Artists

Trio con Brio Copenhagen is the festival’s artistic management. The trio consists of the sisters Soo-Jin Hong (violin) and Soo-Kyung Hong (cello) and the pianist Jens Elvekjær. The three musicians met in Vienna in 1999 and quickly distinguished themselves when in 2002 they won the P2 Chamber Music Competition and the ARD-Wettbewerb in Munich. Since then, they have won first prizes in several major international chamber music competitions and performed all over the world. They have, among other things, recorded all of Beethoven’s piano trios and their release with trios by Arensky and Shostakovich in 2021, has received an excellent reception in the international media and, among others, won the German music critics’ ‘Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik’. Soo-Jin Hong and Soo-Kyung Hong are concertmasters at violin and cello in the DR Symphony Orchestra, and Jens Elvekjær is professor of piano and chamber music at the Royal Danish Music Conservatory. The trio are recipients of P2’s Artist Award in 2015 and Carl Nielsen and Anne Marie Carl Nielsen’s honorary award in 2019.

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Elisabeth Leonskaja has for decades been counted among the most famous pianists of our time. In a world dominated by commercial media and political agendas, she has remained true to herself and to music, in the tradition of great Soviet musicians such as David Oistrakh, Sviatoslav Richter and Emil Gilels. Her musical development was decisively influenced by her collaboration with Sviatoslav Richter. This musical and personal friendship continued until Richter’s death in 1997. Besides her numerous solo engagements, chamber music remains an important part of her work. She is a regular guest at several international festivals and performs as a soloist with leading orchestras and internationally renowned conductors all over the world. In her second homeland, Austria, she has received the highest artistic honour: the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art and has been named an honorary member of the Wiener Konzerthaus. In 2020, she received the International Classical Music (ICMA) Lifetime Achievement Award.

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The French Quatuor Modigliani are among the most sought-after string quartets in the world. They regularly perform in the famous concert halls such as: Wigmore Hall, London, Carnegie Hall, New York, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Berlin’s Konzerthaus, the Musikverein in Vienna and the Paris Philharmonie and they were the first string quartet to give a concert in Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie’s great hall after the opening in 2017. The quartet have themselves been artistic directors of the festival Rencontres Musicales d’Evian 2014-22, a festival made famous by its former director, Mstislav Rostropovich, and most recently of the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition since 2020. Among their close musical friends are artists such as Sabine Meyer, Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, Beatrice Rana, Fazil Say, Augustin Dumay, Amihai Grosz, Gary Hoffman, Paul Meyer, and Daniel Müller-Schott.

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Grammy-nominated Ukrainian-British violist and conductor Maxim Rysanov has established himself as one of the world’s most vibrant and charismatic musicians. As a violist, he is mainly known as a frequent guest on international music stages, such as the BBC Last Night of the Proms and the festivals in Edinburgh, Salzburg and Verbier, and he has appeared as a soloist with a wide range of the world’s leading orchestras. Parallel to his work as a violist, he has a busy career as a conductor, and often combines the two roles as a conductor from the soloist podium. His enthusiasm for new music has generated many exciting collaborations and expanded the viola repertoire. This includes world premieres by Dobrinka Tabakova, Pēteris Vasks and others.

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31-year-old German horn player Felix Klieser has made a name for himself on the international stage over the past ten years. In 2014 he received the ECHO Klassik as Young Artist of the Year, and in the same year his life story “Footnotes – A Hornist Without Arms Conquers the World” was published. In 2016 he was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Award at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival and in the summer 2022 he played his debut at the Ravenna Festival at the invitation of Maestro Riccardo Muti. Highlights of the 2022/2023 season include Felix Klieser’s debut at the Vienna Musikverein and tours with the Prague Symphony Orchestra and Festival Strings in Lucerne, as well as his second year as artist in residence at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

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Ukrainian violinist Andrej Bielow was educated in Germany and France. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has recorded over 20 CDs and performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the New Japan Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France, the Kiev Philharmonic and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. At international competitions, Bielow has won several prizes, and he has received a large number of cultural grants. He teaches violin at the conservatory in Graz and frequently gives master classes in Europe, Asia and the USA. As a chamber musician, he has performed at festivals throughout Europe – including Chamber Music at Lundsgaard, where his distinguished musicianship, passion for chamber music and infectious energy have made him a regular and treasured guest.

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Elias Holm studies in the soloist class at the Royal Danish Conservatory of Music with Jens Elvekjær and has also studied at the Universität der Künste in Berlin as well as receiving private lessons from the world-renowned pianist Maria João Pires at her home in Portugal. Elias has distinguished himself at several Danish and international competitions. Most recently in 2019, where he won the Copenhagen Lied-Duo Competition together with mezzo-soprano Sophie Haagen. He is a passionate chamber musician and lied pianist and a frequent guest at chamber music festivals and chamber music associations across Denmark. Recipient of several grants including a Sonning Foundation scholarship and Van Hauen’s grant.

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With a voice compared to ‘black velvet’ and praised for its distinctive timbre and flexibility, mezzo-soprano Sophie Haagen is already establishing herself on both sides of the Atlantic. She is educated at the Royal Danish Music Conservatory, the Opera Academy og the Royal Danish Theatre as well as the Eastman School of Music at University of Rochester, New York, and at the School of the Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. In October 2019, Sophie received first prize at the Copenhagen Lied Duo Competition together with pianist Elias Holm. She is an experienced oratorio singer and lied singer and a regular guest at the Copenhagen Opera Festival. In the summer 2023, she is also featured in Opera Hedeland’s production of La Cenerentola.

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Adam Koch Christensen grew up in Præstø and started playing the violin at the age of five. Since 2016, he has studied at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. Adam has won international awards at e.g. Tibor Varga International Violin Competition in Switzerland (2019), W. A. ​​Mozart Competition in Salzburg (2020) and J. Brahms Competition in Pörtschach, Austria (2020) In 2019-22 he was Alternate Concertmaster of the Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra in Wrocław, Poland and plays this season as concertmaster in the Royal Danish Opera Orchestra. From 2023 he is artistic co-director of Oremandsgaard Chamber Music Festival. He has also attended Malko School’s conducting course in collaboration with Danish Radio 2020-22, where he, among other things, has participated in masterclass with Herbert Blomstedt. He is currently studying at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin.

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Esben Tange has a Master’s degree. degree in music and media studies. He has been a program host at Danish Radio P2 from 1995 and from 2007 editor and concert host. Esben has been a member of the board of the Léonie Sonnings Musikfonds since 2004 and chairman since 2012. He is co-founder of the Rued Langgaard Society in 2007 and artistic director of the Rued Langgaard Festival in Ribe since 2011. Lecturer, author and writer of articles on classical and modern music with particular emphasis on the time around the year 1900. Esben Tange has also created a series of visually conveyed concert performances about the composer Rued Langgaard and related composers.