Guest Artists

Mimi Zweig, violinist and educator

Mimi Zweig is currently Professor of Violin at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music –  and serves as Director of the school’s String and Summer String Academies. A student of Louis Krasner, Raphael Bronstein, Samuel Kissel, and Tadeusz Wronski, Mimi has since 1972 worked consistently on developing pre-college string programs across the United States. In 2019 Mimi Zweig was the recipient of the ASTA Artist Teacher Award. Her famed students, including Joshua Bell, have won numerous competitions and teach and perform worldwide.

Michel Strauss

Michel Strauss was educated by Paul Tortelier and Maurice Gendron at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he won first prizes in cello and in chamber music, before continuing his studies at Yale University with Aldo Parisot. In 1980, he was appointed principal solo cello of the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France and began teaching his own regular cello class at the Paris Conservatoire in 1987. He has also taught in the Netherlands and sat on the juries on many international music competitions.

Strauss has collaborated with many important contemporary classical composers, including Maurice Béjart, Luciano Berio, Pierre Boulez, Henri Dutilleux, Philippe Hersant, and Krzysztof Penderecki, and is the dedicatee of a number of their works. He has also worked for cinema with Jean-Luc Godard and for musical theatre in Avignon.

As a chamber musician, Strauss has performed with such artists as: pianists Jean-Claude Pennetier, Georges Pludermacher and Henriette Puig-Roget; violinists Gérard Jarry, Tibor Varga, and Sandor Vegh; violists Gérard Caussé, Serge Collot, and Bruno Pasquier; as well as fellow cellist and former teacher Aldo Parisot.

Katharine Gowers, violinist

Katharine Gowers has performed in recital and as a chamber musician throughout Britain and abroad, collaborating with such artists as Alfred Brendel, with whom she played in a piano quartet on a worldwide chamber music tour, Imogen Cooper, Isabelle Faust, Steven Isserlis, Pekka Kuusisto, Christian Tetzlaff, Denes Varjon and Lars Vogt. She has appeared in chamber music partnerships at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and the Aldeburgh Proms, and at the Cheltenham, City of London, Delft, Edinburgh, Heimbach, Lucerne, Resonances, Salzburg and Spoleto festivals.

Katharine’s concerto appearances have included performances with the Royal Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras, and with the BBC Big Band and the Chicago Jazz Ensemble. She has also toured with Nigel Kennedy and the English Chamber Orchestra playing Bach’s Double Violin Concerto.

For the 2012 Cheltenham Music Festival Katharine guest-curated Time Capsule: 1914-18, a three day series of concerts and associated events focusing on this period.

During 2018-19 she spent three months over two trips in La Paz, Bolivia, teaching at Bolivia Clásica, a non-profit organisation and music school created by Ana-Maria and Armando Vera. In the first lockdown of 2020 she taught Bolivia Clásica students for three months via Skype.

Katharine studied with David Takeno at the Yehudi Menuhin School and at the Guildhall School of Music, where she won the Gold Medal prize, with Roland and Almita Vamos at the Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio, with Joey Corpus in New York, and in masterclasses with Denes Zsigmondy in Germany.

She has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and across various European networks, and has recorded for EMI Classics and Somm.

Katharine Gowers has performed in recital and as a chamber musician throughout Britain and abroad, collaborating with such artists as Alfred Brendel, with whom she played in a piano quartet on a worldwide chamber music tour, Imogen Cooper, Isabelle Faust, Steven Isserlis, Pekka Kuusisto, Christian Tetzlaff, Denes Varjon and Lars Vogt. She has appeared in chamber music partnerships at the Schubertiade Schwarzenberg and the Aldeburgh Proms, and at the Cheltenham, City of London, Delft, Edinburgh, Heimbach, Lucerne, Resonances, Salzburg and Spoleto festivals.

Eric Hosler, violinist

Willem Stam, cellist

The Canadian-Dutch cellist Willem Stam is a founding member and 𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗲 𝗺𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿 of the New European Ensemble. Based in The Hague, he is known for his depth of expression, stylistic versatility, and commitment to music that bridges the past and present.
Willem performs internationally as a soloist, chamber musician, and conductor. His work spans centuries—from the early cello repertoire to cutting-edge contemporary music—and he is a passionate collaborator with living composers.

