Bogdan Božović enjoys a versatile international career as chamber musician, soloist and chamber orchestra leader. As violinist of the world-renowned Vienna Piano Trio from 2012 to 2015, he has toured Europe, the Americas and Asia, appearing in some of the most prestigious chamber music venues, including the Wigmore Hall in London, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Konzerthaus Vienna, Cité de la Musique in Paris and The Frick Collection in New York. He has made two critically acclaimed recordings with the ensemble on the label MD&G, featuring works by Beethoven and Saint-Saëns.
His chamber music festival performances include IMS Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music in Cornwall, England (member of the tour-ensemble in 2011), Chamber Music Connects the World in Kronberg, as well as the Prades, Båstad, Gstaad, Whittington, Nuremberg, Caramoor and Ottawa festivals and series. Among his chamber music partners are Steven Isserlis, Christian Tetzlaff, Elisabeth Leonskaja, Lukas Hagen and Veronika Hagen. His live recordings have had multiple international broadcasts including those by BBC Radio 3, Radio France, WDR 3, NPO Radio 4, WQXR-FM New York and Radio Beograd.
Bogdan’s recent solo-appearances include the Schumann Violin Concerto with the Symphony Orchestra Basel. He has been guest leader of the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Ensemble DIAGONAL Basel (in their Lucerne festival-performance), Ensemble Phoenix in Basel and others. He is a founding member of the Leondari Ensemble, resident ensemble at the annual Saronic Chamber Music Festival in Greece.
Bogdan has given master-classes at the Royal College of Music in London, Leeds College of Music and has been a tutor at the chamber music seminar MusicWorks in West Sussex/England.
A native of Belgrade, Serbia, he studied with Vesna Stanković at the Faculty of Music in Belgrade, Klara Flieder at the University Mozarteum Salzburg and obtained his masters degree with distinction in the class of Rainer Schmidt at the Basel Academy of Music. Other important musical influences were from lessons with Ferenc Rados, Pamela Frank, Chiara Banchini (baroque violin) and collaborations with contemporary composers such as Heinz Holliger and Georg Friedrich Haas.
Bogdan plays on the “ex-Arma Senkrah” Stradivarius violin from 1685, on generous loan from the Ruggieri Foundation.
Michel Camille has been engaged as the Esbjerg Ensemble’s viola player since 1995 and from 1997 – 2001 presided as the Ensemble’s Artistic Director. In 1999 Michel founded the annual Esbjerg International Chamber Music Festival and as its Artistic and Administrative Director, has collaborated with Denmark’s most notable composers and invited chamber musicians and soloists from all over the world.
Matthijs Broersma was born in Holland and began playing the cello at the age of four. After studying at The Yehudi Menuhin School with Louise Hopkins and Leonid Gorokhov, he continued his studies at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Hochschule der Künste, Bern.
Ron Chen-Zion has been a member of Esbjerg Ensemble since 1993.
Pau Codina was born in 1988 in Barcelona and began studying the cello at the age of five with Eulalia Subirà. Other teachers to date have included Ivan Chiffoleau, Daniel Grosgurin, Peter Thiemann and Louise Hopkins. He graduated from the Yehudi Menuhin School in 2006, and from the Guildhall School of Music & Drama with first class honours in 2010. He later obtained a Solo Artist Diploma from the Chapelle Musicale Reine Elisabeth, where he studied with Gary Hoffman.
Tim recently completed his undergraduate degree with Alexander Janiczek at the Guildhall School of Music in London where he was awarded a Concert Recital Diploma and the Lord Mayor’s Prize for the highest mark across the music department, and was subsequently invited to return as a Chamber Fellow.
Versatile violinist Arisa Fujita is in great demand both as a soloist and as a chamber musician. Preceding her recent move to The Netherlands, she was a professor of violin at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London for nearly two decades.
