A jury of three academy instructors may prequalify one or two of the participating piano trios at TICC Academy 2022 directly to the Competition for piano trios in 2023.

The 3rd prize winners of TICC Competition 2019 also won the Kim Trio Commission Prize and the Audience Prize. Trio Opal, prequalified from the 2018 Academy and ended up winning cash prizes of 7 000,- EURO.

As a part of our academy we offer the possiblity of studying chamber music playing together with the instructors. This is in addition to masterclasses with the quartets chosen repertoire. As this is our 12th academy we know this makes our young talents perform better than ever before. The repertoire will be decided by the instructors and the academy, and also which group is playing with which instructor.

TICC is proudly presenting this year's academy instructors:

Tetzlaff Quartett

Stefan Mendl

Stefan Mendl was born in Vienna in 1966. He started his piano education with Manfred Wagner-Artzt and later studied with Alexander Jenner at the University of Music in Vienna. In his early career he appeared regularly as a soloist in Austria and abroad. He was a founding member of the Vienna Piano Trio in 1988, which soon became one of Europe’s leading chamber ensembles. The trio studied with artists like the Haydn Trio Wien, Isaac Stern and members of the LaSalle and Guarneri Quartets. Numerous CD´s have gained international acclaim, such as Gramophone Editor´s Choice and Echo-Klassik in 2010 and 2012. Stefan Mendl appears frequently in duo-recitals with cellist Clemens Hagen and works regularly with artists like Jörg Widmann, Ruth Ziesak and Mark Padmore. He has given masterclasses at Wigmore Hall and the Royal College of Music in London, the Sibelius Academy, the HMdK in Stuttgart and Hochschule Hanns Eisler. He frequently appears as a jury-member in various chamber music competitions, among others the ARD International Music Competition (2018) and the International Johannes Brahms Competition Pörtschach (2019). Stefan Mendl is teaching Chamber Music at the University of Music and Performing Arts -mdw in Vienna.

Miguel da Silva

Miguel da Silva was born in Reims in 1961. He studied at the Conservatoire in Reims and later at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris, with Serge Collot. He founded the Ysaÿe Quartet with 3 of his friends. They studied with the Amadeus String Quartet and after winning the 1st prize at the Evian String Quartet Competition in 1988 an international career followed, taking them throughout the world. Engagements have led Miguel to most of the greatest concert halls in Europe, from the Wigmore Hall in London to Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. He has appeared as a soloist with many orchestras in Europe, such as the Paris Chamber Orchestra and the Franz-Liszt orchestra and has collaborated with various musicians, from Leonidas Kavakos to Truls Mørk and Emmanuel Pahud, da Silva has done numerous recordings, both with the quartet and as a soloist. In 1994 he started a class of string quartets at the Conservatoire National de Région in Paris and in 2008 he was appointed professor in Luebeck’s Musikhochschule. In 2009, he joined Geneva’s Haute Ecole de Musique as a viola and chamber music teacher, and became the artistic director of Académie musicale de Villecroze in France. He is Master in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium.   

Matthew McDonald

Matthew McDonald was born in Canberra, Australia. In 1996 he began his studies with Max McBride at the Canberra School of Music, later continuing with Kees Boersma in Sydney, completing his bachelor’s degree in 2000. From 2000 to 2001 he was a scholar of the Berliner Philharmoniker’s Orchestra Academy, and was then engaged as deputy principal bass of the Danish National Orchestra. Studies followed at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin, with Esko Laine. Engagements followed as principal bass with the Ensemble Modern and with Berlin’s Rundfunk Sinfonie Orchester and Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, before he came to the Berliner Philharmoniker in 2009. Chamber music is one of Matthew’s passions. He has performed with Imogen Cooper, Radovan Vlatkovic, Mark Padmore and the Kuss Quartet, and played the Rossini Duo at the Wigmore Hall with cellist Phillip Higham in 2010. Matthew has given masterclasses at Yale University, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and at the Tongyeong Music Festival in South Korea. He has tutored the bass sections of the European Union Youth Orchestra, The Britten Pears Orchestra and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie. He is a professor at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler, teacher at the Karajan Academy and visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music London.

