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Violinist Baiba Skride parlayed prominent competition wins early in her career into international concert prominence. She is also a noted chamber music player.

Skride was born in the Latvian capital of Riga on February 19, 1981. She grew up in a musical family; she, along with sisters Lauma (piano) and Linda (viola), took their first music lessons from their grandmother, and they have continued to perform together. Skride's mother was a pianist, and her father was a choral conductor. By age five, Skride was concertizing on the violin. She enrolled in 1995 in a school for musically talented youngsters in Riga and then in the Rostock Conservatory in Germany, commuting for a time between the two cities. In Rostock, her teacher was Petru Munteanu. Skride also took master classes with Ruggiero Ricci and Lewis Kaplan. Her record of competition prizes, which dated back to a youth event in Bulgaria in 1988, culminated in a win at the 2001 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in Brussels. That led to concerto appearances with top orchestras all over Europe, North America, and Asia, including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Tokyo Philharmonic. As a chamber musician, she has been joined by cellists Sol Gabetta and Alban Gerhardt and harpist Xavier de Maistre, among many others. For a time, Skride performed on the 1734 "Ex Baron Feilitzsch" Stradivarius, owned by violinist Gidon Kremer.

Skride has been a prolific recording artist. In her early twenties, she was signed to the Sony Classical label, replacing Hilary Hahn on its roster when the latter moved to Deutsche Grammophon. Her recording debut was an album of Mozart and Haydn violin concertos with the Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach Chamber Orchestra. Two of her Sony albums won the prestigious Echo Klassik awards in Germany. After her 2008 album Souvenir Russe, she signed with the Orfeo label, where she has continued to issue new albums almost annually. She has focused mostly on standard repertory but was featured on a recording of composer Heino Eller's violin concerto on Ondine in 2018; that year, she also issued a recording of violin concertos by Bernstein, Korngold, and Miklos Rósza. In 2020, Skride released a new recording of Mozart's five violin concertos with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra under conductor Eivind Aadland, featuring new cadenzas by Skride herself. Skride returned on Orfeo in 2022 with the album Violin Unlimited, featuring solo violin sonatas, and in 2024, she was heard on a recording of Britten's Violin Concerto with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, conducted by Marin Alsop. ~ James Manheim

Cellist Harriet Krijgh has emerged as a star on her instrument in the Netherlands, not only following in the footsteps of her teachers but also operating her own summer festival, Harriet & Friends. Her tours have taken her as far afield as Vietnam. Krijgh began recording for the Capriccio label in her early twenties, and she has gone on to record for Deutsche Grammophon and Orfeo. On the latter label, she was heard on a 2024 recording of Sofia Gubaidulina's Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and bayan.

Krijgh was born in Zeist, near Utrecht, in the Netherlands, in 1991 and took up the cello at age five. Four years later, she won admission to the Utrecht Conservatory's Young Talent class. In 2004, she moved to Vienna for studies with Lilia Schulz-Bayrova and Jontscho Bayrovaan, taking classes at the Privatuniversität Wien and also attending masterclasses with Steven Isserlis, Clemens Hagen, and others. Krijgh has continued to live in Vienna, giving recitals there as well as at such top Dutch venues as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, de Doelen in Rotterdam, and the Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht. In 2008, Krijgh took two top prizes at the Queen Christina Competition; those represented the first of a series of important competition victories. She toured Asia in 2011, making such unusual stops as Vietnam. That year also saw Krijgh make her recording debut on Capriccio with The French Album. She entered the Kronberg Academy as a Young Soloist in 2013, earning a Casals Scholarship and studying with Frans Helmerson. She also continued her studies with Lilia Schulz-Bayrova in Vienna.

By the late 2010s, Krijgh was visible around Europe as an important new cellist. She made concerto appearances with the Munich Philharmonic, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, and the London Philharmonic, among other major ensembles, and she has been a favorite at European summer festivals. An enthusiastic chamber player, Krijgh joined the Artemis Quartet in 2019. Her discography is substantial for such a young player. She made several more albums for Capriccio before being signed by Deutsche Grammophon. In 2019, she made her debut on that label, Vivaldi, with Candida Thompson conducting the Amsterdam Sinfonietta. In 2021, Krijgh recorded the recital album Silent Dreams with pianist Magda Amara for Deutsche Grammophon. In 2024, she returned on the Orfeo label on a recording of the Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and bayan with the NDR Radiophilharmonie under the baton of Andrew Manze. ~ James Manheim

Accordionist Elsbeth Moser has been a pioneer in developing classical repertory for her instrument. She has collaborated with Sofia Gubaidulina as well as other contemporary composers. A longtime faculty member at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater, und Medien in Hannover, Germany, Moser is also a prominent educator. Among her recordings is one of Gubaidulina's Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and bayan with the NDR Radiophilharmonie (2024).

