NICOLAS DAUTRICOURT

Voted ADAMI Classical Discovery of the Year at Midem in Cannes and awarded the Sacem Georges Enesco Prize, a member of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York, Nicolas Dautricourt is one of the most brilliant and engaging French violinists of his generation.

In January 2019 he made his debut at the Paris Philharmonie with Orchestre National d’Ile de France, performing Prokofiev’s second violin concerto under British conductor Jamie Philipps, and appears regularly at major international venues including the Kennedy Center, Alice Tully Hall, Wigmore Hall, Tchaikovsky Hall, Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan, Salle Pleyel, Cité de la Musique and Théâtre des Champs-Élysées. He also appears at many classical and jazz festivals such as Lockenhaus Kammermusikfest, Festival Enesco in Bucharest, Music@Menlo, Pärnu, Ravinia, Sintra, Davos, Tokyo and Nantes Folles Journées, Jazz à Vienne, Marciac Jazz Festival, Jazz à la Grange, and has performed with the Detroit Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Orchestre National de France, Orchestre de Toulouse, Quebec Symphony, Liège Philharmonic, Sinfonia Varsovia, Mexico Philharmonic, NHK Tokyo Chamber Orchestra and the Kanazawa Orchestral Ensemble, under conductors Leonard Slatkin, Paavo Järvi, Tugan Sokhiev, Dennis Russell Davies, Wolfgang Doerner, Carlos-Miguel Prieto, Eivind Gullberg Jensen, Yuri Bashmet, Michael Francis, François-Xavier Roth, Fabien Gabel, and Kazuki Yamada.

An award winner in numerous international violin contests, such as Wieniawski, Lipizer, and Belgrade, he has studied with Philip Hirschhorn, Miriam Fried, and Jean-Jacques Kantorow, and plays a magnificent instrument by Antonio Stradivari, the “Château Fombrauge” (Cremona 1713), on loan from Bernard Magrez.

KNUT ERIK SUNDQUIST

Knut Erik Sundquist is one of the leading bass players in Europe today. He studied in Vienna with Prof. Ludwig Streicher, and in 1986 he was appointed principal bass in the Bergen Philharmonic, Norway.

In 1993 he could no longer bear to be away from his beloved North-Norway, and moved to the town of Harstad, well above the Arctic Circle. From there, he organises his worldwide career as a soloist and chamber musician. He is a regular guest at festivals such as Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Lockenhaus and Lucerne.

His album Reverie, with music by Giovanni Bottesini, has earned ovations from critics both in Norway and internationally, and was awarded “Classical cd of the year” in Norway 2011. He later released Tundra, with Russian repertoire by Koussevitzky and Glière, and Duo Brilliante together with the Norwegian violinist Arvid Engegård and The Norwegian Radio Orchestra.

In January 2019 he released a new album containing North-Norwegianfolk songs. This was hugely well received by both audiences and critics alike.
Knut Erik Sundquist teaches at the university in Tromsø, Norway.

PASCAL SCHUMACHER

Pascal Schumacher is a multi award-winning musician and composer. His main instrument is the vibraphone. He has played with numerous exciting musicians such as Kenny Barron, Francesco Tristano, Bachar Mar-Khalifé, Jef Neve, Magic Malik and Nils Frahm, written music for chamber music, orchestra, theatre and film and lead a jazz quartet. Today he mixes emotional classical music with minimal electronic sounds, although Schumacher himself considers each classification obsolete. To him, music is a single, limitless playground. 

Pascal studied classical percussion, jazz vibraphone and musicology at music conservatories in Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Brussels and The Hague. He holds a Master’s degree in musicology from the Marc Bloch University in Strasbourg, and another in music with a focus on jazz vibraphone from the Koninklijk Conservatorium in The Hague.
 When he‘s not making music, Pascal likes listening to Charles Mingus, Serge Gainsbourg, Sigur Ros, Nico Muhly,  Brian Eno and J.S.Bach. Pascal has released 12 albums, is a Yamaha Artist, and is a Professor for Jazz and Classical Percussion at the Conservatoire de Musique de Luxembourg.