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Kolja Blacher studied at the Juilliard School of Music with Dorothy DeLay and with Sandor Vegh in Salzburg. He has performed as soloist all over the world, with orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic, NDR Symphony, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Orchestra di Santa Cecilia, and Baltimore Symphony, and with conductors including Kirill Petrenko, Vladimir Jurowski, Dimitri Kitajenko, Mariss Jansons, Matthias Pintscher, Markus Stenz, Simone Young, and Asher Fish. Blacher works regularly as conductor and soloist with the Nordic Chamber Orchestra (Sweden), the Norrlands Opera (Sweden), the South Denmark Philharmonic, the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland Pfalz, and many others. He was a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg before returning to his hometown of Berlin, where he teaches at the Hochschule für Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’. A born and bred Berliner — his father was the Baltic-German composer Boris Blacher — Kolja Blacher lives with his family in Berlin. He plays a 1730 Guaneri del Gesu violin, generously on loan from Ms Kimiko Powers.
Jae-Chang Sung received a bachelor’s degree in the trumpet from Seoul National University and also graduated from the Malmö Academy of Music in Sweden where he studied with Håkan Hardenberger and Bo Nilsson. Inspired by such achievements, he successfully pursued a Meisterklasse in the trumpet with the highest honours after studying with Prof. Hannes Laübin from the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München in Germany. Furthermore, through actively seeking to display his talent for the trumpet, he won a number of competitions, such as the 27th Japan Wind and Percussion Competition, the 5th Jeju International Brass competition, and the 42nd Dong-A Music competition. Presently, he is working in Seoul National University College of Music as a valued and talented professor. Prior to taking up this post, he was a Professor at Chungnam National University, and played sub-principal trumpet in the Finnish National Opera in Finland, also the Theater Regensburg in Germany.
It is rare to find a marimba player in the world who pursues the possibilities of this instrument so deeply. When you listen to her delicate and pleasantly fluctuating tremolo, the concept of the marimba as a percussion instrument is instantly overturned. She is the most sought-after marimba player in the world today, captivating audiences with her versatile expressiveness and flexible playing technique, and creating a genre-independent repertoire with her skillful arranging abilities.
Ria began playing marimba and piano at the age of 6 in her hometown of Kumamoto, Japan, and has been arranging music since her childhood based on her special talent of being able to play without sheet music once she hears it. 18 years old, she went to Paris, France to study at the Paris Conservatoire (CNR), and won first prize at the 1st International Marimba Competition in Paris in 2003. She has performed at some of the most prestigious chamber music festivals in the world, unprecedented for a marimba player, including the Bürgenstock Festival (Switzerland), Rolandzeck International Music Festival (Germany), Zagreb International Music Festival (Croatia), Salon-de-Provence International Music Festival (France), Evermay Chamber Music Project (USA), and Pharos International Chamber Music Festival (Cyprus), performing with Emmanuel Pahud, Paul Meyer, Andreas Ottensamer, François Leleux, Eric Le Sage,Guy Braunstein, Daishin Kashimoto,Boris Brovtsyn,Nabil Shehata and others. In Japan, together with guitarist Kaori Muraji, Ria has created many new duo repertoire of guitar and marimba.
Since 2012, Ria Ideta has been a resident artist of the Munich Chamber Opera, performing various operas with the world’s first chamber orchestra including marimba, which has been attracting much attention in various places.
Ria is also actively involved in commissioning activities, and has been involved in the world premieres of many works – marimba concerto “SUGARIA” by Eric Sammut(2007, France), marimba concerto by Ohad Ben-Ari with the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Kazuki Yamada (2014, Japan), and “Sawa Sawa” for marimba and chorus by Dai Fujikura with the Polish Radio Choir at the Huddersfield International Contemporary Music Festival (2017, UK). Ria has studied with Yoshihiko Mizuno, Emmanuel Séjourné, and Eric Sammut. Ria Ideta is a visiting professor at the Heisei College of Music(Japan) and the London Academy of Arts (UK), living in Berlin.
Acclaimed as “a player of impressive authority and presence” (The Strad) and “one of the top violinists of tomorrow” (Diapason), Yossif Ivanov, has quickly established himself as one of the most exciting violinists of his generation. At the age of 16 he was awarded First Prize at the Montreal International Competition, and two years later the Second Prize, as well as the Public Prize, at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels.
