Hervé Sellin was born in 1957 in Paris. He started playing trumpet, then trombone and did classical piano studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris with Aldo Ciccolini. He obtained, in 1980, a double prize of piano and chamber music.
During the same period his father, great French trumpet player Pierre Sellin, introduced him into Jazz. So he started playing with great soloists such as Sonny Grey, Guy Lafitte, Gérard Badini, Eddie “Lockjaw” Davis, Joe Newman, Eddie “Cleanhead” Vinson, Harry “Sweets” Edison, Art Farmer, Barney Wilen, Clifford Jordan, James Moody, Chet Baker, Slide Hampton…
In 1984, he met Johnny Griffin and played in his European quartet for 15 years. Between 1986 to 1989 Hervé played with singer Dee Dee Bridgewater in many concerts and tours, and recorded with her the album Live in Paris.
In 1990 Sellin obtained the Django Reinhardt award from The French Jazz Academy for his activities as pianist, composer and arranger. In 1991 he met Branford Marsalis and recorded with him (Columbia/Sony Hervé Sellin Sextet featuring Branford Marsalis). From 1995 to 2000 Hervé toured with French drummer/composer Bertrand Renaudin playing on concerts and tours and recording three albums with him.
In 2001 Sellin recorded, live at the Bayonne Jazz Festival, a solo piano album, Thèmes et Variations. On occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Jazz in Marciac Festival in 2002, he performed a suite for ten musicians composed and arranged by himself. In 2003 Hervé played, with French accordionist Richard Galliano and a string quintet, on Piazzolla For Ever, an outake of the tango music of Astor Piazzolla, doing concerts, tours, a CD (2003 -Dreyfus Jazz) and a DVD (2006)
In October 2003 Hervé was invited by Wynton Marsalis to play two concerts at The Lincoln Center of New-York with his tentet.
In 2008 he released the album Marciac-New-York Express, by The Hervé Sellin Tentet (Crystal records/Harmonia Mundi), and got the award for Best French Jazz Album of the Year given by The French Jazz Academy.
Hervé works also full-time as a teacher at the Jazz and Improvised Music department of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.
Né à Hyères en 1999, Kim BERNARD étudie le piano dès l’âge de 5 ans avec Michelle MARY. Il rencontre début 2008 Bernard d’ASCOLI et Eleanor HARRIS et devient dès lors étudiant de “Piano Cantabile”. Il intègre parallèlement la même année le conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Toulon en troisième cycle dans la classe de Célimène DAUDET. En juin 2011, il obtient, à tout juste 12 ans, son D.E.M de piano à l’unanimité avec félicitations du jury. En mars 2012, il remporte le Premier Prix du Concours International de Montrond-les-Bains dans la catégorie des moins de 17 ans. Deux mois plus tard, il obtient le Prix “jeune talent” au Concours International d’Ile-de-France et remporte en août le Premier Prix du Concours National des “Nuits Pianistiques” d’Aix-en Provence, face à des concurrents deux fois plus âgés que lui. En mai 2015, il remporte le Prix Kurtàg au Concours International “brin d’herbe” d’Orléans. A l’automne 2013, a 14 ans il est admis avec dérogation au concours d’entrée du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon. Dans la classe de Florent BOFFARD Il obtient en juin 2016 sa licence puis en 2018 son MASTER II avec Laurent CABASSO. En novembre 2018, il entame un cycle concertiste au CRR de Paris avec Jérôme GRANJON et il est finaliste du concours CZIFFRA ou il obtient le 3ème prix ex-æquo. Il a joué au MuCEM de Marseille et a des festivals en pays varois cet été 2019, puis dans le cadre « Jeunes Talents » a Versailles (septembre 2019) et a l’auditorium du Petit Palais – Musée des Beaux Arts de la ville de Paris (octobre 2019).
Harmony Zhu entered the Juilliard School at age 8, where she continues to study with Veda Kaplinsky and Emanuel Ax. She is also World Chess Champion of her age, Woman Candidate Master since age seven, Young Steinway Artist since age 10, Lang Lang Foundation Scholar, and fellow of Yale University’s Artemisia Akademie. She has appeared with orchestras including the Israel Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Orquesta Filarmónica de Medellín and with conductors including Leonard Slatkin, Marin Alsop, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and John Giordano. Harmony also loves playing violin, composing and improvising. She has been featured many times on The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Elizaveta Ukrainskaia was born in Offenbach am Main, Germany, and grew up in St Petersburg, Russia. She studies with Alexander Sandler at the Rimsky-Korsakov St Petersburg State Conservatory, and previously worked with with Lyubov Rudova at the Special Music School of the St Petersburg Conservatory and with Vera Ovcharova at the Lyahovitskaya Music School. Elizaveta is a First Prize winner of the International Piano Competition in Bremen (2016), RNCM James Mottram International Piano Competition (2018), and of the Delphic games (Rostov, 2019). Elizaveta’s performances have brought her across Europe, and to the United Kingdom and America. She first took part in the Verbier Festival Academy in 2021.
