Press Enter to search
Alejandro Viana began his cello studies at age seven. He studied with María de Macedo and with Lluis Claret in Barcelona. He is currently studying at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía (Madrid) with Ivan Monighetti. Alejandro took part in the Verbier Festival Academy in 2021 and, in 2018/19 was a member of Gautier Capuçon’s classe d’excellence de violoncelle. He received first prizes at several competitions, including the Manhattan International Music Competition, the Llanes International Cello Competition (Spain) and the Karl Davidov International Competition (Latvia). He has participated in festivals including IMS Prussia Cove, the Rutesheim Festival and the Santander Festival. As a soloist, Alejandro has performed with the Chamber Orchestra Andrés Segovia, The Zagreb Soloists and the Freixenet Symphonic Orchestra, among others. He recently made his Carnegie Hall debut.
After studying with Jérôme Pernoo at the Conservatoire national Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris and then in Gautier Capuçon’s Classe d’Excellence de Violoncelle at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Caroline Sypniewski perfected her skills with Clemens Hagen at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. She was named Classical Revelation by Adami (2017) and Young Talent of the Music and Wine Festival in Clos-Vougeot (2019) and was awarded the Ginette Neveu Prize at the Carl Flesch Academy (2015) and Grand Prix of the Académie Ravel (2018). Caroline is supported by the Safran Foundation.
Ivan Skanavi was born into a family of musicians in Moscow. At six he started the cello and entered music school, where his teachers were Olga Galochkina and Tamara Alekseeva. Later, he studied with Alexey Seleznev at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory. He is now a student of Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar. Ivan is a prizewinner of several international competitions and a Semifinalist of the Tchaikovsky International Competition (2019). Ivan plays a cello made by the Italian maker David Tecchler from 1698.
Thomas Prechal is a student at the Academie Muzikaal Talent (Utrecht) where he receives lessons from Jan-Ype Nota and Michel Strauss. He is a multiple prize winner: winner of the Bohuš Heran International Cello Competition in the Czech Republic (2017), First and Second Prize winner at the Princess Christina Composition Competition (2017 and 2020), First Prize winner of the Concours de Violoncelle ‘Edmont Baert’ in Brussels and Third Prize and Special Prize winner winner at International Cello Competition ‘David Popper’ in Hungary. In addition to playing the cello, Thomas likes to compose and regularly receives commissions.
Roger Morelló Ros performs regularly in well-known concert halls such as Philarmonie Berlin, Beethoven Hall of the Redoute Bonn, Kerkrade Theater, Pau Casals Auditorium, Josep Carreras Auditorium, Palau de la Música Catalana and La Pedrera/Casa Milà, where he was an Artist in Residence in 2018/19. He first studied in Spain with Carolina Pineda (Salou), David Blay (Vila-seca), Damian Martínez (Musikene) and then moved to Germany to pursue a Master and a Soloist Diploma with Maria Kliegel at the University of Music in Cologne, finishing with honors and with the financial support of the Deutschslandstipendium and the Güell Scholarship. He is now pursuing a Master of Chamber Music with Anthony Spiri and Harald Schoneweg.
Irena Josifoska performs as soloist and chamber musician across Europe and the United States. She has received more than 40 awards and recognitions, among them, First Prize winner of Berlin’s Gabrielli Cello Competition in 2021, the same year that she was named co-recipient of the Prix Jean Nicolas Firmenich, recognising the Verbier Festival Academy’s most promising cellist. She was also winner of the Silver Medal at the Vienna International Music Competition (2018) and a Gold Medal at the Manhattan International Music Competition (2019), and was the youngest Semifinalist at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2017. Irena began playing the cello at age five with her mother, finished Bachelor studies in Detmold in the class of Xenia Jankovic, and now, pursues her Masters at the Universität der Künste Berlin, in the class of Jens Peter Maintz.
Anouchka Hack, recipient of the Prix Jean-Nicholas Firmenich at the Verbier Festival Academy (2021) and the Leyda Ungerer Prize (2022), performs both as a soloist and in duo with her sister, pianist Katharina Hack. Recent concert engagements include solo appearances with the Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, and duo recitals at the Laeiszhalle Hamburg and the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. As a chamber musician, she has performed at the Casals-Forum Kronberg, the Rheingau Musikfestival and in Belgium, France, Switzerland and Ireland. A tour with Gautier Capuçon in 2022/23 brings her to the Konzerthaus Vienna, Fondation Louis Vuitton and Victoria Hall Geneva. In 2020, her duo’s first album was released on GENUIN classics; it was nominated for the German Record Critics Award and the Opus Klassik. Together with her sister, Anouchka is also Artistic Director of the meetMUSIC Festival (Germany). She plays on a cello by Bartolomeo Tassini, Venice 1769.
