6th - 9th June 2025
ARTISTS 2025
IZABELLA SIMON Piano
PERRY SCHACK Guitar
Trio III-VII-XII + Herwig Ursin Ensemble
JÜRG DÄHLER
Artistic Director & 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.
THOMAS LOIBL
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.
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.
FRANCESCO SICA
Violin
Francesco Sica was born into a musical family in Sicily. At the age of seven, he began violin lessons at the Conservatory of Catania, completing them with distinction. After pursuing advanced studies with Felice Cusano at the Fiesole Academy, he continued his education at the Frankfurt University of Music and Performing Arts, where he earned his diploma under Priya Mitchell and subsequently completed the concert examination under Sophia Jaffé. In parallel, he studied chamber music at the Reina Sofia Institute in Madrid with Ralf Gothoni and in Essen with Dirk Mommertz. Francesco regularly performs as a chamber musician and is a member of the Gémeaux Quartet and the Monte Piano Trio. Together with his colleagues, he has appeared in concert halls such as London's Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, Conway Hall, Zurich's Tonhalle, and Hamburg's Laeiszhalle. He has also been featured in broadcasts by WDR, SWR, HR, BR, and Deutschlandfunk. Francesco has performed at several renowned festivals, including the Enescu Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Osnabrück Chamber Music Festival, Mozartfest, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, Heidelberg Spring, and the Constella Festival in the USA.
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Francesco has recorded two trio CDs released by the GENUIN label, both of which received five-star reviews from the Sunday Times Magazine and Fonoforum. As an orchestral musician, Francesco has worked as Deputy Concertmaster at the Staatstheater Darmstadt. He has also played with the Frankfurt Museum Orchestra and the Hessian Radio Symphony Orchestra, among others. Francesco is the artistic director of the "MusiKulinarium" Chamber Music Festival at Lake Constance. As a soloist, he has won several national and international competitions, including the "Città di Vittorio Veneto." He has been inspired by masterclasses with artists such as Ivry Gitlis, Günter Pichler, Menahem Pressler, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Eberald Feltz, Enrico Dindo, Sergey Girshenko, and Valentin Erben. Since 2023, he has been the principal second violinist of the Musikkollegium Winterthur and a member of the Winterthur String Quartet.
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.
PATRICK DEMENGA
Cello
Born in 1962, the musician studied at the Bern Conservatory, in Cologne with Boris Pergamenschikow as well as with Harvey Shapiro in New York and is one of today`s most sought after cellists. Patrick Demenga appears regularly at the most renowed festivals and music centres throughout Europe, South Africa, the U.S., Canada, South America, Australia and Asia.
He frequently collaborates with musical personalities such as Heinz Holliger, Mario Venzago, Dennis Russel Davies, Leif Segerstam, Jesus Lopez Cobos, Howard Griffith, Christoph Poppen, Leonidas Kavakos, Alexander Lonquich, Isabelle Faust, Natalia Gutman, and many others, as well as with orchestras like the Zurich Tonhalle Orchester, Symphonieorchester Basel, RSO Vienna, Camerata Bern, Münchner Kammerorchester, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Kremerata Baltica, Ensemble Modern etc. His many radio and television recordings as well as numerous LPs and CDs (Novalis, Accord Musidisc, ECM, Sony Classical), have made him known to the international public. He has premiered works by composers such as Isang Yun, Gerhard Schedl, Heinz Holliger and many others.
Patrick Demenga teaches a concert class at the Lausanne Conservatory and also teaches at diverse international master-classes. For several years, he directed the cello festival Viva Cello in Liestal/Basel. He is artistic director of the Vier Jahreszeiten-Konzerte in Blumenstein near Berne, and of the Musikfestwoche Meiringen. Patrick Demenga obtained the award «Der Goldene Bogen» (Golden bow) in 2001. As a musician, Patrick Demenga is keen to move in the field of tension around great composers – great works and contemporary music. It is precisely in this constellation that he senses the arousal of the musical debate and where he finds his exceptional expressive strength.
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SEBASTIAN BRAUN
Cello
Sebastian Braun, born 1990 in Winterthur, is one of the most distinctive Swiss cellists in contemporary music. Besides winning the Domnick International Cello Competition (Stuttgart), he has taken prizes at various other national and international competitions and makes regular solo appearances inter alia with the Sinfonieorchester Basel, the Basel Sinfonietta, the Kammerphilharmonie Chur and the Northern Symphony Orchestra St. Petersburg. He is the cellist of the Kaleidoscope String Quartet and gives recitals at the major Swiss festivals. He took his bachelor’s degree with Conradin Brotbek at Stuttgart University of Music and completed a master’s degree with honours at Basel Academy of Music, where he studied with Thomas Demenga. Thanks to a generous loan, he plays a cello built in 1692 by Carlo Giuseppe Testore.
