Face to face

Jacques Tchamkerten was born in Geneva. After studying organ with Pierre Segond at the Conservatoire de Genève, he began learning the Ondes Martenot under Jeanne Loriod, where he received a unanimous gold medal at the Conservatoire de Saint-Maur (France) in 1986. Since then, he has performed in a dozen European countries, both with orchestras and in chamber music ensembles. From 1990 to 1996, he was a member of the Sextuor Jeanne-Loriod, a sextet of Ondes Martenot.

As the head of the Library at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, Jacques Tchamkerten also pursues a career in musicology. He has published monographs on Arthur Honegger, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, and Ernest Bloch, along with numerous articles on music in French-speaking Switzerland in the early 20th century, as well as on French music from the 19th and 20th centuries. He has contributed to the Dictionnaire du Théâtre en Suisse, the Dictionnaire de la Musique française au XIXe siècle, and the new edition of the New Grove Dictionary. As a researcher, he is regularly invited to participate in various conferences. In 2011, he was awarded the Pierre-et-Louisa-Meylan Foundation Prize for his body of work.

With her diverse and extensive repertoire, few artists of her generation are as successful as soprano Juliane Banse. Her operatic repertoire ranges from the Marschallin, Contessa (Le Nozze di Figaro), Fiordiligi, Donna Elvira, Vitellia (La clemenza di Tito), Genoveva (title role), Leonore, to Tatyana (Eugene Onegin), Arabella and Grete (Schreker’s Der ferne Klang). Her artistic breakthrough came at the age of 20 as Pamina in Harry Kupfer’s production of Die Zauberflöte at the Komische Oper Berlin. Her performance as Snow White in the world premiere of the opera of the same name by Heinz Holliger, with whom she has a close working relationship, at the Zurich Opera House was described as unforgettable.

Juliane Banse sang the title role in the revival of Jeanne d’Arc by Walter Braunfels in Cologne, and appeared in Zurich in the world premiere of Heinz Holliger’s opera Lunea. She gave her long awaited debut as Marschallin in Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier, and sang the role of Elsa von Brabant in Wagner’s Lohengrin in Nantes and Anger. She has performed three notable monodramas: THE TELL-TALE HEART by Dutch composer Willem Jeths at the Concertgebouw, Grigori Frid’s Diary of Anne Frank at the Theater an der Wien, Poulenc’s La Voix humaine at the Berlin State Opera and Cologne Opera, and sang the premiere of Manfred Trojahn’s cycle Four Women from Shakespeare, composed especially for her voice. Inthe USA, Juliane Banse most recently appeared as Rosalinde (Fledermaus) in Chicago and in Strauss’s Arabella (Zdenka) at the Metropolitan Opera in New York.

In demand on the concert platform, the artist has performed a vast repertoire with renowned conductors including Lorin Maazel, Riccardo Chailly, Bernard Haitink, Franz Welser-Möst, Marin Alsop, Zubin Mehta and Manfred Honeck. The 2020/2021 season will again be rich in variety, including performances of Heinz Holliger’s Puneigae with the Contrechamps Ensemble under the composer’s baton, and Haydn’s cantata Arianna a Naxos in Cologne.

Song recitals and chamber music have always featured prominently in Juliane Banse’s calendar. Forthcoming recitals will take her to London’s Wigmore Hall, the Schubertiade in Vilabertran, and the Teatro de la Zarzuela in Madrid. Concerts of Wagner’s Wesendonck Songs, accompanied by the Czech Nonett, will take place in Bayreuth, Fribourg/CH, Emden and Passau. The 2020/2021 season will see Juliane Banse continue to perform Schubert’s Winterreise together with pianist Alexander Krichel and dancer István Simon in the choreography of Andreas Heise in a danced/sung form in Stuttgart and Duisburg, among other places. Also scheduled are guest performances in China and Australia, as well an appearance at Elena Bashkirova’s ‘Intonation’ chamber music festival in Berlin.

Many of Juliane Banse’s recordings have won awards, with two receiving an Echo Klassik: Braunfels’s Jeanne d’Arc with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra under Manfred Honeck (nominated: world’s first recording of the year) and Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Tonhalle Orchester Zurich and David Zinman. In 2017 her CD Unanswered Love, together with Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern under Christoph Poppen, was released to great media acclaim, featuring works by Reimann, Rihm and Henze, some of which were recorded for the first time and dedicated to her. Her CD Im Arm der Liebe with the Munich Radio Orchestra includes works by Braunfels, Korngold, Marx and Pfitzner. She also received high praise for her recording of Hindemith’s Marienleben together with pianist Martin Helmchen, a work the artist particularly enjoys singing. Furthermore, several of her last season’s performances with orchestra, Heinz Holliger’s Puneigae and G. Kurtág’s Messages of the late R.V. Troussova from Frankfurt as well as Henze’s Nachtstücke und Arien from Vienna, are scheduled for CD release.

