For over five decades, Lorin Maazel has been one of the world’s most esteemed and sought-after conductors. In spring 2011, he completed his fifth and final season as the inaugural Music Director of the spectacular, Santiago Calatrava-designed opera...

Zubin Mehta was born in 1936 in Bombay, where he grew up in a musical family. After studying medicine for two semesters, he began concentrating totally on music and completed his conducting training at the Vienna Music Academy with Hans Swarowsky....

After initial instruction on the cello from his father, Stephan Haack completed his studies at the Music Academies of Detmold and Vienna with Prof. Gunhild Boie-Düring and Prof. André Navarra. Here he also graduated, passing his concert examinations...

Greatly influenced by his teachers, Rainer Moog and Hariolf Schlichtig, as well as the members of the Amadeus String Quartet, Wolfgang Berg concluded his studies at the Music Academy of Cologne by passing a concert examination. He was solo violist...

The musician, who had played the violin from the age of six, was initially a student of Atila Aydintan at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hanover. In 1996, his viola studies then took him to Volker Wörlitzsch from the NDR Radio Philharmonic in...

A member of the Munich Philharmonic since 1980 (as principal concert master since 1982), Sreten Krstič was born in 1953 in Belgrade. He began playing the violin at the age of seven and completed his studies fourteen years later in Belgrade with Prof....

Lorenz Nasturica-Herschcovici completed his violin studies with Stefan Gheorghiu; after finishing his studies he moved with his family to Israel. Before becoming principal concert master of the Munich Philharmonic in 1992, he held the same position...

Born in 1967 in England, Julian Shevlin took his first violin lessons at the age of seven. At eleven, he made his first appearance at the "Proms" in London's Royal Albert Hall. In 1980 he débuted as soloist in the Bruch concerto in Manchester. In...

Karel Eberle was born in 1950 in Prague and began his violin studies in 1956 at the Auswahl Music School in his native city, continuing at the Prague Conservatory as of 1965. Following the completion of secondary school, he studied at the Prague...

Odette Couch began studying the violin at the age of seven. At eleven she was accepted as a junior student at the Amsterdam Music Academy. Starting in 1985, she continued her studies in Baltimore and New York. She was first a pupil and then an...

Born in 1955 in the United States, Philip Middleman began studying the violin at the age of eight with Frank Costanzo, a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra. He later studied with Paul Kling at the University of Louisville and concluded his studies...

Nenad Daleore was born in 1957 in Belgrade. He studied at the Moscow Conservatory and after that in Belgrade. He won several prizes at national music competitions. In 1980 he won second prize in the international "Jeunesses Musicales" competition,...

Wolfram Lohschütz was born in Bad Kissingen and received his first violin lessons at the age of five. At the tender age of seven, he was already a student of Gerd Hoelscher at the Music Academy in Würzburg. He won several first prizes from the...

Martin Manz was born in 1958 in Augsburg. At the age of five he began taking violin lessons from Helmut Haug, who recognized his musical talent very early and furthered his progress until he was accepted in Rudolf Koeckert's master class in 1974. His...

Céline Vaudé was born in Reims, France, and took her first lessons at the age of four. She studied at the Conservatoire National de Région de Reims, (winning the "Prix de violon et de sonate" by a unanimous vote, among other accolades), continuing on...

Born in China, Yusi Chen began playing the violin at the age of 6. When he was just 14, he was accepted for study with Russian violinist Evgeny Mikhailovich at the Music Gymnasium , In 2001 he continued his studies with Eberhard Feltz at the Hanns...

Ching-Ting Chang was born in 1986 in Keelung, Taiwan. In October of 2003, the young violinist went to Paris to study with Aichi Philippe (Orchestre de Paris) at the Conservatoire Supérieure de Paris and with Jean Jacques Kanterow at the Conservatoire...

Helena Madoka Berg, born in 1984 in Berlin received her training from Tomasz Tomaszewski at the Julius Stern Institute of the Berlin University of the Arts, from Robert Mann at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and from Antje Weithaas at...

Philippe Mesin studied in Lübeck, Saarbrücken and Vienna with Zakhar Bron, Maxim Vengerov and Pavel Vernikov. He emerged a winner from a number of competitions, such as "Jugend musiziert" (1st Federal Prize), the Velsesia musica International Violin...