Photo credits:

Tetzlaff Quartett: Giorgia Bertazzi, Stefan Mendl: Nancy Horowitz, Matthew McDonald: Emile Holba

TICC Academy rules 2022:
1.       12th Trondheim International Chamber Music Academy, TICC Academy 2022, is open to piano trios.

2.       Applications will be accepted from musicians of all nationalities provided the combined maximum age of the trio members as of 1 September 2022 does not exceed 87 years. The age limit for each musician of the trio must be under 34 and over 15 years on 1 September 2022.

3.       Musicians may only enter the Academy as a member of one piano trio.

4.       Musicians are responsible for all travel expenses. There are possibilities for applying for travel funding, which can be provided based on the need and the total travel costs of the groups.

5.       The competition will offer lodging in 2-bed room, as well as breakfast and one hot meal a day.

6.       The application deadline is; 20 April 2022. The following documents must be uploaded the application:

A copy of birth certificate or similar official document confirming the date and place of birth of each candidate.
Curriculum vitae with particulars of training, awards and diplomas and recent concert appearances of the trio.
Two recent professional references.
Two recent digital high-resolution photographs of the trio.
Two recent audio recordings of high quality (WAV or AIFF), or in formats with lossless compression, such as FLAC or ALAC (.m4a), minimum Bitrate 256kbps, minimum Bitrate 164kbps), of the trio containing two contrasting movements with a total duration of minimum 12 minutes. This should be: 
- one first movement of a Beethoven piano trio 
and 
- one movement from the romantic or 20th/21th century repertoire. 
Each movement should be recorded in one "take" and must not be edited or altered in any way. TICC ACADEMY reserves the right to disqualify applicants entering studio enhanced or modified tapes. Applicants are anonymous to the jury when considered for TICC ACADEMY. Label the recordings in English “Piece one” and “Piece two” to keep all applicants anonymous.
A letter from a teacher or professional musician certifying the authenticity of the recording.      
7. There will be a non-refundable entry fee of EUR 120 per trio which should not be sent before the application has been accepted.

8.       Each trio will be required to prepare 1-2 works of free choice of a minimum duration of 20 minutes. Each trio will also be expected to prepare works to be played together with the instructors. These works will be announced once the participating trios have been chosen.

9.       All participants shall agree to have their performances recorded, filmed or broadcast on in any medium, live, in whole or in part, in sound, and/or in images. No payment will be made to participants for the recording or broadcasting of the Academy performances.

10.   Rehearsal facilities, including the provision of music stands, will be available to all participants.

11.   English is the official language.

Academy repertoire:
a) Compulsory
1-2 piano trios of free choice, min. duration of 20’

b) One work which the trio will play together with one of the instructors. This piece will be announced after selection of the participants.
(for example piano quartets or quintets or similar)

François Kieffer has been fascinated by chamber music and the world of the string quartet from an early age and is the founding cellist of the Quatuor Modigliani.

Trained at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Philippe Muller and Daria Hovora, he was unanimously awarded his first prize in chamber music as well as his cello prize.

In 2003 he won an audition as solo cellist of the Orchestre Français des Jeunes and founded the Quatuor Modigliani with three friends. The group went on to win three First Prizes at the International Competitions in Eindhoven (2004), Vittorio Rimbotti in Florence (2005) and the prestigious Young Concert Artists Auditions in New York (2006). Since then, the quartet has embarked on an international career in Japan, the United States, Australia, and Europe. It has made some twenty recordings, including the complete set of Schubert's 15 quartets, and won prestigious awards in France and abroad.

After studying with the Ysaÿe Quartet and attending masterclasses with Walter Levin and Gyorgy Kurtag, the Modigliani Quartet was invited to work with the Artemis Quartet at the Berlin University of the Arts. The Quatuor Modigliani has also performed and commissioned numerous contemporary works by Marc-Antony Turnage, Philippe Hersant, Pēteris Vasks, Kaija Saariaho, Evgeny Kissin, Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, Bruno Mantovani, and Elise Bertrand.

In 2014, together with the Quatuor Modigliani, he relaunched the Rencontres Musicales d’Evian after a thirteen-year hiatus, and in 2016 created the Atelier des Rencontres musicales d’Evian. The quartet is currently artistic director of the Saint-Paul de Vence Festival and the Arcachon Chamber Music Festival. In 2020, the quartet was also entrusted with the artistic direction of the International Quartet Competition in Bordeaux, Vibre!

