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Yo Kitamura was born in Japan in 2004. He studies with Jens Peter Maintz at the Berlin University of the Arts and with Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at Toho Gakuen College of Music, where he is a scholarship student. In 2024, he won the 1st prize at both the George Enescu International Competition and the Pablo Casals International Award. He also won first prize at the International Johannes Brahms Competition, second prize at the 2022 Khachaturian International Competition, and was unanimously awarded first prize at the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2017. He made his orchestral debut at age nine, recital debut at ten, and appeared as a soloist at Suntory Hall at eleven. Yo has participated three times at the Kronberg Academy, including as a scholarship recipient in 2022. He has also taken masterclasses with renowned cellists such as Wolfgang Boettcher, David Geringas, Philippe Muller, Mischa Maisky, and Steven Isserlis.
Jinseok Jeong was born in Budapest to a Korean family and began playing the cello at the age of five. At 11 he was admitted to the young talents program of the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, where he studied under Prof. György Déri and Prof. István Varga. During these years years, he won prizes at several international competitions, including Antonio Janigro, David Popper, and Jan Vychtil competitions. Since 2023, Jinseok has been studying with Prof. Kian Soltani at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. Jinseok has participated in masterclasses with artists including Miklós Perényi, Frans Helmerson, and Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.
Italo-Portuguese cellist Luis Dias Canali was raised in Gran Canaria. He began playing the cello at the age of four with Alba Page in Las Palmas. He later studied at the Feuermann Konservatorium in Kronberg and has been a student of Henri Demarquette at the École Normale de Musique de Paris since 2021. Luis has performed across Europe, with appearances in Greece, Denmark, France, Portugal, and Germany, including solo performances with the Orquesta IBF, Sorbisches-National-Ensemble, and Orquesta Filarmónica de Gran Canaria. He participated in the 2024 Kronberg Cello Masterclasses and studies with Frans Helmerson at the Stauffer Academy for the 2024/25 season. Luis is a laureate of the 2024 Pablo Casals International Award (2nd Prize ex-aequo and AENA Special Prize) and winner of seven first prizes at competitions including International Bach Festival, Stars-at-Tenerife, and Vatelot-Rampal. He plays a cello by Thomas Bertrand.
Maxim Calver first gained public recognition as a finalist in the BBC Young Musician 2018 competition, where he performed with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Since then, he has performed as a soloist with orchestras across the UK and Europe and appeared in leading venues including Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin and Hamburg Elbphilharmonie amongst others. As a chamber musician, he has appeared festivals including the Pau Casals Festival, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, IMS Prussia Cove and the Kronberg Academy ‘Chamber Music Connects the World’ Festival where he collaborated with Lawrence Power, Ante Weithaas and Gidon Kremer. Maxim recently completed his studies at the Royal College of Music in London with Melissa Phelps and from September he will be an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel studying with Gary Hoffman.
Pauline Boudon began playing the cello at the age of three in Lyon. She completed her bachelor’s degree at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris with Jérôme Pernoo and is now pursuing a master’s with Marc Coppey. A dedicated chamber musician, she is a member of the Citadelles Quartet and is also completing a master’s in piano trio performance. Pauline performs regularly with the Opéra de Paris and has appeared at numerous festivals, collaborating with musicians including Ulf Wallin, Peter Bruns, Anne Gastinel, François Salque, and the Arod Quartet. She has taken part in masterclasses with Valentin Erben, Corina Belcea, Frans Helmerson, and others. She plays a Benjamin Banks cello dated 1786, generously loaned by Cordes en Partage.
Seungyeon Baik is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Berlin University of the Arts (UDK), studying with Jens Peter Maintz. She won first prize at the 2019 David Popper International Cello Competition, second prize at the Vienna Classic Strings, and third prize at the Ars Classica Competition. In 2024, she was named a Villa Musica Scholar and took part in the NDR Elbphilharmonie Academy. Seungyeon has performed at the Kronberg, Rutesheim, and Kirishima Festivals, and has appeared as soloist with the Incheon Philharmonic Orchestra and KBS Symphony Orchestra. She has participated in masterclasses with Miklós Perényi, Arto Noras, Frans Helmerson, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, and Laurence Lesser.
Born in Spain in 2005, Luis Aracama has studied at the Reina Sofía School of Music with Ivan Monighetti since 2018. He received the Diploma for Most Outstanding Student from Her Majesty Queen Sofía for the 2021/22 academic year. He is a scholar of the Liechtenstein Music Academy and in 2024 was selected to take part in the Kronberg Academy masterclasses with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt. Luis has received masterclasses from Frans Helmerson, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Márta Gulyás, Gautier Capuçon, Torleif Thedéen, Alban Gerhardt, Kian Soltani, Pablo Ferrández, Miklós Perényi, and Jan Vogler. He has won First Prize at the Dotzauer International Competition (with special prize for best contemporary performance), the Dobato Benavente Competition, and the Janigro Competition in Croatia (plus Soloists of Zagreb prize), and Second Prize at the Popper International Competition.
Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt is one of Germany’s leading cellists and a sought-after conductor. A prizewinner at the Rostropovich, Tchaikovsky and Leonard Rose Competitions, he has appeared as soloist with top orchestras including the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Sinfonia Varsovia, Tokyo Symphony, and the Houston Symphony, under conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Marek Janowski and Jiri Belohlavek. A dedicated chamber musician, he has shared the stage with artists like Lang Lang, Emanuel Ax, Gil Shaham and Leonidas Kavakos, and was a former member of the Chamber Music Society Two of Lincoln Center. His recordings on Sony Classical and Capriccio have earned critical acclaim, including a Diapason d’Or and the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik. Schmidt is also founder and principal conductor of Metamorphosen Berlin, an ensemble with its own concert series at the Konzerthaus Berlin. He appears regularly in a dual role as conductor and soloist. He plays a Matteo Goffriller cello once owned by Hugo Becker.