As the 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗹𝗮𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗱 𝗬𝘀𝗮ÿ𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗶𝗼 and a sought-after teacher, Willem brings a unique mix of performance and pedagogy to his artistry. He regularly teaches masterclasses in Canada, South America, and across Europe, including online instruction to a global network of cellists.

He plays a 1918 cello by 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝗳𝗮𝗻𝗼 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗮 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵 𝗮 𝗩𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗼𝗿 𝗙é𝘁𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘄, both made available by the National Instrument Foundation of The Netherlands.
Willem Stam is an artist who listens closely to history, to the moment, and to what music can still become.

Alana Bennett, cellist

Cellist Alana Bennett-Garcia has built a dynamic and multifaceted career as both a performing artist and dedicated music educator. She is a graduate of New York University, where she studied under esteemed pedagogue Marion Feldman, and Indiana University, where she trained with celebrated chamber musician Sharon Robinson.

Alana’s versatility has led her to collaborate across a wide spectrum of genres—from performing with the Georgia Boy Choir to recording with hip-hop legend Common. She has appeared with notable ensembles including the New York String Orchestra, Columbus Symphony Orchestra (GA), and the Augusta Symphony. Alana is a founding member of the Mosaic String Quartet and currently serves as principal cellist of the DeKalb Symphony Orchestra. In addition, Alana is also part of the cello sections of the Atlanta Ballet Orchestra and Johns Creek Symphony Orchestra, as well as a regular performer with Atlanta Pops Orchestra.

A passionate educator, Alana maintains an active private studio and frequently coaches students at schools throughout metro Atlanta. She also serves as a sectional coach for the Metropolitan Youth Symphony Orchestra, inspiring the next generation of young musicians.

Francisco Vila, cellist

Vila is a soloist and chamber musician renowned for his sensitivity, penetrating sound and technical mastery of his instrument. His performance career spans Asia, Europe, and the Americas, where he has captivated audiences with his artistry, depth and unique sound.

Francisco has performed alongside celebrated artists such as Gary Hoffman, Cho-Liang Lin, Maria João Pires, Nobuko Imai, and members of the Juilliard String Quartet. His artistic journey has been shaped under the mentorship of iconic musicians, including Gary Hoffman at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, and the legendary cellist Janos Starker at Indiana University. Making his orchestral debut at the age of 14, he has appeared as a soloist with renowned orchestras worldwide, including the Houston Symphony, the Simón Bolivar Symphony Orchestra, the Liège Royal Philharmonic, the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, the Santander Festival Orchestra, all principal orchestras in his native Ecuador, among others.

Aside from performance, Vila views teaching as an important aspect in music-making. In 2015, he founded the first International Music Festival of Esmeraldas (Ecuador).

Lydia Chen Argerich, violist

Born in Geneva, Lyda Chen studied the violin at the Geneva Conservatory in the class of Ayla Erduran then followed the teaching of Professor Lin Yao Ji at the Central Conservatory of Beijing.

Upon her return from China, she began studying law and obtained her license at the University of Geneva.

Her studies completed, she turned to the viola and developed a great affinity with the instrument and its repertoire.

Largely self-taught, she performs in concert in various formations, but it is in a string quartet that she has the opportunity to follow Gabor Takacs’ chamber music lessons at the Geneva Conservatory.

The first musical encounters with her mother Martha Argerich opened the way to many musical experiences, offering the possibility of working with fantastic musicians. She has been invited to the Verbier Festival, La Roque d’Anthéron and Les Folles Journees de Nantes or Tokyo, as well as to the Festspielen in Salzburg and Progetto Argerich in Lugano.

She performs chamber music in venues such as Tokyo Triphony and Sumida Halls, Teatro Colon, Salle Pleyel, the Salzburg Mozarteum and Shanghai Grand Theater, and performs as a soloist at the Tonhalle in Zürich.

She is invited to play in several orchestras, Japan New Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestra della RSI, the China All Star Orchestra as well as the Western Eastern Divan Orchestra,

and gives viola and chamber music master classes in Spain, France, China and Latin America.

In 2019, Lyda Chen Argerich founded Arch Music Academy, whose projects in China, Europe and Latin America favor a multidisciplinary approach to the practice of music and the instrument.

Among the recordings made for the EMI at the Lugano Festival are the quartets of Beethoven, Dvorak, Schumann, Faure, as well as the quintets of Franck, Shostakovich, Zarebsky, Granados, alongside Ivry Gitlis, Gabriela Montero, Mischa Maisky and Martha Argerich.

