Born 1956 in St. Petersburg.

First piano lessons at the age of five Attended Special music school for gifted children in St. Petersburg. While attending school more than 300 appearances on stage in different Russian cities. Studies with Prof Gregory Haimowsky at the Academy of Music in Jerusalem and with Prof. Vitalij Margulis at the University of Music in Freiburg (Germany).

Finalist and prizewinner of the international piano competitions in Monza and Vercelli (Italy).

More than 1.000 Performances as soloist and chamber musician (among many others, member of the Shostakovich-Trio 1986-1996), as professor in international masterclasses in almost all European countries, the Far East, Latin America, USA, Australia.

More than 100 performances broadcasted by TV and radio stations all over the world. His arrangement (Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures of an Exhibition” and many others) for piano-trio received special attention.

From 1998 to 2006 Professor of Piano at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg. Since 2006 Professor of Piano at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar. His students have won more than 50 prizes in international competitions (among others in Hamamatsu, Warsaw, Brussels, Leeds...)

Since 2006 Chairman of the International „FRANZ LISZT Competition for Young Pianists“ and of the International Rachmaninow Competition for Young Pianists Frankfurt.

Boris Kuschnir was born into a music family in Kiev in 1948. He studied violin with Boris Belenky at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire and chamber music with Valentin Berlinsky of the Borodin Quartet.

His many encounters with Dmitri Shostakovich (working on his last quartets) and David Oistrakh, with whom he also studied, had a lasting influence on his artistic development. His career started 1969 when he was one of the three winners of the Allunions-Competition in Leningrad where, in the final, he performed the Beethoven Violin Concerto with the Leningrad Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Yuri Temirkanov.

He has won numerous prizes at international violin and chamber music competitions (Paris, Belgrade, Sion, Trapani, Bratislava, Florence, Trieste, Gorizia, Hamburg, Vercelli). In 1970 he founded the Moscow String Quartet and remained a member until 1979.

Since 1981 he has been living in Austria. He became an Austrian citizen in 1982 and was the first concertmaster of the Bruckner Orchestra in Linz until 1983. In 1984, he became a Professor at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna and also a distinguished Professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz in 1999. 

Zakhar Bron is a virtuoso violinist, who is famous above all for his teaching method. His whole life is dedicated to the training of the next generation of concert violinists. His reputation as an outstanding violin teacher became established when his students Vadim Repin, Maxim Vengerov and Daniel Hope became famous around the world.

Zakhar Bron started his violin studies at the Stolyarsky School in Odessa, then continued at the Gnessin Music College in Moscow with Boris Goldstein and at Moscow Conservatory with Igor Oistrakh, for whom Zakhar Bron also worked as an assistant. Upon completion of his studies Zakhar Bron performed as a soloist and started teaching. From 1974 until 1988 he worked at the Novosibirsk Conservatory. In 1988 Zakhar Bron moved to Germany and since then has been teaching in various musical institutions across Europe, including the Zurich University of the Arts. 

Apart from teaching Zakhar Bron appears frequently as a soloist and has recorded and released many CDs and DVDs. For his outstanding work Zakhar Bron has been awarded the highest honors in Russia, Germany and Spain: in 1998 he received the Verdienstkreuz am Bande der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, in 2001 became a People's Artist of Russia, and in 2006 received La Orden Civil de Alfonso X el Sabio in Spain.

Bernd Goetzke was born in Hanover, Germany in 1951.

At the age of 13 he was accepted as a student at the Hanover University of Music and Drama, where he studied piano with Prof. Karl-Heinz Kämmerling until obtaining his Concert Soloist’s Diploma in 1975.

Another important phase in his pianistic development was his long association (1969 to 1977) with Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, who regarded him as his last pupil.

He also participated in Beethoven courses given by Claudio Arrau and Wilhelm Kempff. From 2013 onwards Bernd Goetzke accepted the invitation to teach the Beethoven course in the same place, at the Wilhelm Kempff Academy in Positano. This course had been established by Kempff and first taught by him and Alfred Cortot in 1957.

Bernd Goetzke was awarded prizes in several international competitions (Paris, Milan, Epinal, Athens, Brussels, amongst others).

Already at the age of 25 he was appointed lecturer at the Hanover University of Music and Drama and became professor in 1982. Today Bernd Goetzke is one of Germany’s most sought-after teachers and musicians. He teaches a class of young pianists from all over the world, and many of them have become prize winners in international competitions. In addition he holds numerous Master Classes in Germany and worldwide.

Severin von Eckardstein, one of the leading German pianists of his generation, has an already lengthy record of solo concerts and concerto performances on major stages around the world.

He has delighted the public with many highly acclaimed concerts, for example in Berlin, Munich, Milan, Moscow, Madrid, London, Paris, New York, Amsterdam, Budapest, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Seoul. His talent could be enjoyed at great music festivals, including Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Aldeburgh / UK, the Gilmore Festival in Michigan / USA, La Roque d’Anthéron / France, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Husum Festival (“Raritäten der Klaviermusik”) and the Miami International Piano Festival, where he played the opening concert in 2009. He has performed with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Philippe Herreweghe, Lothar Zagrosek and Marek Janowski, and made important debuts, among others in 2007 with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra under Paavo Järvi, the Dallas Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jaap van Zweden in 2012 and the Hungarian National Philharmony under Zsolt Hamar in 2017.

