Founded in 1942 by Victor Desarzens, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne (OCL) has become one of the most sought-after chamber orchestras in Europe. After six years under the artistic direction of American conductor Joshua Weilerstein, the OCL is now led by the celebrated French violinist Renaud Capuçon. Comprising some forty musicians, the Orchestra’s vast repertoire ranges from early Baroque to contemporary works.

The OCL was soon invited to perform abroad, in the most renowned concert halls and festivals. It took part in the second Aix-en-Provence Festival and several editions of the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. His tours of Germany and the United States have been resounding successes, as have his concerts at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the BBC Proms in London, the Wiener Konzerthaus and the Berliner Philharmoniker. In the 2023-2024 season, the OCL will perform in Madrid, Barcelona and, for the first time, at the Philharmonie de Paris.

Throughout its existence, the OCL has performed with leading soloists. These include Clara Haskil, Alfred Cortot, Walter Gieseking, Edwin Fischer, Murray Perahia, Radu Lupu, Martha Argerich, Nikolai Lugansky, Daniel Barenboim and Frank Peter Zimmermann. The OCL has also always attracted the most interesting conductors of their time, including Paul Hindemith, Günter Wand, Christoph Eschenbach, Ton Koopman, Jeffrey Tate, Bertrand de Billy, Simone Young and Daniel Harding.

The OCL boasts an extensive discography: from the complete operas of Haydn in the 1970s-1980s conducted by Antal Dorati to the Beethoven and Mozart concertos with Christian Zacharias, not to mention recordings dedicated to Schoenberg and Webern (with Heinz Holliger) and Spohr and Weber (with Paul Meyer).

Graduating with the highest honors from the prestigious schools of Lausanne and Zurich, Hélène Walter trained under the guidance of Teresa Berganza, Helmut Deutsch, John Fiore, Luisa Castellani, Christian Immler, and has performed under the baton of Ton Koopman and Michel Corboz. After her studies, she further refined her skills with renowned interpreters such as Alessandra Rossi, Heidi Brunner, Raul Gimenez, and François Le Roux.

Hélène Walter has enjoyed a brilliant international career, performing on prestigious stages such as the Müpa in Budapest, the Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, and the Musikverein in Vienna, under the direction of Martin Böckstiegel, François-Xavier Roth, Pierre Bleuse, Lucie Leguay, and Corrado Rovaris. In Mozart’s works, she has portrayed roles such as Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), Sandrina (La finta giardiniera), and the Countess (Le nozze di Figaro). She has also performed as Elle (La Voix Humaine by Poulenc), Cleopatra (Giulio Cesare by Handel), and Manon by Massenet.

An eclectic artist, active both on opera stages and in concert halls, Hélène Walter has performed Bach’s Mass in B minor, the Passions, the Christmas and Easter Oratorios with the Musiciens du Louvre, Solisti Veneti, Spirito, the Pygmalion ensemble, and in Mahler’s Symphony No. 4 with the Basel Kammerorchester. In 2022, she sang Pierrot Lunaire by Schoenberg alongside the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain and Bruno Mantovani, and she was a guest of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in 2018.

Hélène Walter has featured prominently in two major discographic productions, recorded at the prestigious Château de Versailles with La Chapelle Harmonique and more recently with La Chapelle Rhénane. Critic Ermes Mercuri praised her « vocal class and fascinating stage maturity » as « the highly talented Hélène Walter. »

Jonathan Frigeri is a sound/radio artist, performer, and electronic music producer—or, in a less conventional definition, a cave-exploring artist and psychic engineer working at the intersection of art and technology. He seeks to use technology with a lo-fi approach to evoke critical thinking through a poetic touch. Media are reduced to their essential form and questioned in their communicative, social, and philosophical functions. He pushes the boundaries and limits of a possible reality in order to see and hear what lies behind the curtain.

Making a name for herself across multiple engagements in Opera and Concert, showing a vivid temperament and a true love of making music on stage, Zoi Tsokanou is the first woman in history to lead a major Greek Orchestra. From 2017 to 2023, she served as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, leading 120 musicians in a new area of repertoire, international profile, accessibility, and educational and community engagement.

Highlights of the concert season 2024/2025 include her Return to the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, her Debut with the Hessisches Staatsorchester Wiesbaden, the Tyrolean Symphony Orchestra, the Brandenburgische Staatsphilharmonie, Concerts with Athens State Symphony Orchestra, The Lausanne Sinfonietta, the Orquesta Sinfonica da Xalapa in Mexico and a series of appearances and recordings with the Cyprus Symphony Orchestra.

In the past seasons, she made her Debut at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London Gorecki’s Symphony nr. 3 choreographed by Crystal Pite, at the Norwegian National Opera, at Grande Theatre de Geneve, as well as with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande OSR, the Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra NOSPR, the Niederrheinische Sinfonikern a.o. Her new album with the TSSO “Topos” has been recently released by Naxos receiving critical acclaim.

