Pamela Stahel – Piccolo – Flutist and piccoloist with the Philharmonia Zurich, she is a dedicated pedagogue and chamber musician. Devoted to furthering young musicians she holds a piccolo & chamber music class at the University of the Arts, Zurich and  has been invited to perform at the  NFA Flute Convention, the International Piccolo Festival in Grado, IT, Rheinau Summer Academy & the Porto Flute Festival.

Discography

Camerata Franconia, founded in 2013, consists of eminent musicians from many European nations and from the Nürnberg-Fürth-Erlangen metropolitan region. Its artistic director Prof. Dorian Keilhack has worked with these performers in the course of his many assignments at home and abroad. He was thus able to secure the services of the violinist Prof. Eva Bindere (Riga) as his orchestra leader, a position she had held for over 20 years in the Kremerata Baltica ensemble. Other important members include the cellists Prof. Denis Severin (Bern / Lausanne) and Tilmann Stiehler (Director of the Erlangen Music Institute) and the bassoonist Prof. Christina Faludy. Alongside these leading artists, the Camerata Franconia will enable up to 15 academy students from Germany and abroad to present themselves to the public and gain critical artistic impetus. The Camerata Franconia has chosen Erlangen as its base on account of the city’s reputation for welcoming foreigners. Erlangen has learnt in the course of its history, having accepted the Huguenots in the 17th century and an influx of refugees after the Second World, that people from all over the world represent a major resource for the development of the city. While upholding its high artistic standards, this top-class ensemble consciously fosters international understanding and integration. All guest musicians from abroad are privately accommodated with families in the city of Erlangen. Intensive international links thus arise between the people of Erlangen and artists from abroad. Another of the orchestra’s aims is expressed in its Music Education programmes in Erlangen schools. The Camerata Franconia has accordingly assumed the patronage of the Christian-Ernst-Gymnasium, a high school for music and drama in Erlangen. Rehearsals are held in the concert hall of Wohnstift Rathsberg in Erlangen and are open to the residents of this retirement home, so that seniors with limited mobility have access to the orchestra’s performances. The Camerata Franconia Association and the Friends of the Camerata Franconia are responsible for the ensemble’s operating structures. The Richter concert agency has assumed national and international representation.

The conductor and pianist Dorian Keilhack comes from a family of musicians that has its roots in England, Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Israel.

After studying piano and conducting at the conservatoires in Nürnberg and Freiburg and at the celebrated Juilliard School in New York (with Werner Andreas Albert, Otto Werner Müller and Ulrich Weder among others) he gained further artistic insights from Leon Fleisher, Christoph Eschenbach and Georg Schmöhe.

Having won numerous international prizes in piano competitions, Keilhack initially embarked upon a career at the piano that took him from Europe to North and South America. He performed as soloist with such orchestras as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, MDR Radio Symphony Orchestra, BBC Welsh Symphony, the philharmonic orchestras of Cracow and Jena, and the Dortmund State Orchestra.

Dorian Keilhack debuted with the Neue Philharmonie Munich in May 2013 and accompanied the orchestra on a tour of Italy with Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and other works. Since 2013 he has been Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the Camerata Franconia: a chamber orchestra consisting of 40 top musicians from across Europe.

Dorian Keilhack was appointed Professsor of Conducting in February 2014 at the  Landeskonservatorium Innsbruck (a department of the Mozarteum University), where he directed the Opera School and Orchestra. Concerts with the Vogtland Philharmonie, Collegium Musicum Pommersfelden and the Orchestra of the Gauting Friends of Music, who had appointed him as successor to their long-serving conductor Ulrich Weder in 2013, featured in the new season’s programme.

The Vogtland Philharmonie has appointed Dorian Keilhack as its Principal Conductor with effect from the 2020/2021 season. As permanent guest conductor, he will be giving more than 30 concerts there in the 2019/2020 season.

Discography

Denis Severin is Professor for Cello at the University of Music in Geneva, where he teaches cello as a main subject, Baroque cello as a subsidiary subject, and chamber music. He has been teaching the cello at the University of the Arts in Bern since 2009.

In addition, Denis Severin is the director of various educational and artistic projects at the Central Conservatory of Music Beijing (China), Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatory St Petersburg (Russia), Latvian Academy of Music (Riga), Franz Liszt Music Academy (Budapest), Music Academy Gdansk (Poland). He gives instruction at master classes in Germany, France, Georgia, Brazil and Ukraine. The Madrid conservatory “Centro superior de ensenanza musical Katarina Gurska” (Spain), the National Academy of Music Kyiv and the University of the Arts Kharkiv (Ukraine) regularly invite him to give classes as guest professor.

