Gregory  Maytan has performed virtually all the major violin concertos with orchestra, and regularly performs in recitals and concerts in Europe and the US. He has performed on the Dame Myra Hess series, and also at venues such as Ravinia and Tanglewood. An avid chamber musician, he has participated in the prestigious chamber music festival ‘Musikveckan’ in Junsele, Sweden; the Belvedere Chamber Music Festival in Memphis, TN; the Grumo Festival in Italy, the Korsholm Festival in Finland, the CICA Festival in Eureka Springs, AR, Dallas, TX and Taipei, Taiwan; and the Sagatuck Chamber Music Festival in Sagatuck, MI. He has also performed in Australia, New Zealand, Japan and China.

Maytan has been nominated for a Grammis award (Swedish Grammy) and has had his CD receive the distinction of ‘Classical CD of the Year’ by Hifi Magazine. He has also completed a Fulbright Specialist Grant at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

Discography

Alexandra Hengstebeck was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1983 and initially studied double bass in her native city under Prof. Günter Klaus. While studying she was a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and of the European Union Youth Orchestra. In addition she played in various chamber music recitals within the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz concert series.
As a scholarship recipient of the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic she also received further instruction from Prof. Klaus Stoll and performed in concerts conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim, and Seiji Ozawa. From 2008 to 2010 she was a member of the Bamberger Symphoniker and is pursuing further studies with Prof. Nabil Shehata at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München.
Alexandra Hengstebeck has been a member of the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra since 2011.

Discography

Christoph Henschel & Teresa la Cour, Violinen

Monika Henschel, Viola

Mathias Beyer-Karlshøj, Violoncello

The quartet’s musical journey has included many remarkable highlights.  The Henschel Quartett played at the official re-opening of the Anna-Amalia Library in Weimar (a UNESCO World Heritage site), and travelled to Brussels as a Cultural Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany.  In March 2010 the quartet was privileged to perform at the Vatican in the presence of Pope Benedict XVI.  The quartet has regularly been invited to the Royal Palace of Madrid to perform on the four Stradivari of the royal collection.  In June 2012 the Henschel Quartett was invited, as the first European quartet in twenty years, to perform Beethoven’s complete string quartets in the prestigious Suntory Hall in Tokyo.  In the same year Monika Henschel became the president of the newly-formed Association of German String Quartets, and in 2013 Christoph Henschel was appointed Honorary Professor at the University of Augsburg.
Highlights of last season and the current one include appearances in London, Amsterdam, Munich, Yokohama and Tokyo (Geidai University).

The Henschel Quartett’s recordings have been awarded many prizes, including the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik and several CD of the Year Awards (IMW).  Their CDs have been recommended in such prominent titles as Gramophone Magazine, the Sunday Times, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Forthcoming is a CD of works by Christopher Theofanidis.

The Henschel Quartett regularly accepts invitations to teach at world-class institutions, from Yale University in the USA to the Royal Northern College of Music in England and the University of Melbourne in Australia.  The quartet is also engaged in an ongoing dialogue with the Bavarian Ministry of Culture in relation to youth music projects in the quartet’s home city of Munich.

Mischa Cheung studied with Prof. Konstantin Scherbakov at the Zurich University of the Arts and has taken up a busy career bringing him to many concert stages and festivals throughout the world. He is a member of the Gershwin Piano Quartet, a highly praised ensemble which performs spectacular arrangements on four pianos and released its newest album “Transatlantiques” with Sony Classical in 2018. He is a popular soloist at the Symphonic Game Concerts produced by the Merregnon Studios and has appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2016 he developed and performed the music for a dance performance directed by the choreographer Alexandra Bachzetsis and commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art New York. From 2011 until 2015 he was the pianist of Spark and took part in extensive concert tours and CD productions including for Deutsche Grammophon. Mischa Cheung teaches piano at the Zurich University of the Arts and has also been appointed assistant to Prof. Scherbakov’s masterclasses. In 2019, he was awarded the Arts Prize of the Basel Region canton.

Yulia Miloslavskaya belongs to the younger generation of up-and-coming pianists.
She comes from a musical family and has showed great interest in music since her earliest years. During her studies at the Moscow Conservatory (with Naum Starkman and Ruvim Ostrovsky) and at the Zurich University of the Arts (with Konstantin Scherbakov and Peter Solomon), she has proved to be a pianist with exceptional charisma and musical individuality. With her outstanding skills and a wide repertoire, Yulia was awarded numerous prizes at several renowned international competitions and festivals. Her pianistic activities are not confined to solo performance; she also regulary performs in various ensembles, duets, trios and other musical groups and has appeared with Thomas Grossenbacher (cello), Martin Grubinger and Rainer Seegers (percussion), Ilya Gringolts and Andreas Janke (violin). Her solo CD “Novelettes” was released in 2015. In December 2017, Yulia Miloslavskaya debuted “Primus”, an album recorded in collaboration with the Giraud Ensemble Chamber Orchestra.