Christian Martinez commenced his percussion studies in his home town of Cali in Columbia. Later followed studies at the Manhattan School of Music in New York and at Rogaland Music Conservatory in Stavanger. In 1996 he graduated from the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, the same year he became a member of Esbjerg Ensemble.
It was a bit scary in the beginning to find out that it is not that easy to play the bassoon. Like, I played the first month on a plastic reed I found in the case of the music school instrument and was advancing really quickly. I was naturally in my mind on my way to become the next genius superstar of the bassooning, the one that would just change the way we think about everything in life. Then it hit me that there is a number of tone exercises, study pieces and scales to play and a huge number of wooden mouthpieces to make yourself before I could actually even dream about any kind of professional musician’s life. The instrument case started to feel really heavy and I became very upset for a moment.
Kerstin Thiele has been a member of Esbjerg Ensemble since 1986.
Joke Wijma has been a member of Esbjerg Ensemble since 2005.
Eva Vrtacnik is a Slovenian oboe player. After receiving her master’s degree at the Academy of Music in Ljubljana with Matej Sarc, she continued her studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Music with Max Artved and Joakim Dam Thomsen and is currently in the soloist class at the Syddansk Musikkonservatorium with Henrik Skotte. After having been on contract in Odense Symfoniorkester for 2 seasons as the solo english horn player,
Frode Andersen was born in Askøy, Bergen in Norway, and trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, Denmark. As solo and chamber musician, Andersen has performed all over Scandinavia, Europe and the United Sates in concert series and festivals such as ULTIMA in Oslo, Norway, HCMF in Huddersfield, England, and Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City, New York. Andersen’s repertoire ranges from folk music and classical music to experimental improvisations with electronics. His great interest in contemporary music is reflected both in his concert activities and his work as an initiator, administrator, writer and organizer for a numerous events and institutions on the Danish contemporary music scene, including artistic leader of the Esbjerg Ensemble, one of Denmark’s oldest and most respected chamber ensemble. Andersen´s first solo CD trash from 2006, where the accordion meets modern electronics, was nominated for Danish Grammy Award 2006 for “best solo performance”. Danish Composers Guild awarded Andersen their Prize of Honor the same year for his artistic impact and close collaboration with living composers on this album. In 2010 Frode was appointed by the Danish Minister of Culture to the Arts Foundation’s Committee for Music through January 2014. Recent projects includes performances and recording of the 30 min long Songs and Rhapsodies for woodwind quintet and accordion by Poul Ruders for Bridge Records, Alnitak for 50 music boxes and 50 accordions by Jexper Holmen and Frode Andersen for the KLANG Festival in Copenhagen, and a soloist piece with the Jutland Symphony Orchestra and Astor Piazzolla.
I come from Sapporo in northern Japan. I studied music there at the university and then moved to Norway in 2010 to study further. After six years in Oslo, I went to Umeå to audition for the Norrland Opera Symphony Orchestra. I won the audition and started in the symphony orchestra in 2016. I thrive in Umeå, especially in the winter because the climate is reminiscent of it at home in Sapporo.
Kristoffer Nyholm Hyldig made his debut concert in 2010 from The Royal Danish Academy of Music with Professor Niklas Sivelöv and Tove Lønskov. He is very active in Danish music life and he frequently plays for music societies and at festivals both as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist. In addition he has been giving concerts in Italy, Germany, Poland, France, England and Carnegie Hall, New York.
Brit-Tone Müllertz was born in Denmark and received her vocal education, which she successfully completed in 2005 with the diploma, at the Royal Danish Academy in Copenhagen. Further studies led her to Tonny Landy and Eva Johansson. In addition, she studied in masterclasses in Denmark, Norway, Holland and Switzerland with Margaret Price, Elisabeth Söderström and Philip Langridge, Edith Mathis, Thomas Quasthoff, Andreas Schmidt and Thomas Hemsley and worked with Rudolf Jansen, Helmut Deutsch, Roger Vignoles and Malcolm Martinou. In 2010, she was semifinalist of the Lauritz Melchior International Singing Competition.