Young musicians
.. is revealed in june
Yoye Song, China
Yoye Song, violist, was born in China and studied for his master’s degree with Prof. Yuval Gotlibovich at the Conservatorio della Svizzera in Lugano, Switzerland, graduating in 2021. After graduating he went on to study for a Master of Advanced Studies in performance and interpretation with Yuval Gotlibovich in Lugano, and with Prof. Danusha Waskiewicz at the Conservatorio Cesena, Italy. He now studies for his Artist Diploma with Master Bruno Giuranna in Stauffer Academy, Cremona, Italy. Yoye is a member of the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra and has collaborated with the Orchestra Filamonica del Mediterraneo as a soloist. He has participated in several festivals across Europe, among others the Aix-en-Provence Festival, the International Mendelsohn Festival, Germany, the Italian National Viola Festival. and the Festival Musica Isaac Albeniz in Spain, where he won the Isaac Albeniz Viola Scholarship.
Anna Elisabet Sigurðardóttir, Iceland
Anna Elísabet Sigurðardóttir is an Icelandic violist born in 1997 in Reykjavík. In 2023 she finished her master’s degree from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen where she studied with Professor Tim Frederiksen and Magda Stevensson. This past year she has been on a contract with the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra as a tutti violist as well as playing various chamber music concerts and teaching. Anna is a member of the Elja Chamber Ensemble, an Icelandic chamber collective dedicated to innovative programming and performance and also performs with other ensembles such as the Reykjavík Chamber Orchestra and Caput. She regularly works with Icelandic composers on new music and has done numerous film recordings with the Reykjavík Recording Orchestra.
Sigurd Jørgensen Eide, Norway
Sigurd Jørgensen Eide is currently studying his master in violin at Edsberg castle/KMH with Per Enoksson. He did his bachelor studies at NTNU in Trondheim with professor Marianne Thorsen and MDW in Vienna with Ernst Kovacic. His musical life includes both orchestral playing, chamber music and solo performances. Recently he has performed and toured in Europe with Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester in amongst others Salzburg, Amsterdam and Dresden, with conductors Teodor Currentzis and Jukka-Pekka Saraste, and performed in Webern Symphonie Orchester in Musikverein with Kirill Petrenko. As a chamber musician, he regularly performs different works in different ensembles at Edsberg castle. As a soloist he has performed Introduction et rondo capriccioso by Saint-Saens with orchestra in Grieghallen in Bergen. He will also perform a work with Nord-Rogaland Symphony in 2024. He has received several scholarships from Tom Wilhelmsens Foundation.
Benedicte Adrian, Denmark
Benedicte Adrian, born 1995, is a student at Danish National Academy of Music. Benedicte studied her bachelor in cello with Professor Niels Ullner and has later continued with cellist Dorothea Wolff. For the time being she is a private student with Prof. Jakob Kullberg, Royal College of Music. Prior to the music academy she studied with cellist Jacob Shaw. Benedicte has played the cello since she was 10 years old and has always been curious about how the cello might come into its own in different types of music. This curiosity has brought her from performing as a soloist with Aarhus Pigekor (Aarhus Girls’ Choir) to playing with Selma Judith at Roskilde Festival and composing her own music in collaboration with a rythmic pianist. However, her love of classical music gained the upper hand when in 2018 she began studying classical cello full-time. In other words, Benedicte is a versatile musician who wishes to extend classical music to a wider audience. For this she and her fellow student Thora Kidon Jæger received a prize of entrepreneurship from Dansk Musiker Forbund and SDMK for their initiative “Classical Open Scene”.
Caroline Risbo Gammeltoft-Hansen, Danmark
Caroline Risbo Gammeltoft-Hansen finished her bachelor’s degree at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 2023 with teachers Tim Frederiksen and Asbjørn Nørgaard. She is already an experienced chamber musician who has participated in productions with The Danish String Quartet, Frederik Øland and musicians from DR Symphony Orchestra. She also played the viola in Absalon String Quartet from 2020-2021 and with them she won the Rued Langaard competition. She has assisted at several productions of the DR Symphony Orchestra, among others Mahler’s 9th symphony, Schønberg’s Gurrelieder and Elgar’s Enigma Variations. Caroline has studied with professors from all over the world, among others Tatiana Masurenko, Lars Anders Tomter, Dimitri Murrath, Gerrard Causse and Jensen Horn-Sin Lam. After the summer holidays she will start at Musik Hochschule Lübeck with Lena Eckels under the Erasmus programme.
Ensemble Aurorae
Ensemble Aurorae was founded in Oslo in 2020 by Haike Dietrich, Ema Grčman and Ragna Rian. Since then they have performed in a wide variety of formations in Norway, Canada, Lithuania and Switzerland. Next to their broad standard repertoire they use creative performance concepts that integrate contemporary and folk-music inspired music as well as forgotten works from Scandinavia and abroad. Ensemble Aurorae expands the traditional concert format to include a broader audience by merging different art forms and incorporating their own arrangements. Currently they are focusing on music from the Nordic countries and include in their projects a traditional Norwegian instrument, the hardanger fiddle. They collaborate with Dextra Musica and Nymusikks Komponistgruppe and have commissioned new works especially written for Ensemble Aurorae which will be performed in the following season. Endeavoring to promote Nordic music to audiences worldwide, they bring their projects to venues far and wide.
