Photo © Gregor Titze

Born in Vienna, Stefan Vladar is one of Austria’s most remarkable musical personalities. He performs regularly as a conductor and pianist in music centres throughout Europe, America and Asia.

Stefan Vladar was appointed Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra in 2008. In the 2015/16 season, he conducted the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the Portland Symphony Orchestra, the Bankok Symphony Orchestra, the Cairo Symphony Orchestra and the Tschaikowsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow. As a concert pianist, he performed with the Radio Symphony Orchestra Prague and the Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, and gave solo recitals in Vienna, Zagreb, Munich and Budapest, among others.

Stefan Vladar has performed under the baton of conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Vladimir Fedosejev, Christopher Hogwood, Louis Langrée, Sir Neville Marriner, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Seiji Ozawa, Sir Simon Rattle and Christian Thielemann in appearances with numerous orchestras such as Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Bayerische Staatsorchester, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokio, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, Vienna Symphony Orchestra and the Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich.
As a conductor, he has worked with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Residence Orchestra Den Haag, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Tschaikowsky Symphony Orchestra Moscow, Stuttgart Philharmonic, RSO Budapest, Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra as well as the chamber orchestras of Basel, Cologne, Prague and Zurich, among others. He has performed together with soloists such as Tzimon Barto, Janine Jansen, Isabelle van Keulen, Viktoria Mullova, Julian Rachlin, Heinrich Schiff and with singers such as Ian Bostridge, Johan Botha, Jonas Kaufmann, Angelika Kirchschlager, Thomas Quasthoff, Ramon Vargas and Pretty Yende. Stefan has a close long-term musical cooperation with the baritone Bo Skovhus.

He is professor of piano in the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW).

Photo © Nancy Horowitz

Christian Altenburger studied at the University of Music in his hometown of Vienna and with Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard School in New York.

At 19, he made his debut as a soloist at the Vienna Musikverein. This was soon followed by engagements with top international orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Concertgebouworchester Amsterdam, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra under Claudio Abbado, Dennis Russel Davies, Christoph von Dohnányi, Bernard Haitink, James Levine, Lorin Maazel, Zubin Mehta, Václáv Neumann, Sir Roger Norrington, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Franz Welser- Möst and others.

In addition to his appearances as a soloist, chamber music has become an important aspect of his artistic work. His chamber music partners include; Bruno Canino, Patrick Demenga, Heinz Holliger, Nobuko Imai, Kim Kashkashian, Reinhard Latzko, Michele Lethiec, Melvyn Tan, Lars Anders Tomter and Lars Vogt.

Since 2003, Christian Altenburger has been Artistic Director of the Schwäbische Frühling Music Festival whose architecturally attractive concert venues in southern Germany offer an ideal ambiance for chamber music as well as Symphony Orchestra concerts.

In 2006 Altenburger became Artistic Director of the Loisiarte Festival in Langenlois, Austria. The festival takes place in the extraordinary surroundings of the Loisium designed by architect Steven Holl.

Altenburger’s strong advocacy for the performance of contemporary music has resulted in premiers and recordings of composers such as Theodor Berger, Bert Breit, Gottfried von Einem, Wilhelm Killmayer, Thomas Larcher, Witold Lutoslawski, Werner Pirchner and Kurt Schwertsik.

For many years, Christian Altenburger held a professorship at the Hannover University of Music. In 2001, he was appointed a professorship at the Vienna University of Music.

Photo © Nancy Horowitz

Born in Austria, Christopher Hinterhuber studied with Alex Papenberg, Rudolf Kehrer, Lazar Berman, Avo Kouyoumdjian and Heinz Medjimorec at the University for Music and performing Arts in Vienna and the Accademia „Incontri col Maestro“ in Imola, Italy acquiring additional artistic input from such artists as Oleg Maisenberg and Vladimir Ashkenazy.

He has won numerous top prizes and honors at the international piano competitions in Leipzig (Bach), Saarbrücken (Bach), Pretoria (Unisa), Zurich (Geza Anda) and Vienna (Beethoven) among others.

