Mariana Popova

A special interest in musical dialogue brought German-Bulgarian pianist Mariana Popova at an early age to an intensive study of chamber music and song accompaniment alongside her solo career. Marian Popova’s concert activity has taken her to nearly all European countries, China, Russia and the United States. As an accompanist, chamber musician and soloist, she has been invited to the Summit Music Festival in New York, the Aarhus Festival of Contemporary Music (Denmark), the Varna Summer Festival (Bulgaria), the Heures Musicales de Biot (France), the Castelló Festival (Spain), the Hamburger Klangwerktagen and to the Schwetzingen Music Festival. In a series of Liederabend recital in Hamburg, which she conceived for the Schumann anniversary in 2010, the pianist performed core works by Robert and Clara Schumann together with eight vocal partners. She has taken part in various CD productions and also made numerous radio and television recordings in Bulgaria (BNT), Germany (NDR,SWR,MDR) and France (Radio France). In the summer of 2012, Mariana Popova was invited by the German Foreign Office to record a CD of song compositions from all the Baltic countries to celebrate the German presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States.

Mariana Popova studied piano with Evgeni Koroliov and chamber music with Niklas Schmidt at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. At the Franz Liszt Musikochschule she studied vocal accompaniment with Karl-Peter Kammerlander. She received significant artistic impulses from teachers like Oxana Yablonskaya, Dalton Baldwin, Bruno Canino, Gernot Kahl and Menahem Pressler. Among the young pianist’s major international successes were prizes at the Maria Canals International Music Competition in Barcelona, Spain, the Köster Classical Chamber Music Competition and the Elise Meyer Competition in Hamburg, and together with soprano Lini Gong at the Concours international de musique de chambre in Lyon, France. In 2010, with mezzo-soprano Judith Thielsen, she was awarded the second prize and the special award for contemporary song in the Lied Division of the International Johannes Brahms Competition in Pörtschach, Austria. Further, Mariana Popova was a fellow of the Oscar and Vera Ritter Foundation, the Budge Foundation, Yehudi Menuhin’s project Live Music Now and the French Schlumberger Foundation.

Mariana Popova has been a collaborative pianist for vocal masterclasses with Brigitte Fassbaender, Reri Grist, Angela Denoke, Margreet Honig, Edda Moser and Robert Holl. Since 2007, she has been a lecturer for vocal accompaniment at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. In 2013, Mariana was invited to be a guest lecturer at the Shanghai Conservatory in China and offer courses in art song performance.

Paul Huang

12. January 2021/in Violin /by Jane Pagel

Recipient of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant and a 2017 Lincoln Center Award for Emerging Artists, violinist Paul Huang’s recent and forthcoming appearances include those with the Mariinsky Orchestra with Valery Gergiev, the Detroit Symphony with Leonard Slatkin, and the Houston Symphony with Andres Orozco-Estrada. During the Beethoven’s 250 anniversary celebrations in 2020-21 season, Mr. Huang will perform the Beethoven Concerto with the Colorado Symphony, Eugene Symphony, as well as the Triple Concerto with Charlotte Symphony. Other highlights will include appearances with the San Diego Symphony, Louisville Orchestra and the National Symphony of Mexico. Internationally, Mr. Huang will make debut with Heidelberg Philharmonic Orchestra in Germany and return to National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan as its Artist-in-Residence.

A frequent guest artist at music festivals worldwide, he recently stepped in for Anne-Sophie Mutter at Bravo! Vail Music Festival playing Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4 with Chamber Orchestra Vienna-Berlin as well as a recital debut at the Lucerne Festival, both to critical acclaim. He will be making his Heidelberg Spring Festival debut in March 2021. Winner of the 2011 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, Mr. Huang earned both bachelor’s and master’s degrees at The Juilliard School. He plays on the legendary 1742 ex-Wieniawski Guarneri del Gesù on loan through the Stradivari Society of Chicago.