In 2018 he made his debut at the Thompson Art Center in New York with two different recitals.

British violinist Daniel Hope has enjoyed a thriving international solo career for more than 30 years. Celebrated for his musical versatility and dedication to humanitarian causes, he has been recognized with a string of honors including the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and the 2015 European Culture Prize for Music. Besides undertaking solo recitals, chamber concerts and concerto collaborations with the world’s leading orchestras and conductors, Hope directs many ensembles from the violin, succeeding Roger Norrington as Music Director of the Zurich Chamber Orchestra in 2016 and becoming Music Director of San Francisco’s New Century Chamber Orchestra two years later. An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist since 2007 with an award-winning discography, he is also a popular radio and television host who may currently be seen in Hope@Home on Tour. In 2019 he completed his 16th and final season as Associate Artistic Director of Georgia’s Savannah Music Festival as well as becoming Artistic Director of Dresden’s Frauenkirche Cathedral. Since 2020, and, following in the distinguished footsteps of Kurt Masur and Joseph Joachim, Hope launched his tenure as President of the Beethovenhaus Bonn.

Hope first drew notice as the youngest member of the Beaux Arts Trio, giving more than 400 performances with the esteemed ensemble during its final six seasons. Today he is a familiar face at the most prestigious international venues and festivals, from New York’s Carnegie Hall to Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and from Aspen and Tanglewood to Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein and London’s BBC Proms.  

Russian pianist Dmitri Alexeev is one of the world's most highly regarded artists. His critically praised recitals on the world's leading concert stages and his concert appearances with the most prestigious orchestras have secured his position as one of  "the most remarkable pianists of the day" (Daily Telegraph).

He has performed in the major concert halls around the world with most of great orchestras such as Berlin Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Philadelphia Orchestra, Concertgebouw, all London orchestras etc. under many celebrated conductors (Giulini, Ashkenazy, Boulez, Muti, Pappano, Temirkanov, Rozhdestvensky,  Jansons,Gergiev,Tennstedt among others).

Dmitri Alexeev has made many fine recordings for EMI, BMG, Virgin Classics, Hyperion and Russian labels. Following his Virgin Classics recording of the complete Rachmaninov Preludes, which won the Edison Award in the Netherlands.

Recently his recordings of Scriabin’s complete Piano Sonatas and complete Etudes were released on Brilliant Classic. In 2017, Alexeev continued his Scriabin recording project with a disc of the complete Preludes which will be released in the nearest future. His recording of the complete Chopin Mazurkas was released in 2014. 

Pavel Gililov was born in the Soviet Union and was discovered by Dimitry Kabalevsky, as a musical talent. In 1972, whilst still a student, he won the Moscow National Piano Competition and was awarded a prize at the 1975 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. From 1982 until his retirement, in 2013, he was piano professor at the Hochschule fur Musik in Cologne and is Professor at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. The pianist holds several master classes throughout Europe and the Far East and is Chairman of the Jury and Artistic Director at the International Telekom Beethoven Competition, Bonn. He is considered one of the most influential piano experts in the world and is responsible for many pianistic careers of the last decades.

Born in Italy of Russian origin and Argentinian and German nationality, Ana Chumachenco started playing violin at the age of four under the supervision of her father - a disciple of Leopold Auer - and later with Ljerko Spiller in Buenos Aires.

After enjoying considerable success in her early years in South America, she returned to Europe at the age of 17 to continue her studies. Just one year later she was awarded the gold medal at the Carl Flesch competition in London and, a few years later, the silver medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels. Her musical mentors in those years included Joseph Szigeti, Sándor Végh and Yehudi Menuhin.

Besides her appearances in recitals and as a soloist with leading orchestras, Ana Chumachenco devotes much of her time to chamber music. For more than 20 years she has played in the Munich String Trio with violinist Oscar Lysy and cellist Walter Nothas.

Michel Beroff was born in France in 1950. After graduating from the Paris conservatoire in 1966, he won the following year the first prize at the first international Olivier Messiaen piano competition. He has been since considered one of the most outstanding interpreter of Messiaen’s music. He then went on to play with the most prestigious orchestras around the world under the direction of such conductors as Abbado, Barenboim, Bernstein, Boulez, Dohnanyi, Dorati, Dutoit, Eschenbach, Gielen, Inbal, Jochum, Leinsdorf, Masur, Ozawa, Previn, Rostropovitch, Sinopoli, Solti, Tennsted, Tilson-Thomas, Zinman.

As a chamber music partner , he has been very active playing with Martha Argerich , Barbara Hendricks Jean- Philippe Collard, Augustin Dumay, Pierre Amoyal, Lynn Harrell. As a conductor, Michel Beroff has been conducting the chamber orchestra de la Scala de Milano, the Russian state Orchestra, the Orchestre National de Lyon, the Orchestre National de Lille, the Cannes chamber orchestra, the Berkeley symphony, the Montréal youth orchestra.

He is currently teaching at the Paris Conservatoire. Exclusive EMI artist for over 25 years, Michel Beroff has published more than 50 recordings ; among them the complete works for piano and orchestra from Liszt, Prokofieff and Stravinsky , conducted by Seiji Ozawa and Kurt Masur. For Deutsche Grammophon, he has recorded Ravel’s left hand concerto with the LSO and Claudio Abbado. His latest recordings includes the complete piano music from Debussy for the Japanese label Denon.