Chilean-Swedish mezzo soprano Luciana Mancini holds a Masters degree from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where she studied with Rita Dams, Jill Feldman, Michael Chance and Diane Forlano.

Most recent appearances include Panthalis in Boito’s Mefistofele at Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, concerts with Ensemble Pygmalion and Raphaël Pichon, The Messiah with the Melbourne and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, Galatea in Handel’s Acis, Galatea e Polifemo at the Händelfestspiele Halle, Proserpina in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with the Freiburger Barockorchester and Pablo Heras-Casado in Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Baden-Baden, Bergen, Lille and Berlin.

Elsewhere, she has performed Vita Mondana and Prudentio in Cavalieri’s Rappresentatione di Anima et di Corpo at Staatsoper Berlin, conducted by René Jacobs, Amastre in Handel’s Serse at Theater an der Wien, Annio in Mozart’s La Clemenza di Tito at the Drottningholm Festival, Messaggera in Monteverdi’s Orfeo with L’Arpeggiata and Christina Pluhar, Zaida in Rossini’s Il Turco in Italia at Dutch National Opera and Volupia and Didone in Cavalli’s Egisto at l'Opéra-Comique in Paris.

Priya Mitchell grew up in Oxford. She started playing the violin at four. ‘Unable to concentrate on anything my parents despaired – the violin was the best remedy – it allowed me to focus and dream at the same time.’ She went to the Yehudi Menuhin School for four years where her teacher was David Takeno. Afterwards she studied in Vienna and with Zachar Bron in Lübeck. Priya loves to play both as a soloist and chamber musician. Earlier this year she was invited to be artist-in-residence for a week at Kings Place in London, and has recently performed in Copenhagen, Istanbul, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Kuhmo and Seville. She started the Oxford Chamber Music Festival in 2000 because she wanted to bring musician friends to Oxford and relishes ‘musical matchmaking, how else was it possible to bring together musicians I was certain would fall in love musically? Oxford is the ideal setting to make this alchemy happen. Festivals make one feel stimulated on every level, inspired and enriched. Most of us here couldn’t be without them – they are irresistible, dangerous and highly addictive!’ Priya plays a Ballestieri violin made in the 1760s, generously on loan to her by a private family trust.

As violinist, leader and conductor, Hugo Ticciati imbibes all possible forms of creativity, whether it be performing world premieres in the most prestigious venues around the world, improvising with monks in India, or devising innovative programmes for O/Modernt Orchestra and Festival which he founded in 2011. Alongside his passion to discover and learn from the music of previous epochs and non-western traditions, Hugo embraces the world of contemporary music. To date, over forty works have been written for and dedicated to him by a host of eminent composers, including Erkki-Sven Tüür, Pēteris Vasks, Victoria Borisova-Ollas, Albert Schnelzer and Dobrinka Tabakova.

As the Artistic Director of his own O/Modernt Orchestra, and Artistic Partner with Manchester Camerata, Hugo collaborates regularly with Kremerata Baltica, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra da Camera di Perugia. Most recently, he has been invited to work with Swedish Chamber Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra and Vienna Chamber Orchestra.

Gaining a growing reputation for his innovative and adventurous programming, Hugo is frequently asked to devise and present concerts and festivals with a unique twist. This has led to ongoing collaborations with Wigmore Hall and Kings Place in London. Pursuing his passion for chamber music, Hugo has developed special artistic partnerships with members of the O/Modernt Soloists as well as other internationally renowned artists, notably Evelyn Glennie, Anne Sofie von Otter, Nils Landgren, Steven Isserlis, Angela Hewitt and Olli Mustonen.

Hugo frequently gives master-classes and lectures on music-related subjects both at Scandinavia’s leading specialist music school Lilla Akademien, where he holds the post of Deputy Artistic Director, and other educational institutions around the world.

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Gareth Lubbe is professor of viola at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, Germany. For several years, he was Principal Violist in the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig under Riccardo Chailly whilst teaching at the ‘Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy’ Conservatory. He appears as soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe, America, Africa and Asia. As overtone singer, he performs and gives active lectures around the world, translating this phenomenon of multiphonic singing into the possibilities of sound production on one’s own instrument. Born in Johannesburg, South Africa, Gareth received his first musical education on piano and violin at the age of four. Already at a young age, he appeared as soloist and conductor. He also performed at the presidential inauguration of Nelson Mandela in Pretoria in 1994. Upon finishing school, he went on to study in Germany. He nevertheless continues to nurture his love for the mother continent, performing and teaching there on a regular basis.