The last few years have seen him play in major festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein-Festival in Germany, Styriarte Graz, Carinthischer Sommer Ossiach, Mozartwoche in Salzburg, Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, the Ruhr Piano Festival and the Prague Autumn under such conductors as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Kirill Karabits, Jakub Hrusa, Bertrand de Billy, Sylvain Cambreling, Beat Furrer, Howard Griffiths, Yakov Kreizberg, Christian Arming, Adrian Leaper, Andrés Orozco Estrada, Dennis Russell Davies, Ari Rasilainen, Hubert Soudant, Alfred Eschwé and Bruno Weil; with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra, the Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Klangforum in Vienna, the Vienna and Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the MDR Orchestra Leipzig, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra among others.

A special project was the sound recording (Schubert, Rachmaninov, Schönberg) and filming (his hands) for the french-austrian movie “La pianiste” based on a novel by Elfriede Jelinek and directed by Michael Haneke, which was awarded the Great Prize of the Jury in Cannes in 2001.

He plays frequently chamber music, for example as pianist of Vienna-based Altenberg Piano Trio and piano Crossover quintett “Philharmonic Five”. He is piano professor at the University for Music and performing Arts in Vienna.

Photo © Anton Sorokow

Born in Moscow in 1978 to a musical family. He received his first violin lessons from his mother at the age of four, and at the age of ten began his formal studies at the Central Music School in Moscow with Evgenia Tchugaeva. In 1991, Sorokow moved to Vienna.

He graduated with honors from the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts in March 1994, where he studied with professor Dora Schwarzberg from 1991. In 1996 he was selected on a scholarship to participate in the Isaac Stern Workshop in Verbier, Switzerland.

From an early age, Anton Sorokow has performed with renowned orchestras such as Vienna Symphonic Orchestra, Berliner Symphonic, Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra, Nuremberg Symphonic Orchestra, Bayerische Kammerphilharmonie, Vienna Concert-Verein, Philharmonic Orchestra London, Montpellier Symphonic Orchestra, Carinthian Symphonic Orchestra, Sung-nam Philharmonic Orchestra, Kharkov Philharmonic Orchestra, Janàcek Philharmonic Ostrava, St. Petersburg Academic Symphonic Orchestra and Moscow Symphonic Orchestra. Sorokow has worked with renowned conductors of the likes of Fabio Luisi, Mstislav Rostropovich, Myung Whun Chung, Bertrand de Billy, Ulf Schirmer, Lior Shambadal Philippe Auguin and Alexander Shelley.

Anton Sorokow performs in large music halls around the world – Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein, Vienna Konzerthaus, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Tokyo’s Suntory Hall and Bunka Kaikan, as well as the Great Hall of the Moscow State Conservatory.

Sorokow’s concert with Montserrat Caballé before an audience of 5,000 in the Arcade of Gostiny Dvor in Moscow in 2001 is one of his career highlights.

In addition to numerous other awards, Anton Sorokow received the 1st prize and the Grand Award at the Beethoven Competition in the Czech Republic in 1994 and the 1 st prize both at the Stefanie Hohl Competition in Vienna in 1997 and at the Romano Romanini Competition in Brescia in 1999.

From 2003 to 2005 he was first concertmaster of the Nuremberg Philharmonic Orchestra at the Staatstheater Nürnberg. Since 2005, Sorokow has been first concertmaster of the Vienna Symphonic Orchestra.

Since 2011 Anton Sorokow is professor for violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna (MDW).

Photo © Martin Teschner

Klaus Sticken is a versatile and distinctive pianist with over 25 years of concert experience.

He performs in such venues as the Tonhalle Zurich, the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire in Moscow, the Philharmonie in Kiev, the Megaron in Athens, the Konzerthaus in Berlin and the Musikhalle in Hamburg.

