Shoshana Telner, paino

Canadian pianist Shoshana Telner has performed as soloist and chamber musician across Canada and abroad.  She made her solo orchestral debut with the National Arts Centre Orchestra at the age of 16, and has since performed with orchestras including the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, The National Academy Orchestra, the Boston Classical Orchestra, the Cambridge Symphony Orchestra, and the York Chamber Ensemble.   Shoshana has performed recitals at numerous summer festivals including the Elora Festival, the Kincardine Summer Music Festival, the Waterside Summer Series, the Brott Music Festival, and the Blueridge Chamber Music Festival.  She is a founding member of the Toronto based TakeFive Ensemble, a piano quintet with members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. 
 
Shoshana received a Bachelor's degree on full scholarship from Boston University, a Master's degree from The Juilliard School, and a Doctorate in performance from McGill University.  She has taught piano and coached ensembles at Wilfrid Laurier, McGill, and York Universities, and currently teaches at McMaster University.  Shoshana frequently gives masterclasses and adjudicates competitions. 
Shoshana's recordings include the six Bach Keyboard Partitas (Centaur Records), the Grieg violin/piano sonatas with Jeremy Bell (Chestnut Hall Music), selected Mozart Sonatas and Sonatinas (The Mozart Effect), and selected solo works of Canadian composer Colin Mack (Cansona Arts Media). Her latest CD, the early works of Robert Schumann, will be available on Centaur Records in 2025.

Cordula Hacke, piano (Photo credit: Monika Werneke, Wiesbaden)

Following her orchestral career, the studied pianist and flutist Cordula Hacke is a successful and sought-after chamber music piano partner with an extremely extensive knowledge of the repertoire. She is also professor of Chamber Music and Collaborative Piano at the University of Agder (Norway), lecturer, jury member of international competitions and musical director of various musical, operetta and theater productions.

Her chamber music partners include principal wind and string players from some of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the German Radio Symphony Orchestras (Berlin, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Cologne and Stuttgart), the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Royal Danish Opera Orchestra, and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and in 2016 she founded the Trio Art Nouveau, a piano trio dedicated to the music of the Fin de Siècle.

Her extensive discography ranges from the works of contemporary Japanese and women composers to those of artists such as Pavel Haas, Leo Smit, and Paul Hindemith. Having worked closely with American composer George Crumb for many years, Cordula Hacke has been invited to perform his works in prestigious festivals in Germany, Austria, Denmark, Canada, and the USA. Her recording of Crumb's Vox Balaenae was released by Arte Nova-BMG Classics. As an editor she has published works by Claude Debussy and Raoul Laparra with Musikverlag Zimmermann (Schott Music Company) and Edition Kossack.

She has collaborated with Jeanne Baxtresser, former principal flutist of the New York Philharmonic, in presenting acclaimed masterclasses in centres such as Frankfurt, Oxford, Toronto, New York, Pittsburgh and Amsterdam. She taught annually at the Salzburg Summer Academy and has served as official piano partner for the ARD International Music Competition (Munich), the Deutsche Musikrat Competition (Berlin), the Aeolus Competition, the Nicolet Competition, and the International Guangzhou Competition (China).

In 2018 she was invited to Korea to give a series of masterclasses on collaborative piano and chamber music at Seoul National University, Sung Shin University and Yonsei University. Masterclasses in Moscow (Gnessin School).

Prof. Hacke was a member of the teaching faculty at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf (2000-2013) and serves on several juries of international competitions. Until 2023 she was chairwoman of the jury at the Internationaler Flötenwettbewerb Friedrich Kuhlau, Uelzen.
In 2022 she established the International Ferdinand Neess Competition in Wiesbaden, Germany. This new competition seeks to build a bridge between Art Nouveau and the music of this era and is therefore dedicated to the Music around 1900.

Acclaimed for her work as musical director in theatre, her productions include My Fair Lady, Acht Frauen, Irma la Douce, Kleiner Mann, was nun?, La Cage aux Folles (own new arrangement),Fisch zu viert, Singin’ in the rain, Evita, Sunset Boulevard, Die Fledermaus – leicht gekürzt (a pocket version of the famous operetta), Heisse Zeiten and the highly successful Frankfurt production of Spatz und Engel (The Angel and the Sparrow).

Anya Alexeyeva, piano

Born in Moscow into a family of concert pianists, Anya Alexeyev started studying at the Gnessin Music School at the age of five, and in 1989 entered the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory to become a student of the renowned professor Dmitri Bashkirov. The following year she was awarded a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in London (studio of Irina Zaritskaya). During her studies in London, she won numerous prizes including Elizabeth, The Queen Mother's Award for "the most outstanding contribution to the Royal College of Music", the First prize at the Newport International Piano Competition, Young Concert Artists Trust, and The Capital Radio/Anna Instone Memorial Prize.
Alexeyev has performed extensively in many countries across Europe (Britain, France, Austria, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, Finland, Ireland, Greece, Germany, Macedonia), as well as in the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Malaysia and South Africa.
She has played concertos with numerous distinguished orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic, BBC Philharmonic, Moscow State Symphony, Vienna Chamber, The Philharmonia, Royal Scottish National, Deutschland Radio, City of Birmingham Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony and Sinfonietta, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, London Mozart Players, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, English Chamber, Belgian National Symphony and Quebec Symphony, collaborating with such conductors as Temirkanov, Simonov, Oramo, Bakels, Judd.
Alexeyev has an extensive solo repertoire, ranging from baroque to cutting edge contemporary music. As well, she has been a participant in many chamber music festivals in Europe and North America.
She has recorded for EMI, Dutton Epoch, Toccata Classics, and Marquis Classics labels. Her performances have been broadcast by BBC Radio 3 (UK), GMTV (UK), CBC (Canada), Deutschland Radio, and many other radio stations around the world.

Dhyan Toffolo, violin

Dhyan Toffolo was born in 1982 in São Paulo. He began his musical studies when he was only 2 years old and chose the violin at four. At the age of eight, he entered the Tatuí Conservatory, São Paulo, and completed his studies at the age of sixteen. She was the shoulder of the Sorocaba Symphony Orchestra, São Paulo. He participated in important music courses and festivals in several Brazilian cities, as well as the Youth Orchestra of the Americas.

It has been perfected in courses abroad, such as Laboratorio Musicali I was in Cortanze - Italy and the Exchange Visitors Program at Georgia University - USA.

Dhyan Toffolo taught violin at the Sorocaba Musical Institute, gave master classes in violin and viola at the 21º Winter Festival of São João Del-Rey and master classes in camera music at the Mayor University in Santiago - Chile.

In 2003 he won the special award "Ole Bohn" in the Paulo Bosisio International Contest. In 2005 he won another award in the same competition. In 2009 he participates in the judging committee of this same contest.

Dhyan completed his undergraduate studies in 2007, in the class of Paulo Bosisio, at the University of Rio de Janeiro - UNIRIO.

As a soloist, he performed the Concerto Grosso and the four stations of Vivaldi, Mendelssohn's Concerto in D minor, Rondo by Schubert, Concerto nº1 by Max Bruch and the Concerto in D minor by Tchaikovsky, accompanied by several orchestras from Brazil.

Currently Dhyan Toffolo is a member of the Petrobras Symphony Orchestra, a founding member of the Uirapuru Quartet (formed in 2002) as a violinist and a member of the Bosisio Quartet as a violist.