Adam Viktora
The organist, conductor and harmonium player Adam Viktora appears on music festivals throughout Europe, and lectures and performs on international organ conferences. He also works as adviser in expert committees for the restoration of important historical organs and records for European radio and television channels. He is highly dedicated to historical organs and to efforts towards their conservation and promotion. He is founder and artistic director of the unique Czech Organ Festival project. He teaches organ playing at the Pilsen Conservatory and music theory at the Prague Conservatory. He is artistic director of Ensemble Inégal and Prague Baroque Soloists, with both of which he realized numerous present-day premiere concerts and records of the European baroque repertoire. As such and with these two ensembles, Adam Viktora has become in recent years the most outspoken representative of the currently ongoing process to rediscover the oeuvre of Jan Dismas Zelenka, musical genius of the Bohemian baroque.
Harmonie Universelle
In 2003, Florian Deuter founded together with Argentine violinist Mónica Waisman the international ensemble Harmonie Universelle to explore the rich and diverse literature of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century for chamber cast. Its distinctive style invites on a journey into the myriad of human emotions that, alongside musical rhetoric, are the living breath of the music of this period. The name Harmonie Universelle, derived from the renowned treatise on music (Paris, 1636) by the French polymath Marin Mersenne, symbolizes this commitment. For Mersenne (1588-1648), consonance was the foundation of a musical work, dissonance being reserved for purely ornamental functions. In developing rules for the construction of melodies he stressed the relationship of music to rhetoric.
Ensemble Marsyas
Formed in 2011 to explore the virtuoso wind music from the 18th century, the Edinburgh based Ensemble Marsyas counts amongst its members some of the finest historical instrumentalists working in Europe today. Ensemble Marsyas is already in demand at prestigious festivals across Europe and future plans include appearances at the Lammermuir Festival (Scotland), l’Auditori (Barcelona-Spain), the Festival di Musica Antica delle Camelie (Ticino- Switzerland) and at the East Cork Early Music Festival (Ireland).
Josep Domenech Lafont
Josep Domènech Lafont studied oboe with Josep Julià at the Conservatori Superior de Barcelona. He is a graduate of the Musikakademie der Stadt Basel and also studied at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam where he completed his studies with Alfredo Bernardini.
Josep has performed extensively with many of the world’s greatest historical orchestras including Les Talens Lyrics, Bach Collegium Japan, Il Giardino Armonico, Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, Europa Galante, Orchestre Revolutionare et Romantique and the Concert des Nations. In 2008 he was appointed principal oboe of Concerto Köln.
Josep has collaborated with many renowned musicians including, Masaki Suzuki, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Fabio Biondi, Giovani Antonini and Jordi Savall. He teaches historical oboe at the Conservatori de Girona and at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Toulouse and regularly gives masterclasses and lectures in festivals and conservatories throughout Europe. Since September 2015, he teaches historical oboe as a principal subject at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
Peter Whelan
Principal bassoonist with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra since 2008, Peter was described by the Philadelphia Enquirer as ‚an absolute master of fleet facility with a solidly plush tone of wondrous immediacy‘. He is in constant demand as a soloist and chamber musician and has received glowing responses from audiences and critics across the globe, including a Gramophone Award for his recording of Vivaldi bassoon concertos with La Serenissima in 2010.
As concerto soloist, Peter has performed in many of Europe’s most prestigious venues, among them the Musikverein (Vienna), Lingotto (Turin), and the great concert halls of London including St. John Smiths Square (Lufthansa Festival), and the Cadogan and Wigmore Halls. Peter’s recording of Weber’s bassoon concerto with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra is due for release in 2012. As chamber musician Peter has collaborated with the Belcea Quartet, London Winds, the Doric Quartet, and with Tori Amos on her album ‚Night of Hunters‘ recorded for Deutsche Gramophone (2011). Peter is also a director of the newly-formed Ensemble Marsyas, with whom he has recorded a first disc of Zelenka sonatas for the Gramophone Award winning label LINN (release, 2012).
Equally at home on modern and historical instruments, Peter has a diverse repertoire spanning over four centuries and has worked with many of Europe’s finest symphony orchestras and directors including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (Sir Simon Rattle), the London Symphony Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the English Baroque Soloists (Sir John Eliot Gardiner), the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Les Musiciens du Louvre, and Oper Zürich.
Peter has recently joined the teaching faculty of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and has given masterclasses at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
Rodrigo Gutiérrez
Rodrigo Gutiérrez studied oboe at the Conservatori Superior de Barcelona. He continued his studies in Freiburg with Hans Elhorst and Ann-Kathrin Bruggeman and completed his music education with Juan Manuel Lumbreras and Alfredo Bernardini at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
In 2005, he was one of the founders of Ensemble Invento. With this ensemble he has performed in many of European countries such as France, Poland, or Holland. In 2009, he was the finalist at “Magdeburg Telemann Competition for Wind Soloists “.
Rodrigo has been involved in many projects of different ensembles such as Les Talens Lyriques, Accademia Bizantina, Il Giardino Armonico, Capriccio Stravagante, Al Ayre Español, Il Complesso Barocco, La Petite Bande, Ensemble Mattheus, Academia 1750, EUBO, Baroque Orchestras of Sevilla, Helsinki, Ireland and Norway, Capriccio Basel, El Concierto Español, or the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenments with Sir Simon Rattle. Regularly, he has been playing the 1st oboe with Concerto Köln, Hofkapelle Stuttgart (F. Bernius) and MusicAeterna (Theodor Currentzis).