François Kieffer's chamber music partners include Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Gérard Caussé, Nicholas Angelich, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Sabine Meyer, Sayaka Shoji, Gary Hofmann, Julian Rachlin, Franck Braley, Michel Dalberto, Clemens and Veronika Hagen, and the Ysaÿe and Emerson Quartets.

After almost 20 years of experience, he is a regular guest for the juries of international competitions and gives masterclasses throughout the world (Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, Menuhin School, Yonsei University, Rice University, Norges musikkhøgskole Oslo, Aix en Provence Festival). In 2023 he set up a quartet class at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris and taught the Novo, Elmire and Magenta quartets.

François Kieffer plays a 1706 cello by Matteo Goffriller "ex-Warburg", and a bow by Dominique Pecatte from 1850.

FOR ACADEMY:
Each quartet will be required to prepare 1-2 works of free choice (standard string quartet repertoire), of a minimum duration of 20 minutes. Each quartet will also be expected to prepare one work to be played together with the instructors like a standard repertoire quintet. This work will be announced once the participating quartets have been chosen.

FOR APPLICATION:
One first movement of a Beethoven, Haydn or Mozart string quartet and one movement from the romantic or 20th/21st century repertoire. 

EXTRA:
This year TICC Academy offers participating quartets to play for composer Jessie Montgomery in masterclass. You may choose from the following 5-10 min pieces:

"Strum"
"Break Away"
"Source Code"
"Voodoo Dolls"

Grammy winning composer Jessie Montgomery is the festival Composer at Trondheim Chamber Music Festival arranged parallel to TICC Academy. She is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and former member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist appearing regularly with her own ensembles.

Born in France in 1988, Hélène Clément has learned to combine her proud love for french wine with the cheese delicacies found in England when she moved to London in 2013. Her ferocious enthusiasm and thirst for the chamber music and viola repertoire leads her to constantly expand her musical horizons by performing with a wide range of different collaborations, playing in the most prestigious concert halls in Europe and around the World.

Following her passion as a chamber musician, she has performed at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Konzerthaus in Berlin, the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Cité de la Musique in Paris. Her chamber music partners have included Mitsuko Uchida, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Nicolas Altstaedt, Benjamin Grosvenor, Alexander Melnikov and Peter Wispelwey, as well as the Brentano String Quartet and the Nash Ensemble.

Since September 2013, she is the viola player of the Doric String Quartet, with which she fulfils her appetite for deep explorations of the repertoire, from Haydn String Quartets to newly commissioned pieces. Recent highlights include recitals at the Amsterdam Muziekgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, Frankfurt Alte Oper, Hamburg Laeiszhalle and De Singel, and regular performances at the Wigmore Hall. Further afield they have toured to Japan, Israel, Australia, America, Asia and New Zealand.

The Quartet has released a wide range of recordings, working exclusively with Chandos Records. Their most recent releases include works by Haydn, Britten, Mozart and Mendelssohn.

Ms Clément is a frequent guest at the prestigious Marlboro Music Festival in America and Prussia Cove in England.

She is Principal Viola Player of the innovative Aurora Orchestra based in London, taking part in exciting projects such as playing symphonies by memory and chamber music projects in the most prestigious concert halls.

She teaches viola and chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music of London.
Mentoring and coaching young talents is taking a growing place in her life, and she is with her String Quartet the Artistic Director of the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival, a position that sees her play a key role in providing young professionals in the field of chamber music with a week of intensive mentoring, coaching and development.

Ms Clement is currently playing on a 1843 Italian viola owned previously by Benjamin Britten and Frank Bridge. The viola is generously lent to her by Britten Pears Arts.

Albéniz Trio was founded in 2017. Based in Amsterdam and Madrid, they have been working together and have since performed in different venues in several European countries such as the National Auditorium of Music, Sony Auditorium and the Juan March Foundation in Madrid, Het Concertgebouw, and Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam, Tauberphillharmonie in Baden-Wurtemberg, Germany, and Tívoli Vredenburg in Utrecht, among others.