She works with distinguished artists like Gil Shaham, Thomas Hampson, Cyprien Katsaris, Juliana Avdeeva, Anastasia Kobekina, Simon Trpceski, Daniel Lozakovich, Alena Baeva, Daniel Müller Schott, Anneleen Lenaerts, Valeriy Sokolov, Lucienne Renaudin Vary, Roman Simovic, Maximilian Hornung, Ramon Vargas, a.o. Other recent engagements include concerts with the Karajan Academy of the Berliner Philharmoniker and Artist in Residence Marlis Petersen, Barcelona Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Nationale de Lille, Düsseldorfer Symphonikern, Sofia Philharmonic, Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock, Bergische Symphonikern, Szczecin Philharmonic, the Radio and Television Orchestra Madrid RTVE, Collegium Novum Zürich, Ensemble Contrechamps Geneve, the Georgisches Kammerorchester Ingolstadt, as all major Greek orchestras and the Greek National Opera where she appears regularly. She participated in famous festivals such as Lucerne Festival, Holland Festival, Athens Festival, Schumann Festival Düsseldorf, Domstufen Festival, Klangspuren Festival, Festival Amplitudes.

From 2014-2017, she served as a permanent conductor at the Theater Erfurt conducting a vast Opera and Concert Repertoire. For two years she held the position of Associate Conductor at the oldest Czech Orchestra, the Westbohemian Symphony, and from 2011-2014 she was the Music Director of Arosa Music Theater at the Arosa Festival, Switzerland.

In 2024 she conducted the new Carmen production of the Schauspielhaus Zürich in Zurich and Amsterdam winning critical acclaim. In the Spring of 2018, she conducted Spontini’s rarely performed Opera Agnes von Hohenstaufen at Theater Erfurt creating an international sensation. At the Greek National Opera, she led renowned Opera productions such as Barrie Kosky’s Magic Flute, Katie Mitchell’s Lucia die Lammermoor and Elijah Moshinsky’s Simon Boccanegra. Her Opera Repertoire includes among others, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, Macbeth, Otello, Tosca, Cavalleria Rusticana, Glucks Orfeo ed Euridice, Die Verkaufte Braut, Gounods Faust, Zandonai’s Giulietta e Romeo, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, die Lustige Witwe, Die Fledermaus, West Side Story, working together with Opera Theaters in Erfurt, Bremen, Regensburg, Osnabrück, Hagen, Athens, Thessaloniki.

One of her remarkable moments is her assistantship with Bernard Haitink, her important mentor, together with Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich. She was invited several times by Lucerne Festival to participate in the conducting Master Class with Bernard Haitink as well as from Tonhalle Orchestra and David Zinman. She won several prizes in International Conducting Competitions. Zoi Tsokanou was born in Thessaloniki. She held from her hometown a piano and musicology degree and studied in Zurich piano with Konstantin Scherbakov and Conducting by Johannes Schlaefli. She lives with her family in Zurich.

Anne-Cécile Moser discovered dance at the age of thirteen, followed shortly by theatre.
She quickly knew she wanted to make it her profession. After graduating in 1987, she worked with numerous directors, including Matthias Langhoff and Omar Porras.

In 2002, she founded acmosercie, a company marked by a dreamlike, sensitive, poetic, and daring universe. There, she created A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, Alma ou petits bouts de rêves… by Marielle Pinsard, M.W (Magic Woman) with various Swiss female writers, Do Jedi Knights Have a Pimple on Their Nose? by Camille Rebetez, Adriatic Chronicles and Untitled (Provisional Title) with texts by Domenico Carli, Be Calme, Lison with writings by Louise Bourgeois and Jean Frémont, and La voix humaine by Francis Poulenc and Jean Cocteau with Virginie Falquet and Hélène Walter.

From 2007 to 2009, she was supported by a trust-based contract from the Canton of Vaud. In 2011, she launched the large-scale project 5600k – Les artisans de l’ombre with Mario Del Curto. Since 2017, Anne-Cécile Moser has also been practicing as an art therapist. (http://acmosercie.com/theatre/)

Contrechamps is an ensemble of soloists specialized in creating, developing and disseminating instrumental music of the 20^th and 21^st centuries. The Ensemble is dedicated to highlighting the diversity of aesthetics and formats making up the contemporary and experimental scene. For over 40 years the Ensemble Contrechamps has been working hand in hand with a large number of composers, conductors and artists. The Ensemble also showcases the multiple skills and unique talents of its member musicians and strives to develop fresh formats such as installation-performances, radiophonic concerts, research laboratories or collaborative processes. Its hybrid formula, both orchestra and collective, enables it to adapt to a variety of artistic constraints and to the proposals of the artists it works with. Contrechamps is renowned for its accomplishments and is a regular guest on international and Swiss stages and at prominent festivals.

