The Sound of Life through the Mirror of Hope
International
Fourteen-year-old Nurallah Ejder, who plays the Turkish zither, was born in Berlin and has been taking classes in classical Turkish music at the Turkish Conservatory in the German capital since 2004. He has already given concerts together with the conservatory’s choir as well as with a variety of orchestras.
The Italian djembe player Adam Gallina studied at academies in Novara and Turin, where he specialised in African music and especially the djembe. He has worked as a stage designer and actor, developing music projects for children between the ages of three and six.
Kathrin Gass, who plays the harmonica, was born in the musical town of Trossingen, which enjoys a reputation as a Mecca for aficionados of her instrument. In 2001 she won first prize at the World Harmonica Festival in the solo category. She currently teaches at Trossingen’s Hohner Conservatory and has written a number of teaching books for students of the harmonica.
The Russian Aydar Gaynullin, who was born in Moscow in 1981, has used his Russian accordion to entertain some very famous people, including Queen Sofia of Spain, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin and Jacques Chirac. He studied at the renowned Gnessin Academy in his hometown, won prizes at international music competitions, and has performed in many European countries, in the US, and in Japan, sharing the stage with musicians like Mstislav Rostropovich, Yuri Bashmet and Mireille Mathieu.
The accordionist Yvonne Grünwald was born in 1984 in the eastern German town of Salzwedel and had already begun to win numerous prizes while she was still attending school. Between 2003-2009 she studied at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin under Prof. Gudrun Wall; in 2008 she was awarded a scholarship by the “Yehudi Menuhin – Live Music Now” organisation.
Helmut Hauskeller’s love of the panpipes began when as a 14-year-old he heard the panpipe virtuosos Simion Stanciu and Gheorghe Zamfir – an event that impressed him so much that he began to make and play his own panpipes. Since 1989, concerts, recording sessions and TV-appearances have taken him all over Germany as well as to England, Finland, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland and the US.
Sebastian Kunzke, who specialises in brass instruments, will be performing here as a sousaphonist. He studied at the Academy of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin and currently plays with a number of different brass bands (Brumcalli, Beat’n Blow, Di Grine Kuzine). He also makes forays into the worlds of classical chamber and orchestral music.
The Chinese guzheng player Mona Li has been performing in Germany since the mid-1990s, helping to promote and popularise the traditional culture of her home country. Alongside her appearances as a soloist, Mona Li is also a committed music teacher.
Sven “Roxi” Otto, who plays the Jews’s harp, was born in Leipzig in 1974. He’s also worked as a disc jockey and as a consultant for other artists. Since 2001 he’s devoted much of his energy to the Jew’s harp and wind instruments in general, especially those of Far Eastern origin. Sven runs both a label specialising in the Jew’s harp and the largest specialist Jew’s harp store in the world with over 350 models.
The barrel organ players Dietmar Jarofke and Gerhard Zweig are both very passionate about their music. Alongside his long career as a vet at the Berlin Zoo, Dietmar Jarofke also learnt the art of the barrel organ and is the current president of the “International Association of Friends of the Barrel Organ”. As an inspector of the crafts workers at Berlin Zoo, Gerhard Zweig came across an old barrel organ from the pre-war period, which he today plays at events of all kinds.
The history of Geidai University goes back to two special schools: the Tokyo School of Fine Arts and the Tokyo Music School, each of which was founded in 1887 before coming together in 1949 to create the National University of Fine Arts and Music, which in turn took on the name Tokyo Geidai as part of a national restructuring of Japan’s universities in 2004.
Each year 250 students are admitted to the university’s music faculty, 70 of whom take courses for orchestral instruments. After completing their first year they join one of the student orchestras, ensuring that, at any one time, 250 students are represented in these ensembles.
After a rigorous process of competitive auditions 90 musicians were selected for this year’s Tokyo Geidai Symphony Orchestra tour to Germany.