The members of the Albéniz Trio met in Madrid, Spain, at the prestigious Reina Sofía School of Music. All its three members have been awarded in their respective instrumental disciplines by Her Majesty Queen Sofía, and they have received the Reina Sofía School of Music “Most outstanding Chamber Music Group” award under the tutelage of professors Günter Pichler, Heime Müller, and Marta Gulyás.

The Albéniz Trio has built up its own identity throughout its career: not only do they perform most of its repertoire from memory, but they also interact with the audience in their concerts. Moreover, the features that best characterize this ensemble are high professionalism in the interpretation of music, their youthful style and their closeness to the new generations of aficionados. As a result, they have received awards such as the 2020 “Jeunesses Musicales” Prize, and in June 2021, 1st prize at the IX “Antón García Abril” International Chamber Music Competition, Spain. In April 2022 they received the 1st Prize and the “Arthur Rubinstein” Special Prize at the XXI “Kiejstut Bacewicz” International Chamber Music Competition in Łódź, Poland.

The Albéniz Trio already has a busy agenda of future commitments for the 2022-23 season. They are winners of the “Rising Ensemble” Award 2022 of the FestClásica chamber music series in Spain. They will take
part in highly prestigious festivals such as the Rheingau Musik Festival, Hohenloher Kultursommers Festival in Germany, in the 71st Edition of the Granada International Music and Dance Festival, the Huéscar Classical Music Festival, Spain, “Miami Music Concerts” in Florida and the International Forum for High Improvement of Southern Europe.

The Albéniz Trio continues its artistic development through masterclasses by important artists such as Menahem Pressler, Günter Pichler, Quatour Ébène, Rainer Schmidt, Péter Nagy, Luis Fernando Pérez, Dirk Mommertz, Priya Mitchell, Cuarteto Casals and Vogler Quartett. In addition, the Albéniz Trio, in its constant search for inspiration and innovation in its art, is part of the chair of chamber music at the “Hochschule für Musik und Theater” in Munich, Germany, in the company of artists such as Dirk Momertz, pianist of the renowned Fauré Quartett and the Quatour Ébène.

1. 13th Trondheim International Chamber Music Academy TICC - Academy 2024 is open to string quartets.

2. Applications will be accepted from musicians of all nationalities provided the combined maximum age of the quartet members as of 24 of September 2024 does not exceed 116 years. The age limit for each musician of the quartet must be under 34 and over 15 years on 29 of September 2024.

3. Musicians may only enter the academy as a member of one quartet.

4. Musicians are responsible for all travel expenses. There are possibilities for applying for travel funding, which can be provided based on the need and the total travel costs of the groups.

5. The academy will offer lodging in 2-bed room, as well as breakfast and one hot meal a day.

6. The application portal online closes 20 April 2024. The following attachments are required:

   a.  A copy of birth certificate or similar official document confirming the date and place of birth of each candidate.

   b.  Curriculum vitae with particulars of training, awards and diplomas and recent concert appearances of the quartet.

   c.  Two recent professional references.

   d.  Two recent high-resolution photographs of the quartet

   e.  Two recent audio recordings of high quality in uncompressed audio formats, such as (WAV or AIFF), or in formats with lossless compression, such as FLAC or ALAC (.m4a), minimum Bitrate 256kbps, of the quartet containing two contrasting movements with a total duration of min 12 minutes. This should be:

   One first movement of a Beethoven, Haydn or Mozart string quartet

   and

   one movement from the romantic or 20th/21st century repertoire.

   Each movement should be recorded in one "take" and must not be edited or altered in any way. TICC ACADEMY reserves the right to disqualify applicants entering studio enhanced or modified tapes. Applicants are anonymous to the jury when considered for TICC ACADEMY. Label the recordings in English “Piece one” and “Piece two” to keep all applicants anonymous.

   f.  A letter from a teacher or professional musician certifying the authenticity of the recording.

7. There will be a non-refundable entry fee of EUR 160 per quartet which should not be sent before the application has been accepted.

8. Each quartet will be required to prepare 1-2 works of free choice of a minimum duration of 20 minutes. Each quartet will also be expected to prepare works to be played together with the instructors. These works will be announced once the participating quartets have been chosen.

