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Romanian Soprano Iulia Maria Dan’s “richly coloured, beautifully finished but still radiantly clear sound” (Sydney Morning Herald) has made her highly in demand in the most prestigious houses across Europe. This season, she makes anticipated company debuts with the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and the Opera National de Bordeaux and looking further ahead, she will make her debut with Malmö Opera and Opera de Versailles.
Dr. Hannah Chan-Hartley is a musicologist, active as a writer, program book editor, content producer, instructor, speaker, and researcher with various organizations, including Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, Detroit Opera, and the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. In 2023, she returns to the Verbier Festival as Musicologist-in-Residence at the invitation of the Verbier Festival Academy and UNLTD, a role she also took on in 2018 and 2022. She was previously Managing Editor and Musicologist at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Chan-Hartley is the creator of the award-winning, internationally acclaimed Visual Listening Guides (symphonygraphique.com)—a new kind of graphic listening guide for symphonic music. Since its initial development in 2015, hundreds of thousands in 22 countries worldwide have used and enjoyed the Guides—in print with concert program books (including in Canada, Australia, Finland, the UK, and the USA), through talks and workshops including at the Verbier Festival, and as available individual publications online. Hannah wrote a chapter about the Visual Listening Guide for The Oxford Handbook of Public Music Theory (2022), edited by J. Danny Jenkins.
Hannah holds a Bachelor of Music Honours in violin performance from McGill University, a Master of Philosophy in musicology and performance from the University of Oxford, and a PhD in musicology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has performed professionally as an orchestral violinist and loves to play chamber music. Hannah’s research interests include the social and cultural history of music and music institutions, focusing on the Europe–North America transatlantic context from the 19th century to the present day, as well as the performance and reception history of opera and orchestral music, about which she has written and presented at major conferences.
Born in 1956, Nils Landgren began playing drums at the age of six, before finally discovering the Trombone at age 13. Between 1972 and 1978 Nils studied classical Trombone at the music college in Karlstad with David Maytan , as well as at the University in Arvika with Ingemar Roos.
Meeting the legendary Swedish Folk-Jazz pioneer Bengt-Arne Wallin as well as the fantastic trombonist Eje Thelin persuaded Nils to move from strict classical studies to improvisation and to begin the development of his own approach.
After his graduation Nils moved to Stockholm to work as a professional trombone player.
He was soon touring with the most successful Swedish pop star of that time, Björn Skifs’ “Blue Swede”, who got to number 1 in the US pop charts with “Hooked on a feeling”.
In 1981 Thad Jones invited the Swede into his new big band project “Ball of Fire”, to take the lead-Trombone chair. Ever since that time Nils Landgren has been involved in most styles equally: Jazz and Rock, Soul and Hip-Hop, Big Band sessions, and by his own reckoning, hundreds of albums including such internationals stars as ABBA, The Crusaders, Eddie Harris, Bernard “Pretty” Purdie, Wyclef Jean and Herbie Hancock.
He recorded and released his first solo album in 1984 and made another four in Sweden before he was discovered and signed by Siggi Loch and the German label ACT in 1994, who today are the biggest independent Jazz Label in Europe. Since the first release “Live in Stockholm”, he has recorded and released 30 albums as a Leader and another 20 as sideman and/or Producer, all on the ACT Label.
1998 Nils started his long collaboration with the NDR Bigband in Hamburg, first as section Trombonist, then as Artistic Advisor, lasting until 2012.
2001 Nils was appointed Artistic Director for the prestigious Jazzfest Berlin, a position he held for five years with great success.
In 2007, Nils was also appointed Artistic Director for one of two Swedish Proffessional Bigbands, Bohuslän Bigband in Gothenburg, a position he held until 2015 when he decided to move on.
2009 he started the project “Funk for Life” together with his band Funk Unit, a unique collaboration with MSF- Doctors without Borders. This Project aimed at schools in the slums of Nairobi, Kayelitsha in Cape Town and Soweto Johannesburg, presenting them with musical instruments to bring joy and new possibilities to kids of all ages as well as raising funds for MSF and their tremendous work.
This project is a lifetime commitment for Nils and right now he is focusing on helping young men and women who are in need of financial support for their studies, for building a better future for themselves and their families.
2012 marks the start of a new era for the Jazz Baltica Festival, one of Germany’s top festivals ever since it started in 1991 led by founder Rainer Haarmann. Nils has been performing as a musician at this Festival ever since the start and in 2012 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Festival. Since Nils took over, the Festival has been the subject of relocating from Salzau near Kiel to Niendorf to Timmendorfer Strand, both at the Baltic Sea, and he has, together with his staff, managed to make the Festival grow from 6000 visitors in Salzau to 19000 in Timmendorfer Strand.
Nils has been decorated with two medals from King Carl Gustaf in Sweden, “Letteris et Artibus” and “Medaljen för tonkonstens främjande” and with the German “Bundesverdienstkreuz” by Bundespresident Frank Walther Steinmeier.
He is a Doctor (h.c.) at the University of Karlstad and Proffessor at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg.
Nils Landgren: exclusive ACT Artist/Redhorn Music AB/Redhorn Talent/Redhorn Records.
After starting his career as a teacher, René-Claude Emery changed direction in 2002 and became an actor. He graduated from the Serge Martin Theatre School in 2005.
At the Teatro Comico in Sion, Les Artpenteurs and Le Pulloff in Lausanne, and the Théâtre des Osses in Fribourg, he has tried his hand at classics such as Le Roman de Renart, Le Fabuleux La Fontaine, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Ibsen’s Peer Gynt, Gorky’s Les Bas-Fonds, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, various Molière plays, Seneca and Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex.
