olympique in Belgium. Josef Gilgenreiner studied double bass in Vienna with Prof. Josef Niederhammer at the University of Music and Performing Arts. While still a student, he was a substitute in the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSO) and the Vienna State Opera/Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. As a solo bassist, he performed in the Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra. In 1996 he was principal bass in the Mahler Chamber Orchestra founded by Claudio Abbado. Since then he has played with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra, the Zurich Opera Orchestra, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra and others.
In recent years he has appeared regularly with the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich as assistant principal bass and as principal bass. Josef Gilgenreiner is a sought-after chamber musician. His engagements have taken him to a variety of festivals. Among them are the Rheingau Music Festival, the Festwochen Gmunden, the Festival de Musique de Menton, the Festival St. Gallen Steiermark, the Schwäbische Frühling, the Lenzburgiade and the Kyburgiade. He has played with musicians such as Nicolas Altstaedt, Christian Altenburger, Fazil Say, Daniel, Schnyder, Paul Meyer and formations such as the Minetti Quartet, the Amar Quartet, the Ars Amata and many others. A close collaboration connects him with the internationally renowned Carmina Quartet. Josef Gilgenreiner is a double bass lecturer (major) at the Kalaidos Musikhochschule Zurich. He regularly teaches students in the class of Prof. Josef Niederhammer in Vienna, and was a lecturer in the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO). In Bad Kohlgrub (Germany) he regularly conducts his double bass master class as part of the Klassiktage Akademie. He is the founder and artistic director of the Klassiktage Ammergauer Alpen. He was also the initiator and artistic director of the chamber music series Serenata Oberammergau.
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In his own publishing house for sheet music, Josef Gilgenreiner publishes new compositions and double bass literature.
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GILLES VONSATTEL
Fortepiano
A "wanderer between worlds" (Lucerne Festival), "immensely talented" and "quietly powerful pianist" (New York Times), Swiss-born American Gilles Vonsattel is an artist of extraordinary versatility and originality. Comfortable with and seeking out an enormous range of repertoire, Vonsattel displays a musical curiosity and sense of adventure that has gained him many admirers. Recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant and winner of the Naumburg and Geneva competitions as well as the 2016 Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award, he has in recent years appeared with the Boston Symphony, Tanglewood, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Munich Philharmonic, Gothenburg Symphony, San Francisco Symphony, and Detroit Symphony Orchestra, while performing recitals and chamber music at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Ravinia, Tokyo’s Musashino Hall, Wigmore Hall, Bravo! Vail, Music@Menlo, the Gilmore festival, the Lucerne festival, and the Munich Gasteig. His 2014 New York solo recital was hailed as “tightly conceived and passionately performed…a study in intensity” by The New York Times.
As a soloist he has also appeared with the Warsaw Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic, Edmonton Symphony, l’Orchestre Symphonique du Québec, Boston Pops, Nashville Symphony, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Staatskapelle Halle, and L’orchestre de chambre de Genève. Chamber partners include musicians such as James Ehnes, Frank Huang, Ilya Gringolts, Nicolas Altstaedt, David Shifrin, David Finckel, Stefan Jackiw, Jörg Widmann, Gary Hoffman, Carter Brey, David Requiro, Paul Huang, Anthony Marwood, Paul Neubauer, Paul Watkins, Philip Setzer, Emmanuel Pahud, Karen Gomyo, David Jolley, and Ida Kavafian. He has appeared in concert with the Emerson, Pacifica, Orion, St. Lawrence, Ebène, Danish, Miró, Daedalus, Escher, and Borromeo Quartets. Mr. Vonsattel is Principal Pianist of Camerata Pacifica, a member of the Swiss Chamber Soloists, and plays alongside Ida Kavafian and David Jolley in Trio Valtorna. Deeply committed to the performance of contemporary works, he has premiered numerous works both in the United States and Europe and worked closely with notable composers such as Jörg Widmann, Heinz Holliger, and George Benjamin. His recording for the Honens/Naxos label of music by Debussy, Honegger, Holliger, and Ravel was named one of Time Out New York’s 2011 classical albums of the year, while a 2014 release on GENUIN/Artist Consort received a 5/5 from FonoForum and international critical praise. His latest solo release (2015) for Honens of Scarlatti, Webern, Messiaen, Debussy, and George Benjamin’s Shadowlines received rave reviews in Gramophone, The New York Times, and the American Record Guide. Upcoming recordings include Richard Strauss' Panathenäenzug and Kurt Leimer's Concerto for Left Hand with the Bern Symphony Orchestra and Mario Venzago, for the Schweizer Fonogramm label.
Recent projects include Berg’s Kammerkonzert with the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, a tour with Jörg Widmann and the Irish Chamber Orchestra, Mozart concerti with the Vancouver Symphony and Florida Orchestra, performances at Seoul’s LG Arts Centre and at the Beijing Modern Music Festival, collaborations with Kent Nagano with L’Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Munich Philharmonic (Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety) as well as numerous appearances internationally and throughout the United States with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Mr. Vonsattel received his bachelor’s degree in political science and economics from Columbia University and his master’s degree from The Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal. He is Professor of Piano at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and on the faculty of Bard Conservatory. Gilles Vonsattel is a Steinway Artist.