Born in southern Germany and raised in Zurich, the soprano first took lessons with Paul Steiner and later with Ruth Rohner at the Zurich Opera House, completing her studies with Brigitte Fassbaender and Daphne Evangelatos in Munich. A dedicated teacher herself, she has held a singing professorship at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf since the winter semester 2016/2017. She has accepted a position at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, effective from the winter semester 2020/2021. She also gives masterclasses at home and abroad.

Felix Renggli was born in Basel/Switzerland and studied the flute with Gerhard Hildenbrand, Peter-Lukas Graf and Aurèle Nicolet. He gave up his chair as a solo flautist with the Symphony Orchestra of St. Gallen, to start a freelance career in the same position with several orchestras in Europe (Tonhalle Zürich, Festival Orchestra Lucerne, Gulbenkian Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe) and perform as soloist at several international festivals as in Paris, Bourges, Lucerne, Quito, Rio de Janeiro, Lockenhaus etc. Working and playing regularly together with oboist, composer and conductor Heinz Holliger has deeply marked his musical career.

He tours as soloist and member of different chamber music groups, such as for example the “Ensemble Contrechamps”/Geneva (music of the 20th century), the “Holliger-woodwind-quintet”, “Nova Stravaganza/Köln” (on baroque instruments), etc…, in Europe, Japan, China, Korea, Southamerica and USA, playing in prestigious halls like Merkin Hall/New York (Solorecital), Opera Bastille/Paris, Beethoven Hall/Tokio, Alte Oper/Frankfurt, etc.

Felix Renggli has been awarded prizes at various international music competitions. He has recorded for the radio in different countries and appears on a growing number of compact discs, with the Ensemble Contrechamps, Heinz Holliger, the Arditti Quartett, the pianist Jan Schultsz and others. (Philips, Koch International, Accord, Stradivarius, Discover, Genuin Artist Consort)

Renggli teaches a professional flute class at the Music Academy of Basel, having been nominated for this place as successor of P.-L. Graf., and gives regularly masterclasses in Europe (Int. Summercourses Montepulciano/Italy, Masterclasses Goslar/Germany), Japan (Int.summer academy of Musashino Music University Tokio) Australia and Southamerica (Argentina, Brasil ).

His repertoire includes a wide range of music: from the 18th century, played on historical instruments (Nova Stravaganza/Köln), up to the avant garde of our time, having played first performances from many solo-and chamber-music works. (also with „Ensemble Contrechamps/Geneva). Since 1999 he is one of the three artistic directors of the new released concert serie in Switzerland, „Swiss Chamber Concerts”

Heinz Holliger was born in Langenthal (Switzerland, canton of Berne) on 21 May 1939. During his grammar-school education he already studied oboe with Emile Cassagnaud at the Conservatoire of Berne and composition with Sándor Veress. From 1958 he continued his studies with Yvonne Lefébure (piano) and Pierre Pierlot (oboe) in Paris. Between 1961 and 1963 he studied composition with Pierre Boulez at the Music Academy of Basel. After winning first prizes at international music competitions (Geneva 1959, International Music Competition of the ARD 1961), Holliger began to give worldwide concert performances as an oboist. Contemporary composers such as Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki, György Ligeti, Elliott Carter, Witold Lutoslawski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Luciano Berio wrote compositions specially for him. Among his outstanding achievements is the rediscovery of forgotten works by 18th-century composers such as Jan Dismas Zelenka and Ludwig August Lebrun.

Holliger’s oeuvre covers all genres – from stage works via orchestral, solo and chamber music works to numerous vocal pieces. Almost all compositions bear testimony to a tireless search for the limits of sound and language. His music is often preceded by an intensive examination of artists’ or poets’ lives and lyrical texts. He has always been fascinated by artists living on the edge of society or at the edge of life. At this point, the Scardanelli Cycle (1975-85) has to be emphasized, in which Holliger turns the last poems of Friedrich Hölderlin into a cycle of 2.5 hours duration for different instrumentations. For this work, the composer was awarded the Premio Abbiati of the Biennale di Venezia in 1995. In Gesänge der Frühe for choir, orchestra and tape, premiered in 1988, Heinz Holliger combined poems by Friedrich Hölderlin with music by Robert Schumann. In the two song cycles Drei Liebeslieder (1960) and Fünf Lieder (1992-2006) for contralto voice and orchestra, he concentrated on poems by Georg Trakl. In the cycle Glühende Rätsel for contralto voice and 10 instrumentalists (1964) Holliger set verses by Nelly Sachs to music. Even poems by Christian Morgenstern were set to music by Heinz Holliger (Sechs Lieder for soprano and orchestra, composed in 1956/57, orchestrated in 2003).

