Hans Dietrich Klaus was born in Hoheneibe (today: Urchlabi in the Czech Republic). After studying with Jost Michaels at the Musikhochschule in Detmold, he obtained his diploma as recording producer and passed his concert exam with honors. He was 1st clarinet of the Wuppertal Symphony Orchestra from 1978 to 1972, subsequently assuming the same position at the WDR’s Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was nominated in the “Bundesauswahl Konzerte Junger Künstler” and won the Advancement Prize of the State of North-Rhine-Westphalia. In addition to his international concert activity as soloist and chamber music player, he has also made many radio and commercial recordings. Klaus has been a professor at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold since 1985.

“A high level of pianism with an unusual musical intelligence. She will make her mark in the future” – so beschrieb der Komponist György Ligeti die Pianistin Diana Ketler nach einem Konzert in London. Aus einer bekannten Musikerfamilie aus Riga stammend, erhielt Diana Ketler den ersten Klavierunterricht mit fünf Jahren. Im Alter von 12 Jahren debütierte sie unter dem berühmten Dirigenten Vassily Sinaisky.
Sie studierte in Riga an der Musikakademkie, am Salzburger Mozarteum und an der Royal Academy of Music in London bei Theofil Bikis, Karl-Heinz Kämmerling und Christopher Elton und beendete das Studium mit den höchsten Auszeichnungen dieser Hochschulen. Als Solistin und Kammermusikerin konzertierte Diana Ketler in fast allen europäischen Ländern, Japan, Kanada und Rußland mit Orchestern wie u.a. der Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie, dem Riga Kammerorchester, dem Südwestdeutschen Kammerorchester, dem Georgischen Kammerorchester oder dem Lettischen Sinfonieorchester. Zu ihren Engagements zählen Auftritte sowohl bei zahlreichen Festivals wie dem Musiksommer Gstaad, Ravello Festival in Italien, Ligeti Festival in London, Chichester Festival, Carinthischer Sommer, SoNoRo Kammermusikfestival in Bukarest und St.Gallen Musikfestival, als auch in den Glenn Gould Studios in Toronto, im South Bank in London, in der Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, in der Tokio Opera City Hall und der Osaka Symhony Hall.
Einige Ihrer Kammermusikpartnern waren Wolfram Christ, Konstantin Lifschitz, Adrian Brendel, Daishin Kashimoto, Baiba Skride und Carolin Widmann.
Ihre Zuneigung zur Lied- und Opernmusik hat zu zahlreichen Auftritten mit Sängern – darunter Marlis Petersen, Inga Kalna und Lesley Garret – geführt, u.a. im Floral Hall des Royal Opera House in London, in der Münchener Residenz und in der Philharmonie in Riga. Als Mitglied des ensemble raro wird Diana erneut in diesem Herbst nach Japan zurückkehren, u.a. nach Osaka, Tokio und Kobe, wo das Ensemble als ensemble en residénce gastiert. Diana setzt sich leidenschaftlich für die Musik der baltischen Ländern ein und arbeitet eng zusammen mit Komponisten wie Peteris Vasks und Arvo Pärt. Sie spielte zahlreiche Erstaufführungen von Klavier- und Kammermusikwerken in England und Deutschland. Rundfunk- und Fernsehaufnahmen für englische (BBC3, Classic FM), deutsche (BR), lettische, japanische, österreichische (ORF) und rumänische (TVR, RRM) Sendeanstalten liegen vor. 2001 wurde Diana als Professorin für Klavier an der Royal Academy of Music in London berufen und gab seitdem Meisterkurse in England, Lettland, der Tschechischen Republik, Spanien und im ehemaligen Jugoslawien.
2007 wurde sie eingeladen Meisterklassen in Spanien, Japan und Rumänien zu leiten. 2006 wurde sie als Jurorin des Internationalen Klavierwettbewerbs “Jeunesses Musicales” nach Bukarest eingeladen. 2003 wurde ihr der Titel “Associate of the Royal Academy of Music” vergeben, eine der höchsten Auszeichnungen dieser Institution. Diana ist künstlerische Leiterin des Chiemgauer Musikfrühlings in Traunstein.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote of Viktoria Elisabeth Kaunzner, born in Deggendorf in 1982:

“Her skill on the violin is brilliant, her musical ability tremendous,” while the Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung wrote: “Notes like liquid gold.”
As a violinist, versatile artist and crossover performer she is therefore an “exceptional phenomenon in the new music generation.” (Passauer Neue Presse).
In 1995 she gave her solo orchestra debut on radio with the Symphony Orchestra of Plzen. Back then she was also performing with the children’s folk music ensemble “Úsmváãek” (“little smile”). At the age of 15 she met her idol, Lord Yehudi Menuhin, who praised her playing as “brilliant”. After finishing top of her senior school class in her hometown of Viechtach in the Bavarian Forest (where her main subjects were Latin and maths), she studied with Prof. Josef Rissin in Karlsruhe. She received her diploma at the Hanns Eisler College of Music in Berlin from Prof. Stephan Picard. She attended master classes given by Prof. Zakhar Bron in Cologne and gained the top mark. She has won prizes at the World Federation of International Music Competitions and at the instrument fund competitions of the German Musical Life Foundation in Hamburg. She received scholarships from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), and from Erasmus and the Gerd Bucerius Scholarship from the ZEIT Foundation, and she honed her skills at locations like the CNSMD in Paris, at the Lucerne College of Music and at the Starling Delay Symposium at the Juilliard School in New York. She has also studied the Baroque violin. She gained important input to her career from music personalities like Ana Chumachenco, Itzhak Perlman, Antje Weithaas, Igor Ozim, Igor Oistrakh, Ida Haendel, Ivry Gitlis and H. Liu. She has performed violin concertos by Bach, Barber, Beethoven, Brahms, Brown, Bruch, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Spannheimer, Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski with orchestras including the Jena Philharmonic, the Radio Symphony Orchestra Plzen, the Passau municipal orchestra, the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra of Mariánské Lázne, Ensemble 20/21 of the College of Music and Dance in Cologne, the Cheongju Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chile Regional Philharmonic, the Film Orchestra Babelsberg and the Erasmus Ensemble of the Mozarteum in Salzburg. As a chamber musician she works together with other musicians including Alfred Brendel, Stefan Temmingh, Hansjörg Schellenberger, Oleg Poliansky, Evgeny Nesterenko and Xavier Bouchaud at venues like the International Music Festival Santander, the Mecklenburg-West Pomerania Music Festival, the Lausanne Festival, and the 2 Days and 2 Nights Festival in Odessa and with the Sinus Quartet at the International Shostakovich Festival in Gohrisch. She was the soloist on a tour with the EuroArab Classical Orchestra, where she improvised with Arab musicians. She has led the Berlin Philharmonic at the Zermatt Festival and was guest leader with the Korean Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra in Seoul. She has performed with conductors like Daniel Barenboim, Christian Thielemann, Michail Jurowski, Max Janowski and Yakov Kreizberg. In 2003 she formed the Duo 47/4 violin-harp ensemble with the harpist Anna Viechtl, and their debut CD “Wild Bird” will be released on the Munich-based Oehms Classics label in March 2015. Viktoria composes and is very keen on improvisation, performance, and new music. She has been a member of the Cologne-based new-music Ensemble Garage since 2009, taking up an invitation to the 2014 Darmstadt Vacation Courses for New Music. She has attended composition courses given by Salvatore Sciarrino, Katja Tchemberdji, Rebecca Saunders and Peter Aderhold, jazz with Maria Baptist, and theory with T. Daniel and A. Bolay. She has had many works dedicated to her. Alongside the compositions of J.S. Bach, she loves the music of Nikolai Medtner and Eugène Ysaÿe. In 2010 she was appointed by the Franz Liszt College of Music in Weimar as a professor of violin at the German School of Music at the Kangnam University in South Korea. She gives master classes in Germany, Korea and the Near East, including at the Fundación Barenboim-Said, and is Artistic Director of the Violin Special Masterclasses ©, a mobile violin festival. Her artistic oeuvre has been documented by many broadcasters including Bavarian Radio, the WDR broadcasting corporation, Deutschland Radio, Bavarian Television, ARTE TV Korea, KBS and Ucrain TV. During her student days she learned Russian, Hebrew, Spanish, Arabic, French and Korean and is at present taking a distance-learning course in poetry writing. She has been published in “The Strad” magazine and the Neue Musik-Zeitung and she wrote the violin satire “K: Ökokauz”, which she has performed in various locations including Munich and Seoul. She lives in Cologne and South Korea.

The twins have won over ten international prizes at major competitions in New York, London, Germany, France and Hungary and were artists in residence in San Francisco.