Julian Arp, born in 1981, studied at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin with Boris Pergamenschikow. He continued his studies with David Geringas and Eberhard Feltz. As a soloist and chamber musician Julian Arp appears regularly at festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival, Beethovenfest Bonn, Beauvais, Montreux, SoNoRo Bukarest, Stellenbosch, Stift Festival, the Oxford Chamber Music Festival, and IMS Prussia Cove.

The Duo Arp/Frantz has so far recorded three CDs. (Fono Forum: “[They] make the music become a pure celebration. It all sounds and sings.”). Contemporary composers such as Odeh-Tamimi, Koch, Nemtsov and Dinescu have written pieces for him. He is a co-founder of the festival Zeitkunst which has been a guest at the Centre Pompidou, Radialsystem Berlin, Israel, England and Rio de Janeiro. Julian Arp regularly gives master classes in Germany and abroad and teaches at the University for Arts in Graz, Austria.

Janne Thomsen started playing the flute in Denmark at the age of six. Her career started after winning the Young Musician of the Year Award in Denmark, which was followed by competition wins in Prague, Bayreuth, Rome, Vienna and Boston. She studied at London’s Royal Academy of Music and at the Paris Conservatoire under William Bennett, Maurice Bourgue and the Amadeus Quartet. Janne Thomsen has played as a soloist with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, the Danish Radio Symphony and Kremerata Baltica and performs worldwide as a chamber musician. She is greatly interested in commissioning new and exciting music for her instrument and taught at the Mozarteum Salzburg and Lucerne School of Music until 2010. Janne Thomsen is Artistic Director of ‘Klassiske Dage’ – Holstebro International Music Festival in Denmark, which she founded in 2005.

Janne Thomsen started playing the flute in Denmark at the age of six. Her career started after winning the Young Musician of the Year Award in Denmark, which was followed by competition wins in Prague, Bayreuth, Rome, Vienna and Boston. She studied at London’s Royal Academy of Music and at the Paris Conservatoire under William Bennett, Maurice Bourgue and the Amadeus Quartet. Janne Thomsen has played as a soloist with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra, the Danish Radio Symphony and Kremerata Baltica and performs worldwide as a chamber musician. She is greatly interested in commissioning new and exciting music for her instrument and taught at the Mozarteum Salzburg and Lucerne School of Music until 2010. Janne Thomsen is Artistic Director of ‘Klassiske Dage’ – Holstebro International Music Festival in Denmark, which she founded in 2005.

Bram van Sambeek (1980) was the first bassoonist ever to receive the highest Dutch Cultural Award in 30 years: The Dutch Music Prize, handed out to him personally by Minister of Culture Ronald Plasterk in 2009. On this occasion, Bram played the bassoon concerto by Gubaidulina with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and chief conductor Seguin. De Telegraaf newspaper wrote about this performance: “He uses his instrument freely as a mouthpiece, conjures the finest timbres, and is technically capable of doing anything.” In 2011 he won a Borletti Buitoni Trust Award, and he has been admitted to The Chamber Music Society Two programme of New York’s Lincoln Center.

Bram van Sambeek performs regularly as a soloist with orchestras such as the Lahti Symphony Orchestra, The Gothenborg Symphony, the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, the Oulu Symphony, and the South Netherlands Philharmonic. Many composers, such as Vanessa Lann and Sebastian Fagerlund, have written concertos for him.

From 2002 until 2011 Bram was Principal Bassoonist of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and since 2009 he has been teaching the bassoon at the Conservatories in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague. Last season he started a professorship exclusively at the Hochschule für Music und Tanz in Cologne. Bram has taught masterclasses at schools like Bloomington Indiana, the Royal College of London, and the Conservatory of Busan, Korea.