A multiple prizewinner of international competitions in Italy, Spain and Greece, Denis Severin won prizes at ECHO KLASSIK 2015, the International Classical Music Awards (ICMA) 2018 and the GRAMMY AWARDS 2007.

Denis Severin has been a member of the jury at the international chamber music competition in Ilzach (France), the 7th International Tchaikovsky Competition for young musicians in Montreux (Switzerland) and the Swiss Young Musicians’ Competition. He is a member of the board of ESTA Switzerland (European String Teachers Association) and President of the Basel association Art Without Borders.

As soloist, Denis Severin has performed with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande (Geneva), Basel Symphony Orchestra, European Youth Symphony Orchestra, Ukrainian State Orchestra, Kyiv Chamber Orchestra (Ukraine), Armenian State Chamber Orchestra, St. Petersburg Capella State Orchestra, Archangel State Orchestra (Russia) and the Chamber Orchestra of the Poznan Philharmonie (Poland).

As chamber musician, Denis Severin has played in numerous chamber and Baroque ensembles: Spyros Piano Trio, Ensemble Baroque de Limoges (France), Capella Gabetta, Harmonie Universelle (Germany), Wiener-Akademie, Ars Antiqua (Austria), Swiss Baroque Soloists, Les Solistes de Genève, Kammerorchester Basel (Switzerland), Russian Virtuosi of Europe (London, England). 

He has participated in concerts and recordings with Quatuor Mosaïques, Sergio Azzolini, Natalia Gutman, Cecilia Bartoli, Christopher Hogwood, Jordi Savall, Martin Haselböck, Christophe Coin, Patrick Cohen, Heinz Holliger, Erich Hörbath, Andres Gabetta, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Bartek Niziol and Tatiana Korsunskaya.

He is regularly invited to festivals worldwide: Lucerne Festival, Baroque Festival Schwetzingen, Kronberg Cello Festival, Los Siglos de Oro Madrid, Musikfest Bremen, Festival & Masterclass Pila (Poland) and many more.

The many venues where Denis Severin has appeared include the Théâtre du Châtelet, Cité de la Musique Paris, Musikverein Wien, Konzerthaus Berlin, Queen Elizabeth Hall London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Lutoslawski Concert Hall Warsaw, Victoria Hall Geneva, the State Philharmonic Hall Kyiv, the Czech Philharmonic Hall Prague, Tonhalle Zürich and KKL Lucerne.

Denis Severin studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, where he attained his concert diploma, and continued his studies as Assistant to Prof. Dmitry Miller.  He then studied at the University of Music in Geneva (Prof. Daniel Grosgurin) and at the Music Academy in Basel (Prof. Thomas Demenga).  He gained valuable insights from the classes of Jürg Wyttenbach, Gérard Wyss (New Music & Chamber Music) and in the class of Käthi Gohl-Moser (Methodology & Education). He completed his studies by gaining the Teaching and Soloist Diploma with distinction.

He took advanced instruction in Baroque cello, chamber music and string quartet from Prof. Christophe Coin at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

He has taken part in master classes led by Janos Starker, Natalia Gutman, Antonio Meneses, Truls Mork, Gary Hoffman, Wolfgang Böttcher and Anner Bylsma. 

CD RECORDINGS

NAXOS  Brandenburg Concertos of Johann Sebastian Bach, GRAMMY nomination 2007

SONY  Works by Sergey Rachmaninov for cello and piano, 2009

Pan Classics  Quintets by Giuseppe Maria Cambini, 2010

MDG Musikhaus Dabringhaus & Grimm  Works by Luise Adolpha Le Beau, ECHO KLASSIK Prize 2015

Radio recordings: Schweizer Radio DRS 2, Deutschlandfunk, Radio de la Suisse Romande (Espace-2), Radio France, Radio Belgrade, National Radio Poland.