Malion Quartett

17. November 2020/in Quartet /by Jane Pagel

Alexander Jussow, violin
Jelena Galic, violin
Lilya Tymchyshyn, viola
Bettina Kessler, violoncello

The Malion Quartet is comprised of four passionate chamber musicians, each of whom, even before the foundation of the quartet, performed at a number of reknowned Chamber Music Festivals, including Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau Musikfestival, Heidelberger Frühling, Rencontres Musicales d‘Evian, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Musikfest Stuttgart, Podium Festival Esslingen, Mozartfest Würzburg, and Konzerthaus Berlin.

The young ensemble‘s busy concert schedule has included concerts in halls such as the Alte Oper Frankfurt, das Holzhausenschlösschen and the Solitude Palace in Stuttgart.

Shortly after the quartet was founded in 2018, they became scholarship holders in the Foundation Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz, as well as winning the Competition of the Polytechnic Society in Frankfurt.

In 2019 the members of the young ensemble were taken on as scholarship holders in the European Chamber Music Academy (ECMA). In the same year, they became prizewinners in the PE-Förderungen Competition, and in 2020 they were the only string quartet to be taken on by the foundation.

All four musicians are prizewinners of national and international competitions, such as Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, Peter-Pirazzi-Stiftung and Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now.

The quartet has received essential musical guidance from Prof. Eberhard Feltz, as well as members of the Alban Berg Quartet, Artemis Quartet and Cuarteto Casals. The four members of the Malion Quartet are Masters students in the Quartet Class of Prof. Tim Vogler at the University of Music in Frankfurt am Main.

Trondheim Solistene

2. November 2020/in Orchestra /by Jane Pagel

Passion. Perfection. Raw intensity. With these fundamentals, the chamber orchestra TrondheimSolistene (The Trondheim Soloists) is carving out its own musical territory.

The orchestra was founded in 1988 to give the best music students in Trondheim an opportunity to play together and to gain concert experience. It has since established itself as one of the most distinguished ensembles in Norway, and has won international recognition for its own distinctively open and clear orchestral sound, described by the British music magazine “Classic FM” as “The Trondheim Sound”.

Teamwork and a lively musical inquisitiveness are core values. From August 2017 the violinist and music teacher Geir Inge Lotsberg, is the Artistic Director and continues to develop the virtuosity and confidence that allow them to play what they want, when they want, and to take chances rather than play safe.

The orchestra’s energetic musicality and sheer joy in music-making are infectious. In 1999 a fruitful association with the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter was begun that has spanned many years and has included concerts, tours and recordings, and this has contributed to the orchestra’s growing reputation at home and abroad, leading to an increasing number of engagements. The orchestra has performed with leading artists not only in classical music, but also in jazz, folk music, rock and pop.

TrondheimSolistene has been featured on more than 50 albums. Its recordings for the 2L label have won great acclaim, earning not only three Spellemannpriser (Norwegian music awards), but also, for the albums “Divertimenti”, “In Folk Style”, “Souvenir” and “Reflections”, a total of ten Grammy nominations, as well as glowing international reviews. The orchestra’s best-selling release to date has been Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” with Mutter as soloist, on the Deutsche Grammophon label (with approximately 700,000 records sold).

The development of musical talent and the fostering of an enduring musical environment in Trondheim constitute a vital part of this orchestra’s work. It has close ties with the Department of Music at Trondheim’s NTNU (the Norwegian University of Science and Technology). The promotion of Norwegian music and of contemporary music is also a strong commitment. The ensemble never travels abroad without Norwegian music on its programme, and it has premiered about 50 works specially written for the orchestra.

The orchestra’s many years of collaboration with visual artist Håkon Gullvåg have been very successful. He has produced artwork for the covers of three of its records, and the orchestra has played at the openings of many of his exhibitions abroad – for example in China, the Middle East and across Europe.

TrondheimSolistene has three main partners: NTNU, which, in addition to what has already been mentioned, uses the orchestra to help profile itself around the world; Sparebank1 SMN, whose collaboration began in 2013 and Koteng Eiendom AS from 2018.