He played regularly as a Guest Principal with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. As a chamber musician he has worked regularly with Alexei Ogrintchouk, Jörg Widmann, Reto Bieri, Clara Andradas de la Calle, Hervé Joulain, Radovan Vlatkovich, Liza Ferschtman, Christoph Pregardien, Pekka Kuusisto, Nicolas Altstaedt and Rick Stotijn. In 2010 Bram was offered a Carte Blanche series in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and in 2015 he received a “Wild Card” consisting of many adventurous concerts at the Muziekgebouw aan ‘t IJ, also in Amsterdam. He is a regular guest at festivals like the Delft Chamber Music Festival, Storioni Festival, Orlando Festival, West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival and the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, and has investigated concert practice in cooperation with Radio Kootwijk Live, experimenting with innovations such as playing people to sleep.

Bram is very much interested in playing any style he likes, which leads him to work with rock musicians like Sven Figee in Konzerthaus Berlin, Jazz musicians like Joris Roelofs at the famous North Sea Jazz Festival, Arabic musicians like Kinan Azmeh in the Morgenland Festival, and improvisers like Ernst Glerum in the “Apples and Olives” festival in Zürich.

Bram decided to start playing the bassoon when he was ten years old, beginning his studies with Fred Gaasterland and continuing later with Joep Terwey and Johan Steinmann at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague. After his graduation, he took private lessons with Gustavo Núñez. In addition, he has participated in masterclasses with Brian Pollard and two of the most important bassoon soloists in the world: Klaus Thunemann and Sergio Azzolini. Bram also plays on a very special bassoon, an instrument that has been played for many years by both these musicians.

About working together with Bram, Yannick Nézet-Séguin remarked in a television interview available at www.bramvansambeek.com: “I think he is able to fall in love with many aspects of the music, and doesn’t set himself too many boundaries.” In another interview about Bram, Valery Gergiev remarked: “…all in all a combination of being artistically involved, motivated and being gifted, being a very nice person, and also being a little bit unusual!”

On his debut cd with Brilliant Classics, called ‘Bassoon Concertos’, he presented a very accessible programme of bassoon concertos by Vivaldi, Du Puy, Villa Lobos, and Olthuis, receiving rave reviews like this remark in the Dutch music magazine Luister: “Judging by his playing, Mr van Sambeek awaits a golden future.” In march 2012, Brilliant Classicsreleased his second cd “Bassoon-Kaleidoscope,” which includes different chamber music pieces, as well as a rock song. In 2015-2016 Bram has performed the two new bassoon concertos by Sebastian Fagerlund and Kalevi Aho and recorded them for the BIS label with whom he has an on-going cooperation.

Last year he was the spokesman of the “Save the bassoon” campaign set up by the Holland Festival. This lead to a lot of international attention and publicity for the instrument in the London Times, the Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung and played on many television shows.

Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson works prolifically as soloist and chamber musician. Highlights of the 17/18 season include concerts in London’s Wigmore Hall and Kings Place, festivals of West Cork, Ryedale, Resonances (Belgium), Isola d’Elba, and Ernen (Switzerland), and collaborations with Adrian Brendel, Philippe Graffin, Pekka Kuusisto, Pieter Wispelwey, the Doric String Quartet and Meta4 among many.

Alasdair is renowned as a sincere musician and intrepid programmer. Alongside a particular affinity with the classical repertoire and the music of Schumann and Fauré, he often explores the more exotic: Catoire, Pierné, Thuille; Debussy’s Jeux (in the composer’s arrangement for solo piano); Ligeti Horn Trio, Thomas Adès Piano Quintet; and piano trio arrangements of Debussy’s La Mer, Janacek’s Kreutzer Sonata, Shostakovich’s 15th Symphony (with 3 percussionists) and Schönberg’s Verklärte Nacht. His concerto repertoire includes works of Bach, Bartok, Fauré, Hans Abrahamsen, Hindemith, Mozart, Sally Beamish, Stravinsky, Messiaen; he appeared in recent years as soloist with Britten Sinfonia, Moscow Virtuosi, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ensemble, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Sønderjyllands Symphony Orchestra and Tapiola Sinfonietta.