Sergey Simakov is an outstanding Russian-born conductor. In 2015, he was awarded the 1st prize at the International Conducting Competition Jeunesses Musicales Bucharest. He worked as an Assistant Conductor at the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie as well as at the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie Koblenz (2012-2013 season) as assistant to Principal Conductor Daniel Raiskin. Sergey Simakov was Music Director at the “Oper Oder-Spree” festival in 2016, and in 2019 he was guest conductor for the production of Donizetti’s L’elisir d’amore at the State Opera House in Cottbus, Germany. Furthermore, he has appeared with a number of orchestras and ensembles including the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, North Netherlands Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philarmonique de Strasbourg and Komische Oper Leipzig. From 2003 to 2011 Sergey Simakov studied in Russia at the State Conservatory Kazan with Prof. Fuat Mansurov Between 2003 and 2010, Sergey Simakov studied in Russia at the State Conservatory of Kazan with Prof. Fuat Mansurov. He continued his studies from 2011 until 2015 with Prof. Scott Sandmeier, Prof. Lutz Köhler and Prof. Massimiliano Matesic at the University of Music Freiburg. Sergey Simakov has been a recipient of a grant from the Deutsches Dirigentenforum since 2012.

The Giraud Ensemble Chamber Orchestra was founded in 2015 and has since performed in various formations: from the quintet to the forty-member chamber orchestra. The young ensemble cultivates a diverse repertoire ranging from the Baroque to the Modern, always placing great importance on making less known musical works heard. In 2017, the Giraud Ensemble Chamber Orchestra released the CD “Primus” with works by Shostakovich, Vasks and Baum. It has been under the direction of internationally active and award-winning conductor Sergey Simakov since its foundation.

Discography

In 2018 the Castalian String Quartet received the prestigious inaugural MERITO String Quartet Award & Valentin Erben Prize and won a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship Award.
This season the Quartet give debut concerts in North America (Phillips Collection Washington D.C. and Lincoln Center New York), the Salle Bourgie in Montreal, Vancouver Recital Society, Konzerthaus Vienna, Theatre d’Orleons, Louvre in Paris, Flagey in Brussels and Lucerne. They appear regularly at Wigmore Hall in the main series and return to Snape Maltings and Saffron Hall.
Highlights over the last year have included performances of the complete Haydn Op.76 Quartets at Wigmore Hall, concerts in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Heidelberger Frühling, East Neuk, Zwischentöne Festival in Engelberg, Neuchatel Chamber Music in Switzerland and Banff International Festivals. Further afield they undertook tours of China and Colombia.
The Quartet has performed widely throughout Europe as part of the Hamburg Chamber Music Series, International Musikfest Goslar, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, Quartet affairs in Frankfurt (broadcast by NDR), French festivals in Queille and Conques, the Aldeburgh, East Neuk, North Norfolk and Peasmarsh Festivals. In 2017 they were resident at the Esbjerg international Chamber Music Festival in Denmark, Festival Musique d’Été à Suzette near Avignon and Snape Maltings. They have collaborated with Nils Mönkemeyer, Alasdair Beatson, Simon Rowland-Jones, Daniel Lebhardt and Olivier Stankiewicz, among many others.
Formed in 2011, the Castalian Quartet studied with Oliver Wille (Kuss Quartet) at the Hannover University of Music, Drama and Media, graduating with a Master’s degree. Awards include 3rd Prize at the 2016 Banff Quartet Competition and 1st Prize at the 2015 Lyon Chamber Music Competition. The Quartet was selected by YCAT in 2016. They have received coaching from Simon Rowland-Jones, David Waterman and Isabel Charisius.

Discography

Mary Ellen Woodside, Violine
Edouard Mätzener, Violine
Alessandro D’Amico, Viola
Rafael Rosenfeld, Violoncello

„In an age remarkably rich in string quartets of high quality, the Merel Quartet is, in my
opinion, one of the very best.“  — Alfred Brendel
Commended for their stylistic awareness, maturity of expression and command of form, the
Merel Quartet have been captivating audiences since 2002.  An exceptionally communicative
quartet, the Merels have received unanimous praise:  „a young ensemble of wonderfully
devoted and tonally excedingly well-matched musicians“ writes the Wiener Zeitung (Vienna)
and the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Zürich) lauded the Merel Quartet for playing „…with utmost
expressivity and a subtle sense of form, tone and rhetoric“.