Alexander Maria Möck was born in 1969 in Lauingen on the Danube. At the age of six, he started instruction with Aurelian Minculescu, who taught him the basics of violin playing and to whom he owes several prizes from the "Jugend musiziert"...

Ilona Cudek was born in 1967 in Gliwice, Poland. At the age of 13, after moving to Germany, she became a junior student at the Munich Music Academy, from which she graduated with honors in 1989. After that, a scholarship from the Bavarian Culture...

Born in the North-Rhine-Westphalian town of Bad Salzuflen, Matthias Löhlein took his first piano lessons at the age of five, and soon also began learning the violin. He started his studies at the Music Academy in Detmold majoring in sound...

Born in the English town of Kingston-on-Thames, the violinist started lessons on her instrument at the age of four. In 1985, Clara Bergius-Bühl became a member of the Bavarian State Youth Orchestra, and in 1986 she began her violin studies at the...

Born in 1971 in Lichtenstein, Saxony, Katharina Triendl received her first violin instruction at the age of five in Berlin. There she attended the "Hanns Eisler" Special School of Music starting in 1983, following which she attended the Music Academy...

Ana Vladanovic-Lebedinski was born in Belgrade in 1974. She received her first violin lessons from her mother. Already at the age of 14 years she studied under Prof. Dejan Mihailovic at the Academy of Music in Belgrade where she received her diploma...

Bernhard Metz was born in Saarbrücken and took his first violin lessons at the Pflüger Foundation, headed by Wolfgang Marschner, in Freiburg. While still in secondary school, he also studied with Roman Nodel in Mannheim and Rainer Kussmaul in...

Born in Tokyo, this artist began studying the violin at the age of four and made many appearances as soloist in violin concertos and chamber music partner even during her time as a student at the Tokyo Music Academy, from which she graduated with...

Born in Sichuan, China, the musician began studying the violin at the age of four with Chaoji Liu, continuing on at eleven to Weiming Hu at the Chengdu Music Academy. From 1995 to 1999 Qi Zhou studied with Yaoji Lin at the Music Academy in Beijing;...

Born in the French city of Lille, the musician began playing the violin at the age of eight; from 1995 to 1997 he studied in Paris with Suzanne Gessner. After that Clément Courtin joined Igor Oistrakh's class in Brussels, where, after studying for...

Traudel Reich was born in Calw and took her first violin lessons at the age of six with Gerd-Uwe Klein at the music school in her home town. In 1998 she moved on to Ulrike Abdank's violin class at the Stuttgart Music Academy. She became a member of...

Domas Juškys was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1984 and took his first violin lessons at the age of seven. He started his serious violin studies with Androné Vaiminate at the M.K. Ciurlionis National School of the Arts and continued them from 2005...

Burkhard Sigl comes from a musical family and had already begun playing the violin at the age of five. He completed his viola studies with honors at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and was promptly invited to join the faculty there. Besides a number of...

Julia Rebekka Adler won prizes at a number of national and international competitions (e.g., Banff, Taschner Competition, Mendelssohn Competition, Classic Festival Ruhr, Carl Flesch Academy) and received a grant from the German Music Life Foundation....

Max Spenger was born in Munich and learned to play the accordion at the early age of 5. Max Spenger completed his viola studies at Munich´s Richard Strauss Conservatory with Albert Guntner, Herbert Blendinger and Jorge Sutil. Since 1977 Max Spenger...

Wolfgang Stingl began his musical career at the tender age of 12, later initially graduating with a degree in physics before continuing to study music and viola with Anton Weigert and Hermann Voss. After comprehensive quartet studies with the...

Born in 1954 in Hamburg, violist Gunter Pretzel has won a number of prizes from the "Jugend musiziert" competition. He studied violin and viola in Hamburg and Berlin with Sashko Gavriloff and Bruno Giuranna and received a scholarship from the Study...

Greatly influenced by his teachers, Rainer Moog and Hariolf Schlichtig, as well as the members of the Amadeus String Quartet, Wolfgang Berg concluded his studies at the Music Academy of Cologne by passing a concert examination. He was solo violist...

Beate Springorum received her first instrumental instruction at the age of four on the violin. She initially trained as a violinist, then a few years later moved over to the viola. She rounded off her education in master classes with such prestigious...

Born in Gdynia, Poland, the musician took her first violin and viola lessons at the age of six. She initially studied with Irena Albrecht at the Music Academy of Gdansk, finally completing her education in the master class of Rainer Moog at the Music...