Over the past seasons Yossif Ivanov has made acclaimed debuts in all the major European halls. He has performed with orchestras such as the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI, Vancouver Symphony, Residentie Orchestra The Hague, English Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Lucerne Symphony, Sinfonia Varsovia, the Milano Verdi Orchestra, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Luxemburg Philharmonic, Orchestre National de Lille, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, as well as all major Belgian orchestras.
He has collaborated with well-known conductors such as Neëme Järvi, Marin Alsop, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Vladimir Jurowski, Kazushi Ono, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Philippe Herreweghe, Jaap Van Zweden, Jesus Lopez-Cobos, Ion Marin, Yuri Simonov, Louis Langrée and John Axelrod.
In 2010 he was invited to tour North America with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (under Vladimir Jurowski) and made his Asian debut (Malaysian Philharmonic and Singapore Symphony Orchestras).
Yossif Ivanov has been invited to play recitals at a.o. the Menton & Montpellier Festivals (France), Mozarteum Salzburg, Tokyo (Kichijoji Theatre), Philharmonie Essen, Beethovenfest Bonn, the Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti Roma, Carnegie Hall (New York), and the Ladies’ Morning Musical Club in Montréal. As well as his regular recital partner Itamar Golan, Yossif has collaborated with Ingrid Fliter, Frank Braley, David Kadouch and Plamena Mangova.
Highlights of 11/12 included debuts with the Philharmonia Orchestra and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (Bruch), Orchestra Sinfonica della RAI (Bartók 2), Vancouver Symphony (Mendelssohn), Oregon Symphony (Dutilleux), as well as return visits to the Brabants Orchestra (Bruch), Orchestre National d’Ile de France (Brahms), etc.
Future orchestral projects include debuts with the Polish Chamber Orchestra in Stuttgart (Beethoven), Hong Kong Sinfonietta (Chausson and Ravel) and several Belgian orchestras. Future recital engagements include performances at the Montreal Chamber Music Society, Brussels (Bozar), as well as a tour in Italy (Ravenna, Ferrara and Imola).
His debut recording on the Ambroisie/Naïve label (sonatas by Franck,Ysaye & D’Haene) was awarded a Diapason d’Or de l’Année. Both his concerto recordings (concerti by Bartók & Shostakovich, as well as a Dutilleux-CD) also received high critical acclaim.
Yossif Ivanov has studied the violin with Zakhar Bron, Igor & Valery Oistrakh and Augustin Dumay. Since 2008 he is the youngest violin teacher at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.
Yossif Ivanov plays on the 1699 “Lady Tennant” Stradivarius, kindly lent by the Stradivarius Society of Chicago.
A fascinating personality of the international music scene, Ion Marin is one of few conductors to work on the highest level in both the symphonic and operatic domains. He has conducted virtually all the great European orchestras, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Staatskapelle Dresden, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, Orchestre national de France, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia and St. Petersburg Philharmonic. He also appears regularly in Japan, where he conducts the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. He is a regular guest at the world’s major opera houses, including the Metropolitan Opera, Teatro alla Scala, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Bayerische Staatsoper and Opéra national de Paris. The Salzburg Mozarteum University appointed Maestro Ion Marin Professor of the Endowed Claudio Abbado chair for conducting, starting academic year 2020/2021. He is also the Artistic Director of the University’s symphonic activities.
Born in Romania, Ion Marin studied composition, piano and conducting at the George Enescu Music Academy and at Mozarteum Salzburg. He also studied philosophy and the history of religion. Defecting from Romania’s dictatorship in 1986 led to a new life and musical career as well as his receiving Austrian citizenship. He became Resident Conductor of the Wiener Staatsoper during Claudio Abbado’s tenure (1987-1991) and worked with some of the leading singers of the world. In Vienna, he also benefited from the guidance of Herbert von Karajan and Carlos Kleiber.
In 2012, Maestro Marin initiated the Cantus Mundi and the Symphonia Mundi projects in Romania, dedicated to the education and social integration of the country’s disadvantaged children through music. Today more than 70.000 children benefit from this program.
In 2021 Ion Marin was awarded the title of Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of the French Republic.