SPECIAL GUESTS

Marc Danel, founder of the Quatuor Danel and Artistic Director of the NSKA (Netherlands String Quartet Academy) is our new Honorary President since 2023.

The Danel Quartet was created at Marc’s instigation in 1991 and studied with the Amadeus and Borodin quartets, and with our own Hugh Maguire. The Danel Quartet’s mission has been to play not only the great classical repertoire but to champion living composers, amongst them Rihm, Lachenman, Dusapin, and Gubaidulina. To the quartet’s renowned recordings of the complete Beethoven cycles, we must add those of the Bartok and Shostakovich cycles, as well as their premier recording of Weinberg’s 17 quartets.

Today Marc Danel continues to perform regularly with the Quartet and as a soloist and is equally committed to education. His many teaching positions have included his professorship at Lyon Conservatoire in France, a residency at Manchester University, and a position as visiting artist at the Royal College of Music in the UK. He additionally gives numerous international master classes, and as director of the NSKA not only teaches but organises lectures and student performances.

Student of Piero Farulli (violist of the legendary Quartetto Italiano), Antonello Farulli is one of the most active Italian violists both in the concert and the teaching fields.

Former member of the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO), since 1994 Farulli has served as the first solo violist of Claudio Scimone’s Solisti Veneti, with whom he has performed in the most important concert halls worldwide. He is active both as a soloist in the orchestra and in chamber music ensembles collaborating with notable musicians. He has recorded for Dynamic, Stradivarius and Tactus. He has taught in Europe, Switzerland and the United States. Guest teacher of the Sommerakademie International at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and of Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, of whose Artistic Committee he is a member. He has often served as a tutor at the Mahler Jugend Orchestra Akademie, and at the Accademia dell’Orchestra Mozart in Bologna. After teaching string quartet for a decade at the prestigious Escuela Superior de Musica Reina Sofia he is currently head of the viola department at the “G.B. Martini” Conservatory in Bologna. He is also a member of the artistic committee of the Mahler Foundation in Bolzano, of the Centro Studi Boccherini of Lucca and of the prestigious V. Gui International Competition. Farulli authored a text entitled La viola del Pensiero.

Farulli is the founder and artistic director of the Sesto Rocchi Festival, the first of its kind in Italy dedicated to amateur and professional musicians of all ages.

The distinguished viola player and chamber musician, Simon Rowland-Jones was a founder member of the Chilingirian string quartet, with which he played for 10 years. Simon is also a gifted composer, well known for his many chamber music works. In addition, he put to use his vast quartet experience and scholarship in his recent “urtext” edition of the complete Haydn string quartets, published by Peters Edition.

From 2017 to 2021, Simon Rowland-Jones has been the Honorary President of the Xenia Chamber Music Course.

The Lyskamm Quartet was founded in 2008 within the “G.Verdi” Conservatoire of Milan and is the winner of the chamber music prize “Claudio Abbado” Borletti – Buitoni Trust 2016.

From 2009 to 2011, the Quartet was mentored by the Artemis Quartet at the Arts University of Berlin. Subsequently, the Lyskamms joined the ECMA circuit (European Chamber Music Academy), a collaboration between some of the most important European universities. In this environment they met important teachers such as Hatto Beyerle, Johannes Meissl, Heime Mueller, Ferenc Rados, Antonello Farulli, Claus Christian Schuster, Jerome Pernoo, Christophe Giovaninetti and Andrea Nannoni. Currently the Quartet is studying with Heime Mueller at the Hochschule fuer Musik in Lubecca. In 2014, the Lyskamms received the Vittorio Rimbotti award, appointed every two years within the “Accademia Europea del Quartetto” in “Scuola di Musica di Fiesole”. In 2015 in Graz, they won second prize at the international competition Franz Schubert und die Musik der Moderne and special prize ” Pro Quartet”. The Quartet also won the first prize at “Possehl Wettbewerb Musikpreis 2015”.

The Lyskamm Quartet was a guest for the Quartet Society of Milano, the Mito Festival, the Unione Musicale and the Lingotto Musica of Turin. Other guest work includes the Amici della Musica of Padova, the Quartet Society of Vercelli and the Orta Festival, as well as a live televised performance for RAI Radio3.

The Transylvanian-born Stefan Metz first studied cello at the Bucharest Conservatory and then continued his studies under Paul Tortelier. A masterclass with the Amadeus Quartet brought him to the Netherlands where he founded the Orlando Quartet. As the cellist of the Orlando quartet, he has toured over the world and made more than 20 CD recordings and twice won the “Grand Prix du Disque”. In 1982 Stefan Metz founded the Orlando Festival resulting in a close working relationship with György Kurtàg. As a result, he has frequently performed Kurtàg’s music, notably at the Edinburgh Festival, Luzern Festwochen, Wien Modern, Festival d’Automne de Paris, and Budapest Spring Festival.

Stefan Metz is the founder of the Dutch String quartet Academy, a postgraduate institute for the study of string quartet playing. He performed with Heinz Hollinger, Nobuko Imai, Gidon Kremer, Menahem Pressler, Heinrich Schiff, the Borodin Quartet, and members of the Amadeus Quartet. He regularly gives masterclasses in Holland, Germany, the UK and the USA and appears on the jury of international chamber music competitions in Bordeaux, Florence, London, Moscow, and Prague.

As the cellist of the Orlando Trio in 2003 he won the “Jahrespreis der Deutsche Schallplattenkritik” and in 2004 the Edison Classic Award. Stefan Metz is appointed Officer of the Royal Order of Orange Nassau.