THE ARTISTS

THE LCO STRING QUINTET

Andrew HAVERON (violin)

The highest British prize-winner at the prestigious 'Paganini' competition for the last fifty years, Andrew Haveron is one of the UK's most sought after violinists. He was born in London in 1975 and took up the violin aged five. After studying at the Purcell School and London's Royal College of Music, Andrew also took prizes at the 'Queen Elisabeth' and Indianapolis competitions.

As a soloist, Andrew has appeared with conductors such as Sir Colin Davis, Sir Roger Norrington, Kent Nagano, Stanislaw Skrowachewski, John Wilson, John Lubbock, Jean-Jacques Kanteroff, Darrell Davison and Raymond Leppard, performing a broad range of well known and less familiar repertoire.

In 1999 Andrew was appointed first violinist of the internationally acclaimed Brodsky Quartet. A busy schedule saw the quartet perform and broadcast in their unique style all over the world. Andrew recorded more than fifteen CDs with the quartet, many of which received industry awards such as "Diapason d'or" and "Choc du Monde".

Andrew also enjoys frequent invitations to guest lead major symphony orchestras including the London Symphony and Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Royal Scottish National and the West Deutscher Rundfunk of Cologne. In July 2007 he took up his position as leader of the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Also in 2007 Andrew lead the 'World Orchestra for Peace' at the request of conductor Valery Gergiev.

In 2004 Andrew received an honorary Doctorate from the University of Kent for his services to music. Andrew plays on a Carlo Tononi violin made in 1709.

Magnus JOHNSTON (violin)

Magnus Johnston began his musical education as a chorister of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, with which he toured all over the world. He won a scholarship to Chetham's School of Music in Manchester where he studied with professor Wen Zhou Li, and then gained a scholarship to the RNCM where he studied with
Dr Christopher Rowland.

Magnus was a founding member of the Johnston Quartet (now the Elias Quartet) with which he played for five years; he led the quartet in performances across the UK, most notably in the 2001 Schubertfest where the quartet were joined by Ralph Kirshbaum to perform Schubert's String Quintet. Magnus also led the quartet to win second prize in the London String Quartet Competition, where they won the special prize for their performance of Dutilleux's Ainsi La Nuit.

Magnus is the founder and leader of the Aronowitz Ensemble. Since its sell-out debut at St John's, Smith Square, the ensemble has had a busy schedule of engagements across the UK and beyond, including performances at the Aldeburgh, Cambridge, Cheltenham, Chichester, City of London, Newbury and Spoleto Festivals, the Wigmore Hall, St George's Bristol and Queen's University Belfast and, following Artists' Residencies at Snape Maltings, the inaugural Aldeburgh Residencies tour in 2006. As members of the BBC's prestigious New Generation Artists scheme, the Aronowitz Ensemble's performances have featured regularly on BBC Radio 3.

He plays a Hieronymus II Amati violin.

Joel HUNTER (viola)

Joel Hunter is in great demand both as a principal orchestral player and as a chamber musician. Having graduated from the Royal Academy of Music in London in 1997, he has performed all over the world with many leading ensembles and orchestras working regularly under conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Zubin Mehta, Pierre Boulez, Valery Gergiev and Lorin Maazel.

Having spent three years as Co-Principal Viola with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow from 1998-2001, he returned to London to embark on a busy and diverse freelance career. In 2005 he was appointed Principal Viola in the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm but has continued with commitments in the UK and works as guest Principal Viola in the London Chamber Orchestra and many other orchestras including the Philharmonia and BBC National Orchestra of Wales. In May 2009 he accepted the position of Principal with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

As a chamber musician Joel has appeared alongside such eminent artists as Yo-Yo Ma, Augustin Dumay, Piers Lane, Pascal Roge, Christian Tetzlaff and members of both the Vogler and Artemis quartets in concerts throughout the world. He has toured Italy, Hungary and France as a member of the Cat quartet and regularly performs at international festivals most recently in Germany at the Mecklenburg Vorpommern Festival with the Kungsbacker String Trio and in the U.S.A at the Charlottesville International Chamber Music Festival.

He is a member and director of the Goldberg Ensemble playing frequently throughout the UK and specializing in new music with its own critically acclaimed contemporary music festival running alongside a highly successful chamber music series in Manchester. Invitations to join ensembles such as The Wakeford Ensemble, Chamber Domaine and The London Conchord Ensemble have led to highly acclaimed performances and recordings, most recently of Gorecki and Ned Rorem on Black Box Classics and Nicola Lefanu with Naxos.

