The international ARUNDOSquintett – Anna Saha (flute), Yoshihiko Shimo (oboe), Christine Stemmler (clarinet), Lisa Rogers (horn) and Yuka Maehrle (bassoon) has its artistic home in the federate state of North Rhine-Westphalia, which awarded the quintet a three-year ensemble grant in 2020. The debut CD Origin was supported by a grant from the Kunststiftung NRW and received enthusiastic reviews in the specialised press as well as from Deutschlandfunk, Deutschlandfunk Kultur and rbb Berlin. With Saga, the ensemble is now presenting its second CD release, again sponsored by the Kunststiftung NRW. On stage, the ARUNDOSquintett has delighted audiences in numerous chamber music series, for example at the Kölner Philharmonie, the WDR Funkhaus Köln and Beethovenhaus Bonn, on tours to Spain, Italy, Denmark and Belgium, as well as at the Rheingau Musik Festival and Kempen Klassik. Founded in 2013 at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, the ARUNDOSquintett won prizes at the Antón García Abril 2014 and Castilla y León 2015 chamber music competitions, as well as a scholarship from the Werner Richard – Dr. Carl Dörken Foundation and the Best of NRW 2016 concert series. The ensemble qualified for participation in the ARD Music Competition 2014, Carl Nielsen International Music Competition 2015 and Osaka International Chamber Music Competition 2017. Its extensive repertoire ranges from the classical composer Anton Reicha and arrangements from the romantic period to French and German wind chamber music of the twentieth century, as well as very recent compositions. In 2020, the ensemble announced a composition competition at German music colleges in order to inspire the next generation of composers for the wind quintet genre. Broadening musical horizons is just as important to the ARUNDOSquintett as is varied and knowledgeable programme design spanning different epochs and styles – and, not least, dialogue with the audience, stimulated by their own personal concert introductions. The CD recordings bear witness to this passion for presenting the newer repertoire for wind quintet in first recordings and expanding it with commissioned compositions.

The VOKTETT HANNOVER was founded in 2012 by students of the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media as a mixed and double-choir vocal ensemble and has since developed into one of the leading national a cappella formations. The eight singers perform a wide variety of programmes at renowned concert series and festivals throughout Germany. These include the Bachfest Leipzig, chor.com, the Kultursommer Nordhessen, Rheingau Musik Festival, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, MDR Musiksommer, Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, Internationale A-cappella-Woche Hannover and the Stunde der Kirchenmusik Stuttgart. The ensemble’s extensive a cappella repertoire ranges from the beginnings of polyphonic vocal music to commissions from contemporary composers. In joint concert programmes, the VOKTETT HANNOVER also performs together with other renowned ensembles, including the baroque ensembles L’Arpeggiata, la festa musicale, Concerto Ispirato and the vocal ensemble VOCES8. The ensemble has given several performances of Johann Sebastian Bach’s St John Passion in small vocal formation. The VOKTETT HANNOVER won first prize of the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University Competition in 2015 and of the German Choir Competition in 2018. The ensemble was awarded the German Record Critics’ Prize for the album Gregor Joseph Werner: Masses and Motets. Other CD releases were also met with critical acclaim and a number of concert recordings and further contributions have been aired by various public broadcasters in recent years. VOKTETT HANNOVER has been closely associated with Hanover’s Markuskirche as its ensemble in residence for many years. Since 2024, the ensemble has received institutional funding from the city of Hanover (UNESCO City of Music).

Das erste musikalische Zusammentreffen des deutschen Geigers und des israelischen Pianisten fand noch während ihres Studiums statt, als die beiden für einen Austausch ihrer Heimat-Hochschule „Hanns Eisler“ Berlin mit der Juilliard School 2008 nach New York ausgewählt wurden und dort gemeinsam konzertierten. So begann eine langjährige enge Zusammenarbeit, in dieser das Duo stets sein breites Repertoire für Violine und Klavier erweitert. Die beiden genießen es, die Vielfältigkeit und Vielseitigkeit des Dialogs zwischen beiden Instrumenten durch regelmäßiges Konzertieren dem Publikum im In- und Ausland zu vermitteln. Ein Höhepunkt des gemeinsamen Weges war 2009 der Gewinn des 2. Preises (bei Nichtvergabe des 1. Preises) bei einem der seltenen Wettbewerbe für diese Besetzung- dem Internationalen Wettbewerb „Schubert und die Musik der Moderne“ in Graz. Es folgten Einladungen, u.a für das Musikfestival in Ushuaia, Argentinien, in welchem das Duo neben Stücken von Schubert und Schumann auch Werke von O. Messiaen und H. Holliger präsentiert hat. Als Ergebnis der intensiven gemeinsamen Arbeit widmet sich das Duo auf seiner Debüt- CD nun vier ausgewählten Werken des 20. Jahrhunderts.

Siblings Sophie (*2000) and Vincent (*1998) Neeb discovered the uniquely in-depth musical experience of playing together as a piano duo in their early youth. On the path of their artistic development, they have won many awards: among other honours, they won the competition at the International Piano Duo Festival Bad Herrenalb in 2013 as well as the WDR Klassikpreis of the city of Münster and the first prize of the Southwest German Chamber Music Competition in Bad Dürkheim in 2015. In 2017 they received the Primo Premio Assoluto in addition to numerous special prizes at the Concorso Pianistico Internazionale Roma for piano four hands. The following year they were named fellowship holders of the Hans and Eugenia Jütting Foundation; in addition, they are fellowship holders of the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now association. At the 2019 German Music Competition, they received several special prizes and a scholarship in conjunction with their inclusion in the Federal Selection of Concerts of Young Artists. Since then they have performed in renowned halls such as the Prinzregententheater Munich, the Sendesaal Bremen, and the NDR Landesfunkhaus Hannover as well as at prestigious festivals such as the Sommerliche Musiktage Hitzacker, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and the Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte Montepulciano. Sophie and Vincent Neeb completed their piano duo studies with Shao-Yin Huang and Sebastian Euler at the Innsbruck Conservatory. They have received inspiration from other leading duos such as Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen as well as from Hans-Peter and Volker Stenzl. They received their first piano lessons from Stefan Flemmerer and were later junior students in Munich at the HMTM with Michaela Pühn. Vincent Neeb then studied at the same institution with Markus Bellheim and is now continuing his studies in Hanover at the HMTMH with Ewa Kupiec. Sophie Neeb began her studies with Sebastian Euler at the Innsbruck Conservatory and is currently continuing with Konstanze Eickhorst at the Lübeck Academy of Music.