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Kenneth Roth is the executive director of Human Rights Watch, one of the world’s leading international human rights organizations, which operates in more than 90 countries. Prior to joining Human Rights Watch in 1987, Roth served as a federal prosecutor in New York and for the Iran-Contra investigation in Washington, DC. A graduate of Yale Law School and Brown University, Roth has conducted numerous human rights investigations and missions around the world. He has written extensively on a wide range of human rights abuses, devoting special attention to issues of international justice, counterterrorism, the foreign policies of the major powers, and the work of the United Nations.
Bruno Mégevand is an attorney at law admitted to the Bar of Geneva. After practising as an associate in the law firm of Me Jean-Philippe Maître from 1983 until 1986, he became an independant lawyer. In 1989, he founded the law firm Megevand & Grosgean which became Notter, Megevand and Grosjean. Since 2002, he is the founding partner of the law firm NOMEA.
A graduate in economics, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe has spent a significant part of his career in Latin America with Nestlé. Upon his return to Switzerland, he took on various roles in the strategic, marketing and communication fields before becoming CEO and then Chairman of the Board of Directors. He was a Board Member of several large companies and distinguished himself by receiving various honorary awards. Today Chairman Emeritus of Nestlé, Vice-Chairman of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum and President of the GSDA (Geneva Science & Diplomatic Anticipator), Mr Brabeck-Letmathe also chairs the Foundation Board of the Verbier Festival.
Eduard Wulfson was born in Riga in 1953 and began his study of the violin at the age of six, giving his first concert at The Riga Conservatory at the age of nine. His early teacher, Professor Sturestep, was followed by Professor Waiman at the Conservatory of St Petersburg, and by Professor Bezrodny at the Moscow Conservatory.
In the 1970s, he continued working in Western Europe with Nathan Milstein, Yehudi Menuhin, Henryk Szering and Miriam Solovieff. He is a prize‑winner of the Paganini and Zagreb Competitions and took a “Grand Prix des Beaux Arts” in Munich. He has performed as soloist all over the world, in collaboration with great musicians such as Natalia Gutman, Yuri Bashmet, Yehudi Menuhin, Ida Haendel and Dimitri Yablonsky with whom he has collaborated and recorded (for Naxos) two Rachmaninov Trios. The international media acclaim the incomparable playing of Eduard Wulfson. As described by Maestro Y. Menuhin, “the playing of Eduard Wulfson is in the best Russian tradition”.
Professor Eduard Wulfson has been a leading advisor to prestigious institutions and private clients on the subject of classical for more than thirty years. His company “Rare Musical Instruments Consulting” (Edwulstrad RMIC Ltd) is based in Geneva. He is especially known for advising on the fine stringed-instruments market and finding the best and scarcest instruments. Using his expertise, Professor Wulfson helps his prestigious clients to acquire many wonderful Italian stringed-instruments made by famous makers such as Antonio Stradivari, Guarneri Del Gesu, and Niccolo Amati. In 2008, Maestro V.Gergiev, world-famous conductor of The Mariinsky Theater and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra appointed Professor Wulfson to be his personal advisor in building the most incredible collection of rare stringed-instruments.
For thirty years, Eduard Wulfson has also been known as an eminent professor helping to prepare new generation of the greatest soloists.
Menahem Pressler, founding member and pianist of the Beaux Arts Trio, has established himself among the world’s most distinguished and honored musicians, with a career that spans over five decades. Now 90 years old, he continues to captivate audiences throughout the world as performer and pedagogue, performing solo and chamber music recitals to great critical acclaim while maintaining a dedicated and robust teaching career.
Born in Magdeburg, Germany in 1923, Pressler fled Nazi Germany in 1939 and emigrated to Israel. Pressler’s world-renowned career was launched after he was awarded first prize at the Debussy International Piano Competition in San Francisco in 1946. This was followed by his successful American debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the baton of Maestro Eugene Ormandy. Since then, Pressler’s extensive tours of North America and Europe have included performances with the orchestras of New York, Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Dallas, San Francisco, London, Paris, Brussels, Oslo, and Helsinki, among others.