Estelle has played in many countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and South America. She has been invited to play at festivals such as the Verbier Festival, the Gstaad Menuhin Festival, the Sion Festival, the Festival International de Colmar or the Festival Pablo Casals alongside musical partners such as Gautier Capuçon, Renaud Capuçon, Alexandra Conunova, Raphaëlle Moreau, Tai Murray, Lena Neudauer, Sergey Ostrovsky, Tedi Papavrami, Pierre Génisson, Ralph Manno, Finghin Collins, Anais Crestin, Christian Chamorel, Gaspard Dehaene, François Dumont, François-Frédéric Guy, François Killian, Cédric Pescia or the Quatuor Sine Nomine among many more. She has performed at venues including the Victoria Hall, the Fondation Gianadda, the Musée du Louvre, the NCPA in Beijing, the Oriental Art Center in Shanghai, the CCK in Buenos Aires or the Sodre in Montevideo.
Her orchestral repertoire ranges from the C.P.E Bach concertos to those of Gulda and Ligeti. From the 2017-2018 season for a period of three years, Estelle Revaz will be the artist in residence of the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, conducted by Arie van Beek. Her many projects include an album centered around the concertos by F. Martin and a world premiere by X. Dayer.
In CANTIQUE (NEOS, 2015), her first release, she performs as soloist in the concertos of E. Bloch (Schelomo) and A. Pflüger (Pitture, world premiere) – an album enthusiastically received by critics. As Le Temps emphasises, “CANTIQUE is a serious, incisive and demanding record where the orchestra and the soloist play with finesse and intelligence in a beautiful musical symbiosis”. Her album Bach & Friends (Solo Musica/Sony 2017) for solo cello was also greeted with great excitement by the specialist classical music press, with Pizzicato writing: “Estelle Revaz presents a demanding programme that she interprets at a very high technical level. The sound is perfectly pure, the phrasing is extremely clear and the dynamics are exceptionally refined”. Following her most recent album, recorded as a duo and entitled FUGATO (Solo Musica/Sony 2017), Le Courrier described Estelle Revaz as “one of the rising stars of a new generation of great artists”, while La Liberté spoke of her “majestic programme in which the cello sings magnificently, at times either powerful or languid”.
Radio and television appearances include national radio stations in France, Belgium, Germany and Switzerland, several visits to the news programs. More recently, Estelle coproduced a five-part radio program called “Estelle et le violoncelle” for Swiss radio Espace 2/Radio Télévision Suisse.
After starting out in Switzerland, Revaz studied in France at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (Jérôme Pernoo), and in Germany at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln (Maria Kliegel).
While still very young, Estelle won several awards. The First Prize of the Fondazione Antonio Salieri di Legnago enabled her in 2004-05 to embark on her first tour as a soloist to Italy, Germany and the Netherlands. In addition, her playing was ackowledged by the City of Geneva, the canton of Valais, the Fonds Français Instrumental, the Leenaards, Little Dreams, Dénéréaz, Kremer, Thiébaud-Frey and Patiño Foundations.
In 2014, she was admitted to the Verbier Festival Academy and within this context awarded the Rotary Prize.
Since 2015, Estelle has been a member of the “Forum des 100”, a group of personalities considered to be shaping the future of Switzerland.
Since 2017, she has been cello and chamber music teacher at the Kalaidos University for Music in Zurich, Switzerland. Moreover, she loves to give master classes in Europe, Asia and South America. She has recently done research work on “The development of artistic identity in higher instrumental teaching” which was published in March 2019 at Harmattan (in Collection Sciences de l’éducation musicale).
Estelle Revaz currently plays a cello built by G. Grancino (1679) and a bow by J. Eury (1825) that have been provided to her by two generous Swiss patrons.
Cellist Aleksey Shadrin, who was a member of the Kronberg Academy Master Program, was born into a family of musicians in Ukraine. He won the first prize of the 4th M. Lysenko International Music Competition in 2012. In 2018, he has been awarded the 3d Prize at the Prague Spring competition.
Following his early successes in numerous competitions, including the National Ukrainian Competition for Strings in Lvov/Lemberg and the 8th National Ukrainian Competition “New Names” in Kiev, he became in 2004 a scholar of the International Foundation of violinist and conductor Vladimir Spivakov.
In 2005, Aleksey Shadrin was a finalist in the 3rd David Popper International Competition in Hungary, and in 2008, he won the 2nd prize at The International Competition in Minsk. Following his competition successes, he has performed in major concert halls of Ukraine, Russia, Germany, France, South Korea, China, Vietnam, Holland and Portugal.
Aleksey Shadrin has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the National Philharmonic of Ukraine, the National Opéra national de Montpellier, and the Sudwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz.
In 2016, he made his debut appearance at the Berliner Philharmoniker. In 2017, he appeared as a soloist with the NDR Radiophilharmonie with Andrew Manze in the Grosser Sendesaal in Hannover, and made his debut appearance at the Hamburg Chamber Music Festival.
Aleksey Shadrin received his Bachelor and Master of Musical Arts at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hanover with Prof. Leonid Gorokhov.
He is currently studying with Frans Helmerson at the Kronberg Academy.
Since September 2020, he’s an Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, studying with Gary Hoffman.