ARTHUR SCHOONDERWOERD
Fortepiano
Schoonderwoerd began his music studies, in particular piano, at the Utrecht Conservatory with Herman Uhlhorn and Alexander Warenberg. He graduated successively in pedagogy (1990), concert music (1992) and chamber music (1993). He also studied musicology at the University of Utrecht. In 1992 he perfected the piano forte with Jos van Immerseel at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris and won first prize in 1995. In the same year he was awarded third prize for piano-forte in the international competition of the Early Music Festival in Bruges. In 1996 he won the Juventus Prize of the Council of Europe. At the international Van Wassenaer competition for early music ensembles in 1996, he was awarded the prize for the best solo performance.
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Schoonderwoerd explores the interpretation of piano music of the 18th and 19th centuries and forgotten repertoire of the time. He is also interested in the variety of keyboard instruments of the period. Schoonderwoerd performs regularly as a soloist in Belgium, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands. He regularly performs with chamber music ensembles or singers of the lied repertoire, in particular Johannette Zomer, Hans Jörg Mammel, Sandrine Piau and David Wilson Johnsen or the instrumentalists Eric Hoeprich, Jaap ter Linden, Barthold Kuijken, Wilbert Hazelzet, Miklós Spányi, Count Mourja, François Leleux, Marie Hallynck and Ronald van Spaendonck. With the Cristofori Ensemble, which he founded, he explores the repertoire for piano and orchestra in a personal way.
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Arthur Schoonderwoerd has been teaching piano and chamber music at the Barcelona Conservatory since 2004.
WINTERTHUR STRING QUARTET
Bogdan Božović, Violin
Francesco Sica, Violin
Jürg Dähler, Viola
Cäcilia Chmel, Cello
Both the history and activities of the Winterthur String Quartet are difficult to compare with other formations of the same genre: The members of the Winterthur String Quartet have always been and still are the section leaders of their register and regular soloists in the Musikkollegium Winterthur orchestra. The existence of an orchestra's own string quartet is a rarity worldwide and testifies to the long tradition in the cultivation of chamber music at the Musikkollegium Winterthur. The quartet, which has initially existed rather loosely since 1873 and is therefore the world's oldest, made a name for itself at home and abroad very early on. In 1920, the Winterthur String Quartet formed as a permanent ensemble with regular concerts in the Winterthur town hall. After the Second World War, with the legendary line-up of Peter Rybar, Clemens Dahinden, Oskar Kromer and Antonio Tusa, concert tours took them to Salzburg and Northern Italy, to Holland, Belgium and Germany, and a considerable number of chamber music works were performed by the American Concert Hall Society recorded on long-playing records. The pianist Clara Haskil was one of the famous guests at the time.
Since its inception, the Winterthur String Quartet has cultivated not only the well-known repertoire but also the unknown and forgotten literature; Many premieres and first performances bear witness to this. Generous patronage continually enables concert programs of rare value, far removed from commercial interests. Recent renowned guests include performers such as Kit Armstrong and Dénes Várjon (piano), Ian Bostridge (tenor), Nicolas Altstaedt (cello) and Albrecht Mayer (oboe). The quartet plays today with Bogdan Božović (1st violin), Francesco Sica (2nd violin), Jürg Dähler (viola) and Cäcilia Chmel (cello). Invitations to other cities in Switzerland, to Germany and the USA, regular appearances at the SWISS CHAMBER CONCERTS and highly acclaimed CD recordings are some of the stops on the path of this renowned ensemble, which celebrated its 100th birthday in the 2020/21 season. To celebrate this anniversary, the Musikkollegium Winterthur edited a CD with live recordings from the past 100 years.
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ZURICH CHAMBER SINGERS
Christian Erny, Conductor
Soprano: Meret Roth, Domino Schlegel, Simona Moran, Sara-Bigna Janett, Kathi Stahel, Olivia Allemann
Alt: Amy Farnell, Annika Langenbach, Andrea Erny, Désirée Mori, Marike Potts
Altus: David Feldman
Tenor: Jonas Salzer, Florian Glaus, Severin Hosang, Aedán Christie, Maxime Thély
Bass: David Gurtner, Emanuel Signer, Israel Martin Dos Reis, Pascal Zure
Tamara Chitadze, Fortepiano
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The combination of outstanding vocal work, innovative programming and a modern appearance makes the Zurich Chamber Singers under the direction of Christian Erny one of the most promising and interesting vocal ensembles of the young generation. The diverse recordings of the choir, founded in 2015, have delighted press and audiences worldwide. Magazines such as Chorzeit or Aachener Zeitung speak of a “musical pleasure of the first order” or praise the sound culture, which is “unparalleled”. Image HiFi Magazine already sees the Zurich Chamber Singers in the “Top 10 European chamber choirs”.
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In the following seasons, the Zurich Chamber Singers will be working with artists such as Roberto Gonzàles-Monjas and Caroline Shaw and with orchestras such as the Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Württemberg Philharmonic Orchestra Reutlingen and the CHAARTS. An extensive tour with their highly acclaimed program O nata lux also leads to their debut at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg.
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The Zurich Chamber Singers are exclusive artists on the Berlin Classics label. The release of their new album Bruckner Spectrum – a carefully and intelligently curated program around Anton Bruckner’s Latin motets – is scheduled for fall 2022. Their last album, O nata lux, received rave reviews from the international press. The Zurich Chamber Singers have also released a number of digital singles and EPs in 2021, including the ten-part Stabat mater by Domenico Scarlatti and other works by Benjamin Britten, Jean Binet, Jean Deatwyler and Eugen Meier.
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