In 2001 he was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for his services to the profession.

Pierre DOUMENGE (cello)

Cellist Pierre Doumenge enjoys a busy career divided between solo work, chamber music and teaching. From 2001 to 2005 he was a member of the Dante String Quartet performing at major venues in Europe and making regular radio and commercial recordings. Pierre has also worked as guest principal cellist of the English Chamber Orchestra, the London Chamber Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

Passionately fond of chamber music, Pierre regularly explores and performs the repertoire with artists such as Pascal Rogé, Lars Vogt, Daniel Hope, Pekka Kuusisto, Lawrence Power, the Belcea and Allegri Quartets and the Nash Ensemble. He has appeared at many international festivals (Aldeburgh, Bath, Kuhmo, Paunat, La Hague, Bucharest, Nuremberg, Bergstaden, Hindsgalv), and frequently attends the Open Chamber Music sessions at IMS Prussia Cove in Cornwall, joining their tour of England in 2003. Pierre is also a regular performer at the Joy of Music Festival in the Hong Kong City Hall. He has recorded for the Dutton, Meridian and Hyperion labels to great critical acclaim. In 2008 he was chosen to be the official cellist of the Menuhin International Violin Competition, playing the Ravel Sonata with the nine semi-finalists.

Pierre taught cello and chamber music at the Yehudi Menuhin School from 2003-2009 and was recently appointed as Associate Deputy Head of Strings at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. He gives annual masterclasses at the Oxford Cello School, the International Cello Courses UK, the Violoncello Society of London, the West Helsinki Music Institute (Finland), the Conservatoire Royal de Mons (Belgium) and the Szymon Goldberg Seminars in Toyama (Japan).

Stacey WATTON (double – bass)

Stacey made his concerto début on the bass at the age of 13. He has since won the Eugene Cruft Prize for the Double Bass at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, where he studied as a scholar. He also appeared live on Russian television and radio after becoming a prize-winner at the Koussevitsky Double Bass competition in Moscow in 1995.

Stacey Watton is Principal Double Bass with the London Chamber Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, the Primavera Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony, and the Johann Strauss Gala Orchestras. He has also appeared as a guest principal with the English Chamber Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, the Guildhall String Ensemble, the London Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic, the Hallé, and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.

He is one of the few bassists in England to make regular concerto appearances. As a chamber musician, he has performed with Nigel Kennedy, Daniel-Mueller-Schott, and Anthony Marwood, amongst many other illustrious musicians. He has performed duo recitals with Steven Isserlis at the Bath Mozart Fest and in Wigmore Hall. He also regularly performs with Julian Rachlin, Mischa Maisky and Janine Jansen. Stacey Watton is founder of the “Esprit Ensemble.”

Stacey Watton devotes much of his time to chamber music and orchestras, performing on recordings and live television and radio broadcasts, and he has a busy commercial career. He also finds time to pursue his secret passion for performing chamber music at the piano.

As a bassist in the English Chamber Orchestra, he has appeared with Claudio Abbado, Daniel Barenboim, Maxim Vengerov, Teresa Berganza, Pincas Zuckerman, Monserrat Cabillé, Pavorotti, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, Andras Schiff, Radu Lupu, and Joshua Bell. He has also had the pleasure of playing principal bass for Harnoncourt and Masur.

Stacey recorded his debut cd "Vertigo" to much critical acclaim "a versatile and accomplished musician" (classical music magazine) and has recorded with Gary Karr on the London Double Bass Sound. Future recordings are planned with EMI Début and Hypérion. He is bassist on Janine Jansen’s recording of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons released in 2005

Peter FRANKL

Hungarian-born Peter Frankl is one of the world's outstanding pianists. Recognized as a major artist of his generation, he has a long-standing international career which has taken him to more than fifty countries, as a recitalist, chamber musician and as a soloist with the world's great conductors among whom, to name but a few: Abbado, Ashkenazy, Haitink, Boulez, Solti, Chailly, Masur, Dohnanyi, Maazel, Fruhbeck de Burgos and Tilson-Thomas. From highly acclaimed performances in recitals and with the world's finest orchestras Peter Frankl's playing combines romanticism and inspiration with vivacity and color. A highly versatile performer, his repertoire ranges extensively from classics to contemporary music.In honor of his 70th Birthday in October 2005 he was awarded the Middle Cross of the Hungarian Republic for his outstanding performances throughout the world.