His successes in the Concours Clara Haskil in Vevey, the Grand Prix Maria Callas in Athens and the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition in Japan led, amongst other engagements, to concerts with the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre de Chambre Lausanne, the Ukraine State Orchestra and the Berlin Symphonic and Moscow Symphonic Orchestras. His creative engagement with piano music is well displayed in the theme-based recitals for various radio stations, the Deutschlandradio, Radio Suisse Romande and Westdeutsche, Mitteldeutsche and Hessische Rundfunk and others.

Through his teachers Vladimir Krainev, Vitaly Margulis, Gyorgy Sebok and Alfred Brendel Klaus Sticken has become familiar with very varied approaches to music.

Klaus Sticken is professor of piano at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna.

Photo © Rupert Schoettle

Born in Mannheim. After studying in Salzburg and Vienna, in addition to various chamber music formations (Walderdorff Trio, Gemini Quartet, Beethoven Ensemble Vienna, Florestan Trio, Trio Grande), the “writing cellist” worked for 30 years as a freelancer with the Vienna Philharmonic and in the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera, where he played with the greatest conductors, from Herbert von Karajan to Carlos Kleiber to Christian Thielemann.

At the personal invitation of Sir Georg Solti in 1995, he became a founding member of the “World Orchestra for Peace”, whose direction was taken over by Valery Gergiev after the death of the great Hungarian conductor. His encounters with the greatest conductors, some of which took place on a very personal level, inspired Schoettle to write a book on the history of conducting (“Gods in Frack, the century of conductors”, Bibliophile Edition, 2000).

“Rupert Schoettle has a unique string art” (Kronen-Zeitung) “Schoettle is the unofficial Nobel Prize winner for musical anecdotes” (Helmut Gansterer in “Profile”)

Photo © Lena Nesic

Lidia Baich is considered to be one of the most versatile violin soloists of our time. She fascinates the audience with her intense musicality and interpretation all over the world.

The Austrian born in St. Petersburg received her first violin lessons from her grandfather at the age of four. Then she studied with Prof. Boris Kuschnir in Vienna. At the age of eight she won her first international competition, which was followed by numerous other first prizes. Her extraordinary musical performance finally brought her victory at the Grand Prix d’Eurovision and the award “European Musician of the Year”, presented by Lord Yehudi Menuhin, when she was sixteen.

Lidia Baich performs with orchestra and holds recitals in the most important concert halls. Numerous tours have taken her through Europe, Asia, South America, USA, South Africa, Russia and India. She performed under the baton of conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Adam Fischer, Vladimir Fedoseyev, Juri Temirkanov, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Kristjan Järvi, Bertrand de Billy and Jakov Kreizberg with the most important orchestras in the world such as the New York Philharmonic, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Tokyo Philharmonic, NHK Orchestra, Berliner Symphoniker, Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Wiener Symphoniker, Orchester Nationale de France, Orchestra Arturo Toscanini, Malaysia Philharmonic or Camerata Salzburg.

As a passionate chamber musician, Baich plays with partners such as Helmut Deutsch, Nobuko Imai, Alexander Knyazev, Lars Anders Tomter, Aleksey Igudesman, Hyung-Ki Joo, Boris Giltburg, members of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Brahms Trio and others.

Lidia Baich has made guest appearances at festivals such as the Wiener Festwochen, the Salzburg Festival, the Dubrovnik Festival, the Moritzburg Festival, the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival and the Johannesburg Mozart Festival. She also played at the tenth anniversary of “Pavarotti and Friends” in Modena.

At the Komische Oper Berlin she once again showed her musical and artistic versatility in a successful joint production with the Staatsballett Berlin.

Lidia Baich also regularly performs with opera singers, most recently with Elina Garanca, Erwin Schrott or her husband Andreas Schager at the Berlin and Vienna State Opera.

CD’s by Lidia Baich have been released under the Deutsche Grammophon label.

She was a juror at renowned violin competitions such as the Menuhin or the Eurovision competition and is a professor at the Music and Art University of Vienna (MUK).

Lidia Baich plays a violin made by Jean Baptiste Vuillaume in 1860.