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Violinist Antje Weithaas has earned praise for her strength in a variety of repertory, ranging from Bach to Ligeti. She is also a chamber music player and a prominent educator. Weithaas has a large recording catalog stretching back to the early '90s. In the early 2020s, she began a cycle of Beethoven's violin sonatas with pianist Dénes Várjon; it reached its end in 2024 with the release of the album Beethoven: Violin Sonatas Nos. 1, 5, 6 & 10.

Weithaas was born in Guben, on the German-Polish border in what was then East Germany, in 1966. She started violin lessons at age four. She studied at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in East Berlin, and she won a string of increasingly important honors culminating in a win at the Hannover International Violin Competition in 1991 (she later became the festival's artistic director). Two years later, she made her recording debut as a member of Trio Ex Aequo on the Discover label, with the album Schubert: Trio, Op. 99; Notturno, Op. 148. She began teaching at the Universität der Künste, Berlin, and in 2004, she moved to her alma mater, the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler; she remained on its faculty into the mid-2020s and also later taught at the Kronberg Academy.

Weithaas has performed as a soloist with leading orchestras outside as well as in Germany, including the BBC Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the San Francisco Symphony. Her repertory ranges from the Baroque to contemporary music and includes works by Bach, Mozart, Prokofiev, and Sofia Gubaidulina, among many other composers. She is quite active as a chamber player, with the Arcanto Quartet (along with violinist Daniel Sepec, violist Tabea Zimmermann, and cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras), and as half of a duo with pianist Silke Avenhaus. Her first recording as a solo player came in 2005 when she joined Avenhaus on the Avi label album Schubert: Works for Violin & Piano. She has continued to record for Avi and its cousin, CAvi-music, and has also recorded for Es-Dur, Alpha, CPO, and Harmonia Mundi. By 2024, when her CAvi-music Beethoven cycle with Várjon concluded, her recording catalog comprised more than 60 albums. ~ James Manheim

Lars Vogt enjoyed a meteoric rise after capturing second prize at the 1990 Leeds International Piano Competition. He managed to straddle two worlds in the process, that of soloist/recitalist and that of chamber player. He regularly appeared with front-rank orchestras across the globe and on the recital stages at major venues while founding a chamber music festival and making numerous recordings devoted to chamber works. Vogt's taste in repertory was unusually broad, taking in not only the German sphere (Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven) but also a veritable potpourri (Dvorák, Saint-Saëns, Stravinsky) as well as contemporary composers (Erkki-Sven Tüür, Volker David Kirchner). He possessed a powerful technique and a chameleonic interpretive persona that together allowed him to capture the subtleties and negotiate the challenges presented by this vast array of composers.

Vogt was born in the German town of Düren on September 8, 1970. He studied piano in Aachen with Ruth Weiss and at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. After his victory at the 1990 Leeds Competition, Vogt launched his international career, touring throughout Europe and eventually the Americas and Asia. His first recording was an acclaimed 1992 EMI album of works by Haydn, Schubert, Brahms, and Lachenmann. A Haydn piano sonata release followed in 1994, as well as several others later in the decade. In the new century, Vogt made a spate of successful recordings, many in the chamber genre.

The impetus for much of his chamber activity dates to the founding of the Spannungen Festival in 1998, where he served as artistic director for a time. Vogt recorded numerous albums with musicians appearing at the event, held every June in Heimbach. He collaborated with violinist Christian Tetzlaff in the Brahms sonatas, with clarinetist Sabine Meyer in Brahms and Berg works, and with cellist Boris Pergamenschikov in Brahms and Schumann fare.

In the early 2000s, Vogt developed a close relationship with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Simon Rattle, becoming the group's first-ever pianist-in-residence. In that capacity, he appeared in five concerts. Vogt secured his first orchestral directorship post in 2015 when he became the music director of the Royal Northern Sinfonia. He remained in this position until 2020 but continued his association with the orchestra as principal artistic partner. That year, he became the music director of the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris. In 2021, Vogt was diagnosed with cancer and was open about his condition, describing how he continued to play piano throughout -- even during treatments -- and found comfort in the solo piano music of Brahms. The following year, Vogt joined his daughter, Isabelle, for the album Schumann, R. Strauss: Melodramas, and he led the Orchestre de Chambre de Paris from the keyboard on a recording of Mendelssohn's works for piano and orchestra. Vogt died of cancer on September 5, 2022, three days before his 52nd birthday. He is survived by his wife, violinist Anna Reszniak, and three children. ~ Robert Cummings

Cellist Tanja Tetzlaff is a frequent soloist with major orchestras in her native Germany and abroad. She is also an enthusiastic chamber music player, working with her brother, violinist Christian Tetzlaff, among others.

Tetzlaff was born in Hamburg in 1973. She and her older brother Christian grew up in a musical household with parents who had met in a church choir. At 17, Tanja auditioned to study in Salzburg, Austria, with Heinrich Schiff; she was accepted and worked with him at the Salzburg Mozarteum and also with Bernhard Gmelin at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. A breakthrough for Tetzlaff was a win at the International Music Competition in Vienna, followed in 1994 by another at the ARD Music Competition in Munich, Germany. She made her recording debut in 1996 on the Camerata label with an album of Haydn cello concertos with the Wiener Kammerorchester.

Tetzlaff has performed concertos with top orchestras in Germany and abroad, including the Sinfonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Orchestre de Paris, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. She is an enthusiastic chamber music player, appearing with her brother as part of the Tetzlaff Quartet as well as with such players as violist Tabea Zimmermann, pianist Lars Vogt, and clarinetist Martin Fröst. She served as principal cellist with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and lives in that city with her husband, violinist Florian Donderer, and her family; in 2024, she became professor of cello and chamber music at the Hochschule für Künste there.