Since his London debut in 1962, Peter Frankl has performed with all of the major British orchestras. He has been a stalwart of the BBC Promenade Concerts with more than 20 appearances. He has performed with the most renowned orchestras of Europe and North-America. He made his New York debut with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell and has appeared with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Cincinnatti Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris, Concertgebouworkest, Leipzig Gewandhaus, and the Israel Philharmonic, as well as prominent orchestras in Australia and Asia.

Peter Frankl has been a regular performer at renowned Festivals throughout the world including the Edinburgh, Cheltenham and Aldeburgh festivals in the United Kingdom. Among the highlights of numerous Edinburgh Festival appearances, were his performances of the Britten Concerto under the baton of the composer and the opening televised concert with the Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by Riccardo Muti. He has been a regular guest at the summer festivals of Verbier, Kuhmo, Aspen, Marlboro, Ravinia… among many others.

As a chamber musician, he collaborates regularly with such renowned artists as Ralph Kirshbaum, Andras Schiff, Kyung Wha Chung, Tamas Vasary and the most renowned string quartets, including the Amadeus, Bartok, Tokyo, Guarnieri, Lindsay, Borodin, Fine Arts, American and the Vermeer.

Peter Frankl has an extensive catalogue of recordings ranging from the complete works for piano of Schumann and Debussy to chamber music and concerti. Recent recordings on include a solo Bartok album (Record of the Month - CD Review), Brahms and Schumann Piano Quintets with the Lindsay String Quartet (Best of the Year - Sunday Times), a solo Chopin album, Brahms violin/piano sonatas with Kyung Wha Chung, Brahms Piano Concerti, Bartok Rhapsodies with Peter Csaba, Mozart Piano Concerti `a quattro' and complete piano duets with Tamas Vasary, released to critical acclaim.

Gary GRAFFMAN

The celebrated pianist Gary Graffman has been a major figure in the music world since winning the prestigious Leventritt Award in 1949. For the next three decades he toured almost continuously, playing the most demanding works in the piano literature both in recital and with the world's great orchestras. He also made a series of highly acclaimed recordings for Columbia (CBS and RCA, including concertos by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Brahms, Chopin and Beethoven with the orchestras of New York, Philadelphia, Cleveland, Chicago and Boston, and with such conductors as Leonard Bernstein, Zubin Mehta, Eugene Ormandy and George Szell.

In 1979, however, Mr. Graffman's performing career was curtailed by an injury to his right hand. His performances are now limited to the small but brilliant repertoire of concertos written for the left hand alone, most of them commissioned early in the century by Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I. In addition to the famous Ravel Concerto, these include major works by Prokofiev, Britten, Richard Strauss, Franz Schmidt and Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Mr. Graffman played the North American premiere of the latter concerto, written in 1924, with Zubin Mehta and the New York Philharmonic in 1985 and has recorded the Strauss "Parergon" for Deutsche Grammophon with the Vienna Philharmonic led by André Previn.

The reduction in Mr. Graffman's concert activity has provided him with a remarkable opportunity to expand his horizons beyond the stage. Most notable has been his leadership of the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He first joined its piano faculty in 1980 and became Director of the all-scholarship conservatory in 1986, following such illustrious predecessors as Josef Hofmann, Efrem Zimbalist and Rudolf Serkin. He was appointed President of The Curtis Institute in 1995, a position he served until May 2006.

Gary Graffman's performing career was auspiciously linked to his academic life in 1993, when he joined conductor André Previn and the Symphony Orchestra of the Curtis Institute of Music for the world-premiere performances of Ned Rorem's Piano Concerto No. 4 (for the Left Hand). Dedicated to Mr. Graffman by the Pulitzer Prize-winning composer-who is also a Curtis alumnus and faculty member-the concerto was performed at Philadelphia's Academy of Music and, a day later, at Carnegie Hall. A compact disc recording of the premiere is available on New World Records. He went on to perform this work with the San Francisco Symphony and Zurich's Tonhalle Orchestra.
In April 1996 Mr. Graffman performed the world premiere of William Bolcom's "Gaea" Concerto for Piano and Two Left Hands with his friend and colleague Leon Fleisher. The work, commissioned jointly by the Baltimore, St. Louis and Pacific symphonies, was given its premiere by the two soloists and David Zinman and the Baltimore Symphony, first in Baltimore and then at Carnegie Hall. It was subsequently heard with the Saint Louis and Pacific symphonies and, in November 1998, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, again with David Zinman conducting.