Moser was born in Bern, Switzerland, on March 22, 1949. Her grandfather was a baker and pastry-maker who played the Schwyzerörgeli, a small Swiss folk accordion. Moser was given an accordion for Christmas and immediately knew that she wanted to master the instrument. She took up the instrument at five, taking lessons in Bern from Hermann Herzig and making her concert debut at six. Moser then moved on to the Bern Conservatory and the Trossingen Conservatory in southwestern Germany. At the time, classical accordion players were rare, and Moser faced discrimination. As a result, she took piano lessons as well but soon devoted herself fully to the accordion. Moser won first prizes at competitions in Évian and Annemasse in France, and she scored a breakthrough when conductor Gidon Kremer invited her to perform at the Lockenhaus Festival. There, she gave the Western European premiere of Gubaidulina's Sieben Worte ("Seven Words"), a concerto for cello, bayan (a Russian accordion), and strings. Moser recorded that work in 1995 with the Camerata Transsylvanica for the Naxos label.

Moser has gone on to dual careers as a performer and educator. She joined the faculty at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater, und Medien in Hannover in 1983 and has held visiting positions and given masterclasses at other institutions, including the Shanghai Conservatory in China. She is co-founder of a quintet called "that." Moser has been visible at festivals, such as Les Musiques in Basel, Switzerland's Zermatt Festival, the Rheingau Musik Festival in Germany, and the 2 Days and 2 Nights of New Music Festival in Odesa, Ukraine. On tour, she has appeared in such unusual locations as Baghdad and Cairo. Moser re-recorded Gubaidulina's Seven Words for the prestigious ECM label with the Münchener Kammerorchester in 2002, and in 2014, she was heard with the Flex Ensemble on a recording that contained, among other works, several pieces by Astor Piazzolla. In 2024, Moser joined violinist Baiba Skride and cellist Harriet Krijgh in Gubaidulina's Triple Concerto for violin, cello, and bayan. She is the author of Das Knopfakkordeon C-Griff, ein systematischer Weg ("The Button Accordion C-System: a Systematic Method"). ~ James Manheim

Andrew Manze has had dual careers, one in early music as a violinist and the other as a conductor in mainstream symphonic repertory. As a presenter on BBC radio, Manze has also been a key communicator between classical musicians and the general British public.

Manze was born on January 14, 1965, in Beckenham, near London. He attended Cambridge University, where he studied Classics. He moved on to music studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, studying with both Simon Standage and Marie Leonhardt. Manze then joined the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, remaining there until 1993. The following year, he began collaborating with harpsichordist Richard Egarr. One of their major releases presented a 1712 collection of violin sonatas by composer Jean-Féry Rebel. Meanwhile, Manze formed the group Romanesca with harpsichordist John Toll and lutenist Nigel North; the trio specialized in music of the 17th century. In 1996, Manze was appointed associate director and concertmaster of the Baroque group The Academy of Ancient Music. From 2003 to 2007, he was the music director of another major historical performance ensemble, The English Concert.

Manze became a popular presenter on BBC Radio and made his debut with the BBC Proms concerts in 1998. That concert was televised nationally, with Manze playing concertos by Pergolesi, Bach, Vivaldi, and Mozart and introducing the public to the enthusiasm and directness of the new ways of performing Baroque and Classical music. Manze was long a busy soloist on the international concert scene, appearing in one season with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, the Swedish Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the early music group Tafelmusik, and the Berlin Philharmonic.

As Manze's career progressed, he shifted mostly to conducting. Increasingly often in the 21st century, Manze turned to mainstream Romantic and contemporary repertory, leading traditional symphony orchestras rather than early music ensembles. From 2006 to 2014, he was the chief conductor of the Helsingborg Symphony Orchestra. After a sequence of guest appearances with top German, English, and American orchestras, he was appointed chief conductor of the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hannover, Germany, in 2014, and his contract there has been extended through 2023. He has taken up residence in Germany. The year 2016 saw the beginning of a Manze-led cycle of Ralph Vaughan Williams' symphonies with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2018, he issued no fewer than nine recordings as a conductor and slowed only slightly in 2019 and 2020, when he led the NDR Radiophilharmonie in a recording of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, Op. 67, and Symphony No. 7 in A major, Op. 92. By 2022, when Manze and the NDR Radiophilharmonie backed clarinetist Annelien van Wauwe on the album Flow, his recording catalog comprised some 90 albums. In addition to conducting and performing, Manze has been active as a teacher, writer, and editor. ~ James Manheim & Joseph Stevenson