Indira Grier completed a Masters degree with Alexander Chaushian at the Royal College of Music London, where she held an RCM Scholarship. Previously she was taught by Melissa Phelps and and then Troels Svane at the Musikhochschule Lübeck. Indira has won Making Music’s 2019 Philip and Dorothy Green Young Artist Award, the 2019 RCM Unaccompanied Bach Prize, the 2018 RCM Concerto Competition performing the Elgar Cello Concerto and a Gold Medal in the 2019 Vienna International Music Competition. She has also won awards from the Hattori Foundation and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. A keen chamber musician, Indira has enjoyed working with artists including Simon Crawford-Phillips, Andrew Marriner, Clio Gould, Matthew Truscott, Rebecca Gilliver and the Castalian Quartet.
Hyazintha Andrej received her first cello lessons from Martina Trunk in 2000. From 2007 to 2014 she studied in Graz, at the Vienna University for Music and Performing Arts, with Andrea Molnár, Kerstin Feltz and Rudolf Leopold, and from 2014 to 2019 she continued her studies with Thomas Grossenbacher at the Zhdk in Zurich, where she completed her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts with distinction. It was also at ZHdk that Hyazintha expanded her repertoire of contemporary music in the improvisation class of Lucas Niggli. Since 2019 she has studied with Clemens Hagen at the Mozarteum Salzburg. Hyazinta has a trio for improvised music and a quartet called ‘Menschenstoff’ where she blurs the boundaries of vast music styles and expands musical expectations.
The French cellist Edgar Moreau, who turned 21 in 2015, can already look back on a number of exceptional achievements, among them becoming the winner – at the age of just 17 – of the Second Prize in Russia’s formidable Tchaikovsky Competition, winning the Young Soloist Prize in the 2009 Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris, and performing with such distinguished musicians as Valery Gergiev, Gidon Kremer, András Schiff, Yuri Bashmet, Krzysztof Penderecki, Gustavo Dudamel, Renaud Capuçon, Nicholas Angelich, Frank Braley, Khatia Buniatishvili, Gérard Caussé and the Talich Quartet. In 2013 his huge potential was highlighted by France’s top music awards, Les Victoires de la Musique, which named him the year’s ‘Révélation’ among young classical instrumentalists.
He released his debut album in March 2014 on Erato with pianist Pierre-Yves Hodique: Play is a collection of short pieces and brilliant encores from Popper, Paganini, Chopin, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Dvořák, Massenet, Schubert, Poulenc and Tchaikovsky among others. His follow-up album, Giovincello, presents 18th-century cello concertos recorded with the Italian Baroque ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro.
A Parisian by birth, Edgar Moreau first realised he wanted to play the cello when he was just four years old – the instrument caught his imagination when he saw a girl having a cello lesson in an antique shop he was visiting with his father. He began lessons soon afterwards, and was giving concerts with major orchestras by the time he was 11 years old. Since the age of 13 he has been a student at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. He has participated in masterclasses given by such cellists as Lynn Harrell, Anner Bylsma, Miklós Perényi, Gary Hoffman and David Geringas, and since October 2013 has been attending the Kronberg Academy near Frankfurt – home to the Emanuel Feuermann Conservatory, named after the legendary Ukrainian-born cellist.
When the editor of the international music website Bachtrack saw Edgar Moreau perform in Gstaad in early 2013, he had the following to say: “One always comes to a young musician’s concert with a hope that this will be that special day when you hear a performer who you are absolutely sure will be a star of the future. That hope only comes to fruition on a small number of occasions: this concert was one of them. I’m willing to take bets that nineteen year-old Parisian cellist Edgar Moreau is going to have a glittering career … His playing is muscular and he throws himself into the music … and Moreau has bags of stage presence, with a flexible face which can turn from smile to grimace and back in an instant but always shows deep involvement with the music … Even at such a young age, Moreau can completely win over an audience with his big sound and no-holds-barred style. I think he’s going to be a winner.”