2017 saw the release on BIS of a recording with Alec Frank-Gemmill of 19th century music for horn and piano, recorded on four exquisite historical pianos (and four fantastical historical horns) spanning 1815 - 1895. This release joins an acclaimed discography of three solo and numerous chamber recordings, on BIS, Claves, Champs Hill, Evil Penguin and SOMM labels.

A regular participant at the open chamber music at IMS Prussia Cove, Alasdair took part in their tours of 2007 and 2011, and collected the 2008 RPS Award for Chamber Music on their behalf. He has enjoyed working closely with composers George Benjamin, Harrison Birtwistle, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Heinz Holliger and Helena Winkelman. Alasdair is founder and artistic director of the French chamber music festival Musique à Marsac.

Natacha Kudritskaya was born in Perm in the Urals in 1983. Her parents, both musicians, encouraged her to play the piano. She studied in Kiev, first at the Lysenko School and then at the Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music. From 2003 she worked with the pianist Alain Planès at the Conservatoire de Paris and in 2007 she was admitted to the Conservatoire’s advanced course to study with Jacques Rouvier. She continues to work with pianists Ferenc Rados and Elisabeth Leonskaja. Natacha feels ‘very comfortable’ playing French music. In 2009 she was awarded the Grand Prix by the Safran Foundation for Music and featured on the Génération Spedidam programme. She won first prize at the Vibrarté International Music Competition and the Robert Casadesus Prize for her performance of French music. She is particularly fond of Bach, Rameau and Couperin, and of the romantic repertoire. She has record works by Rameau, Berio and Ravel. Her CD of suites by Rameau on a modern Yamaha piano has been greatly praised.

A
virtuoso of three instruments, a composer of orchestral music and an improviser fluent in all musical languages, Svante Henryson moves boundlessly across the entire musical spectrum. As a cellist, performing jazz, world music or rock, he makes the cello sound as if it always belonged in these disparate sound worlds. Svante grew up in Umeå, playing in local jazz clubs as a bass player. As a double bassist, still in his teens, he became a member of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Then he enjoyed a three-year stint as a bass guitarist with rock guitar legend Yngwie Malmsteen. As a composer, Svante’s work includes symphonic, choral, chamber and jazz, as well as several concerti for cello and electric bass. His Sonata for Solo Violin was awarded the Swedish prize for Chamber Music Work of the Year. Noted performers of his works include Anne-Sofie von Otter, Elvis Costello and Martin Fröst. As an improviser, Svante belongs to the top layer of modern Scandinavian jazz musicians. Awards include Jazz Musician of the Year in Sweden 2014, and the prestigious Nordic Council Music Prize 2015.

A British Indian composer and virtuoso player of the sarod, Soumik Datta trained with the sarod legend Pandit Buddhadev Das Gupta while completing his Masters in Composition at Trinity College of Music. Soumik’s concerts bridge the world of Indian classical and contemporary music. He collaborates with musicians across the globe to bring his sarod and their instruments to wider audiences, including Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Bill Bailey, Akram Khan and Nitin Sawhney. In 2014, Soumik was commissioned by Edinburgh Mela and the Commonwealth Games to rescore Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Gayne Bagha Gyne, receiving rave reviews. In 2015, he was invited to co-compose music for choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui’s show Fractus V. Soumik’s most recent work has been as a filmmaker and producer for Tuning 2 You: Lost Musicians of India. He spent one year of his life traveling across six states of India, shooting and collaborating with over one hundred grassroots musicians.

Baba Israel was raised in New York by parents who were core members of the Living Theatre, exploring spoken word, hip hop, and experimental performance. Baba began his career as an arts educator in Australia, and is a leading educator and consultant with organisations including Urban Word, BAM, Dubspot and the University of Madison. He has also worked as a cultural ambassador with the US State Department, and is co-founder and Artistic Director of Playback NYC Theatre Company, bringing theatre to hospitals, prisons, homeless shelters, theatres and festivals. He has toured across the US, Europe, South America, Australia and Asia. His debut album, Mind Music, was released on Velour records in 2001; this was followed by collaborative projects with Yako 440. From 2009–12 Baba was artistic director and CEO of Contact Theatre in Manchester, creating flagship festivals, directing and producing touring productions, and focusing on innovative and diverse work. He is also a core member of the hip hop/soul project Soul Inscribed.