Tianxu An
Tianxu An, from Baoding, near Beijing, is a sought-after young artist, both at home in China and around the world. In June 2019, Tianxu drew international attention when he won the Fourth Prize and a “Special Prize for Courage and Restraint” at the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition — the highest award for a Chinese pianist at that contest in 17 years. A month later, he made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Mann Center.
Recent concert highlights include performances with the Mariinsky, China Philharmonic, NCPA (National Centre for the Performing Arts), and Macau Orchestras, as well as a 2021 major recital tour across China. His first CD was recorded in August 2021, a recital album featuring works by Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev. He previously won top awards at the Greenfield Student, “Helen Cup” Shanghai International Piano, and Wiesbaden International Piano Competitions.
Born into a non-musical family, Tianxu began his piano studies because his parents believed it a good way to develop intelligence. His love for and commitment to music grew throughout his time at the Middle School affiliated with the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. He moved to Philadelphia in 2015 to attend the Curtis Institute of Music under the tutelage of Meng-Chieh Liu and Robert McDonald, and also studies privately with Dang Thai Son. 2022 marks Tianxu’s graduation from Curtis and move to Juilliard to pursue his master’s degree. In his own words, he devotes his career to music because of the fact that “music is a powerful language which establishes a deeply emotional bond among people.”
Anton Gerzenberg
Born in 1996 in Hamburg, Anton Gerzenberg is the winner of the 15th Géza Anda Piano Competition 2021. He began to play the piano at the age of four and was taught, amongst others, by Julia Suslin and Julia Botchkovskaia in Hamburg and Jan Jiracek von Arnim in Vienna. Currently, he pursues his studies with Pierre-Laurent Aimard in Cologne.
In 2019 Anton became one of the founders of the New Music ensemble ÉRMA in Cologne, which played its first concert in close collaboration with Unsuk Chin. He has played chamber music with such artists as Martha Argerich, Dora Schwarzberg and Alvise Vidolin and concertos with various orchestras including the Taipeh Symphony Orchestra, Münchner Symphoniker, Hamburger Camerata, Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Musikkollegium Winterthur and Tonhalle-Orchestra Zurich.
In 2022-23 the Vienna Konzerthaus presents him as a recitalist and with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony Orchestra in five concerts as part of its “Great Talent” programme. He is also a frequent guest at festivals including the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano,
Dinara Klinton
After sharing the top prize at the 2006 Busoni Piano Competition at age 18, Dinara Klinton embarked on a busy international concert schedule, appearing at many festivals including the
Dinara combines her performing career with piano professor positions at the Royal College of Music and the Yehudi Menuhin School.
As a recording artist, she has received widespread critical acclaim. Her album of Liszt’s
Dinara’s musical training began at the age of five in her native Kharkiv, Ukraine. She graduated from the Moscow Central Music School under Valery Piassetski, and the Moscow Tchaikovsky State Conservatoire under Eliso Virsaladze. She went on to complete her Master’s degree at the Royal College of Music under Dina Parakhina. Dinara also attended masterclasses at the Lake Como Piano Academy and worked with Boris Petrushansky at the Imola Piano Academy.
Anna Tsybuleva
Born in a small village in the Caucasian foothills, Anna Tsybuleva shot into the international spotlight in 2015 when she was crowned First Prize Winner of the Leeds International Piano Competition and honoured with critical acclaim such as “A pianist of rare gifts: not since Murray Perahia’s triumph in 1972 has Leeds had a winner of this musical poise and calibre” (International Piano Magazine). Initially, Anna had been taught the piano by her mother at the age of 6; with 13 she was admitted to study with Lyudmila Roschina at Moscow’s Central School of Music and later at the Tchaikovsky Conservatoire. Upon graduation with distinction she went for two years to Carlos Martinez-Mehner in Basle, before returning to Moscow to obtain a postgraduate degree.
Following a busy career as a recitalist, as well as a soloist with many orchestras, Anna Tsybuleva performs throughout the UK, the rest of Europe and Asia.
This year, she gives recital debuts in, amongst others, KKL Lucerne, Salle Cortot in Paris and in the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center. Apart from numerous concerts in Russia, Spain, China and Germany the absolute highlight of the current season is a recording of a new work for piano and orchestra with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Marin Alsop. Moreover, her second in a series of CDs with Chopin’s solo piano music will be released. Anna’s previous recordings were enthusiastically received by audiences and the media: her first solo CD with works by C. P. E. Bach, Beethoven, Schubert and Brahms, released in 2017, and the Second Brahms-Concerto with DSO Berlin and conductor Ruth Reinhardt in 2021.
Luzerner Sinfonieorchester
At its very first performances back in 1806, the orchestra consisted of a handful of music lovers who brought their full enthusiasm to the works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. Concerts were well attended, and anyone living in Lucerne at the time would put on their best garments before heading to the Comödiensaal der Jesuiten, as the concert hall was called at the time. Whereas this was some 210 years ago, the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra has since grown and established itself continuously and is known as the oldest orchestra in Switzerland today.
While its early performances may well have sounded rather outlandish to the modern ear, anyone attending a concert in Lucerne today is bound to hear Haydn at his classical best – performed by an authentic, reduced orchestra with eight first violins, eight second violins, four violas, four cellos, and two double basses. Rather than being dominated by elderly gentlemen, the orchestra is now a young and diversified body that can often be heard delving into contemporary works, possibly with timpani and trumpets. At other times, it performs with young or established soloists, accompanying them with due sensitivity through brilliantly forceful or tenderly calm passages. And anyone wondering at the distinct sound, perhaps in Baroque style, resonating from the orchestra pit at the local theatre, Luzerner Theater, will be pleased to know that this, too, is the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester in another form.
What started out as the city’s music society with some two dozen amateur players has since grown into a remarkable ensemble of around seventy seasoned professionals, led by a young and ambitious conductor, all eager to tackle even the most challenging works of the repertoire. By now the orchestra has built a reputation far beyond the Lucerne region, be it through exquisite CD recordings, guest appearances or tours in Europe and abroad.
