5 p.m.:TuneUp – Platform for Young Talent I

Germany

The bağlama player Oktay Akyüz was born and grew up in Berlin. After discovering his interest in music at the age of nine, he was already making a name for himself as an 11-year-old at the “Jugend musiziert” competition, repeating his success at other regional and state competitions as well as in concert performances together with his teacher Halit Celik.

The Chameleon Ensemble, featuring Franziska Läßle (flute), Lina Bauer (oboe), Leandra Brehm (clarinet), Constantin Gerstein-Ichimescu (bassoon), Deborah Brehm (horn) and Bertan Balli (piano), is promoted by the German Music Council Baden-Württemberg as a young chamber ensemble. All of the woodwind musicians are or have been members of the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Orchestra and played in the Federal Youth Orchestra. All have won first prizes in the “Jugend musiziert” competition.

Tabea Debus, born in Würzburg in 1991, has won no fewer than seven national first prizes since 2003 in different categories at “Jugend musiziert” (solo recorder, recorder ensemble, Early Music). Khanh-Ly Tran-Phung was born in Hanoi, Vietnam, in 1989. At the age of nine she took her first piano lessons and went on to win a number of 1st prizes at “Jugend musiziert”. Since October 2008 she has been studying piano under Professor Ewald Kehlenbach at the Hannover University of Music and Drama. In 2008 Khanh-Ly Tran-Phung and Tabea Debus were awarded several special prizes and also won Foundation Prizes and Special Certificates for their original compositions as well as the “best interpretation of a contemporary work” during the “WESPE” Competition (Weekend of Special Prizes).

Elisabeth Köstner (23), who was born in Rosenheim, studied communication sciences in Munich. She was the songwriter, lead singer and bassist with the band zuckerfrei, has attended singing and dancing classes, and took part in 2008 in the Munich music project “A Chorus Line”. Jacqueline Austermann, who was born in Wuppertal and grew up in Bavaria, is a pianist who received piano lessons from the age of eight. The 22-year-old is currently studying physics in Munich.

Since 2005 the Düsseldorf-born high school graduate Johannes Lang has been a “youth student” at the Freiburg University of Music, where he is studying organ, improvisation, liturgical organ playing and cembalo. The multiple award-winner, who is also focussing a lot of his energy on organ building, gives concerts across Europe, playing on some of the continent’s best-know organs, like the one at Hildesheim Cathedral, the Creutzburg organ in Duderstadt, the Freiburg Cathedral organ, or the organ at the Philharmonic Hall in Ljubljana.

The Mondschein Quartett (Moonshine Quartet) with Vera Katharina Schmidt (19, violin), Rahel Weissenborn (19, violin), Christine Wagner (21, viola) and Jakob Schall (20, cello), is based in Germany’s south-western state of Baden-Württemberg. The quartet came together in 2006 and was already winning national prizes at “Jugend musiziert” in 2007 and 2008. They were also awarded a special prize at WESPE (Weekend of Special Prizes) for the best original composition.

Jessica and Vanessa Porter, who are from the state of Baden-Württemberg, took their first percussion classes when they were just six years old. Their teacher was their father – a professional drummer. Later they moved on to tuition in Afro-Cuban and Brazilian percussion. The sisters have won a number of “Jugend musiziert” prizes at regional and national level, as well as in solo and ensemble competitions.

Ann-Kathrin (19) and Valerie (16) Schmelter have been studying as a piano duo at the Leopold Mozart Institute for Highly Talented Students in Salzburg since 2006. Both of the sisters have on several occasions been 1st prize winners at the Karl Lang Competition in Munich and the “Jugend musiziert” competition at regional, state, and national levels in the “piano duo”, “piano solo” and “piano-chamber music” categories.

Steffen Wick, who studied composition, piano, music theory and new media at the University of Music in Stuttgart, describes himself as a musician who “paints in sound”. Together with Simon Detel he set up a company called WIDEMUSIC, as a place to generate new approaches to composition as well as designing and realising inter-disciplinary concert projects.

17-year-old Philipp Wollheim won his first prize at “Jugend musiziert” when he was just five years old and many more were to follow – at the regional and national levels and in the categories of solo and chamber music. Since 2004 he has been a “youth student” under Prof. Tomasz Tomaszewski at the Julius Stern Institute at Berlin’s University of the Arts. Philipp Wollheim can already point to a large number of concerts and radio appearances as well as an appearance in the TV documentary “Dvoráks New World”. The 18 year old pianist Adam Tomaszewski comes from Berlin and since 2007 he has been a “youth student” at both the Julius Stern Institute and at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler. In 2007 he also received the “Jugend musiziert” special prize for the best interpretation of a modern composition: Subito by Witold Lutoslawski.