JENS ELVEKJÆR
Piano

Photo: Suste Bonnén

As one of Scandinavia’s leading pianists, Jens has played concerts all over the world, in the past 26 years especially with his trio, Trio con Brio Copenhagen, with whom he has played almost 1,700 concerts. His recent seasons include the Boulez Saal in Berlin, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Theatre de la Ville Paris, Kennedy Center Washington DC and the DR Koncerthuset and Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen.

There have also been a number of CD releases, including eight critically acclaimed releases with Trio con Brio Copenhagen, a solo CD of music by Debussy, Ravel and Franck, and a recording of Carl Nielsen’s chamber music.

Alongside his artistic career, Jens Elvekjær is also an active entrepreneur on the Danish music scene, and has in recent years been a founder and artistic director of several festivals, including the Copenhagen Chamber Music Festival and Chamber Music at Lundsgaard.

Since 2008, Jens Elvekjær has taught principal study students in piano at RDAM, as well as students in the Advanced Postgraduate Diploma in Music (soloist) class – from 2012 as Associate Professor. As of 1 April 2020, he has been appointed Professor in piano and chamber music at RDAM.

He is also chairman of the Hellerup Chamber Music Association, which has become one of the country’s largest and foremost music associations.

Jens was born in Copenhagen and studied with K. H. Kämmerling in Salzburg, Leonid Brumberg in Vienna, Ferenc Radosc in Budapest, and the Alban Berg Quartett in Cologne. His debut solo CD of works by Ravel, Debussy, and Franck was nominated for two Danish Music Awards.

HENNINGE LANDAAS
Viola

Henninge Landaas received her musical training at the Trondheim Municipal Music School in the 1970s and 1980s, and continued her studies with Bjarne Fiskum in Trondheim and Magnus Ericsson at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.

Henninge Landaas held the position of co-principal viola of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for 18 years, and was also a long-standing member of the internationally acclaimed Vertavo Quartet, touring major concert halls throughout the world. Critically acclaimed CD recordings include works by composers such as Carl Nielsen, Brahms, Bartók, Beethoven, Sibelius, Verdi, Grieg and Debussy. With the Vertavo Quartet, Landaas received the Norwegian Critics’ Prize, the Spellemann Award, and the prestigious Diapason d’Or in France.

Landaas is one of the founders of SSens Trio. With the trio, she now tours regularly and records for LAWO Classics. These recordings have received excellent reviews in publications including Classica (France), Fanfare Magazine and Pizzicato Magazine. In 2020, the trio was nominated for the prestigious Opus Klassik Award in Germany.

She has also released a number of CDs on LAWO Classics featuring solo and duo repertoire, including Brahms´ Sonatas for Viola and Piano with Tim Horton, Mozart/Brustad/Passacaglia with Elise Båtnes, and The Golden Hindemith with, among others, Bjørg Lewis and Vegard Landaas.

Henninge Landaas plays a J. B. Guadagnini viola, on loan from Dextra Musica.

MARIANNE THORSEN
Violin

Photo: Ole Wuttudal

Marianne enjoys a varied musical life as a performer. As a soloist, she has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, all the Norwegian orchestras and many of the major orchestras in Scandinavia.

With a particular passion for chamber music, Marianne was first violin of the Nash Ensemble from 2000–2015 and a founder member of the Leopold String Trio from 1991–2006, touring extensively and appearing at the BBC Proms as well as numerous festivals.

Other notable projects include regular collaborations with Norway’s renowned string orchestra Trondheim Soloists, with whom she recorded Mozart’s Violin concertos nos. 3-5 to great critical acclaim, winning the Norwegian Spellemann prize in 2006. 2011–2014 also saw the release of five CDs of music by Halvorsen and Svendsen on the Chandos label, with Thorsen as soloist alongside the Bergen Philharmonic and Neeme Järvi.

PAUL WATKINS
Cello

Photo: Jürgen Frank

Acclaimed for his inspirational performances and eloquent musicianship, Paul Watkins enjoys a distinguished career as concerto soloist, chamber musician and conductor. He is the Artistic Director of the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival in Detroit (since 2014), the cellist of the Emerson String Quartet (2013-2023) and Professor of Cello at Yale School of Music (since 2018). He took first prize in the 2002 Leeds Conducting Competition, and has held the positions of Music Director of the English Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the Ulster Orchestra.