The musician, who had played the violin from the age of six, was initially a student of Atila Aydintan at the Academy of Music and Theatre in Hanover. In 1996, his viola studies then took him to Volker Wörlitzsch from the NDR Radio Philharmonic in...

Julio López was born in 1980 in Honduras. He began his musical studies at the Escuela de Música Victoriano López, studying the viola there with Ruben Moncada. In 1997/1998 he was principal violist in the Symphony and Chamber Orchestra of San Pedro...

Michael Hell was born into a musical family in Vienna and studied violoncello at the Vienna Academy, from which he graduated with honors in 1980. Since 1981 he has been solo cellist of the Munich Philharmonic. Hell plays cello duets with Werner...

After initial instruction on the cello from his father, Stephan Haack completed his studies at the Music Academies of Detmold and Vienna with Prof. Gunhild Boie-Düring and Prof. André Navarra. Here he also graduated, passing his concert examinations...

The musician comes from Bremen and studied the violoncello most recently with Ottomar Borwitzky at Berlin´s Karajan Academy. While still a student he was principal cellist in various orchestras, such as the European Youth Orchestra and the Lucerne...

Herbert Heim was born in Munich in 1953 and began studying the cello at age 8. As of 1971, he studied at the Munich Music Academy with Walter Reichardt, Fritz Kiskalt and Adolf Schmidt. In 1972 he won the 2nd Prize for piano trio at the "Jugend...

Veit Wenk-Wolff was born in 1963 in Heidelberg and grew up in Norway. He received his first cello instruction at the age of 6, later studying with Aage Kvalbein (Oslo), Peter Grümmer (Zurich) and at the Arts Academy in Berlin with Eberhard Finke. He...

Sissy Schmidhuber was born in 1970 in Munich and received her first cello instruction at the age of seven. From 1983-87 she studied with Michael Hell, following which she began her studies at the Munich Music Academy, continuing her education in...

Elke Funk-Hoever was born in 1966 in Esslingen. After secondary school, she studied violoncello at the Music Academy in nearby Stuttgart with Rudolf Gleisner, at the Arts Academy in Berlin with Wolfgang Boettcher and at the Juilliard School of Music...

A native of Wuppertal, the musician took his first cello lessons at the age of nine. After winning three federal prizes at the "Jugend musiziert" competition and first prize at the international "Charles Hennen" Chamber Music Competition in the...

Cellist Isolde Hayer is a native of Salzburg and studied with Heidi Litschauer, Wolfgang Boettcher and Martin Ostertag. Master classes with William Pleeth, Boris Pergamenshikov, Siegfried Palm as well as the Alban Berg Quartet, the Ysaÿe Quartet and...

The musician was born in Neubrandenburg and began his cello studies in 1981 at the music school in his native city. In 1985 he was accepted as an outside student at the "Special School of Music" of the Hanns Eisler Music Academy in Berlin, and from...

The Berlin-born musician took his first cello lessons at the age of five; after early competition successes he was accepted as a preparatory student in the class of Josef Schwab at the "Hanns Eisler" Academy of Music in Berlin and later graduated...

Cellist Joachim Wohlgemuth from Augsburg took his first lessons on the instrument at the age of seven. At fourteen, he began his studies as a preparatory student in Hartmut Tröndle?s class at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg, transferring...

Double bassist Sławomir Grenda was born in 1968 in Poland. He attended the Karol Szymanowski Music School in Katowice, where he was instructed by Edward Piwowarczyk and Waldemar Tamowski. He continued his studies at the Peabody Conservatory of...

At the age of 16, this musician from Berlin started taking piano lessons but soon discovered his great love for the double bass. In 1998 he began his training at the Academy of Music in Berlin, continuing on in Leipzig. Alexander Preuss regularly...

Holger Herrmann, born in 1960 in Dresden, received his first violin lessons at the age of four. He began playing the double bass when he was fourteen. He studied with his father, Heinz Herrmann, former first double bassist of the Staatskapelle...

Born in the Czech Republic capital of Prague, the musician began studying the double bass at the conservatory in his home town, where his teacher was Vaclav Fuka; in 1998 he concluded his studies at the Berlin Academy of the Arts with Reiner...

Born in 1983 in Shanghai, the double bassist started studying the violin at when she was only three. Seven years later, she discovered the double bass. She was taught from then on by Professor Jian Cao. At the tender age of eleven she gave her first...