DÉNES VARJON
Piano
Born in Budapest in 1968, Dénes Várjon graduated from the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in 1991, where he studied with Sándor Falvai, György Kurtág and Ferenc Rados. In younger years, he also took part in international masterclasses with Sir András Schiff in parallel to his studies. After winning the Leó Weiner Chamber Music Competition in Budapest and Hungarian Radio’s National Piano Competition, in 1991 he won first prize in the Concours Géza Anda in Zurich. Subsequently, in 1997, he received the Franz Liszt Prize, the Sándor Veress Prize and the Bartók-Pásztory Award from the Hungarian government. His exceptional technical ability, deep musicality and his wide-ranging musical interests make Dénes Várjon one of the most exciting and best respected Hungarian pianists of his generation. His universal musical talent is evident in his work as an excellent soloist, first-class chamber musician, artistic director of festivals and extremely popular piano teacher.
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Dénes Várjon is always a welcome guest in major concert halls, such as New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall and Wiener Konzerthaus. He has performed as a soloist on many occasions with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and with Kremerata Baltica. His festival appearances have also included the Salzburg Festival, the Davos Festival, Ruhr Piano Festival, Sir András Schiff’s Ittingen Whitsun concerts and the Piano Festival in Lucerne. Chamber music plays a particularly important role in Dénes Várjon’s musical life, and he regularly meets with chamber music partners such as Sir András Schiff, Steven Isserlis, Heinz Holliger, Tabea Zimmermann, Joshua Bell and Leonidas Kavakos. Sir Georg Solti, Sándor Végh, Iván Fischer, Ádám Fischer, Leopold Hager and Zoltán Kocsis are among the conductors he has worked with. Together with his wife, Izabella Simon, he not only performs in a piano duo but also jointly organises and directs several chamber music festivals, most recently the Kamara.hu Festival at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest in 2018. The pianist has an extensive discography with the Naxos, Capriccio, Hungaroton, ECM, Sony Classical and Hyperion labels.
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Dénes Várjon teaches at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest and since 2019 has been artistic director of its “Complete Works Live” series featuring the piano chamber music of Robert Schumann. Since 2018, he additionally teaches at Kronberg Academy.
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IZABELLA SIMON
Piano
Izabella Simon, pianist, graduated at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest as a student of György Kurtág, Ferenc Rados, JenÅ‘ Jandó and Sándor Falvai. Since graduation, she has been a regular participant of the most prestigious international festivals such as the Ittingen Festival led by András Schiff and Heinz Holliger, the Salzburger Festspiele, the Beethoven Fest (Bonn), the Marlboro Festival (USA), the Nelson Festival (New Zealand), and Halls as the Carnegie Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall (London), Tonhalle (Zürich), playing alongside musical partners such as Heinz Holliger, Steven Isserlis, Miklós Perényi, Christoph Richter and Radovan Vlatkovic. She attaches particular importance to increasing the popularity of songs, which is underlined by her appearances with Sylvia Sass, Andrea Rost, Ruth Ziesak, and Hanno Müller-Brachmann. As a soloist, she has performed with international orchestras as the Kremerata Baltica, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Camerata Bern, Musikkolegium Winterthur Orchester, in addition to a number of Hungarian orchestras. She frequently plays piano four hands, and two piano recitals in Hungary and abroad with her husband, pianist Dénes Várjon. In the past decade they organized and led several chamber music festivals. The most recent one was “Kamara.hu” at the Franz Liszt Music Academy. She has made records with Dénes Várjon (The Great Fuge-Hungaroton), Sylvia Sass (Liszt, Schubert songs-Cant Art) and Andrea Rost (Bartók, Kodály, Ligeti songs-Warner). In 2015, she launched a highly popular concert series for children focusing on classical music, guiding children in the world of other arts with the help of the genres in the framework of a complex performance. Following her highly successful concert held at 92 Y in New York, she has been invited to the famous Bard College as a guest professor in 2010. In order to promote chamber music, she has come up with the idea of the Night of Chamber Music, starring distinguished artists as Steven Isserlis or Ferenc Rados.
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PERRY SCHACK
Guitar
The Munich-based guitarist Perry Schack (*1977) is now a renowned soloist and chamber musician, performing 80 concerts annually worldwide. In 2007, he made his USA debut at Carnegie Hall in New York after winning the IBLA Grand Prize New York. This success was followed by further national and international awards, such as the Munich Cultural Promotion Prize (Germany), the Boston International Guitar Competition (USA), and the Chamber Music Competition Pittsburgh (USA). He also received support from the Yehudi Menuhin Society “Live Music Now.” As an Erasmus scholar, he had the opportunity to refine his artistic skills at the Escola Superior in Barcelona. Perry Schack studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Munich and the Mozarteum University Salzburg under virtuosos such as Franz Halasz and Eliot Fisk, completing his concert diploma and master class with "Summa cum Laude."