Trio Fantasma, Denmark
Trio Fantasma is a young Danish piano trio consisting of Merel Beelen (piano), Josephine Egede Franyó (violin) and Magnus Franyó (cello). Since their debut at Copenhagen Summer Festival 2020 they have had the joy of sharing music both amongst each other and with audiences in halls such as the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen and Musikhuset in Aarhus, among others. The trio won second prize at the ENKOR International Chamber Music
Competition in 2021 and a Golden Medal at the Young Chamber Music Competition in Aarhus, Denmark, in 2022. They also enjoy participating in masterclasses internationally and have worked with musicians including Trio Con Brio, Mathias Beyer-Karlshøj, Jan Bjøranger and Marianna Shirinyan. From August 2023 the three young musicians will get the opportunity of continuing their musical journey together at the Royal Danish Academy of Music.
Meisl Kvartet, Denmark
Meisl Quartet was formed in 2022 and comprises the musicians Viola Meisl, Silas Meisl, Karla Meisl and Silke Meisl. In their experience, music can do something special. It can often be more precise than words, go deeper and open up to insight and dimensions we otherwise would not perceive. It is therefore a great joy for them to have the opportunity to engross themselves daily in music, to discover and to refine their sound. Meisl Quartet works with learning, discovering and exploring universes and compositions created by the greatest masters.
The quartet cooperates with String Quartet Maestro Eberhard Felz from Berlin, violist Asbjørn Nørgaard from The Danish String Quartet and with Prof. Tim Frederiksen from Copenhagen.
The members of the quartet are siblings and have played together since they were small children.
Jens Bendix Nielsen, Denmark
Jens Bendix Nielsen was born in 1999 and has played the violin since he was 8 years old. He started his bachelor on violin at the Danish National Academy of Music in Odense in 2020 and started playing the viola on the side. In 2022 he switched to viola as his main instrument and is now finishing his bachelor on viola at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in 2024 under the teaching of Claus Myrup.
Jens has with his string trio “Tribrato” this year held a 10-year anniversary-tour. The trio has previously played previews at the Schleswig-Holstein Musikfestival. They have received teaching by Anna Kristina Hindø and Bård Monsen from Barratt-Due-Musikinstitut in Oslo.
Jens has played a masterclass with his string quartet “Laika” for the Dover Quartet when they visited Copenhagen. Besides being an active chamber musician Jens has received viola lessons by Anna Gribajcevic, Lena Eckels, Volker Jakobsen and Emile Cantor.
Selma Christensen Teilmann, Denmark
In 2019, Selma received the Jacob Gade Young Talent Prize and thus became a part of the Gade Foundation’s three-year talent program, which includes opportunities to perform in chamber music societies and festivals throughout Denmark.
In 2020, she won a gold medal in the Classical Music Competition, and the following year, she received the 1st prize in the Øresund Soloist competition as well as the Copenhagen Summerfestivals Talent Prize.
Selma was also the winner of the Jacob Gade Violin Competition in 2022.
Furthermore, she plays in the Zapolski Piano Quintet, with whom she received a gold medal in the Young Chamber Music Competition in Aarhus in 2022.
The quintet has performed at events such as the Odsherred Chamber Music Festival, the Royal Danish Theatre, and the Danish String Quartet Academy at Lundsgård. Parallel to her violin studies and MGK (preparatory music education), Selma attends Sankt Annæ Gymnasium.
. . .
.
Hjörtur Páll Eggertsson, Iceland
The Icelandic cellist and conductor Hjörtur Páll Eggertsson was five years old when he started playing the cello. He studied under the guidance of Gunnar Kvaran and Sigurgeir Agnarsson at the Reykjavík College of Music before moving to Copenhagen in 2017, where he continued his studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Morten Zeuthen and Toke Møldrup. As a cellist, Hjörtur has participated as a chamber musician and soloist in various festivals and engagements around Europe, as well as playing regularly with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra.
Alongside his cello studies in Copenhagen, Hjörtur began studying conducting in the fall of 2020, when he was admitted to the Malko Academy for Young Conductors. He has participated in masterclasses given by Herbert Blomstedt, Fabio Luisi and Eva Ollikainen, as well as conducting concerts with the Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Athelas Sinfonietta and the DR Vokalensemblet. He will be starting his conducting studies with Ed Spanjaard at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in 2023.
Freja Julie Rasch Eskildsen, Denmark
Freja Julie Rasch Eskildsen (2001) has just completed her bachelor’s degree at the Royal Danish Academy of Music under the guidance of professors Tim Frederiksen and Peter Herresthal. She will continue her studies for her master’s degree with Tim Frederiksen.
She is a former award winner of the Berlingske Classical Music Competition, Øresund Soloist, and Jacob Gade Violin Competition. She is also part of Jacob Gade’s talent program with a focus on chamber music and performance.
She has participated in solo masterclasses in Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Canada, and Germany. She is also an enthusiastic chamber musician, playing with her trio, Trio Vita.
Justina la Cour, Denmark
Justina la Cour, born in Odense, Denmark, is an emerging violinist. She is currently pursuing a soloist program at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen under the guidance of Prof. Eszter Haffner. She also regularly receives instruction from the renowned solo violinist Janine Jansen.
In 2022-2023, she studied concert interpretation in Switzerland. From 2020-2022, she completed her master’s degree with Prof. Tatiana Samouil in Brussels.
Justina has won international awards, including in Berlin, New York, Rome, and Vienna. Most recently, she won the International Fanny Mendelssohn Competition in 2023.
This summer, she received the Betty and Valdemar van Hauen Grant and made her debut at the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen.
Justina’s talent is also supported by the Augustinus Foundation (Denmark) and the Fondation Max D. Jost (Switzerland). She plays a Gennaro Vinaccia violin from 1756, on loan from a private sponsor in Denmark.