In a more contemporary vein, he has performed plays by Louis Calaferte, Blandine Costaz, Jean-Claude Blanc, Eric Masserey, Bastien Fournier, Julien Mages, Howard Barker and, most recently, Coline Ladetto and Jon Fosse. He has also taken part in a clown duo in a selection of classics of the genre.
In 2015, he staged his first professional production of Antonin Artaud’s radio play Pour en finir avec le jugement de dieu in the gardens of the Malévoz psychiatric hospital. At the same time, he writes for the theatre and has founded his own company: La Compagnie du CHARIOT-MIROIR.
Russian-American Soprano Erika Baikoff is in her second year in the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program. This season at the Met, she sings the roles of Xenia in Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (debut), conducted by Sebastian Weigle; and Barbarina in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, under the musical direction of Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Other engagements this season include Marzelline in Fidelio with North Carolina Opera.
From 2018 to 2020, Erika was a member of the Lyon National Opera Studio, where her roles included Le Feu/ Princesse/ Rossignol in Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortilèges and Juliet in Boris Blacher’s Romeo and Juliet. She was also featured as the soprano soloist in Mahler’s 4th Symphony with the Lyon National Opera Orchestra, conducted by Daniele Rustioni. Most recently, she sang the role of Musetta in Puccini’s La Bohème, as part of the Verbier Festival’s Atelier Lyrique. In 2022, she will make her debut at Musikverein Graz as Anna in Verdi’s Nabucco.
Erika was a 2021 Queen Sonja International Music Competition Finalist and a 2020 Metropolitan Opera Competition Semifinalist. She is also the first prize recipient at the 2019 Helmut Deutsch International Lied Competition and the 10th Concours Nadia et Lili Boulanger with her duo partner, Gary Beecher. Other awards include the 2019 Career Bridges Grant, 2018 Mondavi Young Artist Founders’ Prize, and 2013 Bouchaine Young Artist Scholarship.
Erika holds a Bachelor of Arts in French Studies from Princeton University and a Master of Music from The Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
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).
Acknowledged for his “virtuosic poetry” (Tiroler Tageszeitung) and “extraordinarily subtle and intoxicating playing” (Liechtensteiner Volksblatt), David Bergmüller is regarded as one of the most adventurous and exciting lutenists of his generation. He is committed to creating a new legacy for the lute. His approach is to bridge the gap between historically informed/inspired practice and contemporary performance.
David Bergmüller has performed at venues including the Wigmore Hall, Philharmonie Berlin, Philharmonie Cologne, Vienna Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein, Zurich Tonhalle, Alte Oper Frankfurt. He has appeared as a soloist at the Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, Utrecht Ode Musik Festival, Bozar Brussels, 20 fast forward, Schubertiade Hohenems, Innsbrucker Festwochen der Alten Musik, Barocktage Melk, Wien Modern & LIGITA Liechtensteiner Gitarrentage.
He has collaborated extensively with Maurice Steger, Avi Avital, David Orlowsky, Sergio Assolini, Hille Perl & Rolf Lislevand and with ensembles ZKO- Zurich Chamber Orchestra, ensemble resonanz, Bach Consort Vienna & Company of music, among others.
David Bergmüller has released numerous recordings of early, contemporary and electronic music. Not only does he play his own compositions for his instruments, combining acoustic with electronic sounds, but he is also the dedicatee of numerous contemporary works by composers including Pia Palme, Arturo Fuentes, Gilad Hochman, Manuel Durauo and Franz Bauer.
As a sought-after basso continuo player he has performed with such renowned ensembles as Concentus Musicus Vienna, Collegium 1704, I Baroccisti, La Cetra Barockorchester, Barucco & Ars Antiqua Austria and has worked in opera productions at Theater an der Wien, Staatsoper Hannover, Opera de Lille, Grand Théâtre de la Ville de Luxembourg, Theater Bonn, Nationaltheater Mannheim and The Bolshoi Theatre Moscow.
Forthcoming engagements include concerts at Verbier Festival, Philharmonie Essen, Innsitu: BTV Innsbruck, West Cork Music Festival , Grafenegg Festival, Shakespear Festival Neuss, Köthener Bachfesttage, MITO Settembre Musica etc.
David Bergmüller was the first lute player to win the Franz Aumann Preis at the HIF Biber Early Music Competition. With his ensemble sferraina he was nominated for Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik in the category “Grenzgänger” (breaking boundaries). Born in Hall in Tirol/Austria in 1989 he began learning the guitar at the age of eight. During his time in Stefan Hackl’s guitar class he became fascinated by the lute. He studied with Hopkinson Smith and Rolf Lislevand. After graduating from the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the Hochschule für Musik Trossingen, he became one of the youngest ever appointed music professors in 2018, teaching lute at Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. He is currently based in Vienna.
Musician, gamba-player, has played music as long as she can think. For her, music is the foremost means of communication between human beings, more precise and intense and unmistakable than language, of greater emotional significance than any other experience besides love. To her, music is a means of connecting not only the past and the future but also a way of socially integrating the most conflicting aspects of existence.
She travels the world, playing concerts and recording CDs with different groups or soloizing, or with her main partner, the lutenist and composer Lee Santana. They mostly perform in the field of 17th and 18th century music, but they also let the music take them to places they never even dreamed of.
When she is not travelling she lives in a farmhouse in northern Germany with her family and a few chickens, horses, cats and rabbits.
She passionately teaches her twelve students at the Hochschule der Künste in Bremen, Germany, everything she knows about music, playing the gamba, and how not to be jealous if someone plays better than you.
People of the world: relax…