The Merel Quartet has performed extensively in Europe in venues like the Wigmore Hall,
Berlin Konzerthaus and Tonhalle Zürich, the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Ittingen Whitsun
Concerts, Lucerne Festival, Salzburger Festspiele and Kunstfest Weimar.  Known for their
vivid performances, the quartet has excited audiences in Italy, France,  Germany, England,
Poland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
The Merel Quartet enjoys collaborations with artists like Juliane Banse, Ruth Ziesak, Jörg
Widmann, Denes Varjon, Diemut Poppen, Natalia Gutman, Nobuko Imai, Thomas Demenga,
and Alfred Brendel. The Merels perform an extensive repertoire spanning three centuries
from Bach and Purcell through to contemporary masters like Kurtag, Saariaho and Holliger.
They have commissioned and premiered works by David Philip Hefti, Martin Jaggi, Helena
Winkelman and Roland Moser.
Frequent live radio performances on Swiss Radio SRF2 and Radio Suisse Romande as well
as German Radio SWR2 have brought the Merel Quartet added recognition.  The quartet’s
debut album including works by Schumann, Janacek and award-winning Swiss composer
David Philip Hefti was praised as the „outstanding CD-Premier of a first-rate quartet“ (Neue
Zürich Zeitung am Sonntag).
Since 2015, the Merel Quartet founded and are Quartet in Residence of the chamber music
festival „Zwischentöne“ in Engelberg, Switzerland.  Guest artists have included Alfred
Brendel, Yura Lee, Ruth Ziesak, Juliane Banse, Denes Varjon, Reto Bieri, Robert
Hungerbühler and Marie-Claude Chappuis.
Performances of works by Fanny and Felix Mendelssohn on the Merel’s second album also
received high acclaim.  „Permeated with a feverish intensity, with close attention to detail and
exquisitely balanced illumination of the voices“  and „their sound, agile and transparent, with
a wide range of tonal colors, is irresistable“ writes Thomas Bopp of Das Orchester.  Cathy
Fuller, in her show „New and Notable Releases“ on Boston Public Radio WGBH  proclaimed
„This is a stunning recording, brimming with life and longing and sustained by an intelligent
sense of line.  The quartet’s devotion to bringing across each of the two quartets as complete
unfolding constructions makes the experience all the more poignant.  Gorgeous.“

Discography

South-west German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim

A fresh and gripping musical approach and stylistic diversity from early to contemporary music are the distinctive mark of the South-west German Chamber Orchestra Pforzheim. With a fixed base of fourteen musicians from seven countries the ensemble is one of the very few full-time chamber orchestras and recognized for its exceptional homogeneity and flexibility of the sound.

The South-west German Chamber Orchestra was founded in 1950 by Friedrich Tilegant, a pupil of Paul Hindemith. The ensemble quickly gained international recognition and was heard at the festivals in Salzburg, Lucerne and Leipzig as well as on world-wide tours and on numerous recordings (Deutsche Grammophon, Vox, Erato, Telefunken, Intercord). Maurice André, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Frans Brüggen and Yehudi Menuhin were just some of the great musicians who have worked with the orchestra. Following the Tilegant era the orchestra was directed by Paul Angerer, Vladislav Czarnecki and Sebastian Tewinkel. With the start of the 2013-14 season Timo Handschuh has assumed the position of Artistic Director.

The South-west German Chamber Orchestra has made numerous radio broadcasts and more than 250 recordings, of which a number have been awarded international prizes. Currently the orchestra plays together with renowned soloists such as Nigel Kennedy, Mischa Maisky, Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Vogt,  and Mischa Maisky. It has been invited to perform in almost all European countries (Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Prague Autumn, Flanders Festival, EuroMediterraneo International Festival Rome, Vienna OsterKlang Festival, Auditorio Tonhalle Zurich, Berlin Philharmony, Sala Verdi Milan) as well as in the USA and Japan.

Discography

Pi-Chin Chien, Violoncello

​Pi-Chin Chien is a sought-after, internationally active soloist and chamber musician. She has performed in major concert venues around the world, including New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Berlin Philharmonic and Konzerthaus as well as Tonhalle Zurich. She appears as a soloist on recordings with the Philharmonia Orchestra London and the Zurich Chamber Orchestra under the direction of David Zinman, Ruben Gazarian and Wen-Pin Chien. In 2015 Pi-Chin Chien enjoyed great success with her album “Taiwan Rhapsody”, accompanied by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London and released by Sony Classical.

​Pi-Chin Chien has performed and recorded world premieres of a number of violoncello concertos and chamber music works, including several compositions dedicated to her. She performed at the Kaiser-Otto Medal award ceremony in honour of the late former German President Richard von Weizsäcker, and in 2016, already for the second time, at the renowned concert series at Taiwan’s Presidential Palace on invitation of the President of Taiwan. Pi-Chin Chien is the artistic director of the “Swiss Music Night” concert series in Taiwan and of the “Confluence” Music Festival in Zurich.

​A native of Taiwan, Pi-Chin Chien studied with Markus Stocker, Claude Starck, Marek Jerie and Stanislaw Apolin in Zurich, Lucerne and Prague, graduating with a soloist’s diploma with distinction. She received further artistic impulses in masterclasses with Pierre Fournier, Mstislav Rostropovich, Yo-Yo Ma, Daniil Shafran and Arto Noras. Pi-Chin Chien has won numerous awards at national and international music competitions.

Discography