Jennifer Casey CABOT
soprano

Jennifer Casey Cabot’s career includes many of opera’s great heroines: Violetta, Mimi, Manon, Susannah, Musetta, Donna Elivira, the Countess, Pamina and Konstanze with the following opera companies: Boston Lyric Opera, Washington Opera, New York City Opera, Calgary Opera, Florida Grand Opera and Central City Opera among others. She recently appeared with the National Symphony under Leonard Slatkin, in the Athens Concert Hall with Sir Neville Marriner and with the New York Philharmonic with Alan Gilbert. Ms. Cabot’s concert career has included Strauss’ Four Last Songs, Villa Lobos’ Bachianas Brazileiras No. 5, Mahler’s Fourth and Eighth Symphonies, Mozart’s Exsultate Jubilate and Mass in C Minor, Handel’s Messiah, and Beethoven’s Ninth. In the 2007-08 season Ms. Cabot joined the roster of the Metropolitan Opera for Mozart’s Le Nozze die Figaro and La Traviata and returned to the National Symphony for Handel’s Messiah. Upcoming engagements include Ellen Orford in Peter Grimes with San Diego Opera and Konstanze in Abduction from the seraglio with Minnesota Opera. She was a resident soloist with the Deutsche Oper Berlin and the Staatstheater Braunschweig. A New York native, she holds a BA and a BM from Oberlin College and a MM from the Yale School of Music.

Johannes von DUISBURG
bass-baritone

Made his degree at the “Universität der Künste” in Berlin. Throughout these studies, he joined the master class of Kammersänger Prof. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. His regular voice teacher was Kammersänger Peter Gougaloff.
In 1989 he received the first prize at the “Young Artists Competition” sponsored by the Philip Morris Company, in 1992 the second prize in the “Opera Singers Competition” of “Staatsoper Hannover”. In 1995 he received “O.E.Hasse Award” for outstanding stage-performers.

Since 1992 he has worked as a freelance singer over the world, with guest contracts at, among others, the opera houses of Geneva, Strasbourg, Prague, Lisbon, Florence, Napoli, Rome, Moscow Tokyo, Tel-Aviv, etc.

Roles he performed include Jochanaan «Salome», Amonasro «Aida», Kaspar «Der Freischütz», Escamillo «Carmen», Scarpia «Tosca», Sarastro «Die Zauberflöte», Telramund «Lohengrin», Wanderer «Siegfried», Wotan «Die Walküre», John Claggart «Billy Budd» and many others

Christian OTT
organ

Christian OTT was born in 1968 in Nancy (France). He studied in Paris (First Prize in
organ, harpsichord and continuo at the « Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique
de Paris »). He participated with great success in several international organ competitions
( First Prize in Bordeaux in 1990 …)
He is professor at the Conservatoires in Paris XIII and Paris XV.
Concert tours have led him to important musical centres als soloist or in duo with the
harpist Isabelle LAGORS.
He is organist (co-titulaire) at Saint Louis Cathedral, Versailles.
WEB : http://www.isabellelagors-christianott.fr/

Pavel EGOROV
pianо

Graduated from the Moscow State Conservatory named after P.I. Tchaikovsky in 1975, where he studied under the guidance of professor Tatyana Nikolaeva and professor Vera Gornostaeva. In 1974 he was awarded First Prize and Golden Medal at the Schumann International Competition in Zwickau, Germany. Since 1976 works and resides in St. Petersburg, where he completed post-graduate studies at the St. Petersburg State Conservatory named after N.A.Rimsky-Korsakov in 1980. From that on he successfully combines teaching with concert engagements.

Professor Egorov has been a frequent jury member of all kinds of National and International Piano Competitions ( the Schumann Competition in Zwickau, the Tchaikovsky Juvenial Competition, “Virtuosi 2000”, “A step to Parnassus” and others) and from 1989 he is the Head of Jury at the annual International Competition of Piano Duets “Brother and sister” in St. Petersburg.

