Pulses / Impulses

In January 2019, Tom Borrow was called on to replace renowned pianist Khatia Buniatishvili in a series of 12 concerts with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. At only 36 hours’ notice, he performed Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G to sensational public and critical acclaim. Tom was further presented by the IPO in gala concerts in London and Mexico City, and they reinvited him for a second subscription series.

Later that year, International Piano magazine named him their ‘One To Watch’ and soon afterwards, Gramophone gave him the same accolade (“an exciting young pianist… individuality and elegance »). In December 2021, after his hugely-praised US debut with the Cleveland Orchestra, Musical America named Tom their ‘New Artist Of The Month’. Tom is a BBC New Generation Artist, and in July 2022, Tom made his debut at the BBC Proms, at the Royal Albert Hall, with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. He was presented with the prestigious Terence Judd-Hallé Orchestra Award 2023. Across 2024 and ’25, he is Artist-In-Residence for the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra (OSESP), across two years including their 70th anniversary season, playing all the Beethoven concertos and more.

Born in Tel Aviv in 2000, Tom Borrow has performed as soloist with all major orchestras of his native country. He began studying piano aged five with Dr. Michal Tal at the Givatayim Music Conservatory, and continued with Prof. Tomer Lev of the Buchmann-Mehta School of Music at Tel Aviv University. Tom has been regularly mentored by Murray Perahia, through the Jerusalem Music Centre’s program for outstanding young musicians. He also participated in masterclasses under the instruction of Sir András Schiff, Christoph Eschenbach, Richard Goode, Menahem Pressler, and Tatiana Zelikman, among many others.

Tom won every national piano competition in Israel, including first prize at the Israeli Radio & Jerusalem Symphony Young Artist Competition in Jerusalem, and three first prizes at the « Piano Forever » Competition in Ashdod (in three different age categories). In 2018, he won the prestigious « Maurice M. Clairmont » award, given to a single promising artist once every two years by the America-Israel Cultural Foundation and Tel-Aviv University.

After the Israel Philharmonic success, Tom has been invited by major orchestras around the world – recent and forthcoming engagements include the Cleveland Orchestra, Baltimore Symphony, Atlanta Symphony, St. Louis Symphony, Pittsburgh Symphony, London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic, Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale della RAI, Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, Danish National Symphony Orchestra and others – and is invited by leading conductors including Semyon Bychkov, Fabio Luisi, Vasily Petrenko, Christoph Eschenbach, Sakari Oramo, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Thierry Fischer, Stephane Deneve, Xian Zhang, Robert Trevino, Omer Wellber, Masaaki Suzuki and Sir Mark Elder. Tom has also toured to Eastern Europe with the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, to regular standing ovations, and to South Korea with the Tel Aviv Soloists.

Equally in-demand on the chamber music and recital fronts, he is invited to the Verbier Festival, Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Vienna Musikverein, Berlin Konzerthaus, Ruhr Piano Festival, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Hamburg Laeiszhalle, Beethoven Haus Bonn, Vancouver Recital Society, Festival Piano Aux Jacobins (Toulouse), Società del Quartetto di Milano, Aldeburgh Festival and Cheltenham Festival.

WWFM Radio in the US have featured him as an outstanding young talent, and Interlude magazine named him their ‘Artist Of The Month’. RAI Television livestreamed his concert with the Santa Cecilia Orchestra under Semyon Bychkov, Wigmore Hall livestreamed his recital debut, ETB Television (Spain) broadcast a performance of Brahms Piano Concerto No.2 with the Basque National Orchestra under Robert Trevino, and the Sao Paulo Symphony Orchestra are livestreaming his Beethoven concerts across his artist residency. In a recent feature, Pianist Magazine wrote of Tom, « Ethereal and enchanting… rapid sensational rise…certainly claiming his place as one of the greats of tomorrow…a poetic player with a mesmerising coiled-spring stillness. »

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.

The percussion class at the Haute école de musique de Genève (HEM) enjoys an excellent reputation and attracts a large number of musicians from all over the world. The infectious enthusiasm and energy of its four professors encourage a dynamism and spirit of openness that enable the students to acquire the skills necessary in order to practise their future profession. 

More than a percussionist Philippe Spiesser is an atypical and enthralling musician. Born in 1971 in Alsace, and coming from a family of musicians, he studied percussion at the Strasbourg Conservatory of Music. Winner of the European Competition for Young Talents in 1997, he is always travelling and searching for new experiences and meetings with creators from all artistic origins. 

Polymorphous musician, he performs throughout the world in numerous international festivals such as Electronic Music Week in Shanghaï, Percussion Festival in Beijing, Musicá in Lima,

Arte Scienza and RomaEuropa in Rome, Ars Musica in Bruxelles, Musica in Strasbourg, Présences in Paris, Ritmo Vital in Madrid, Gaida Festival in Vilnius, Italy PAS in 

Pescara, CERN Festival and Archipel in Geneva, Aujourd’hui Musiques in Perpignan, Memmix in Palma de Mallorca, Ponte in Ulm, Frequenz in Kiel… where he promotes new projects and is keen on premiering pieces by composers such as Ph. Hurel, P. Jodlowski, J. Nordin, A. Schubert, M. Matalon, B. Mantovani, Ph. Manoury, B. Letort, K. Narita, JM. Lopez Lopez, M. Lupone, A. Vert, A. Carretero. Philippe Spiesser is also invited to play as soloist with orchestras such as Modern Lemanic Modern Ensemble, Norbotten NEO, Strasbourg Philharmonic Orchestra, Camerata de France, Chinese Shenyang orchestra.