For the stage, Holliger wrote the opera Schneewittchen which was premiered at the Zurich Opera in 1998. The composer adapted the text from the work of Robert Walser in which, in contrast to Grimm’s fairytale, the shadows of the characters meet after the actual story. The ECM recording of Schneewittchen won a Grammy Award in 2002. The examination of texts by Samuel Beckett resulted in the composition of three other short stage works: Come and go (1976/77), Not I (1978-80), and What Where (1988).

Holliger’s concert pieces too often refer to biographies or literary works: Concerto ‘Hommage à Louis Soutter’ for violin and orchestra (1993-95, revised 2002) portrays the life of the Swiss painter. In Siebengesang (1966/67) for oboe, orchestra, singing voices and loudspeaker, he incorporates a poem by Georg Trakl. Holliger has composed numerous chamber music works, including the early wind quintet h (1968), Romancendres for violoncello and piano (2003), Contrechant sur le nom de Baudelaire for (bass) clarinet (2008) as well as two string quartets and solo pieces for almost every instrument.

Holliger has been awarded many awards and prizes: the Frankfurt Music Award 1988, the Ernst von Siemens Music Award 1991, the Prix de Composition Musicale de la Fondation Prince Pierre de Monaco for (S)irató 1994, to name but a few. In 2007 Holliger was the first to receive the Zurich Festival Award, in 2008 he received the Rheingau Musikpreis, and will be awarded the Robert-Schumann-Preis of the City of Zwickau in 2017. He was composer-in-residence of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the International Music Festival in Lucerne. In April 2003 the Cité de la Musique in Paris dedicated a whole concert week to the composer, conductor and oboist Holliger. With projects such as the Basler Musikforum cofounded by him in 1987 and cooperations with the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and the Ensemble Modern, Holliger is particularly involved in the presentation of new music.

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.

Winner of the 2015 Respighi Prize 2015, Irene Abrigo has made her Carnegie Hall debut in 2016 with the Chamber Orchestra of New York, performing the NY première of the violin concerto by Dirk Brossé “Black, White and in Between”. In 2016 she also performs in Brazil the south America première of the Respighi’s Violin Concerto No.1 and she had her debut with the West Czech Symphony Orchestra in Czech Republic, with the Mozart Violin Concerto No.5. She had premiered several pieces included the “Infal’s Songs” for solo violin by Antonmario Semolini (dedicated to her), and chamber music works by Richard Dubugnon. Today she’s regular guest in music festivals and concert series all over Europe.​

​Deeply convinced about the social responsibility of art, Irene founded in 2015 POURQUOIPAS, a no-profit association organizing concerts, masterclasses and projects with social commitments. Truly passionated since young about Niccolò Paganini (she has his signature tattooed and she owns an original letter from him, dated 1831), Irene created with POURQUOIPAS an educational experience titled “Niccolò Paganini: Le Mystère”: a one hour itinerary discovering truth and mysteries of the composer’s life, that ended with a final concert.

​Irene Abrigo started playing the violin at the age of 4 at the Aosta Suzuki School. She continued her education in the University of Arts in Switzerland and Austria with Marie-Annick Nicolas, Pierre Amoyal and Corina Belcea and took part in masterclasses with Zakhar Bron, Thomas Füri, Viktor Pikayzen, Itzhak Rashkovsky, Mayumi Seiler and Benjamin Schmid.

​Graduated at Liceo Classico “XXIV February” in Aosta, she had in 2008 her Diploma at the Turin Conservatoire, in 2011 her Master of Interpretation at the Geneva University of Arts, in 2015 the Degree in Art, Literature and Performance (DAMS) at the University of Turin with a thesis about Niccolò Paganini, and in 2018 she obtained the Pedagogy Master at the HKB, Bern University of Arts.

​She’s currently playing a violin by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini, Milano 1757, generously on loan to her from a private collector.

Jürg Dähler, born in Zurich, completed his studies on the violin and the viola at the Music Academy in Zurich with the highest honours. Various prizes and scholarships enabled further studies with Sándor Vegh, Pinchas Zukerman, Kim Kashkashian and Fjodor Druzhinin. That was followed by influential encounters with artists such as Brenton Langbein, Heinz Holliger, Nikolaus Harnancourt, and György Lígeti. He gave his debut in the Tonhalle Zurich with Paul Sacher’s Collegium Musicum under the direction of Brenton Langbein in the creation of the Violaconcerto by Daniel Schnyder.