As a cellist, Watkins has given regular concerto performances with prestigious orchestras across the globe. Also, a dedicated chamber musician, Watkins was a member of the Nash Ensemble (1997-2013) and the Emerson String Quartet (2013-2023). After 44 successful seasons, the Quartet has decided to retire, and undertaken an extensive series farewell tours, culminating in their final performances in New York Lincoln Center in October 2023, where the concert is being filmed for a planned documentary by filmmaker Tristan Cook, and the release of their final recording of Berg, Chausson, Schoenberg and Hindemith with prestigious guests soprano Barbara Hannigan and pianist Bertrand Chamayou.

As a conductor, Watkins has conducted all the major British orchestras, and a wide range of international orchestras. In 2006 he made his opera debut conducting a critically praised new production of Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine for Opera North.

Highlights of the 23/24 season include a recording of the Richard Rodney Bennett cello concerto for Chandos with the BBC Scottish Symphony), Tippett’s Triple Concerto with the Halle orchestra and Shostakovich with the Aalborg Symphony.

DANA ZEMTSOV
Viola

Photo: Marco Borggreve

Dana Zemtsov is one of the most promising viola soloists of her generation. Gramophone Magazine has celebrated her playing as being “so perfectly tuned, so varied in color and with such considerable distances in the intervals between the notes, that you would be forgiven for thinking it sounded more like a chamber orchestra”.

Dana regularly performs in concert halls such as the Royal Concertgebouw Amsterdam, St. Petersburg Philharmonia, The Opera House in Tel Aviv, and Carnegie Hall in New York. She has played chamber music with Janine Jansen, Giovanni Sollima, Martin Frost, Anna Fedorova, Ilya Gringolts, Boris Berezovsky, and many others. As a soloist, Dana has performed with symphony orchestras in the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, US, Brasil, Mexico, Ukraine and Estonia, under the baton of Leif Segerstam, Otto Tausk, Daniel Raiskin, Massimo Quarta, Marco Parisotto, and Fabio Mechetti. In 2011, she participated in the ‘Stars of Tomorrow’ tour in Germany, together with the most promising young talents of Europe.

Dana is 1st Prize laureate of several competitions in Luxembourg, Italy, Austria, Germany, Portugal, and the Netherlands. In 2010 she won the Dutch competition ’Evening of the Young Musician’ and became the Young Musician of the Year. She represented The Netherlands at the Eurovision Young Musicians Competition in Vienna. She has also been awarded the prestigious Kersjes Prize, granted every year to an outstanding young string player in the Netherlands. In 2016, Dana was chosen as ‘Guest of Honor’ among talented young violists to represent her generation at the 43rd Viola Congress in Cremona by the side of Bruno Giuranna, Ettore Causa and Tabea Zimmermann.

So far, Dana has released five critically acclaimed albums: ‘Enigma’ (solo, 2014), ‘Romantic Metamorphoses’ (with pianist Cathelijne Noorland, 2015), ‘Essentia’ (with Estonian National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Daniel Raiskin, 2018), ‘Silhouettes’ (with pianist Anna Fedorova, 2020), and ‘Dutch Hidden Gems’ (with Phion Orchestra, pianist Anna Fedorova and conductor Shizuo Z Kuwahara 2022), all on the Channel Classics Records label.

In her own words, Dana tells us: "I was born in Mexico City, into an intensely musical family. Apart from a few violinists, a composer and one singer, the rest of my family members are all viola players. I like to think that part of the inspiration for me to pick up the viola was my grandmother Mila. She was a very free and bohemian spirit, a wonderful violist and so in love with music! Her dream was for the whole family to live in the same house in the countryside and to make music together all day long. That is the atmosphere that I want to keep alive, I bring that unconditional love for music to every single concert that I play."

Born into a family of musicians in 1992, Dana received her first music lessons from her grandmother and her parents. She continued her studies with viola virtuoso Michael Kugel. Dana teaches regularly at places such as the Kuhmo Festival, Cividale International Masterclasses and the Davidsbündler Music Academy in The Hague. Together with family members, she annually organizes the Zemtsov Viola Masterclasses.