Pavel Egorov combines his artistic and pedagogique work with scientific research. He is the author of the first Russian edition of the Complete Works for piano of Robert Schumann in seven volumes. In 1989 he was awarded the International “Schumann-prize” and elected as Honorary Member of the Schumann Society, Dusseldorf. In 2002 Pavel Egorov has completed the first Russian urtext edition of the Well-tempered clavier of J.S.Bach.
He is a renowned music researcher and scientific editor, Honorary Member of the Filharmonic Society in St. Petersburg, has been awarded the Order of Polish Republic “Merit in Culture” in 2003, elected an active member of the St. Petersburg Department of Education and Scientific Development of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences in 2007.

Olga KONDINA
soprano

People's Artist of Russia, Prize-winner and Holder of a Special Award for Best Soprano at the Francesco Viñas International Competition (Barcelona, Spain, 1987), Prize-winner at the Glinka All-Union Vocalists Competition (Moscow, 1984), Diploma-winner at an International Vocalists Competition (Italy, 1986).

Olga Kondina was born in Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg). She graduated from the Ural State Conservatoire in violin studies (class of Professor Gashinsky) in 1982, and in solo singing (class of Professor Rodionova) in 1982. From 1983 to 1985 she continued her studies as a postgraduate at the Tchaikovsky State Conservatoire in Moscow (class of Professor I. Arkhipova). Olga Kondina has been a leading soloist at the Mariinsky Theatre since 1985.

Repertoire includes: Lyudmila (Ruslan and Lyudmila), Ksenia (Boris Godunov), Prilepa (The Queen of Spades), Iolante (Iolante), Sirin (The Legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh and the Maiden Fevronia), The Queen of Shemakha (The Golden Cockerel), The Nightingale (The Nightingale), Ninetta (The Love for Three Oranges), Florid Lady (The Gambler), Anastasia (Peter I), Rosina (Il barbiere di Siviglia), Lucia (Lucia di Lammermoor), Norina (Don Pasquale), Maria (La fille du régiment), Maria Stuarda (Maria Stuarda), Gilda (Rigoletto), Violetta (La traviata), Oscar (Un Ballo in maschera), Voice from Heaven (Don Carlo), Alice (Falstaff), Mimi (La bohème), Genevieve (Suor Angelica), Liu (Turandot), Leila (Les pêcheurs de perles), Manon (Manon), Zerlina (Don Giovanni), The Queen of the Night and Pamina (Die Zauberflöte), the Magical Maid Klingsor (Parsifal).

The singer's extensive chamber repertoire includes a number of solo recitals of works by French, Italian and German composers. Olga Kondina has also performed the soprano parts in Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Bach's St Matthew Passion and St John Passion, Handel's Messiah, Mozart's Requiem, Rossini's Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn's Elijah, Verdi's Requiem, and Mahler's Symphony No. 9.

Olga Kondina has toured with the Mariinsky Theatre and independently in Europe, America and Japan; she has performed at the Metropolitan Opera in New York and at the Royal Albert Hall in London.

Olga Kondina is a member of the jury of a number of international singing competitions (including the "Three Centuries of the Classical Romance" International Festival-Competition and the William Stenhammar International Music Competition), and is a lecturer in the singing class at the Rimsky-Korsakov State Conservatoire in St Petersburg. For two years she has been in charge of the Department of the History and Theory of Vocal Art.

Olga Kondina's pupils include: Yulia Novikova, a prizewinner at international competitions and a soloist at the Bonn Opera Theatre; Olga Senderskaya, a prizewinner at international competitions; Andrey Zemskov, a soloist of the Mariinsky Theatre's Academy for Young Opera Singers and a visiting student at the Strasbourg Opera Theatre; Elena Vitis, winner of a diploma at an international competition and a soloist at the "Zazerkalye" Children's Music Theatre; and Evgeny Nagovitsyn, a soloist with the St Petersburg Chamber Opera Company.

Olga Kondina performed the role of Gilda in Viktor Okuntsov's film of the opera Rigoletto (1987), and also took part in the recording of Sergey Kuriokhin's music for the film "The Designer" (1999).