In continuing his championing of new works for piano left hand and orchestra, in 2001-02 Mr. Graffman gave world premiere performances of three concertos, all of which were written for him: Daron Hagen's "Seven Last Words" with the New Mexico Symphony and Buffalo Philharmonic; Richard Danielpour's "Zodiac" Variations with the National Symphony in Washington, D.C.; and Luis Prado's Concerto for Left Hand with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. In March 2003 he premiered another concerto written for him, this one by Stanislaw Skrowaczewski, with the Minnesota Orchestra. This work was recorded by Reference Recordings.

In the summer of 2005, Gary Graffman received an invitation to head the piano department at the new Canton International Summer Music Academy in Guandong, China, giving him an opportunity to explore his love of education, chamber music, and Chinese culture. He has also participated in the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest and the 10th Anniversary of Morningside Music Bridge held in Shanghai in 2006.

Gary Graffman is the author of the highly praised memoir, "I Really Should Be Practicing," published by Doubleday in 1981 and issued in paperback by Avon the following year. He has also written popular articles on non-musical subjects and found time to pursue a scholarly interest in Asian Art (which he collects) and photography. He has received honorary doctorates from the University of Pennsylvania and The Juilliard School, among others. He has received honors from the City of New York with its Handel Medallion, the City of Philadelphia on its Walk of Fame, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as recipient of the Governor's Arts Award, recognizing him for his varied accomplishments, including his "leadership of Curtis."

Gary Graffman was born in New York, of Russian parents, and began to play the piano at age three. His father, a violinist, gave him a small fiddle, but when the instrument proved too cumbersome, he began piano lessons, though a return to the violin was planned. The young Graffman's affinity for the piano soon became evident, however, and at seven the Curtis Institute accepted him to study with the renowned Isabelle Vengerova-exactly 50 years before he would become the school's director. After graduation from Curtis, he worked intensively for several years with Vladimir Horowitz and, during the summers, at the Marlboro Music Festival with Rudolf Serkin.

Alvaro PIERRI

Alvaro Pierri is internationally acclaimed as a leading personality in the world of the guitar. Press reviews around the world praise “his masterly thought-out interpretations“... “the breathtaking phrasing“...and “the unmatched musical colour spectrum that he creates on the guitar“ . Alvaro Pierri was born in Montevideo, Uruguay, into a family of musicians. He received his early musical education from his mother, Ada Estades, on the piano and his aunt, Olga Pierri, on the guitar. Later he studied with Abel Carlevaro, the composer Guido Santorsola and also at the Uruguayan National Institute of Musicology. From the age of 11 he was already winning prizes in international guitar competitions, including 1st Prize in the International Guitar Competition in Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1st Prize in the International Guitar Competition in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and the Gold Medal at the 18th International Competition by France Musique/Radio France in Paris.

Pierri’s debut in the USA took place in New York and received outstanding reviews: … “Mr. Pierri revealed an artistic maturity not commonly encountered” … “compared to artists as Segovia, Bream, Williams” … “brilliant, sensitive, versatile, breathtaking” (New York Times & Continental Reviews). In 1983 he made his debut in Germany with the string soloists of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and he subsequently appeared on numerous radio and television programmes in Germany, Austria, Spain, France, Denmark, Canada, Korea and Japan.

As a musician popular with both the public and the critics, Pierri is a regular guest at the major concert houses of Europe, North and South America, and Asia. Contemporary composers such as Leo Brouwer, Guido Santorsola, Jacques Hétu, Astor Piazzolla, Abel Carlevaro, Carlo Domeniconi and Terry Riley have written major works for Alvaro Pierri and in each case he has premiered them brilliantly. His manifest love of chamber music has resulted in collaborations with major musical figures including Astor Piazzolla, Hatto Beyerle, Frank Peter Zimmermann, Ernö Sebestien, Regis Pasquier, Philippe Müller, Leo Brouwer, Alcides Lanza, Terry Riley, Tracy Silverman, Maureen Forrester, Eduardo Fernandez, the Cherubini Quartet and the Turtle Island String Quartet, and he has also worked with conductors such as Pinchas Steinberg, Charles Dutoit, Wojciech Rajski, Mario Bernardi and Yannick Nezet-Séguin. Alvaro Pierri’s CDs have been released by Metropole-Polydor (France), Blue Angel-2001 (Germany), Milan Records (Canada), Analekta (Canada), Amplitude (Canada), Madacy (Canada), HOMA (Japan) and The Alpha Omega Sound (Hong Kong). His discography includes solo recordings, chamber music, guitar concerts and electro-acoustic music. Several of his CDs have been honoured with prices and nominations and he has already received twice the coveted Canadian FELIX award for the best classical CD of the year. Recently Pioneer Classics Japan brought out a DVD featuring him playing Spanish and South American guitar music, and Deutsche Grammophon re-issued a DVD of Astor Piazzolla’s Double Concerto with Alvaro Pierri performing in duo with Astor Piazzolla. Alvaro Pierri is also an internationally acclaimed teacher. Many of his students have won major international guitar competitions. He was professor at the University of Santa Maria in Brazil and subsequently ran a guitar class at McGill University and the UQAM (Academy of Music) in Montreal. In 2002 he was appointed professor at the famous Academy of music in Vienna (today University of Music and Performing Arts).