Marie-Francoise Pallot, violinist

Born in Nice, she began playing the violin at the age of four and a half. After studying at the Aix-Provence Conservatoire, she entered the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM) at the age of 12, studying under Pierre Doukan. Given her very young age, she then perfected her skills at the CNSM in Lyon in the class of Veda Reynolds, former professor at the prestigious Curtis Institute in Philadelphia, where she brilliantly obtained her national diploma in higher musical studies. She then continued with Gérard Poulet for three years before attending the prestigious Walter Stauffer Academy in Cremona in the class of Salvatore Accardo. After obtaining scholarships from the Franco-American Commission and the Ministry of Culture, which are awarded twice a year, she joined the University of Indiana in Bloomington, USA, in Franco GULLI’s class for several years before becoming his assistant. She also took chamber music classes with masters such as Rostislav DUBINSKI (Borodin Quartet) and Janos STARKER.

Upon her return to France, she spent five years studying the great Russian violin tradition with maestro Igor Oistrakh at the Koninklijke Conservatorium in Brussels.

At the same time, she and her trio were accepted into the renowned Pro Quartet course in Paris.

She went on to tour throughout France with a youth music project called ‘Le Violon d’Ingres’. At the same time, she obtained a specialised trio diploma from the CNSM in Lyon.

She was awarded first prize at the international violin competition in Stresa, Italy.

She toured South America for a month, playing in Bolivia and then China, where she performed in the prestigious concert hall of the Forbidden City in Beijing, an honour rarely bestowed, alongside musicians such as Lyda Chen Argerich, Vladimir Sverdlov, Lorenzo Gatto, Christophe Moreau and Alexander Ghindin.

She has played with Emile NAOUMOFF, Alain MEUNIER, Tasso ADAMOPOULOS, Rebecca CHAILLOT, Laurent KORCIA, Isabelle LEQUIEN, Xavier GAGNEPAIN, Nicolas MALARTE, Raphael CHRÉTIEN, Aline BARTISOL, Helene DAUTRY, Andrea CROCE and Guglielmo DE STASIO. She has participated in numerous workshops in France and Italy with the Sardegna Music Festival.

She currently teaches at the CRR in Boulogne-Billancourt and performs in numerous concerts around the world.

Mauricio Cardenas, orchestral coach

Ken Aiso, violinist

Torun Sæter Stavseng, cellist

Gregor Riddell, cellist

Jennifer Stumm, violist

Violist and director Jennifer Stumm blazes a courageous creative path with diverse projects mixing sheer musical enthusiasm with boundary-breaking artistic direction and committed advocacy for social equity. Known for the “opal-like beauty» (Washington Post) of her sound, Jennifer appears on the world’s great stages like Carnegie Hall, Berliner Philharmonie, Kennedy Center, and the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. She is winner of the William Primrose, Geneva and Concert Artist Guild competitions (and the first violist ever to win first prize.)  The 2022-23 season brings appearances at festivals around the world, Jennifer’s debut in the large hall of the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, solo tours of Ireland and the UK and a new album with São Paulo Chamber Soloists. She also makes her Lucerne Festival debut, as both director and violist in a new staged program from Ilumina called “The Nature of Light.”

Jennifer is founder and director of Ilumina, the São Paulo-based artist collective and social equity initiative, which has ascended rapidly to prominence as a modern model for 21st century creativity and the advancement of diverse talent.  Ilumina unites leading international soloists with the best rising talent from Latin America, working and performing side-by-side at the Ilumina festival and on tour around the world, with the goal that worthy talent receives an equal chance to shine. Ilumina young artists regularly study at leading international universities and have entered the highest echelons of the field. Jennifer’s flair for curation and stage direction has received much attention, and Ilumina concerts invite listeners to be immersed in dynamic musical worlds, steadfastly committed to interpretation, powered by the freshness and energy of cultural exchange.

Jennifer is in much demand as a speaker about diversity, talent development and the future. She regularly interacts with the innovation and technology sector about how artistic thinking can impact progress, productivity and the world of ideas. She was invited to speak at NASA’s Cross Industry Innovation Summit in Houston and is a member of the Ecosystems 2030 collective, working with global thinkers on what the future will look like. Her viral TEDx talk about the viola and the blessings of being different, “The Imperfect Instrument,” was named an editor’s pick of all TED talks and led to a solo debut at the Berlin Philharmonie.  