They have been invited on numerous occasions to record for the BBC and other international television and radio stations and released eight classical CDs. They have collaborated with renowned musicians such as Yo-Yo Ma and world class ensembles such as the BBC Concert Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta. Peter and Zoltan Katona were born in Hungary, they are German citizens and live in Liverpool in the UK.

Vesselina Kasarova was born in Stara Zagora (Bulgaria) and began playing the piano at the age of four. After training as a concert pianist and gaining her diploma, she studied singing with Ressa Koleva at the Music Academy of Sofia, and was already as a student singing major roles at the National Opera. In 1989 she was engaged by Zurich Opera, where she soon became a favourite with the audience. That same year she also won First Prize at the German singing competition ‹Neue Stimmen› in Gütersloh. Two years later Vesselina Kasarova made her debut at the Salzburg Festival, with two matinees at the Mozarteum, as well as Annio in La clemenza di Tito conducted by Sir Colin Davis. In the autumn of the same year she made her much acclaimed debut as Rosina at the Vienna State Opera. In roles of Mozart, Handel, the bel canto composers and of the French repertory she has since appeared at the leading opera houses and festivals: Grand Théâtre de Genève, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Gran Teatre del Liceu Barcelona, Bavarian State Opera, Opéra National de Paris, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Metropolitan Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, Salzburg Festival, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro.
Vesselina Kasarova has worked together with such renowned conductors as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Sir Colin Davis, Pinchas Steinberg, Donald Runnicles, Seji Ozawa, Semyon Bychkov, Daniel Barenboim, Riccardo Muti, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Ivor Bolton, Franz Welser-Möst, Sir Roger Norrington and Zubin Mehta.
She has given concerts and recitals throughout Europe, the USA and Japan. Vesselina Kasarova holds the title Kammersängerin of the Bavarian State Opera in Munich as well as of the Vienna State Opera.

Karoliina Kantelinen is a Finnish folk musician with profound knowledge of musical tradition, Yoik (a spoken-style form of folk song) and the instruments of early Karelian music. She aims to rediscover and nurture old folk music traditions while forging a new stylistic approach, thus contributing to the development of contemporary music. With her impressive voice, which spans an enormous range Karoliina is capable of expressing a very wide spectrum of emotions from energetic bursts
to moments of tenderness. Therefore she is known as a „lamento singer“. Her concert engagements now stretch far beyond the borders of Finland. While teaching in the department of ethnomusicology at the University of Helsinki, she recently completed
her dissertation in the folk music department of the Sibelius Academy. Karoliina Kantelinen is a regular member of the legendary folk-pop group Värttinä.
www.karoliinakantelinen.fi

Andreas Kissling studied with Roswitha Staege at the UdK (University of the Arts) in Berlin. 2007–2008 he was solo flautist with the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker. 2008–2009 he was substitutional solo flautist at the Staatstheater Stuttgart. Since 2009 he has been solo flautist in the Staatskapelle Dresden.

Bernd Schober studied at the University of Music and Theater in Leipzig. From 1987–89 he was oboist in the Handel Fes­tival Orchestra in Halle. Since 1989 solo oboist in the Staatskapelle. From 2000 on, solo oboist in the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
Wolfram Große studied with Ewald Koch at the Musikhochschule Berlin. From 1987 on, he was solo clarinetist at the BSO. From 1989 to 1999 solo clarinetist with the orchestra of the opera in Frankfurt on the Main. Starting in 1999 solo clarinetist in the Staatskapelle. Since 2000 solo clarinet­ist in the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. Fritz Busch prizewinner for instrumental music in 2002.
Joachim Hans studied Karl-Otto Hart­mann at the Musikhochschule Freiburg (im Breisgau). There followed engage­ments with the Badische Staatskapelle Karlsruhe and the Philharmonie Essen. Since 1996, Joachim Hans has been solo bassoonist in the Staatskapelle. Starting in 1999 solo bassoonist in the Bayreuth Fes­tival Orchestra.
Robert Langbein studied with Reiner Heimbuch in Weimar and Christian Friedrich Dallmann in Berlin. First prize at the competitions in Markneukirchen and Hanover. In 2004–2005 solo French horn player with the Berlin Symphony Orches­tra. Since 2005, he has been solo horn player with the Staatskapelle. Since 2013 professor at the HfM Dresden.