Discography

Plamena Mangova won the second prize at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2007 and embarked on a brilliant international career. She made her studies with Marina Kapatsinskaya at the Pancho Vladigerov Sofia State Music Academy in Bulgaria, and then at the Queen Sofia Higher Music School, Madrid with the eminent teacher Dmitri Bashkirov and Claudio Martinez Mehner. She also worked with Abdel-Rahman El Bacha at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium and received the advice of renowned musicians such as Leon Fleisher, Rosalyn Tureck, Krystian Zimerman and Andras Schiff. She is a Laureate of various prestigious international piano and chamber music competitions, including “Paloma O’Shea” in Santander and “Vittorio Gui” in Florence, as well as the Juventus Festival in France.
Plamena performs with leading orchestras, such as Staatskapelle Berlin, the philharmonic orchestras of Rotterdam, Radio France, Luxembourg, Tokyo, National Orchestra of Belgium, European Union Chamber Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, RAI Torino Orchestra, Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, Sinfonia Varsovia, Sofia Philharmonic, Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, MDR Orchester Leipzig, RTVE Symphony Orchestra, Netherlands Radio Chamber Philharmonic, Verbier Festival Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Tatarstan, St. Petersburg, Trondheim, Taipei, New Zealand, Bulgarian Radio Orchestra… Conductor collaborations include Sir Colin Davis, Myung-Whun Chung, Sir Andrew Davis, Emmanuel Krivine, Walter Weller, Maxim Vengerov, Emil Tabakov, Pablo Heras-Casado, Tadaaki Otaka, Jaap van Zweden, Dmitri Jurowski, Jean-Jacques Kantorow, Karl Heinz Steffens, Gilbert Varga, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Alexander Sladkovsky, Cristian Mandeal, Jean-Bernard Pommier, Howard Griffiths, Pinchas Steinberg and François-Xavier Roth.
A keen chamber music player, she has performed with Renaud Capucon, Maria Joao Pires, Boris Berezovsky, Augustin Dumay, Kolja Blacher, Sergej Krylov, Mihaela Martin, Jian Wang, Pascal Moragues, Alexei Ogrintchouk, Alexander Kniazev, Frans Helmerson, Mihaela Martin, Dmitri Makhtin and the Ysaye String Quartet among others.
Plamena performed in Berlin at the Philharmonie and the Pierre Boulez Saal, BOZAR Brussels, Suntory Hall Tokyo, Kennedy Center Washington, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Munich Herkulesaal, Bonn Beethovenhaus, Philharmonic Halls of Vilnius and Riga, South Bank Center London, Gewandhaus Leipzig, Moscow Conservatory concert hall, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Arsenal de Metz, Théâtre du Châtelet, Théâtre des Champs Elysées and Auditorium du Louvre in Paris, and at major festivals such as Progetto Martha Argerich Lugano, Verbier Academy, La Folle Journée Nantes and Tokyo, La Roque d’Anthéron, Rostropovich Festival in Moscow and Baku, Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival, Santander, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Montpellier Radio France Festival, Festival de Menton, Bratislava Festival ,Mecklenburg- Vorpommern and Bach Akademie Stuttgart.
Her first solo CD recording (Shostakovich) was awarded a “Diapason d’Or of the year 2007”. A chamber music disc by the same composer followed with soprano Tatiana Melnychenko, violinist Natalia Prischepenko and cellist Sebastian Klinger which was awarded the supersonic Prize in Pizzicato magazine. Her Beethoven disc (sponsored by the Belgian Bank Fortis), was highly praised by France Musique and Diapason, as were her exceptional recordings of Strauss’ Burleske (2008) and Brahms Piano Concerto No.1 (2010) with the Belgium National Orchestra and Walter Weller (Fuga Libera label). The latter was highly praised by Bryce Morrison in Gramophone magazine. The last CD, highly praised too, was recorded with the cellist Alexander Kniazev.

Discography

The string trio Il Furibondo was founded in 2011 by violinist Liana Mosca, violist Gianni de Rosa and cellist Marcello Scandelli.
They regularly collaborate with renowned early music ensembles such as “Il Giardino Armonico” or “Le Concert des Nations”. Their repertoire ranges from baroque (played on historical instruments) to music of the first half of the 20th century. Giuseppe Tartini once used the adjective “furibondo” (wild, angry, furious) to describe the performance style of the great violinist Francesco Geminiani.

The Trio Il Furibondo attracted attention from the very beginning with extraordinary interpretations, such as his recording of the Bach fugues transcribed by Mozart for the Stradivarius label. Since then, the ensemble has been heard on radio and in concert halls throughout Europe, including Le Settimane Musicali (Merano), Ceresio Estate (Lugano), Milano ArteMusica, Paesaggi Musicali Toscani and Rencontres Internationales Harmoniques (Geneva).

Discography