Valaisan pianist Fanny Monnet first studied with Serguei Milstein and later at the Haute École de Musique in Geneva, where she was honoured with the highest distinction and prize for best recital for her Bachelor’s degree in 2018. She continued her studies with Nelson Goerner and obtained her Soloist degree in 2020. Fanny has won numerous prizes including First Prize at the Jeunesses Musicales Suisses in 2013 and an honourable mention from the Jury at the Tucuman Competition (Argentina, 2019). She has performed as soloist and collaborator in concerts in New York, Moscow, Paris, Amsterdam and Vienna. She is also a self-taught violinist and plays in the Orchestre de St-Maurice.
Nikita Lukinov began piano studies in Voronezh in his native Russia with Svetlana Semenkova. He went on to study at the Purcell School in London with Tatiana Sarkissova and has been at the Royal Conservatory of Scotland (RCS) studying with Petras Geniušas since 2017. In 2021 Nikita won the RCS Governor’s Prize and the First Prize in the UK Intercollegiate ‘Sheepdrove’ Piano Competition. He has performed at the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Kings Place and Fazioli Hall, and holds scholarships from ABRSM, The Munster Trust and the Voronezh State government ‘for outstanding cultural achievements’.
Varvara Kutuzova began piano studies at age four at the Central Music School before moving onto the Gnessin school in Moscow. She is recipient of the Spivakov and New Names Foundations scholarships, and is winner of competitions including the New York Prima Artist, Astana Piano Passion and the televised Nutcracker International Competition. In addition to performances in Russia, Varvara has appeared at the festivals including Annecy Classic (France), ArtDialog (Switzerland), and the Arturo Benedetti Michelangelo (Italy). As soloist, she has appeared with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia, the Moscow Virtuosi, the Tchaikovsky Grand Symphony Orchestra, the Symphony Orchestra of Nice and the Chicago Philharmonic Orchestra.
Oleksii Kanke studies with Milana Cherniavskaya at the Vienna University for Music and Performing Arts and is a scholar and a regular contributor to the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein, where he holds a Vere Music Foundation scholarship. Oleskii is the winner of several competitions, including the Juries in Competition (Salzburg) and the Vienna International Music Competition, both in 2019, Ettlinen’s International Competition for Young Pianists Competition (2018), Kiev’s International Vladimir Horowitz Memorial Competition (2016), the 2015 International Piano Competition in memory of Emil Gilels (Odessa), the Astana Piano Passion in Kazakhstan and the Step to Excellence in St Petersburg, both in 2013.
Dina Ivanova studied at the Central Music School in Moscow and at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow with Alexander Mndoyants before her present teacher, Grigory Gruzman at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar. Dina has won numerous awards including Second Prize at the Liszt Competition in Weimar (2015), First Prize at the Tel Hai Competition in Israel (2016), the Artist Recognition Award at the 2017 International Keyboard Festival in New York, as well as Third Prize and the Capgemini Audience Prize at the Liszt International Competition in Utrecht (2017), after which she immediately embarked on a tour of the Netherlands.
Henry From was First Prize winner of the under age 17 piano category of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Manulife Competition (2018) and was named one as one of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s ’30 Hot Canadian Classical Musicians Under 30′ in 2019. As a collaborator in his piano trio, Trio Savyon, Henry has performed in Boston, Warsaw, Calgary, several cities in Israel, and at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival. He is an enthusiastic composer of chamber and orchestral music too. His orchestral pieces, Isle of Pic and Petawawa Gorges, have both been selected and premiered by the Winnipeg Symphony and Vancouver Symphony Orchestras. He has also had several choral pieces premiered by the Vancouver Chamber Choir. Henry’s current teachers include Sandra Payton, Amanda Chan and Edward Top. Henry previously took part in the Verbier Festival Academy in 2021. He was a co-recipient of the Tabor Foundation Award for piano that summer.