The singer's discography includes the CD recordings Russian Classical Romances (1993), Sparrow Oratorio: The Four Seasons (1993), Ave Maria (1994), Reflections (1996, with the Andreyev Academic Russian Orchestra), Ten Brilliant Arias (1997) and Unique baroque music (with Erik Kurmangaliev, conductor Alexander Rudin).

Chantal MATHIAS
soprano

Chantal Mathias was born in Paris. A former member of « les jeunes voix du Rhin » in Strasbourg, she made her operatic debut with a production of Il viaggo a Reims in Avignon, and la voix humaine in the Prague State Opera.
Soon afterwards, she became a member of the Lübeck Theatre (Germany), and performed there such roles as Michaela from Carmen , Marguerite from Faust , die lustige Witwe , die Csardas Fürstin , la Contessa from le nozze di Figaro , Pamina from die Zauberflöte , Donna Elvira from Don Giovanni , Tatiana from Eugène Oneguine , Elisabeth Zimmer from Elegie for jung lovers, Massenet’s Cendrillon and Grisélidis…
Other appearances have included Dublin, as Marguerite, Wuppertal as Contessa, or Vienna in the world premiere of Hallgrimson’s die Wält der Zwichenfälle.

She is invited to perform as a soloist in prestigious international festivals like “Savonnlina” (Finland), in Porto (Portugal), in Gordes, to the “Festival du Vexin”, to the “Festival de l’Eure Poétique et musicale”, to “Nancyphonies”. Her repertoire goes from Mozart to Strauss in German and from Fauré, Ravel, Duparc, Poulenc to Berlioz in French.

She also gives master-classes in French Répertoire, recently in the Conservatory of Erevan, in Armenia and in the Universität für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Graz in Austria.

She is currently a professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris.

Semion SKIGIN
piano

Was born in Leningrad. He graduated from the Leningrad State Conservatoire and completed post-graduate course in chamber music and lieder accompaniment. In 1975 he won the grand-prix at the International Competition of Piano Accompaniment in Rio de Janeiro.

From 1978-81 he was guest professor at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber in Dresden.
Since 1990 Semion Skigin has been Professor of Accompaniment and Role Study at the Academy of Music "Hanns Eisler" Berlin.

Semion Skigin has iniciated and interpreted a number of recordings unique in content and volume for EMI, Philips, BMG and other leading labels. Together with Sergei Leiferkus, Nucia Focile, Nina Rautio, Violetta Urmana, Olga Borodina, Vladimir Chernov and others he has recorded the complete works for voice and piano of Mussorgsky, Tchaikovski, Glinka and Rachmaninov as well as miscellaneous CDs of romances of Borodin, Dargomyzhsky, Glier, Shostakovitch, Verdi and Wagner for which he was awarded the Gramophone Award in 1995 and the Cannes Classical Award in 1996.

At present Semion Skigin is regarded one of the most acknowledged and engaged masters of piano accompaniment.

Among his artistic partners are Olaf Bär, Andreas Schmidt, Robert Hall, Cheryl Studer and Andrik Wottrich.
He regularly directs masterclasses at music colleges in Germany, the Netherlands and the USA.
Semion Skigin is Artistic Director of the Theatre Barge Music Festival in Dresden and Vice President and Artistic Director of the Berlin Salon.

Scot WEIR
tenor

The American lyric tenor, Scot Weir, studied at the University of Colorado School of Music in Boulder, Colorado, USA, with Louis Cunningham, Barbara Doscher, Gerhard Hüsch, Gérard Souzay, Renato Cappechi and Ralph Herbert. He graduated in 1980.

Following his studies, Scot Weir went to Germany where he was engaged as a lyric tenor, first at the the Musiktheater Gelsenkirchen, then at the Hessisches Staatstheater in Wiesbaden. During his first seasons in Europe he quickly acquired a vast operatic repertoire including all the major roles of Mozart and Rossini operas, as well as more dramatic repertoire such as Narraboth in Salome and Lenski in Eugene Onegin.