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Perry Schack captivates audiences with his performances in the world's most significant metropolises and concert halls. Extensive tours have taken him to cities including Sydney, Canberra, Wellington, Tokyo, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Yangon, Lima, Brasília, Ottawa, Washington, D.C., New York, Addis Ababa, Kuwait City, Rome, Paris, Athens, Warsaw, Vienna, Dublin, and Berlin. In 2016, Perry Schack performed as a soloist with the Athens State Orchestra in Athens. He is regularly featured on major radio stations such as BR and SWR. He has been a guest at internationally renowned festivals, including the Black Forest Music Festival and the Nürtingen International Guitar Festival. To date, six CDs have been released, including collaborations with his longtime chamber music partners like Krzysztof Kaczka (Duo Artus) and the Machado Quartet. This year, Perry Schack produced his latest album, a solo CD featuring classical, romantic, and virtuosic guitar music.
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TRIO III-VII-XII
Ensemble
Urs Haenggli: Recorders / Clarinet / Various Instruments
Daniel Studer: Double Bass
Mischa Käser: Voice / Various Instruments
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The ensemble Trio III-VII-XII constantly evaluates its spontaneously created music for its structural coherence during the process of invention. In this way, the trio strives to shape the music as it is being created according to compositional criteria. Improvisations are often further developed and refined into concepts, eventually evolving into full compositions.
Various composers have written for the trio, including Jacques Demierre, Urban Mäder, U. P. Schneider, Annette Schmucki, and Alfred Zimmerlin. Improvisations, concepts, and compositions thus complement each other to form a unified whole.
HERWIG URSIN
Actor
Herwig Ursin was born in 1967 in Zug and studied at the Drama School of the Bern Conservatory until 1994. Since then, he has worked as a freelance actor, initially at the Theater Neumarkt in Zurich, followed by guest engagements at the Schauspielhaus Zurich, Theater Basel, Luzerner Theater, and Schauspiel Hannover. From 2007 to 2009, he was a permanent member of Theater Marie in Aarau. In 1997, he collaborated with Ruedi Häusermann for the first time in Rest. Frohsinn, leading to twelve further joint productions. Their most recent works include Randolph’s Erben (Stuttgart State Opera), Gang zum Patentamt (Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin), Ode an Busch (Schauspiel Hannover), Kapelle Eidg. Moos, Vielzahl leiser Pfiffe, and Robert Walser(Schauspielhaus Zurich). In addition to his acting work with Meret Matter, Barbara Frey, Nils Torpus, Michel Schröder, and Phil Hayes, Herwig Ursin also develops his own theater music. In 2011, he received a jazz scholarship from the city of Bern.
WINTERTHUR STRING QUARTET
Bogdan Božović, Violin
Francesco Sica, Violin
Jürg Dähler, Viola
Sebastian Braun, 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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VELVET QUARTET
Ezgi Su Apaydin, Violin
Laura Muskare, Violin
Patricia Gómez Carretero, Viola
Frederick Winterson, Cello
Founded in 2020, the Velvet Quartet brings together four young musicians from Turkey, Latvia, Spain, and Germany. Based in Essen and Berlin, the quartet’s artistic journey began under the guidance of Andreas Reiner and continues with the mentorship of Oliver Wille and Quatuor Ébène. Since then they have been influenced by world-class chamber musicians such as the Belcea Quartet, Cuarteto Casals, Kuss Quartett, Modigliani Quartet, Gerhard Schulz (Alban Berg Quartett),Gregor Sigl, Heime Müller (Artemis Quartett), Adrian Brendel, Barbara Mauer among others.
The quartet has gained recognition in international competitions, including 1st place at the 2024 Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award in Lugano and Köhler Osbahr Chamber Music Competition, and has performed at prestigious events such as the String Quartet Biennale at the Philharmonie de Paris. They have also been in residence at the Vibre! String Quartet Festival in Bordeaux and are scholarship recipients of the W. Richard – Dr. Dörken Foundation, performing concerts across Germany and featuring live on WDR 3. Additionally, the Velvet Quartet is part of the “Le Dimore del Quartetto” program. The quartet is known for its versatility, blending the classical string quartet repertoire with interdisciplinary collaborations, such as their recent work with dancers from Essen’s Aalto Theater in the production Last. With a commitment to both classical traditions and innovative projects, the Velvet Quartet continues to evolve and inspire audiences worldwide.
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