Tetzlaff's repertory includes not only traditional cello works but also new music, and in 2011, she recorded the difficult Konzert in einem Satz ("Concerto in One Movement") by Wolfgang Rihm. Tetzlaff has recorded for Avi, CAvi-music, and Ondine, among other labels. In 2020, she was heard with the Signum Quartett and other musicians on Lost Prayers, an ECM recording of music by composer Erkki-Sven Tüür. In 2023, she and Christian Tetzlaff recorded the Brahms Double Concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra, Op. 102, with the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin on the Ondine label, and in 2024, she (and Donderer) were heard on the CAvi-music album Serenade for Clarinet & Strings: Krenek, Gál, Penderecki. ~ James Manheim

Florian Donderer has maintained dual careers as a violinist and conductor, often leading orchestras from the concertmaster's chair. He is also a top-flight chamber musician.

Donderer was born in Berlin in 1969. He grew up in a musical family with a cellist father and a flutist mother. He studied the violin at the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic under a scholarship and also studied the instrument in London. Donderer joined the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, becoming its concertmaster by 1999. In that capacity, he often shaped performances by the group that had no conductor, and these became a trademark of the ensemble. He has also served as concertmaster of the Balthasar Neumann Choir and Ensemble. From these positions, he developed an interest in conducting, and he made his first appearance as a conductor in 2010 with Ensemble Oriol and Christiane Oelze in a concert at the Philharmonie in Berlin. That year also saw Donderer make his recording debut, appearing on the CAvi-music label in a recording of Dvořák's String Sextet, Op. 48.

Donderer has often been invited to direct leading European small orchestras, including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Kammerorchester Basel, Camerata Bern, and the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, often appearing with them as a violin soloist as well. He has remained active as a violinist in chamber music, becoming first violinist of the Signum Quartet in 2016 and touring internationally with that group. He is a frequent guest at festivals, including the Spannungen chamber music event founded by pianist Lars Vogt and the Sommerprossen festival in Rottweil, of which he serves as artistic director. Donderer has appeared on recordings as both violinist and conductor, in the latter capacity in 2020 on an ECM recording of Erki-Sven Tüür's Lost Prayers. In 2024, Donderer was heard on the album Serenade for clarinet & strings. He is married to cellist Tanja Tetzlaff, and the couple has two children; the two have often performed together. ~ James Manheim

Huw Watkins is notable for his equal renown as a pianist and composer. In the former role, he is a significant accompanist for and duet partner with many leading British and international figures, and in the latter, he has especially emphasized chamber and vocal music.

Watkins was born on July 13, 1976, in Pontypool, South Wales, U.K. The cellist Paul Watkins is his brother, and the two have performed together. He attended Chetham's School of Music and went on to King's College, Cambridge, where he studied composition with Alexander Goehr and Robin Holloway. Watkins earned a master's degree in composition from the Royal College of Music, later earning a junior fellowship there before joining the faculty. As a pianist, Watkins has performed with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Britten Sinfonia, and the London Sinfonietta, as well as giving recitals at such top British and American venues as Wigmore Hall, the Smithsonian, and the Library of Congress. His duet and vocal partners include Alina Ibragimova, Daniel Hope, and Carolyn Sampson, who recorded his Five Larkin Songs (with Joseph Middleton) in 2020.

Sampson is just one of the leading British performers who have championed Watkins' compositions; others include the London Symphony Orchestra, which premiered his London Concerto to mark its 2005 centenary. Watkins' chorus-and-orchestra work The Moon premiered at the 2019 Proms in London, and his Dawning was performed in early 2020 by the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. Watkins has written numerous chamber works, including several string quartets, the third of which was premiered by the Belcea Quartet at Wigmore Hall. Watkins' catalog of vocal works is large, and he has composed a pair of song cycles, Remember (2014) and Echo (2017), for soprano Ruby Hughes; the latter was co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall. He has recorded for Chandos, Wergo, Signum Classics, and other labels, often performing his own works. He joined Tamsin Waley-Cohen in 2020 for a recording of Beethoven violin sonatas on Signum Classics, and in the same year, he joined her at Wigmore Hall for the premiere of a new work of his own for violin and piano. Watkins remained active through the COVID-19 pandemic, backing violinist Kerenza Peacock on the 2021 release Rodrigo Ruiz: Beyond the Stars and Hughes' 2022 album Echo. He returned on the Chandos label in 2023, accompanying flutist Adam Walker on the album Shadow Dances: British Works for Flute. ~ James Manheim

Distinguishing herself at an early age, cellist Marie-Elisabeth Hecker began studying her instrument at 5, and started entering music competitions when she was 12. She began training with Wieland Pörner at the Robert Schumann Conservatory in Zwickau, and continued her studies with Peter Bruns at the Saxon State Grammar School for Music in Dresden. In 2005, she enrolled in the Hochschule für Musik und Theater "Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy" in Leipzig. That year, she won the first prize in the Concours Rostropovich in Paris as one of the youngest competitors. Hecker has participated in the Kronberg Academy's "Chamber Music Connects the World" project, and she performed in the "Junge Wilde" series at the Konzerthaus Dortmund. In 2010, she appeared with Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin in a celebration of Schumann's bicentennial, performing the Cello Concerto in A minor. Hecker frequently performs with her husband, pianist Martin Helmchen, and they have recorded works by Brahms and Schubert on the Alpha label. ~ Blair Sanderson