In 2007 Menahem Pressler was appointed as an Honorary Fellow of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance in recognition of a lifetime of performance and leadership in music. In 2005 Pressler received two additional awards of International merit: the German President’s Deutsche Bundesverdienstkreuz (Cross of Merit) First Class, Germany’s highest honor, and France’s highest cultural honor, the Commandeur in the Order of Arts and Letters award.
Pressler has received honorary doctorates from the University of Nebraska and the North Carolina School of the Arts, five Grammy nominations, a lifetime achievement award from Gramophone magazine, Chamber Music America’s Distinguished Service Award, and the Gold Medal of Merit from the National Society of Arts and Letters. He has also been awarded the German Critics Ehrenurkunde award, and election into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. On April 6, 2011, Mr. Pressler has been named the winner of the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 International Classical Music Awards. More recently, Gramophone magazine honored Pressler –as part of the Beaux Arts Trio—in their May 2012 issue “Hall of Fame: 50 People Who Changed Classical Music.” In July of 2012, Queen Sofia of Spain presented Pressler with the Yehudi Menuhin Prize for the Integration of Arts and Education.
Internationally active as soloist and chamber musician, additional honors include England’s Record of the Year Award and Ensemble of the Year from Musical America in 1997. In addition to his busy schedule as a performer, he has given master classes in Germany, France, Canada, and Argentina, and continues to serve on the jury of the Van Cliburn, Queen Elisabeth, and Arthur Rubinstein competitions.
The 1955 Berkshire Music Festival saw Menahem Pressler’s debut as a chamber musician, where he appeared as pianist with the Beaux Arts Trio. This collaboration quickly established Pressler’s reputation as one of the world’s most revered chamber musicians. His other chamber music collaborations have included multiple performances with the Juilliard, Emerson, Guarneri and Cleveland Quartets.
In addition to over fifty recordings with the Beaux Arts Trio, Menahem Pressler has compiled over thirty solo recordings, ranging from the works of Bach to Ben Haim. Pressler’s life has always been completely devoted to his music. When not touring or giving master classes around the world, Mr. Pressler can be found teaching at Indiana University, where he holds the rank of Distinguished Professor. Pressler lives in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife Sara.
Award-winning pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet enjoys an illustrious career, working with orchestras like the Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, and BBC Symphony, alongside renowned conductors such as Vladimir Jurowski, Gianandrea Noseda, Vladimir Ashkenazy, and many others. Highlights of his 2023/24 season include tours with the Philharmonia Orchestra in China, performances of Ravel with the Lähti Symphony, Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with the Kyoto Symphony, and his residency at Wigmore Hall in a series dedicated to Debussy. Additional engagements feature his recital tours with programs of Debussy, Liszt, and Massenet across venues including Wigmore Hall, Sage Gateshead, and Japan’s Hamamatsu.
Bavouzet’s acclaimed recordings, all with Chandos, include his series of Haydn Piano Sonatas, regarded as the modern benchmark, and “The Beethoven Connection,” both receiving critical praise. His Bartók Piano Concerti recordings with the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda earned the Gramophone Concerto Award in 2014, while his Stravinsky and Ravel concerti won multiple awards. He also champions lesser-known French composers such as Gabriel Pierné and Albéric Magnard.
An ICMA Artist of the Year in 2012, Bavouzet also serves as International Chair in Piano at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Sōra: a bird that sings while taking flight (Amerindian name)
It is this flight that characterizes the career of the Trio Sōra, composed of pianist Pauline Chenais, violinist Clémence de Forceville and cellist Angèle Legasa. Their love of sharing, of the stage, of travel and of the piano trio repertoire unites these three musicians, and they are determined to uphold this extraordinary genre.
Noticed for the audacity and clarity of their interpretations, it was after careful consideration that they chose to devote their first recording to the six great piano trios of Ludwig van Beethoven. Strengthened by the meticulous exploration of his manuscripts, his correspondences and the rigorous analysis of his scores, the musicians reveal their exploration into the modernity, complexity and richness of Beethoven’s music.
Through this BEETHOV3N triple-album, the Sōra Trio wishes to dispel the image often portrayed of Beethoven as the deaf and unhappy composer – surly, asocial and destitute – and instead bring to life the fiery youth – humorous, passionate, sensitive and perpetually in love.
