Sergey Ostrovsky is a solo violinist, conductor, founder and first violin of the Aviv String Quartet for 27 seasons, founder and Artistic Director of the ‘Ensemble Symphonique de Genève’ and has taught violin at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève and Neuchâtel since 2009. He was First Solo Violin of the ‘Orchestre de la Suisse Romande’ from 2007 to 2012. He was also First Solo Violin of the ‘Orquesta de la Communidad Valenciana’ from 2012 to 2015.

Sergey Ostrovsky won the Grand Prize at the 3rd Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition. He is a laureate of the Bordeaux International String Quartet Competition, 2nd Prize winner of the ‘Schubert and Modernity’ International Competition in Graz (Schubert Prize), as well as a laureate of the ‘Prague Spring’ International Competition and the Rodolfo Lipitzer Prize.

As a soloist, Sergey Ostrovsky plays with prestigious orchestras such as the ‘Orchestre de la Suisse Romande’, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, the Amadeus Chamber Orchestra (Poland), the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the ‘Orquesta de la Communidad Valenciana’, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the ‘Luzerner Sinfonieorchester’ and the Israel Chamber Orchestra.

A passionate conductor, Sergey Ostrovsky is regularly invited to conduct in Switzerland, Spain, Russia, Estonia, Ukraine, Armenia, Georgia, Latvia and Israel.

In 2015, Sergey Ostrovsky created a string ensemble, the ‘Solistes de Neuchâtel’, and in 2023 the ‘Ensemble Symphonique de Genève’. Sergey Ostrovsky's role as artistic director of the’ Ensemble Symphonique de Genève’ is multifaceted, both as an ‘artistic manager’ and as a musician ‘involved’ in the performances. From the latter point of view, he will be able to conduct the orchestra from the podium but also conduct the violin as a soloist.

As a chamber musician, Sergey Ostrovsky has played in the world's most prestigious venues, including Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, the Louvre Auditorium, the ‘Théâtre du Châtelet’, London's Wigmore Hall and the Sydney Opera House. His ‘Aviv String Quartet’ has also made numerous recordings (Hoffmeister, Dohnanyi, Shostakovich, Schubert, Schulhoff, etc.), some of which have received critical acclaim.

Noémie Bialobroda has been the violist of the Aviv Quartet since 2014, leading an active international career with the ensemble. Their performance of Beethoven’s complete string quartets at the Ansermet Studio in Geneva in 2018-2019 was a great success and strengthened their presence in French-speaking Switzerland.

Noémie Bialobroda, passionate about teaching, is since 2025, viola professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Lyon. She is also Chamber Music Professor and Chamber Music Coordinator at the Haute École de Musique de Genève. Previously, she taught at the Conservatoire de Lausanne and the Conservatoire de Genève. During the summer, she teaches at the Flaine International Music Academy. Her students have won prizes in prestigious national and international competitions.

In recognition of her contributions to music, Noémie Bialobroda was awarded the Leenaards Foundation cultural grant in the music category in 2024.

As a performer, she is invited to renowned concert seasons and festivals, including Wigmore Hall (London), the IRCAM Manifeste Festival, and the Cité de la Musique (Paris), among others. She performs with artists such as Abdel Rahman El Bacha, Yovan Markovitch, Luis Claret, Boris Garlitsky, François Guye, Philippe Müller, Tedi Papavrami, Jean Sulem, Jean-Pierre Wallez, and the Rosamonde Quartet, giving concerts across Europe, Israel, and the United States.

Dedicated to contemporary music, Noémie has premiered two solo viola pieces at IRCAM: Caprice for Solo Viola and Electronics by Japanese composer Keita Matsumiya (2012) and Drifting by Pierre Stordeur (2013). She is also regularly invited to perform with the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt and the Contrechamps ensemble in Geneva.

Noémie Bialobroda studied with Nobuko Imai and Miguel Da Silva at the Haute école de Musique de Genève and later at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where she completed an Artist Diploma (third cycle) with Professor Jean Sulem.

Noémie Bialobroda is the co-founder and artistic director of the Geneva International String Academy.

Piano - accompanist (edition 2021)

Sander Sittig performs regularly with great violinists like Shlomo Mintz, Pavel Berman and Liza Ferschtman. These concerts have taken him to major concert halls in almost all European countries as well as Japan, China, Israel and North and South America. Also as a soloist he gets very positive reviews, for instance for his CD with works by Mozart, his performances with orchestras in the Netherlands, Spain and the Czech Republic and his recitals, often with spoken introductions and audio-visual support.