Jennifer has released two celebrated solo albums. Her debut recording for Naxos’ Laureate Series featured works by Italian composer/violist Alessandro Rolla, hailed as «an absolutely phenomenal display of virtuoso viola playing» (The New Recordings.) She next released her album of Berlioz’s Harold In Italy and performed the work in her unique staging and characterization almost fifty times.  A recipient of the prestigious BBC New Generation artist and Borletti Buitoni Trust awards for her work in chamber music, she appears at major festivals such as Verbier, Marlboro, Stavanger, Spoleto, Aldeburgh, Delft and IMS Prussia Cove and regularly appears with Spectrum Concerts Berlin and as a trio with cellist Jens-Peter Maintz and Kolja Blacher.

Jennifer Stumm is Professor of Viola at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna, International Chair of Viola Studies at the Royal College of Music, London and gives masterclasses around the world. Since her school days teaching strings in the Atlanta inner city, she has devoted considerable time to supporting young musicians from culturally and economically diverse backgrounds, both in person and online.  

Born in Atlanta, Jennifer first heard the viola when she was eight and, enchanted by its sound, began playing in her school’s orchestra.  She studied with Karen Tuttle at the Curtis Institute of Music and the Juilliard School, with Nobuko Imai in Amsterdam as well as with Steven Isserlis at IMS Prussia Cove, and also pursued interests in politics at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Jennifer plays a Gasparo da Salò viola, 1589, generously on loan from a private trust.

Thomas Gould, violinist

Described as an artist who “refuses to be defined by a single genre” (The Guardian), Thomas Gould is a violinist with wide-ranging musical interests and a flair for experimentation. His solo repertoire includes many contemporary works, and he has collaborated with some of the leading composers of our time including John Adams, Thomas Adès, Brett Dean, Karl Jenkins, James MacMillan, Nico Muhly and Max Richter.

Gould is leader of the chamber orchestra Britten Sinfonia with whom he often performs as soloist or director. He was formerly the leader and a founding member of Aurora Orchestra. Gould also enjoys a longstanding relationship with Sinfonietta Rīga, with whom he recorded Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending on the album Live in Riga.

Jazz has always been a keen interest for Thomas and he is fortunate to have worked with some of the biggest names in jazz including Burt Bacharach, Jacob Collier, Hiromi, Brad Mehldau and Marius Neset. He was the violinist in the popular swing band Man Overboard Quintet with whom he recorded two albums on Champs Hill Records. Gould curated his own jazz series at Kings Place called Gould Standard inviting long-term collaborators Tim Garland, Kristjan Randalu and Gwilym Simcock among others.

Recent highlights include the première performances with Bruckner Orchester Linz of a new concerto written for him and percussion by Johannes Berauer, a tour of Australia with Omega Ensemble performing Philip Glass’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and a return to Dartington International Summer School to give concerts and masterclasses.

Gould trained at the Royal Academy of Music where he is now a Fellow. He plays a violin made by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini in 1782.