The Sōra Trio was first formed in Paris, in the class of Claire Désert, at the National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance, then in Belgium, with the Artemis Quartet, within the Queen Elizabeth Music Chapel. Decisive encounters, notably with Mathieu Herzog, András Schiff, Menahem Pressler and the Ébène Quartet, have enriched this journey, sustaining nourishing artistic identity and interpretations.
The career of the Sōra Trio thus leads the three musicians to renowned international stages, such as the Wigmore Hall and the Southbank Center in London, the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, the Festival de Verbier, the Philharmonie de Paris, the Louvre Auditorium, the Folle Journée de Nantes or the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence.
Rewarded several times – the Parkhouse Award and HSBC Prize of Académie du Festival d’Aix-en-Provence in 2017, the Special Prize of the Verbier Festival Academy in 2018 and a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2020 – the ensemble is today in residence at the Singer-Polignac Foundation, Le Dimore Del Quartetto, ProQuartet-CEMC and supported by the Boubo-Music Foundation, the Günther Caspar Foundation, Spedidam, Pleyel and the musical patronage of the Swiss Life Foundation.
Clémence de Forceville plays a violin Giovanni Battista Guadagnini (1777) and Angèle Legasa, a cello Giulio Cesare Gigli (1767), instruments generously loaned by the Boubo-Music Foundation.
Tabea Zimmermann began learning the viola at the age of three, and two years later began playing the piano. In the beginning, she received significant inspiration from her first teacher Dietmar Mantel. She studied with Ulrich Koch at the Musikhochschule Freiburg and subsequently with Sandor Végh at the Mozarteum Salzburg.
Following her studies, she received several awards at international competitions, amongst them first prizes at the 1982 Geneva International Competition, the 1983 Maurice Vieux Competition in Paris and the 1984 Budapest International Competition.
She has been playing an instrument built for her by Patrick Robin since 2019. From 1987 until his early death in 2000, Tabea Zimmermann regularly performed with her husband, the conductor David Shallon. She lives in Berlin and has three almost grown-up children.
Tabea Zimmermann has held teaching posts at the Musikhochschule Saarbrücken and Hochschule für Musik Frankfurt. Since October 2002, she has been a professor at the Hochschule für Musik ‘Hanns Eisler’.
Belgian violinist of Russian-Ukrainian heritage, Mr. Bouchkov is a sophisticated musician of impeccable aplomb and has carved an international career performing with leading orchestras and conductors across Europe. He is one of the most multifaceted and unique artists of the new generation. His orchestral appearances included performances with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Mariss Jansons, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and Philippe Jordan, HR-Sinfonieorchester and Christoph Eschenbach, the Orchestra Filarmonica della Scala and Lorenzo Viotti, and the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra and Valery Gergiev. He has also appeared with the NDR-Sinfonieorchester Hamburg, Hessische Rundfunk Orchestra, Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, the Orchestre National de Belgique, the Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale RAI in Turin, the Mariinsky Theater Symphony Orchestra, the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Liège, the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, and the Verbier Festival Chamber Orchestra among others, collaborating with conductors such as nominated Christoph Eschenbach, Valery Gergiev, Philippe Jordan, Lorenzo Viotti, and Gábor Takács-Nagy, Stanislav Kochanovsky, Michael Sanderling, Andrey Boreyko, Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider, Dmitry Liss, Christian Arming, Lionel Bringuier, Maxim Vengerov, James Judd, to name but a few.
Mr. Bouchkov has performed in many of the world’s most prestigious concert halls such as Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Teatro alla Scala, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Dresden Frauenkirche, Concert Hall of St. Petersburg, Tonhalle Zürich, Munich’s Prinzregententheater, Paris’ Theatre de la Ville, Maison de Radio France, and the Konzerthaus in Berlin among several other venues. A fine chamber musician, he is a regular guest of the Verbier Festival in Switzerland.