9. All participants shall agree to have their performances recorded, filmed or broadcast on in any medium, live, in whole or in part, in sound, and/or in images. No payment will be made to participants for the recording or broadcasting of the Academy performances.

10. Rehearsal facilities, including the provision of music stands, will be available to all participants.

11. English is the official language.

Lorraine discovered the double bass at the age of 5, and first learnt with Jean-Edmond Bacquet, before being accepted at the Paris CNSM in 2012, in Thierry Barbé's class. She received her Masters degree in 2016 and went on to study for one year with Petru Iuga at the University of Mannheim in Germany.

Alongside the double bass, Lorraine also studies the violin, firstly working with Suzanne Gessner at the Regional Conservatoire of Paris, before being accepted at the Paris CNSM where she received her Bachelor degree in Jean-Marc Phillips-Varjabedian’s class in 2019.

Lorraine is frequently invited to play as a soloist and to give master class in the whole world (China, USA, UK, Germany, Venezuela..). She regularly plays as a chamber musician in various festivals such as le Festival de Pâques in Aix-en-Provence, le Festival de Pâques in Deauville, les Rencontres Musicales d'Evian, La Folle Journée de Nantes, alongside artists such as Barbara Hannigan, Renaud Capuçon, Leonidas Kavakos, the Trio Wanderer, Lise Berthaud, Sarah Nemtanu, François Salque, the Modigliani Quartet, Christophe Morin…

As a soloist, she performs in France and abroad for recitals and solo concerts with orchestra.

She is currently invited to perform with MusicAeterna Orchestra and Utopia Orchestra conducted by Teodor Currentzis, as well as with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Sinfonia Grange au Lac in Evian.

She has been awarded the first prize for both the Leopold Bellan International Competition and the International Double Bass Competition in Amsterdam “Bass 2014”.

In 2017, she won both the Festival Prize and the Prize for best interpretation of a contemporary piece at the FMAJI. The same year she also won second prize at the International Giovanni Bottesini Competition.

From 2015 to 2022, she was co-principal bass for the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.

She plays an exceptional double bass by Pietro-Antonio Testore on loan from Xavier and Joséphine Moreno through Emmanuel Jaeger and a modern double bass by the luthier Richard Gonon and is endorsed by Pirastro Strings.

As a violinist, Lorraine is a member of the Confluence Quartet, in residence at the Fondation Singer-Polignac, awarded the first prize for the Trondheim International String Quartet Competition. She is lucky enough to play a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini on loan from the Boubo-Music Foundation, and a bow by Edwin Clément.

Formed at The Glenn Gould School (GGS) of the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto, the Mykola Trio (MEE-ko-la) is composed of Daniel Dastoor (violin), David Liam Roberts (cello) and Godwin Friesen (piano). Successful chamber musicians separately, they began playing together in 2021, receiving coaching from Bryan Epperson. Five months later, they won first prize at The GGS Chamber Competition performing Tchaikovsky's Piano Trio. Recognized for their depth of storytelling and strong musical conviction, the Mykola Trio has had several performances in Toronto with highlights including a recital in the concert series “Concerts at 100” and the premiere of a new work for piano quartet.

Individually, the three artists bring extensive experience to the group. Daniel is a winner of the Calgary Philharmonic’s Marley Rynd Scholarship, has performed as soloist with the Lethbridge Symphony and Calgary Philharmonic, and has competed at the Joseph Joachim Violin Competition and the Fischoff Chamber Competition. He holds an Artist Diploma from the GGS, where he studied as a Temerty Fellow with Paul Kantor and Barry Shiffman, and is now pursuing an Artist Diploma in Chamber Music at the San Francisco Conservatory in the studio of Ian Swensen. David Liam received the 2021 Michael Measures Prize through the Canada Council for the Arts and performs regularly with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He is currently pursuing an Artist Diploma at the GGS, where he is a student of Hans Jørgen Jensen and Andrés Díaz and is a Temerty Fellow. Godwin recently won second prize at the PianoArts North American Piano Competition and was also a quarterfinalist in the 2022 Dublin International Piano Competition. Having performed concertos with several orchestras including the Milwaukee, Saskatoon and Regina Symphonies, his favourite concerto experience was directing from the piano an orchestra of his fellow GGS students. He received an Artist Diploma from the GGS and is now a graduate student at l'Université de Montréal, studying with Henry Kramer.

