Heinz Holliger, one of the great oboists of our time, was born in Langenthal in the Swiss canton of Berne in 1939. He has made authoritative recordings of the standard repertoire (some with ECM, including a benchmark album of Zelenka's trio sonatas) and considerably enlarged the technical range of his instrument. Many leading composers from Luciano Berio to Isang Yun have written works for him. His conducting career began in 1977 with the Basel Chamber Orchestra. Since then he has stood at the head of all the major orchestras, including the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics. He studied composition with Sándor Veress and Pierre Boulez. His recordings for ECM include Scardanelli Cycle, his Robert Walser cycle Beiseit, Lieder ohne Worte, the opera Schneewittchen and the Violin Concerto. An earlier version of Romancendres (recorded in 2008) with Christoph Richter and Dénes Várjon, can be heard on the album of the same name.

Hanna Weinmeister was born in Salzburg and graduated through the Mozarteum in Salzburg whilst still at school. Later, she went to the Musikhochschule in Vienna/Gerhard Schulz and then participated in Zakhar Bron`s masterclass in Lübeck. She is laureate of numerous international competitions, inter alia the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg (1991), the Concours International Jacques Thibaud (1994) and the International Parkhouse Award in London. While working as first concert master at the Opernhaus Zürich, she gives concerts as a soloist and chamber musician with violin and viola. Hanna Weinmeister played as a soloist with Munich and Berlin Philharmonic, SWR Symphony Orchestra Baden-Baden and Freiburg, Mozarteum Orchestra, Bruckner Orchestra Linz and Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the batons of Franz Welser-Möst, Eliah Inbal and Michael Gielen. Partners in chamber music were, e.g., Heinrich Schiff, Leonidas Kavakos, Heinz Holliger, Gidon Kremer, Alexander Lonquich, Alexei Lubimov and Benjamin Schmid.
Since 1998, she is first concert master at the Opera Zurich Orchestra. Furthermore, she taught at the Conservatory in Bern from 2000 to 2004. Hanna Weinmeister plays a viola by Peter Greiner.

Hartmut Rohde thrills audiences with his exceptional variety of sonorities, his stylistic versatility, and his historically informed approach to music ranging from the Baroque to contemporary compositions. Rohde’s performances are captivating due to his sheer power of imagination (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung). He is one of the leading and most sought-after European violists. Since 1993 he has held a professorship at the Berlin University of the Arts, and is founding member of the renowned Mozart Piano Quintet which undertakes extensive worldwide tours. His chamber music partners include David Geringas, Janine Jansen, Jörg Widmann, Radovan Vlatkovic, Paul Meyer, Lars Vogt, Kolja Blacher, and Sharon Kam. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Seoul Arts Center and the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, as well as at a number of outstanding festivals in Berlin, Schleswig-Holstein, Japan, Ravinia (USA), Australia, Heimbach (“Spannungen”), and Jerusalem. Rohde has performed solo viola concertos with renowned orchestras in Munich, Weimar, Bonn, Hannover, and Lithuania, as well as with chamber orchestras from Munich, Lithuania and Basel, collaborating with conductors such as Kent Nagano, Georg Alexander Albrecht, Paavo Järvi, Massimo Zanetti, and Michael Sanderling. Composers of the likes of Brett Dean, Sören N. Eichberg, Ursula Mamlok, Krystof Maratka, Arydas Malcys, David P. Hefti, and Olli Mustonen have written works for him. From 2013 to 2017 he served as Principal Conductor and Artistic Director of the NFM Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra in Wroclaw. Starting with the 2017/18 season, he is expanding his conducting activities to other orchestras.
Thus in 2019/20 he will go on tour to Vienna (Musikverein), Hamburg (Laeiszhalle), Budapest, Lviv, Slovenia, and Germany with the Budapest Franz Lizst Chamber Orchestra and with Lviv Symphony Orchestra. His appearances as conductor have already led him to perform at the Philharmonie in Berlin, the Tonhalle in Düsseldorf, the Pablo Casals Festival in Prades (France), and the Wratislawia Cantans Festival in Wroclaw. He has made numerous international radio recordings, as well as CDs for EMI Classics, Decca, CAvI-music, BMG/Sony, MDG, CPO, and Naxos. In 2004, he won the Supersonic Award. Hartmut Rohde plays a viola by Giuseppe Fiorini and a viola by Ivo Iuliano.