Highlights of Mr. Bouchkov’s last seasons included appearances with Nikolaj Szeps-Znaider and the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, Stanislav Kochanovsky and the Hessische Rundfunk Orchestra, Gábor Takács-Nagy and the Verbier Festival Orchestra, Philippe Jordan and the Munich Philharmonic, as well as recitals and concerts at the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Konzerthaus in Berlin, and the Schubertiade in Hohenems. After a bunch of very successful concerts at the Verbier Festival in Switzerland, and in Montenegro and Greece, Mr. Bouchkov performed with pianist Mao Fujita in Latvia, at the Riga Jurmala Music Festival, and in Georgia at the Tsinandali Festival, where he played five different programs including performances with the pianist and conductor Lahav Shani and Brahms’ Double Concerto with cellist Mischa Maisky under the baton of Christoph Eschenbach. In 2021 he was invited to perform at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam with the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Ludovic Morlot, followed immediately after by an invitation to be artist-in-residence of the orchestra in 2022/2023. During the season he appeared with the orchestra at the Concertgebouw performing Korngold, Stravinsky, and Brahms’ violin concertos under the baton of Lorenzo Viotti, Ryan Bancroft, and Hannu Lintu. In March 2023 he made his debut at La Scala in Milan, performing Korngold’s violin concerto under Lorenzo Viotti. During the Verbier Festival in July 2023, he will perform the entire cycle of Beethoven’s sonatas for violin and piano with pianist Mao Fujita.
Marc Bouchkov’s first recording by Harmonia Mundi is of special significance since it includes two world première pieces by Eugéne Ysaÿe, and two works composed by himself. The album was awarded a Diapason d’Or and a Diapason Découverte as well as nominated for the ICMA 2018 and received tremendous acclaim on Gramophone reviews. The English magazine featured him as “One to Watch “.
Marc Bouchkov’s artistic development has been marked by a string of international awards. He won the first prize at the Montreal International Violin Competition and he is a silver medallist of the Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition. He received the London Music Masters Award and has been honored with the music prize of the Kulturstiftung Dortmund.
Marc Bouchkov was born into a family of violinists. He received his first lessons at the age of five from his grandfather. Studies with Claire Bernard and Boris Garlitsky followed. With Mihaela Martin, Marc developed as a Young Soloist in a postgraduate course at the Kronberg Academy. Since October 2018 he is under the musical tutorship of Eduard Wulfson.
Mr. Bouchkov currently serves as professor on the faculty of the Conservatoire Royale de Liège (BE) and the International Music Academy in Liechtenstein. From 2017 to 2019 he taught at the Kronberg Academy (DE) as Artistic Assistant.
Marc Bouchkov plays a Carlo and Michelangelo Bergonzi violin from 1742-44 as a private loan on behalf of Edwulstrad RMIC Ltd.
Wolfgang Haffner is a well known drummer & composer in the world of music. His illustrious career started at the age of 18 when he was discovered by legendary trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff. The list of musicians he played/recorded/toured with is nearly endless: Chaka Khan, Al Jarreau, Pat Metheny, The Brecker Brothers, Ivan Lins, Jan Garbarek, Gregory Porter, Michael Franks, Roy Ayers, Bugge Wesseltoft, The Manhattan Transfer, Nils Petter Molvaer, The JB Horns, Esbjörn Svensson, Bob James, Mezzoforte, Lee Ritenour, Till Brönner, Joe Sample, Larry Carlton, Cassandra Wilson, Clark Terry, Johnny Griffin, Nils Landgren, Mike Stern, Chuck Loeb, Hildegard Knef, Konstantin Wecker, Die Fantastischen Vier, Xavier Naidoo, NDR Big Band, WDR Big Band, just to name a few. Wolfgang also collaborates with heavy weights of the electronic music scene such as Ricardo Villalobos, Timo Maas & Nightmares on Wax.
Wolfgang Haffner can be heard on about 400 albums up to date, he played on all major Jazz Festivals around the world, toured in 100 countries, from Japan to the US, from South Africa to Brasil. He recorded 16 Solo Albums and made himself a name as a producer of Bands like Mezzoforte and german singer Max Mutzke.
In 2010 he received an ECHO award, followed by the cultural award from his hometown Nuremberg in Germany. His album “Kind of Cool“ went to #1 in the Jazz charts, and even made it into the german Pop charts for 5 weeks. His own group the Wolfgang Haffner Trio tours around the world intensively.