Daniel plays on a 1737 Guidantus violin on generous loan from the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. David Liam plays on a cello that was made specifically for him in 2017 by Canadian luthier Garth Lee.

Trio Basilea was formed in Basel, Switzerland in 2021 and has since then developed and grown, inspired by their shared ambition and passion for chamber music. Their strong rapport as a group has been recognized by others as they have been invited to perform for the Federal Council of Basel-Stadt as well as in Open Chamber Music Concerts. Recently, Trio Basilea had masterclasses with Steven Isserlis and Péter Nagy and are currently students of Prof. Anna Gebert at the Musik Akademie Basel.

Photo: Elena Urioste

Tom Poster is a musician whose skills and passions extend well beyond the conventional role of the concert pianist. He has been described as “a marvel, [who] can play anything in any style” (The Herald), “mercurially brilliant” (The Strad), and as having “a beautiful tone that you can sink into like a pile of cushions” (BBC Music).

During the 2020 lockdown, his #UriPosteJukebox series with Elena Urioste - featuring Tom as pianist, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, writer, backing dancer and snowman - brought a staggeringly diverse selection of music to audiences across the world through 88 daily online performances, for which the duo won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Inspiration Award. Their subsequent recording, The Jukebox Album, received glowing reviews and a BBC Music Magazine Award nomination.

Tom is co-founder and artistic director of Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, appointed Associate Ensemble at Wigmore Hall in 2020. With a flexible line-up featuring many of today’s most inspirational musicians, and an ardent commitment to diversity through its creative programming, Kaleidoscope broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and has recently enjoyed residencies at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham and Ischia festivals. Its debut album for Chandos Records, American Quintets, was awarded Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, and immediately led to an invitation to record a series of albums for the label.

Tom has performed over forty concertos from Mozart to Ligeti with Aurora Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, China National Symphony, Hallé, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, collaborating with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Nicholas Collon, Robin Ticciati and Yan Pascal Tortelier, or sometimes directing from the piano. He has premiered solo, chamber and concertante works by many leading composers, made multiple appearances at the BBC Proms, and his exceptional versatility has put him in great demand at festivals internationally.

Tom has recorded albums for BIS, Champs Hill, Chandos, Decca, Orchid and Warner Classics, appearing as soloist and in collaboration with Elena Urioste, Alison Balsom, Guy Johnston, the Aronowitz Ensemble, Aurora Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia and London Symphony Orchestra. He regularly features as soloist on film soundtracks, including the Oscar-nominated score for The Theory of Everything. He studied with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and at King’s College, Cambridge. He won First Prize at the Scottish International Piano Competition 2007 and the keyboard section of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 2000.

Tom’s compositions and arrangements have been commissioned, performed and recorded by Alison Balsom, Matthew Rose, Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott. His chamber opera for puppets, The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak, received an acclaimed three-week run at Wilton’s Music Hall in 2017.

Photo: Jiyang Chen Photography

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st century American sound and experience. Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post).

Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta, and Banner (2014)—written to mark the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner”—for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation, which was presented in its UK premiere at the BBC Proms on 7 August 2021.

Summer 2021 brought a varied slate of premiere performances, including Five Freedom Songs, a song cycle conceived with and written for Soprano Julia Bullock, for Sun Valley and Grand Teton Music Festivals, San Francisco and Kansas City Symphonies, Boston and New Haven Symphony Orchestras, and the Virginia Arts Festival (7 August); a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape Festival and Pam Tanowitz Dance, I was waiting for the echo of a better day (8 July); and Passacaglia, a flute quartet for The National Flute Association’s 49th annual convention (13 August). 

Since 1999, Jessie has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African American and Latinx string players and has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the Organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble.

A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Jessie holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a PhD Candidate in Music Composition at Princeton University. She is Professor of violin and composition at The New School. In May 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Jessie Montgomery took home the 2024 GRAMMY® Award for Best Contemporary Composition honoring her "Rounds" for Piano and String Orchestra.