Since 2012, Philippe Spiesser is leading several research projects about new musical technologies and gesture capture such as GeKiPe Project, Gesture, Kinect and Percussion at HEM Geneva Conservatory of Music in partnership with IRCAM Center Pompidou in Paris and Flashback ensemble. Thanks to this work, he is the dedicatee and performer of many new immersive and multimedia shows written for this GekiPe gesture capture tool such as Sculpt, Crossing Points, Mad Max, Multibrain. And in 2024, the book GeKiPe was published by Editions L’oeil d’or. In 2022, he premiered Virtualis, the new concerto for solo percussion, ensemble, video and gesture capture with the Gestrument tool, invented and developed by Jesper Nordin. In 2023, he premiered BLEED.SIM by Alexander Schubert, a VR-based Performance Piece. His research has also led him to work with the Centro Ricerche Musicali in Rome, where he worked on new music with the SkinAct and Feed Drum, two acoustic instruments processed by electronics and invented by the composer and researcher Michelangelo Lupone. 

Since 2009, Philippe Spiesser is head teacher in charge of the percussion studies at the HEM Geneva Superior Conservatory of Music in Switzerland. Unanimously recognized pedagogue, he gives numerous masterclasses around the world such as Juilliard School New-York, McGill Montreal, Royal Academy of Music London, Music University Hong Kong, YST Music University Singapore, Cnsmdp Paris, Esmuc Barcelona, Conservatoire Royal Brussels, Santa Cecilia Rome, Musik Hochschuhle Stuttgart, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Chinese Conservatory of Music Beijing, Central Conservatory Beijing, Conservatory of Music Shanghai, Shenyang, Dalian, Music University Lima, Music University Izmir…   Previously he has been teaching at University Alfonso X in Madrid, Superior Conservatory of Music in Palma de Mallorca. the National Conservatory of Perpignan in France. 

Jury in many international competitions, Shanghai IPEA, Beijing PAS, Palma IMC, Italy PAS… He was in 2019, jury chairman of the prestigious Geneva International Competition in Switzerland.

Ellie Jasmine Bauwens, born in Basel in 2016 into a family of musicians, began studying piano at the age of three with pianist and organist Margarita Lazareva (Gnessin Academy of Moscow). She started harpsichord in 2022 with Vital Frey and has received guidance from Vladimir Ashkenazy (competition scholarship in Lugano, 2024), as well as regular masterclasses and consultations with Stanislav Gadjiev, Elena Derzhavina, Anna Arzamanova and, since 2025, Ilya Scheps. She gave her first recital at the age of four and won her first international prize in 2022. A laureate of 26 national and international competitions in both piano and harpsichord, she has notably received First Prize at the Kronberg International Piano Competition (2025), Second Prize at the Steinway Competition (2025), the Grand Prix at the Glory International Piano Competition (2024), and First Prize at the Swiss Youth Music Competition (2024). In 2024, she made her ensemble debut with Camerata Cromatica in J.S. Bach’s Concerto in F minor, followed in 2025 by her orchestral debut performing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 with the Master Orchestra (Brescia). Invited to appear on RTS Espace 2 in 2024, she received the Talent Award from the Bachwochen Festival in Thun and the Young Excellence Award from Atelier Creatività in the same year. Ellie has performed in more than 40 concerts in Switzerland and abroad and is also a composer (Bells of St-George, The Dream, Infinity Waltz). She has been a member of the Talents of Bern program since 2023.

Latvian pianist Georgijs Osokins has gained international attention through his participation at age of 19 in the XVII^th International Chopin Piano Competition where he quickly became an absolute Audience Favorite. Shortly after the Chopin Competition, Osokins made important debuts at the Konzerthaus Berlin, Klavier-Festival Ruhr, Laeiszhalle and Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, International Piano Series in Bern, Lockenhaus Festival, Gstaad Music Festival, Narodowe Forum Muzyki in Katowice, the Vancouver Playhouse, Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre Hall, Tongyeong Hall in South Korea. In 2021 Georgijs Osokins performed at the 101^st Salzburger Festspiele.

Georgijs is actively collaborating with Gidon Kremer, touring in the UK, Ireland, Russia, Poland, Germany, Asia and US. Alongside Lucas Debargue, Georgijs Osokins was announced the first permanent Guest Artist of Kremerata Baltica in its 25-year history. In 2024 Georgijs makes his solo debut at Pierre-Boulez Saal in Berlin and returns to Milan’s Serate Musicali Festival and London’s Wigmore Hall.

UK’s label “Piano Classics” released Osokins’ two CD albums focused on Chopin’s Late Works and works of Rachmaninoff. These recordings received brilliant reviews from important British, Canadian, German, Danish and French music magazines. German label Accentus has released the first chamber music album of Georgijs Osokins alongside Gidon Kremer containing trios of Chopin and Beethoven – this CD was nominated for both International Classical Music Awards 2020 and Opus Klassik 2021. He received the Cross of Merit awarded by the President of the Republic of Poland and the Latvian Grand Music Award – highest honour in music in Latvia – and remains youngest recipient in the Awards’ history.