Founded in Grand-Saconnex in the wake of Ensemble La Fontana Cantabile, the Académie La Fontana Cantabile is an association dedicated to promoting young talent by offering them opportunities to perform in choirs, orchestras, and often as soloists in major works of the classical repertoire. It is also the entity responsible for organizing the Ensemble’s projects in Geneva.

The concept began in 2016 at the Haute École de Musique de Genève, driven by the vision of its founders, conductor Jean Gautier-Pignonblanc and lyric singer Raphaël Hardmeyer, who were convinced that practical experience through concerts was an essential part of their training. Today, supported by organist Gaby Hardmeyer (a pupil of Pierre Segond at the former Geneva Conservatoire), the founders have continued to flourish: Jean is now a professor at the Geneva Conservatory, and Raphaël pursues a singing career across Europe while remaining active in Geneva.

Keen to transmit their skills and experience in today’s competitive classical music world, they stage two projects each year, often including coaching with distinguished specialists. Recently, they worked with the renowned German tenor Gerd Türk. The Académie primarily selects students from the HEM, giving them the opportunity to perform alongside the Ensemble La Fontana Cantabile, which has gained recognition through its concerts at the Temple Saint-Gervais and by inaugurating the newly renovated CMG building at Place Neuve, where they premiered Jean-Claude Schlaepfer’s Te Deum.

In June 2018, Jean Gautier-Pignonblanc obtained his Master’s degree in Choral Conducting under Brazilian conductor Celso Antunes at the HEM in  Geneva, along with the Janine-Françoise Muller-Dumas Special Prize awarded by the City of Geneva. After a year as assistant, he became conductor of the large oratorio choir composed of HEM students and in 2019 took a teaching position in the Music Culture Department of the Geneva Conservatory. Passionate about the institution, he is now assistant director while continuing to teach.

He co-founded the professional Ensemble La Fontana Cantabile, with which he has conducted Bach’s major works including the St. John Passion (2016), the Easter Oratorio (2017), the Magnificat (2019), and the Mass in B minor (2020). In 2023, the ensemble was invited to perform the exceptional St. Matthew Passion at numerous festivals. Following the complete Christmas Cantatas (2023 and 2024), the ensemble will perform Mozart’s Mass in C minor and Gubaidulina’s Canticle of the Sun with cellist Ophélie Gaillard in 2025. Since 2017, Jean has also conducted the amateur choir of Vandœuvres-Choulex-Cologny, comprising about sixty singers.

Interested in opera, Jean was invited in 2015 and again in 2017 to the Vienna State Opera by its chorus master Thomas Lang. In 2016, he worked at the Opéra-Théâtre de Saint-Étienne (France) as répétiteur and conducted Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte and Le nozze di Figaro in 2017 for the Académie Lyrique de Vendôme. In Bourg-en-Bresse, he was invited to conduct Dvořák’s Stabat Mater and Brahms’s German Requiem at the magnificent Brou Abbey in 2022 and 2023.

After studying piano, drama, and singing at the Conservatory in Normandy, Coralie Quellier continued her training with Gilles Cachemaille at the HEM in Geneva, where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in singing in 2014. She then joined the HEMU in Lausanne in Brigitte Balleys’ class, where she obtained a Master’s degree in performance in 2016.

She performs regularly in the professional choirs of the Grand Théâtre de Genève and the Ensemble Vocal de Lausanne. Coralie Quellier particularly enjoys performing on stage and has developed a solo repertoire ranging from comic opera, with roles such as Fiametta (Audran), Metella (Offenbach), and Havas in Une opérette à Ravensbrück by Germaine Tillon, to café-concerts, where she sings the hits of Thérèse with the company l’Arsenal d’Apparitions, and at the Théâtre du Galpon in the cabaret opera Mack is Coming Back, directed by G. Alvarez. She has also performed in Palestine at the Bethlehem Convention Palace in the title role of Carmen (Bizet), as well as in Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera as Jenny, directed by S. Grögl at the Théâtre du Galpon.

An insatiably curious spirit, a taste for risk, an unbounded appetite for the cello repertoire across all styles, civic engagement, and an unconditional love of nature — these are the hallmarks of the brilliant Franco-Swiss cellist Ophélie Gaillard.

Named “Instrumental Soloist Revelation” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2003, she has since performed in recital across Asia and Europe and appeared with leading orchestras including the Monte Carlo Philharmonic, Orchestre national de Metz, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Czech National Symphony Orchestra, and New Japan Philharmonic.

She records for Aparté, with several acclaimed complete cycles (Bach, Britten, Schumann, Fauré, Chopin, Brahms, CPE Bach, Strauss), as well as thematic albums that have reached wide audiences, such as Dreams, Alvorada, and Exils.