His multi-faceted artistic activities from the classical repertory to contemporary music and jazz include first performances of solo pieces – many of them are written for and dedicated to him – by György Lígeti, Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, Hans Werner Henze, Arvo Pärt, Friedrich Cerha, Fjodor Drushinin, Daniel Schnyder, Mischa Käser, John Polglase, Christian Jost, Charles Bodman-Rae, Hermann Haller, Hans Ulrich Lehmann, Nadir Vassena and Alexander Brincken. As a soloist as well as a member of the Swiss Chamber Soloists (the former Kammermusiker Zürich) he regularly performs at important concerthalls and Music-Festivals such as the Salzburger Festspiele, Konzerthaus Wien, City of London Festival,  Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia di Roma, Biennale di Venezia, Lucerne Festival and the Montreux Jazz Festival and tours throughout Europe, the USA, South America, and Australia. He received international acclaim for his CD-productions with labels such as ECM, Neos, Accord, Jecklin, Claves and Cantando.

Jürg Dähler is a founder-member of the Collegium Novum Zürich and since 1993 principal violist of the Orchestra Musikkollegium Winterthur and a member of the Winterthurer Streichquartett. In 1997 he was appointed Artistic Director of the Festival Kultur Herbst Bündner Herrschaft Bad Ragaz and since 1999 he is a founder-member and Artistic Director of the Swiss Chamber Concerts. In 2007 he was the first Swiss to receive the academic title “Executive Master in Arts Administration” (EMAA) in the philosophy and business department of the University Zurich. In 2008 he received the Zolliker Kunstpreis for his artistic activities and his services to the cultural life in Switzerland. He plays a violin by Antonio Stradivarius, Cremona 1714, and a viola by Raffaele Fiorini, Bologna 1893.

A versatile musician, Daniel Haefliger is as renowned as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher as he is as organizer, lecturer and translator, and has also initiated numerous educational and musicology projects.

As a cello player, trained by Pierre Fournier and André Navarra, he has performed regularly in important music centres such as Berlin, London, Lucerne, Paris, Tokyo or Sydney with such partners as Heinz Holliger, Dénes Várjon or Patricia Kopatchinskaja and conductors such as Thierry Fischer, Pascal Rophé, Peter Eötvös or Magnus Lindberg. He has travelled all over Europe with the Zehetmair Quartet, which has won the greatest international awards for its recordings and whose specialty is to play every programme by heart.
Deeply invested in music of his time, he collaborated closely with all the composers who left their mark on his generation, whether they be György Kurtág, Brian Ferneyhough, György Ligeti, Elliott Carter, Heinz Holliger, Helmut Lachenmann, Klaus Huber, Luciano Berio, Franco Donatoni, Pascal Dusapin, George Benjamin and many others, and continues to premiere numerous works by the new generation of Swiss composers.

At the turn of the millennium, he initiated the greatest chamber music season in Switzerland, with regular concerts in Geneva, Zurich, Basel and Lugano, known as the Swiss Chamber Concerts, of which he is the musical and administrative director with Felix Renggli (Basel) and Jürg Dähler (Zurich).

He has also been solo cellist for the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, the Camerata Bern and the Ensemble Contrechamps. He is a founder member of the musicology editions bearing the same name, and has, among others, translated the Schoenberg-Kandinski correspondence into French.

Passionate teacher, he holds the chamber music class at the Sion site of the Lausanne HEMU, and founded the Swiss Chamber Academy in 2014, followed by the Swiss Chamber Camerata in 2017, which brings together Switzerland’s most promising talents.
Numerous radio and CD recordings with labels such as Forlane (F), Stradivarius (I), Claves (CH), Neos (D), ECM (D) or Genuin (D) attest to his activities as performer. Daniel Haefliger plays on a Giovanni Grancino cello (Milan 1698).

Anton Kernjak has received several awards and was a prizewinner at the international Johannes Brahms piano competition in Austria. An accomplished chamber musician, he has performed with different duo and trio partners throughout Europe, Canada, the USA and Japan. Some of his more notable appearances include the Tonhalle Zürich, the WDR Cologne, Wigmore Hall, London and Carnegie Hall, New York. Anton Kernjak has formed a duo with cellist Anita Leuzinger a number of years ago and regularly collaborates with oboist, composer and conductor Heinz Holliger. In May 2014 this collaboration led to the latest CD release with chamber music works by Robert Schumann and Heinz Holliger (ECM New Series Aschenmusik). Anton Kernjak is a professor of chamber music at the Basel School of Music.