Kristína Chalmovska studied at the Žilina Conservatoire, at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava, then at the Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London under Richard Markson and at the Hochschule der Künste in Zürich under Raphael Wallfisch and Roel Dieltiens. For two years, she took part in the Balthasar Neumann Academy Choir and Ensemble under Thomas Hengelbrock. She also specialises in early music and regularly performs as a continuo cellist: she has collaborated with a variety of ensembles such as Il Pomo d’Oro, the Solamente Naturali ensemble, the Basel Kammerorchester, the Zürcher Barock-Orchester, the Ripieno Ensemble, and the Orchestre de Musique des Lumières.

Sebastian Comberti studied under Amedeo Baldovino, Derek Simpson, and Sidney Griller. A founding member of the Bochmann Quartet, he later became the principal cellist for the London Mozart Players, a position he still holds. His keen interest in historically informed performance led him to collaborate with many London-based groups using period instruments. He also performs as a soloist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Hanover Band. Sebastian Comberti founded the Cello Classics label, devoted to historical recordings and rare works, and has recorded sonatas by Boccherini and by Stephen Paxton, early nineteenth-century works with fortepiano, and concertos by Haydn and Zumsteeg.

A chamber musician, soloist, orchestra section leader, and teacher, Richard Lester is a founding member of the Domus ensemble and is a member of the Gould Piano Trio. He has been a member of the Florestan Trio, Hausmusik, and the London Haydn Quartet and was the principal cellist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, a position he now holds in the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He has made over forty chamber music recordings, including Mendelssohn’s complete works for cello and piano and Boccherini sonatas on period instruments. He co-directs the Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival with the violonist Anthony Marwood. He teaches at the Royal College of Music and at the Guildhall School in London.

Katharina Litschig works all over Europe with orchestras and a variety of ensembles, as a chamber music partner, continuo cellist, and soloist. She studied in Zürich under Roel Dieltiens and later in Leipzig under Peter Bruns. Also inspired by classes she took with Kristin von der Goltz, she quickly developed a passion for early music and specialised in the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century repertoire, which she studied under Jan Freiheit. Katharina Litschig is currently a co-principal cellist of the Akademie für Alte Musik in Berlin. She is also a member of the Spira Mirabilis ensemble and a founding member of Ensemble Tamuz, a group from Berlin that specialises in the Classical and Romantic repertoires.

Karel Steylaerts studied at the Koninklijk Muziekconservatorium Brussel under Carlo Schmitz and at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Cologne under Maria Kliegel. A laureate of the Tenuto Competition, he is the principal cellist of the Brussels Philharmonic and a member of TrioFenix. His recording of Bach’s Cello Suites was recently released by Etcetera Records. He is a member of the board of directors and of the selection committee of the FBN Van Gestel instrument fund set up by the Fondation Roi Baudouin. He teaches at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles. He plays an 1834 Lorenzo Ventapane cello.

The Filipino-American pianist Victor Santiago Asuncion made his debut at the age of eighteen with the Manila Chamber Orchestra, before going on to perform in New York at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall in 1999. In chamber music, he has appeared with artists such as Lynn Harrell, Zuill Bailey, Andres Diaz, James Dunham, Antonio Meneses, Joshua Roman, Cho-Liang Lin, and Giora Schmidt and the Emerson, Serafin, São Paulo, and Vega quartets. Victor Santiago Asuncion was the pianist of the Garth Newel Piano Quartet for three seasons. He was a member of the chamber music faculty of the Aspen Music Festival and has been a guest at other festivals, including the Amelia Island, Highland-Cashiers, Music in the Vineyards, and Santa Fe festivals. His discography includes the complete Beethoven sonatas with the cellist Tobias Werner, the Shostakovich and Rachmaninov sonatas with the cellist Joseph Johnson, and the Grieg, Chopin, and Rachmaninov sonatas with the cellist Eva Drachman. He also played on Lynn Harell’s award-winning disc ‘Songs My Father Taught Me’. Victor Santiago Asuncion is the founder and Artistic Director of the FilAm Music Foundation, which promotes Filipino classical musicians. He obtained a Doctorate of Musical Arts in 2007 from the University of Maryland and is a Steinway artist.

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Born in Buenos Aires in Argentina, José Gallardo had his first piano lessons at the age of five. After attending the Conservatory in Buenos Aires, he went on to further studies under Poldi Mildner at the Hochschule für Musik in Mainz. It was in Mainz that he developed a passion for chamber music ; he has been inspired by artists such as Menahem Pressler, Alfonso Montecino, Karl-Heinz Kammerling, Sergiu Celibidache, Rosalyn Tureck, and Bernard Greenhouse. José Gallardo has won a number of national and international prizes, which have led to performances at numerous festivals, including the Lockenhaus, Verbier, Lucerne, Chopin and His Europe (Warsaw), Ludwigsburg, Kronberg, City of London, Budapest Academy, and Rheingau festivals. He has performed with, among others, Gidon Kremer, Vilde Frang, Barnabás Kelemen, Linus Roth, Nils Mönkemeyer, Tomoko Akasaka, Andreas Ottensamer, Nicolas Altstaedt, Julius Berger, Miklós Perényi, and Maximilian Hornung. He has recorded for the EMI, Warner, DG, Hänssler, Challenge Records Int., Oehms Classics, Neon, Genuin, and Naxos labels and has appeared in radio and television broadcasts from the BR, the SWR, the MDR, the BBC and RAI. Having previously taught at the Hochschule für Musik in Mainz, he now teaches at the Leopold-Mozart- Zentrum at Augsburg University. He and Andreas Ottensamer are the Artistic Directors of the Bürgenstock Festival in Lucerne, which is devoted to chamber music.

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Anna Naretto has made chamber music and Lieder performance the focus of her career as a pianist. She has partnered many leading artists and has been a guest at international festivals such as the Dresdner Musikfestspiele, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Barge Music, Herkulessaal, the Frankfurter Kulturwoche, and the Kronberg festival. As a vocal coach and orchestra member, she is also actively involved in the world of opera (Oper Frankfurt and Staatstheater Darmstadt). She supplements her artistic activities by teaching at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Frankfurt. Anna Naretto collaborates regularly with teachers such as Frans Helmerson, Gary Hoffman, Wolfgang Boettcher, and Nobuko Imai at several prestigious academies, such as the Kronberg Academy, the Carl Flesch Akademie in Baden-Baden, Forum Artium, the Weimarer Meisterkurse, and the Jeunesses Musicales Germany. She also works as an accompanist for international competitions such as the ARD Music Competition in Munich and the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb. She studied under Sergio Verdirame, Rainer Hoffmann, Andreas Meyer-Hermann, Charles Spencer, and the members of the Altenberg Trio.