Sander Sittig studied with master pedagogue Jan Wijn at the Amsterdam Conservatory. During these studies he made his debut in the main concert halls of the Netherlands, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and De Doelen in Rotterdam. He was a prizewinner at international piano competitions in the USA, Italy, France and the Netherlands.

Sander Sittig is a regular guest at festivals in Italy, Israel, Austria and the Netherlands. He performs frequently for radio and television. As a pedagogue he collaborates at the Codarts Conservatory of music in his native city Rotterdam and at the online courses of iClassical Academy.

In the 2021-22 season recitals are planned with Shlomo Mintz in Italy and Argentina. Sander Sittig will also extensively tour the Netherlands and other European countries with prizewinning violinist Hawijch Elders and give recitals in France, Spain and Portugal with violinists Miguel Simoes and Benjamin Scherer Quesada. As a solist he will present his audio-visual recital around Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition at many venues in the Netherlands.

Sophia Fournier studied the violin at the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional in Nice and then at the Académie Rainier III in Monaco, where she was awarded diplomas in violin and in chamber music, both unanimously and with the jury’s congratulations. She continued her training at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Lyon in Marc Danel’s class.

Winner of the Palmes Académiques interpretation prize in Monaco and of the Prince Rainier III Prize in 2017, and third prize at the Marie Cantagrill International Competition in 2019, she has received scholarships from Soroptimist and the Rotary Club of Monaco.

A soloist at ten at the Musique cordiale festival in Fayence and at fifteen with Les Solistes de Monte-Carlo, she performed Tchaikovsky’s Concerto with the Chambre symphonique de Lyon in 2019. A passionate chamber musician, she plays a repertoire ranging from Handel to Ligeti, with a particular fondness for Russian music.

Born in Yerevan in 1996 into a family of musicians, Feliks Harutyunyan began the violin at the age of five. Since 2022 he has held a permanent position in the first violins of the Vienna Volksoper Orchestra.

After the Tchaikovsky Music School and the Komitas State Conservatory in Yerevan, where he studied with Alexander Kosemyan, he joined Dominika Falger’s class at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, earning his bachelor’s degree in 2019 and his master’s degree in 2021, both with distinction; he then continued with her at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna.

As a soloist he has appeared with the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Armenian National Chamber Orchestra – with which he made his debut in 2018 in Mozart’s A major Concerto – and the Symphony Orchestra of the University of Graz, with which he played Bartók’s Second Concerto in 2021. Guest concertmaster of the Armenian National Chamber Orchestra, he also plays with the Wiener Symphoniker and the Tonkünstler-Orchester.

First-prize winner at the Váša Příhoda International Violin Competition and the Malta International Music Competition 2018, finalist of the Ysaÿe and Grażyna Bacewicz competitions in 2019 and laureate of the Khachaturian Competition in 2020, he founded the string ensemble Grazer Solisten. A scholarship holder of the Académie musicale de Villecroze and the Geneva International String Academy, he has worked with Renaud Capuçon, Tedi Papavrami, Sergey Ostrovsky and Mihaela Martin.

Mila Gafner, born in 2004, started playing the viola at the age of 6 at the Lausanne Conservatory. She will then study with Noémie Bialobroda and joined the Pre-HEM program in 2018.

Mila has been a three-time winner of the Swiss Youth Music Competition in solo viola, as well as three times in chamber music. In April 2020, she was a finalist in the international Anton Rubinstein competition in Berlin and received the Förderpreis for the best interpretation of a contemporary work.

Mila has participated in masterclasses with violist and composer Garth Knox, violinist Gilles Apap, the Sine Nomine Quartet, and violist Matthias Buchholz. During the summers of 2018 and 2019, she attended the AIMS International String Academy in Solsona, Spain, and in December 2019, she studied with the Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, specializing in contemporary music, before joining them on tour in Germany, Amsterdam, and Antwerp.

In 2023, she recorded Kodály's Intermezzo for string trio with her ensemble for the 4 Seasons festival album.

Since 2022, Mila has been studying with Jean Sulem at the CNSMDP in Paris.