A passionate collaborator, she has shared the stage with Lambert Wilson, hip-hop dancer Ibrahim Sissoko, choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, Étoile dancers Hugo Marchand and Ludmila Pagliero, and bossa nova star Toquinho (Canto de sereia, live album, Aparté, 2017).

In 2005, she founded the Pulcinella Orchestra, which she leads from the cello, exploring 17th- and 18th-century repertoire on period instruments. Following her acclaimed double album of Boccherini with Sandrine Piau (2019), she and Pulcinella enjoyed major success with Vivaldi: I colori dell’ombra during the pandemic with mezzo-sopranos Lucile Richardot and Delphine Galou.

In 2021, she released Cellopera, a journey through a century of opera arias transcribed for cello and orchestra, recorded with the Vienna Morphing Orchestra under Frédéric Chaslin. In 2022, A Night in London explored composers who ventured to London in the 1730s, such as Porpora, Geminiani, and Bononcini. In 2023, she turned to Naples with Sandrine Piau, Marina Viotti, and Luan Goes for a colorful double album featuring works by Porpora, Leo, Durante, Matteis, and traditional tarantellas.

Percussionist Gabriel Michaud is a versatile musician with eclectic influences. He has performed at numerous festivals (La Folle Journée, Festival Archipel, IPEA Shanghai, Salon-de-Provence, among others), both in recital and chamber music, as well as with orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire.

In 2021, he won several prizes in solo competitions (Germany, Switzerland, Spain), followed in 2022 by chamber music awards (Luxembourg, with Trio Fragments). That same year, he took first prize, the audience award, and the press award at the prestigious TROMP International Percussion Competition Eindhoven.

Gabriel is also a composer, writing for chamber ensembles and electronic music, including work with the rap collective Codex Dissident.

Born in France in 2003, Gabriel began percussion at age 7 at a local music school, then joined the Nantes Conservatory at 11. Deeply involved in jazz, he played in several groups, notably the Tryptyk trio and the ODC 5tet. In 2020, he entered the Haute École de Musique de Genève, studying contemporary and orchestral repertoire as well as drum set, tablas, and composition. Since September 2023, he has been pursuing a Master’s degree in percussion at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

Nikolay Ivanov was born in 1995 in Pleven, Bulgaria. He began his musical studies at the age of 10 at the Panayot Pipkov National School of Arts in Pleven in Simeon Serafimov’s percussion class.

From an early age, he gave numerous concerts as a soloist and with the Accent percussion ensemble.

In November 2018, he won second prize and the Friends of TROMP audience prize at the TROMP International Percussion Competition in Eindhoven, Netherlands. In June 2019, he took part in a creative project at the Centre Pompidou for Contemporary Art in Paris with a concert at Ircam. In August 2020, he was invited to perform at the PAS Festival in Beijing, China, and later in October at the IPEA International Percussion CloudArt Festival in Shanghai. In 2020, he obtained his bachelor’s degree and entered the master’s program for soloists at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève. In 2021, he was invited to join the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris as an additional percussionist. In October 2021, he won first prize at the IPEA Percussion Competition in Shanghai. Holder of a Master’s degree in Pedagogy from the Haute École de Musique de Genève, he has been teaching at the École Municipale de Musique et de Danse de St-Julien for several years.

Born in Switzerland in 1999, harpist Tjasha Gafner studied at the Juilliard School in New York with Nancy Allen after completing her master’s degree as a soloist with Letizia Belmondo at the Haute École de Musique de Genève. In 2024, she completed her master in pedagogy at the Haute École de Musique de Genève with Sandrine Chatron.

She is a laureate of numerous national and international competitions, including first places at the Felix Godefroid International Harp Competition (Belgium, 2012), Suoni d’Arpa (Italy, 2014) and the Martine Géliot International Harp Competition (France, 2016). In 2021, she won the Max D. Jost Prize, as well as the Leenaards Cultural Grant. Within ten years she has received more than 20 awards.

Since the age of ten, she has performed in Germany, France, Hong Kong, and many other countries, and has appeared as a soloist with the Kammerorchester der Bayrischen Philharmonie, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and the London Mozart Players. She regularly performs with various ensembles on an international level and also contributes to the expansion of the harp repertoire with her own transcriptions.

For her outstanding performances, she was awarded both first place and the audience prize at the 72nd International Music Competition 2023 in Munich.

The Frank Martin Orchestra, conducted by Thierry Fischer, is a collaborative ensemble that brings together accomplished musicians from major orchestras in the Lake Geneva region and outstanding freelance artists. With an emphasis on inclusivity, the orchestra is not only a platform for seasoned professionals but also welcomes aspiring talents, including students from Geneva’s Haute école de musique.