Pedro Gadhela, double bassist

David Stern, conductor

DAVID STERN is an international conductor, creator of original projects, champion of rare works and mentor to tomorrow’s singers. Newly appointed Music Director of the Palm Beach Opera after 11 years of serving as Chief Conductor, he has also been Music Director of the Israel Opera in Tel Aviv, the Opera St Gallen in Switzerland, and previously led the Philharmonie Südwestfalen in Germany. In 2003 he founded Opera Fuoco, the independent, Paris-based opera company, adding to it its much lauded Young Artists program in 2008. The program has since nurtured some of the most important voices in Europe today. The company is in the middle of a three-year residency at the Paris area Opéra de Massy for bi-annual productions which serve as a platform for young artists to collaborate with renowned or emerging stage directors, choreographers, choruses, and ensembles.
This season’s highlights will feature Stern’s vast variety of repertoire. After a very successful premiere of an innovative program entitled Bach’s Four Seasons at the Bachfest in Leipzig this past June, Stern will revive the project in the Opéra Massy and the festival Septembre Musical de l’Orne. In the fall he will return to the Curtis Institute of Music to lead performances of Monteverdi’s Orfeo in a new staging by John Giampetro. Back in France he will conduct Opera Fuoco in an original pairing of two masterpieces by Leonard Berstein: the opera Trouble in Tahiti and the song cycle Arias and Barcarolles. Entitled “Anatomy of Love”, it will be staged by Elsa Rooke for performances in Paris and the Opéra de Massy in January. And at the Palm Beach Opera his season will feature Bizet’s the Pearl Fishers and Verdi’s Rigoletto. In April he will return to the Shanghai Symphony, the China Philharmonice and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra for concerts with the winners of the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition. Finally Stern will revive the Opera Fuoco production of la Bohème in France and Sweden.
David Stern has been regularly invited to the Paris Philharmonie, the Théâtre des Champs-Elysees, as well as the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, the Luzern and Gstaad Festivals, the Theater an der Wien, Vienna Konzerthaus, the Shanghai Symphony Hall and the Beijing Music Festival. David Stern spent recent seasons with the Boston Lyric Opera, Opera Zuid in the Netherlands and the Juilliard School and Curtis Institute of Music opera programs.
Stern’s long-time passion for working with young voices grew out his experience in creating the Académie International d’Art Lyrique at the Aix-en-Provence Opera Festival with Stéphane Lissner in 1998. He has regular engagements with young artists’ programs in Sweden, China and the United States, notably for productions with the Palm Beach Opera Young Artists Program, the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute and the CNSM National Conservatory in Paris. Aware of the need to communicate, educate and transmit to a young and ever more diverse audience, he was a guest conductor of the Démos project (France’s version of the “Sistema” program) in the 24-25 season. Future projects also include Monteverdi’s The Return of Ulysses with celebrated hip-hop choreographer Anne Nguyen at the Opéra de Massy and Felix Mendelssohn’s version of Bach’s St Matthew Passion in the spring of 2027 at the Bachfest in Leipzig as part of the celebration of the work’s 300th anniversary.

David Stern has recorded a number of rare operas including Giovanni Simone Mayr’s L’amor conjugale and Medea in Corinto and Johann Christian Bach’s Zanaïda. Other recordings include French Romantic Cantatas with Karine Deshayes and the Opera Fuoco Orchestra, John Field piano concertos with Concerto Köln and Andreas Staier, as well as works by Albert Roussel with cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras and pianist Alexandre Tharaud and the Paris Chamber Orchestra.
He conducted Opera Zuid’s production of Kurt Weill’s Lady in the Dark which won the prize for best production in the Netherlands in 2022. He has led performances of the Yiddish operetta The Golden Bride by Joseph Rumshinksy in Paris and Sweden, the French premiere of Die Stumme Serenade by Korngold, The Child Dreams, by Gil Shohat, based on a play by Hannoch Levin with the Israel Opera and Ben Moore’s Enemies, a Love Story, based on a text of Isaac Bashevis Singer with the Palm Beach Opera.
As orchestral conductor, Stern has led recent performances with the Royal Danish Opera Orchestra, the Vienna Symphony, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Handel & Haydn Society Orchestra, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra Basel and the Lübeck Philharmonic Orchestra. He is a regular guest of the NDR Radio Philharmonic in Hannover, with whom he recorded rare opera arias by Florian Leopold Gassman.
Stern has played a significant role in the development of the classical music scene in China for over 20 years. A regular guest of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra, the China Philharmonic in Beijing and the Guangzhou Symphony Orchestra, he also created the Shanghai Baroque Festival from 2013-2019 and since 2016 has been the co-chair of the jury of the Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition. His performance of Bach’s b-minor Mass in 2019 was the first in 100 years, and his performances of Handel’s Serse and Alcina, and Bloch’s Sacred Service were premieres for the Chinese public.

Paul Desenne, cellist

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1959, Desenne was an honors graduate from the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris. There, he pursued cello performance with professor Michel Strauss, playing various musical genres from classical music to Venezuelan Creole melodies, before taking up composition studies.

After returning from Paris, Desenne joined the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and was El Sistema‘s resident composer. Desenne’s works have been performed in major venues around the world, including Alice Tully Hall at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and at Carnegie Hall. On 4 September 2016, Desenne’s work Hipnosis mariposa was premiered at The Proms by Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gustavo Dudamel. His accolades included the prestigious 2009 Guggenheim Scholarship and the 2010 Fellowship of the Radcliffe Institute of Harvard University.