Cosima Federle was born in Regensburg in 2002 and started playing the violoncello at the age of four.

At 2010 she was admitted to to the "Bayrische Frühförderklasse", Regensburg under Wolfgang Nüsslein and from 2015-2019 she had lessons with Hanno Simons in Munich. In 2019 Cosima became a junior student of Peter Bruns at the “Hochschule für Musik und Theater Leipzig” and continued there as a full student since 2020.

Her playing was enriched by participation in masterclasses taught by Wolfgang Boettcher, Wen- Sinn Yang, László Fenyö, Jan Vogler, Natalia Gutman, Boris Kusnezow, Kian Soltani, Jens- Peter Maintz, Mischa Maisky and Alfred Brendl. Cosima has won various national and international competitions, including first prizes at the "International Dotzauer Competition", Dresden, at the "Làszlò Spezzaferri International Music Competition", Verona, at “Jugend Musiziert“ and 2nd prizes at the "International David Popper Competition“, Hungary and at the "Concours International de Tremplin", Paris, as well as the Music Prize of the City of Regensburg, a special prize by the "Harald Genzmer Foundation" and a Special prize by the German "Bundesapothekenkammer".

In 2013 Cosima and her brother were one of the main protagonists of the movie "Jugend Musiziert- der Film“, which was broadcasted by various German TV channels. She is a scholarship holder of the "Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben" and the "International Music Academy Liechtenstein" and received further scholarships by the "Geneva International String Academy", Switzerland, "Musique à Flaine", France, from the "Hildegard-Schmalzl Foundation" and the "Dresden Music Festival".

Since 2017 she was an annual scholarship holder of the project "Meisterschüler-Meister" in the Neuhardenberg Castle, Berlin with Jan Vogler.

Cosima has played at several festivals, including "Musique en Été", Geneva, "Dresden Music Festival", "Festival Momentum", Stolberg and performed at Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Stadtcasino Basel and Gewandhaus Leipzig.

She produced several recordings with the “Bayrischer Rundfunk“, “Deutschlandfunk“, “Norddeutscher Rundfunk“ and “Radio Berlin Brandenburg“.

Cosima plays a cello by Nicolas Lupot, Paris 1821, that has been given to her as a loan by the “Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben“.

https://konstanze-pietschmann.com

Konstanze Pietschmann is a cellist from Leipzig. After studying in the young talent promotion class of Anna Niebuhr at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy " in Leipzig, she began her music studies in the class of Prof. Peter Bruns at the same university in 2018. After numerous first prizes at "Jugend musiziert " at the national level, participation in major international competitions followed, including the "Concours Reine Elisabeth " in Brussels. Among others, she was awarded 3rd prize at the International Dotzauer Competition, 1st prize at the International Cello Competition "Anna Kull " in Graz, the "International Suggia Award " in Porto and most recently 1st prize at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University Competition in Berlin.

She made her debut as a soloist in 2019 at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig with the Cello Concerto by Robert Schumann. This was followed by concerts with the Graz Philharmonic Orchestra, “Konzerthausorchester” Berlin, the Orquestra Sinfonica do Porto, the award- winning ensemble LGT Young Soloists and others. Several chamber music concerts have already taken Konstanze to the concert halls of Portugal, Italy, Ethiopia, Hungary, Greece, Israel, the USA and many more. In 2021 she founded the chamber orchestra “Camerata Espansiva!” to give young soloists a stage.

She regularly participates in master classes and festivals. At the Geneva String Academy, Musique a Flaine and “Con Spirito” Festival she shared the stage with musicians such as Sergey Ostrovsky, Noemie Bialobroda, Tobias Feldmann, Pauline Sachse, Andrej Bielow and Christophe Poiget. In addition to master classes with Peter Bruns, Alfred Brendel, Marc Coppey, Wolfgang Böttcher, Norman Fischer, Valentin Erben (Alban Berg Quartet) and members of the Quatuor Ysaÿe, Konstanze received important impulses from Wen-Sinn Yang and Anne Gastinel.

Since 2019, Konstanze Pietschmann has been a scholarship holder of the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now Leipzig e.V. association. She has also received scholarships from the Jütting Foundation, the Harald Genzmer Foundation and Musique à Flaine. Konstanze plays a cello by Charles Gaillard (Paris, 1867) from the German Musical Instrument Fund of the “Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben”.