Trio Incendio was founded in 2016 in Prague. The trio has won several national and international competitions, for example Gianni Bergamo Classic Music Award in Lugano, Coop Music Awards in Cremona, Concorso Musicale “Marcello Pontillo” in Firenze, Kiejstut Bacewicz Competition in Lodz, Concorso “Massimiliano Antonelli” in Latina and Bohuslav Martinů Competition in Prague, where they also gained the Special Prize for the best interpretation of the work by Martinů. In March, Trio Incendio was awarded the 2nd prize at the Joseph Joachim International Chamber Music Competition in Weimar while the 1st prize was not awarded.

The trio is a member ensemble of the European Chamber Music Academy, which gives young ensembles a possibility of working regularly with distinguished artists and professors such as Hatto Beyerle, Johannes Meissl and all the other members of the Artis Quartet, Julius Berger, Alexander Lonquich, Karla Haltenwanger (Boulanger Trio), Avedis Koyoumdjian, Marianna Shirinyan, Boris Berman, Itamar Golan, Jan Talich and Petr Prause (Talich Quartet), Vida Vujić, Patrick Jüdt, Minna Pensola (Meta4 Quartet) or Dirk Mommertz (Fauré Quartet), Hyung-ki Joo. The trio also took part in a masterclass with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) and had two sessions of a public masterclass with Alfred Brendel on Piano Trios by Schubert. One of the masterclasses on Trio No. 1 has already been released on a DVD by the Supraphon label. In 2019, Trio Incendio was invited to join the Le Dimore Del Quartetto organisation.

Trio Incendio participates regularly in the International Summer Academy in Reichenau, organised by the University of Music in Vienna. At the academy, they were awarded the Wiener Klassik Prize, Bohuslav Martinů Prize and AHUV Prize for the best interpretation of Czech contemporary music. The trio also got the Chamber Music Prize for the best ensemble of the academy and the Audience Award.

Trio Incendio performs both in the Czech Republic and abroad. The young ensemble has already given concerts in some of the most important European venues such as Philharmonie Berlin, Wigmore Hall or Rudolfinum in Prague and has been invited to festivals like Ticino Musica, the chamber music season of the Prague Spring Festival or the Davos Festival. Their concerts are appreciated for their passion, stylistic clarity and the beauty of the sound.

The Sonoro String Quartet was founded in 2019, and consists of Martha-Pil Neumer (violin), Tuva Odland (violin) Joshua Kail (viola) and Hedda Aadland (cello). They have studied at Barratt Due Institute of Music, where they received chamber music lessons from Kari Ravnan and Geir-Inge Lotsberg, the first violinist of the Oslo String Quartet. The quartet is part of the Young Oslo Quartet series , as the first young string quartet being engaged three years in a row (2019-2021). As part of the young quartet series, they receive concert experience and master classes with world- renowned quartets. Previously, the quartet has played for members of the Vision String Quartet, Juilliard String Quartet, Skampa Quartet, as well as the three major Norwegian quartets; Vertavo, Engegaard and Oslo String Quartet.
Sonoro has also been engaged in several chamber music festivals in Norway, where they have given both formal and informal concerts. The quartet participated in Sandefjord during Fjord Classics 2019, and was also a part of the Lofoten International Chamber Music Festival the same summer. In January 2020 they participated as a YAGA-ensemble during Glogerfestspillene, where they held a recital, and performed the fierce Shostakovich string octet together with Oslo String Quartet. The following summer Sonoro played the concert at Horten Chamber Music Festival, and arranged their own Up and Coming mini-tour in Lofoten. The quartet was invited to Trondheim to take part in the international chamber music academy, taking place in September 2020. This enabled the quartet to work with both the Vertavo Quartet and Quator van Kujik, and perform Brahms string quintet no.2 in the final concert with violist Jennifer Stumm.
In October 2020, the Sonoro String Quartet participated in the Midgard Competition, and won both the chamber music class as well as the Midgard Prize. This resulted in several engagements, including Norsj festival in April 2021. They were also invited to Bergen by KODE, to record a Johannes Meissl in Vienna, and Minna Pensola in Helsinki. Sonoro has previously also been part of a jazz project at Victoria scene in Oslo, chamber music concert in Harald Severuds home, Siljust l. In April 2021 the quartet also took part in the chamber music program ECMA and played, virtually, for both collaborating with Norway's foremost jazz players.