Freelance since 1989, Scot Weir performs throughout the world. Currently, he is a regular guest at the Zürich Opera House, where he performs Tamino in Die Zauberflöte and Don Ottavio in Don Giovanni under the baton of Nikolaus Harnoncourt; at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brüssels where he has participated in productions of Purcell-Dido and Aeneas, Berlioz-Les Troyens, Strauss-Salome, Rossini-Othello, Wagner-Tristan und Isolde, Mozart-Idomeneo and Cosi fan tutte; with the Salzburger Festspiele in productions of Monteverdi's L'Incoronazione di Poppea, Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro and C Minor Mass and Britten's Les Illuminations and most recently at the Théâtre Chatelet in Paris in Verdi's Don Carlos which was recorded by EMI Records. Weir has also sung Tamino in Die Zauberflöte on tour in Japan with the Vienna Staatsoper. He has also sung at the Teatro Reggio in Turin, Italy and Teatro Bellini in Catania, Sicily.

Scot Weir is internationally acclaimed as an expert for the Bach Evangelists, which he has performed virtually all over the world. With conductors such as Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Roger Norrington, Helmuth Rilling, Charles Dutoit, Claudio Abbado, Jesús López-Cobos, Sergiu Celebidache, Vaclav Neumann, Adam Fischer, James Conlon, Philippe Herreweghe, Gustav Leonhardt, Karl Münchinger, Leopold Hager and Antonio Pappano, Weir has made a name for himself as a specialist for Monteverdi, J.S. Bach, George Frideric Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Felix Mendelssohn, Schubert and Schumann.

As an Oratorio singer, Scot Weir has sung at virtually every major festival in Europe, at the Musikfest Stuttgart, Bachtage Berlin, Salzburger Festspiele, Mozartwoche Salzburg, Bachfest Leipzig, Händel Festival Halle, Granada Festival, Prager Frühling, Berliner Festwochen, Internationale Haydnfestspiele Eisenstadt, Tage der Alten Musik Innsbruck, Wiener Festwochen, Wien Modern, and with many major orchestras such as the Berliner Philharmoniker, Münchner Philharmoniker, Wiener Philharmoniker, Bamberger Symphoniker, Nürnberger Symphoniker, Dresden Staatskapelle, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, La Chapelle Royale (Paris), Concentus Musicus Wien, Musica Antiqua Köln, La Petite Bande, and Stuttgarter Kammerorchester.

Recent North American appearances include with Toronto's Baroque Ensemble Tafelmusik as well as with the symphony orchestras of San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Cleveland Orchestra, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Baltimore, New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Montréal, Ottawa, Edmonton, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and Atlanta Symphony Orchestra.

As a recitalist, Scot Weir has performed in London's Wigmore Hall (Schubert Die Schöne Müllerin) and Queen Elizabeth Hall (Schubert Winterreise), on the subscription series of the Alten Oper Frankfurt and at the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brüssels, at the Théâtre de la Villes in Rennes as well as at the Musikverein in Vienna.

Scot Weir is Artistic Director of the Wiesbaden Musikherbst, a yearly festival concentrating on the music of a specific composer or group of composers including solo and chamber recitals, orchestral and oratorio performances as well as lectures and art exhibits.

Since 1992, Scot Weir has taught master-classes regularly at the International Bach Academy in Stuttgart and at the University of Colorado at Boulder. In October 1995, he accepted a lifetime professorship in Voice at the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin.

Scot Weir's discography includes opera recordings for EMI (Verdi: Don Carlos) and Channel Classics (Mendelssohn-Die Hochzeit des Carmacho); oratorio for Superphon (works of F.X. Brixi), Hännsler (Mozart-C minor Mass, Requiem, Frank-Les Beatitudes, Schubert-Lazarus), Harmonia Mundi (Mozart-C minor Mass), ebs Records (Schumann-Der Rose Pilgerfahrt, Paradies und die Peri, Mass in C minor and Archiv Productions - Deutsche Grammophon (works of Johann David Heinichen). Weir's massive song repertoire is documented in part through numerous recordings on the TACET, EigenArt, Signum and Preiser Records Labels.