Pierri gives master classes at major music festivals such as the New York Manhattan Masters, GFA Guitar Foundation of America, Québec FIG, the SIG Séminaire International de Guitare in Paris and Bordeaux, in Barcelona, at the Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, the Wiener Meisterkurse, the Villa Musica in Mainz, and also in Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul and at The Joy of Music Festival in Hong Kong. In recognition of his outstanding artistic talent and carreer and his permanent enriching contribution to the culture, in 2008, Alvaro Pierri was awarded the honorary citizenship of his hometown Montevideo.

The Alpha Omega Sound, the recording label of The Chopin Society of Hong Kong Ltd., will be releasing Alvaro Pierri’s first of a series of recordings he is planning to record under this label. The CD to be released has been entirely recorded by Mr. Pierri at Abbey Road Studios in London.
With the present CD, Alvaro Pierri is embarking on a long term project with The Alpha Omega Sound, to record a comprehensive series of sonatas specifically composed for guitar and spanning the 19th to the 21st centuries. The collection, which will not necessarily be issued in chronological order of the compositions, will not contain transcriptions or shorter pieces but will focus exclusively on the superb body of music specifically composed and developed in a sonata form for the guitar.

PASCAL ROGE (piano)

Born in Paris, Pascal Rogé became an exclusive Decca recordingartist at the age of 17. He has won many prestigious awards including two Gramophone awards, a Grand Prix du Disque and an Edison Award for his interpretations of the Ravel and Saint-Saëns concertos. Other recordings include the complete piano works of Poulenc and Ravel, four albums of Satie and two of Debussy and a Bartok cycle with the London Symphony Orchestra. For the Poulenc Edition in 1999 Mr Rogé recorded both piano concertos, the Aubade and the Concerto Champêtre all under Charles Dutoit.

For Oehms Classics Mr Rogé recorded, to unanimous acclaim, the Ravel G Major and Gershwin concertos with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra under Bertrand de Billy and has now recorded a second disc with the same forces which includes the Ravel Left Hand Piano Concerto, Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris. Pascal Rogé’s latest recording project is the Rogé Edition, released on the Onyx Classics label. The first CD release in May 2005 inaugurated his first complete Debussy cycle with the Préludes and was followed by a second disc including Estampes and Children’s Corner early in 2007.

In March 2008 the third volume was released containing Images and Pour le Piano. Also for Onyx he has released a disc of Mozart concertos with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra conducted by Raymond Leppard. Pascal Rogé has performed in almost every major concert hall in the world. Some of the orchestras he has appeared with include the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Montreal Symphony, L’Orchestre de Paris, L’Orchestre National de Radio France, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, the NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Leipzig Gewandhaus and all the major London orchestras.

He appears regularly in the United States and is a frequent guest artist in Australia, New Zealand, Latin America and especially Japan. Among his recent British engagements are recitals at Wigmore Hall, Symphony Hall Birmingham and the Queen Elizabeth Hall where he is a frequent guest of the International Piano Series.
Pascal Rogé is the Artistic Director of Incontri in Terra di Siena, a summer festival that takes place each year in Tuscany. He is enjoying playing recitals of music for four hands/one piano with his wife, the pianist Ami Rogé.

SOFYA GULYAK

In September 2009 Sofya Gulyak was awarded the 1st prize and the Princess Mary Gold Medal at the Sixteenth Leeds International Piano Competition – the first woman who achieved this distinction in the history of the competition.

Sofya Gulyak’s resume includes prizes at many prestigious piano competitions: she is a 1 st. prizewinner of:

• William Kapell International Piano Competition in USA,
• Maj Lind Helsinki International Piano Competition,
• Tivoli Piano Competition in Copenhagen,
• Gyeongnam International Piano Competition in South Korea,
• San Marino Piano Competition, and last but not least:
• 2nd. prizewinner (first prize not awarded) of Busoni competition in Italy.