Geir Inge Lotsberg began his professional career at a young age and has distinguished himself as one of Norway’s most active chamber musicians. He studied with Leif Jørgensen (1927-1988) in Oslo from the age of ten for eight years, Sandor Vègh in Salzburg, Camilla Wicks in Houston and Ana Chumachenco in Munich.

In 1991 he became one of the founding members of Oslo String Quartet. In addition to collaborations with other musicians including Håvard Gimse, Einar Steen-Nøkleberg, Vebjørn Anvik and Kåre Nordstoga, Lotsberg has performed as a soloist with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Norwegian National Opera Orchestra, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra and Camerata Academica Salzburg.
He released a number of CD-recordings featuring works by J. S. Bach, Carl Nielsen and Edvard Grieg, and two recordings of contemporary music for solo violin. His latest album is the recording of Herman Vogt’s new Violin Concerto with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

Lotsberg is much in demand as a teacher and orchestra leader, working regularly since 2005 with TrondheimSolistene and as a professor at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo since 1994.
He holds the position as Artistic Director of the Trondheim Soloists from August 2017.
For many years, Geir Inge Lotsberg has played a Joseph Guarnerius filius Andrae dating from 1703, provided by Dextra Musica AS.

Sindy Mohamed

12. October 2020/in Festival, Festival, Festival, Festival SPRINGboard, Viola /by Jane Pagel

Sindy Mohamed appears this season as soloist and chamber musician in major festivals in Europe like Moritzburg Festival, Spannungen Heimbach, Schubertiade Hohenems, Kronberg Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Festival Présences, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Folles Journées de Nantes, collaborating with Isabelle Faust, Tabea Zimmermann, Lawrence Power, Steven Isserlis, Jan Vogler, Maximillian Hornung, Kian Soltani, Yura Lee, Adrien La Marca among many others. Other highlights include performances as soloist with the Ensemble Multilatérale in Paris, the Cairo Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestra Vigo 430 in Spain. Extended concert tours across the world include recital debuts in the Wigmore Hall, the Carnegie Hall and the Suntory Hall.

Prize winner of the International Anton Rubinstein Viola Competition 2017, Award from the “Ottilie Selbach Redslob Foundation”, scholarship holder of “Spannungen Festival” Sindy in January 2018 made her Debut in England alongside Lars Vogt and the Royal Northern Sinfonia orchestra as part of the “New Year New Artists” Festival. She took part in the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence performing together with Tabea Zimmermann. On the invitation of Rolando Villazon, Sindy participated to the Program Stars von Morgen broadcasted on Arte TV. She took part in Kronberg Academy’s Chamber Music Connects the World performing with Steven Isserlis, Christian Tetzlaff and Gidon Kremer.

Born in Marseille, into a non-musician family in 1992, the Egyptian violist Sindy Mohamed received her first viola lessons at the age of 8. After graduating from the Conservatoire de Marseille, Sindy pursued her studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. She absolved her final studies as “young soloist” at the prestigious Kronberg Academy with Tabea Zimmermann.

Further musical inspiration was given to Sindy through her participation and special invitations to numerous international masterclasses and academies such as “Festival Quatuors à Bordeaux”,”Festival d’Aix-en- Provence”,”Summer Festival Salzburg”,”Seiji Ozawa International Switzerland Academy”,”European Chamber Music Academy”. She worked with Daniel Barenboim, Antoine Tamestit, Roberto Diaz, Morten Carlsen, Nobuko Imai, Jean Sulem, Sadao Harada, Pamela Frank and Tatjana Masurenko. Alongside her studies and career, Sindy gained already a large orchestral experience. Playing in leading positions of orchestras like the Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, Deutsche Oper and Komische Oper Berlin. She had the opportunity to perform with chief conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, Marek Janowski, Vladimir Jurovski, Paavo Järvi, Francois Xavier Roth, Seiji Ozawa, Donald Runnicles. In addition, she has been a member of the “West-Eastern Divan Orchestra” since 2013 under Maestro Daniel Barenboim. Sindy plays on a viola by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume generously on loan from Beares International Violin Society in London.