Sofya is a native of Kazan (Russia) where she studied at a Special Music College and then at the Kazan State Conservatoire under Prof. Elfiya Burnasheva.
She then graduated from the Ecole Normale de Music de Paris Alfred Cortot with the highest distinction after which she continued her studies at the Piano Academy “Incontri col Maestri” in Imola, Italy with Boris Petrushansky and at the Royal College of Music with Vanessa Latarche.

Recitals and concert appearances have been numerous, with performances in various cities in Russia, Poland, France, Italy, Germany, Finland, United Kingdom, Norway, USA, Japan, Portugal, Switzerland, Morocco, Greece, South Korea.

Venues where she has performed include the Sala Verdi in Milan, Salle Cortot, Salle Gaveau and Salle Pleyel in Paris, the Big Concert Hall of Moscow Conservatoire, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, Sala Bossi in Bologna, the Finlandia Hall in Helsinki, the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, the Leeds Town Hall, the Salle Moliere in Lyon, the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, the King Theatre in Rabat, the Kursaal in Bern, and the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen.

Sofya has appeared as soloist with the following orchestras:

• Finnish Radio Symphony orchestra
• Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra
• Halle Symphony orchestra
• Oulu Philharmonic
• Helsinki Philharmonic
• Morocco Orchestra
• Copenhagen Symphony
• Orchestre National de France
• Baltimore Symphony

She has participated in many festivals, such as:

• Festival du Sceaux
• Festival d’Annecy
• International Keyboard Festival in New York
• Liszt Festival in Villa d’Este
• Nordlys Festival in Norway
• Ravello Festival
• Sorrento Music festival

Sofya has been honored with the title of Scholar for the Rostropovich Foundation and Russian President Foundation and has also participated as Jury member of International Piano Competitions in Italy, Serbia and Greece

Future highlights include appearances with the Saint-Petersburg Philharmonic,

the Rio de Janeiro Symphony, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony, the Stavanger Symphony, the Philippines Philharmonic, concert tour with the Halle Orchestra, recitals in Sala Verdi in Milan, at Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen, at Kennedy centre in Washington, at Hercules Saal in Munich as well as at the Klavier Ruhr Festival, Chopin Festival in Duzniki-Zdroj, Harrogate Festival, Busoni Festival and Krakow Piano Festival.

JINSANG LEE

Born in 1981 in Seoul, South Korea, he began to play the piano at the age of seven. He commenced his studies at the Seoul Arts High School and then continued at the Korean National University of Arts, where he studied with Prof. Daejin Kim. From 2003 until 2006 he studied at the Nuremberg University of Music under Profs. Wolfgang Manz and Julia Goldstein. From 2006 onwards he has been studying at the Cologne University of Music, under Prof. Pavel Gililov.

Jinsang has won prizes in several competitions including: the 2nd Prize and Audience Prize at the Sendai International Music Competition in 2001; the 1st Prize, Scarlatti Prize and Orchestra Prize at the International Pianoforte Competition in Cologne in 2005 and in October 2008, the 1st Prize at the 2nd. Hong Kong International Piano Competition, an event organized by the Chopin Society of Hong Kong. Following this success Jinsang won the 1st Prize at the 2009 Geza Anda International Piano Competition (Zurich) including the Mozart, Schumann and the public prizes.

He has played with various orchestras, among which: The City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong , the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra, the Nuremberg Symphonic Orchestra, the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra and the WDR Radio Orchestra Cologne. Conductors he has worked with include Vladimir Ashkenazy, Christopher Warren-Green, Michel Brousseau and Peter Gülke.

He has played solo and in concert in various cities including Hong Kong, Chicago, Los Angeles, Berlin, Essen, Siena, Athens, Sendai, Nagoya as well as in various venues and events including the Philarmonie in Cologne, the Seoul Arts centre, the Meistersingerhalle in Nuremberg, the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn, the Robert –Schumann-Saal in Dusseldorf, the Klavierfestival Ruhr (Germany), the Lake District Summer Music Festival (England), the Festival Palazzo Montepulciano (Italy) and the Joy of Music Festival (Hong Kong).
During the 2009/10 season, Jinsang will be performing in Madrid, Paris, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Manila, Kuala Lumpur and in different cities in Germany.