Jan Schulmeister has been playing the piano since the age of five. In addition to studying in Eva Zonová’s class at the Arts Primary School in Kroměříž, he has also completed a number of master classes with leading teachers and artists both at home and abroad. He has received the most prestigious prizes from many piano competitions, including being the two-time winner of the National Arts Primary School competition, the two-time absolute winner of the Piano Talents competition in Milan and the recipient of the absolute winner’s title in the Amadeus and Beethoven’s Teplice competitions. He has also added victories at the César Franck Competition in Brussels and at the Estonian Odin International Music Competition. He became a finalist in the 2020 Concertino Praga competition and received the EMCY Prize. He performs with leading Czech orchestras under the batons of Tomáš Netopil, Dennis Russell Davies or Jiří Rožeň and he cooperates with the Wihan Quartet. He plays regular solo concerts at both Czech and international concert halls and he participates at international music festivals such as the Prague Spring, Dvořák Prague, Smetana’s Litomyšl, Svátky hudby or the South Bohemian Festival.

The Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra is one of the most important and oldest orchestras in the Czech Republic. For many decades, it has been a versatile orchestra with a broad repertoire of concert music and opera. Among the permanent and guest conductors to work with the orchestra have been Václav Talich, Karel Ančerl, Václav Neumann, Vladimír Válek, and Charles Mackerras. Its present chief conductor is Alexander Liebreich. A number of composers from around the world have performed their own works with the orchestra, including Sergei Prokofiev and Aram Khachaturian. The orchestra has always been heavily involved with recording activity, and it has to its credit the making of recordings of many Czech classics that are not a usual part of the repertoire. This is not its first appearance at the Dvořák Prague Festival: in 2014, for example, it took part in the world premiere complete concert performance of Dvořák’s first opera Alfred with its original German libretto, and in 2019 it gave a unique performance of Dvořák’s first musical setting of the libretto King and Collier in a modern-era premiere.

Conductor and pianist Vahan Mardirossian is of Armenian origin, and since 1993 he has been living in Paris, where he graduated from the conservatoire. For several years, he has been the chief conductor of the Orchestre de Caen in France and the music director of the National Chamber Orchestra of Armenia. Since the 2019/2020 season he has held the post of chief conductor of the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong and from January 2020 the post of music director of the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie. He makes regular guest appearances with a number of European and Asian orchestras, including the Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire, the Armenian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonia, the Lebanese Philharmonic Orchestra, the Toulon Opera Orchestra, the NHK Symphony Orchestra, and the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. Mardirossian has performed as a pianist on a number of esteemed concert stages, including New York’s Carnegie Hall, and he has collaborated with the world’s leading conductors, including Kurt Masur and Paavo Järvi. His discography covers a wide range of styles from the Baroque to music of the 20th century. He was awarded a prestigious Diapason d’Or for his album of piano music by Franz Schubert.

Ildikó Rozsonits was born in Budapest in 2006. At the age of four, she started playing the recorder and then began the piano one year later. She was accepted into the Liszt Academy for exceptional young talents in Budapest as a ten-year-old and became the youngest student at the school under the tutelage of Professor Gábor Eckhardt. She is a laureate from a number of prestigious international piano competitions: she received the 1st prize at the Carl Filtsch competition in Romania and she won the Ars Nova competition in Italy with the highest possible number of points in 2017. One year later, she came first in competitions in Essen and Ústí nad Labem. In 2019, she won the Béla Bartók competition in Graz, Austria. Last year, she received the 1st prize at the César Franck International Piano Competition in Brussels, at the Piano Talents competition in Milan and at the International Music Festival and Competition in Paris. In 2020, she also became the Hungarian winner of the Virtuosos V4+ television show. She was the absolute winner of the Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Spain in 2021.

Ryan Martin Bradshaw began playing the piano at the age of seven and he began performing with the Russian Philharmonic under Vladimir Spivakov from the age of eight. He is the youngest soloist in residence at Slovak Radio. He is a laureate from a large number of piano competitions: he has received the 1st prize at the Golden Nutcracker Competition in Moscow, the EMCY Prize, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory Prize, the 1st prize at the Krainev Competition in Moscow, the 1st prize at the Chopin Piano Competition in Poland, the 2nd prize at the International Piano Competition in Aarhus, the Carl Nielsen Prize and the audience prize at Enschede, the 2nd prize for the youngest participants at the International Piano Competition for Young Musicians in the Netherlands, the 2nd prize at the Mihaela Ursuleasa Competition in Bucharest, the 3rd prize and the prize for the youngest ever finalist at the Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar, the Grand Prix and the 1st prize at the International Vienna Open, the 1st prize at the Peter Toperczer International Piano Competition in Košice, the 1st prize at the Young Virtuosi competition in Zagreb, the 1st prize at the Young Virtuosi competition in Sofia, the 1st prize at the Grand Prize Virtuoso competition in Salzburg, the 1st prize at the Amadeus Mozartian competition in Brno and the 1st prize at the Bratislava Young Virtuosi competition.

Mark Anthony Lewin began playing the violin at the age of five. He studied under Tamara Prischepenko until the age of ten and has been working under the tutelage of Professor Bernhard Hartog at the Julius Stern Institute in Berlin since 2015. He has also participated at a number of master classes by Professor Dora Schwarzberg. He has regularly performed at music festivals such as Youth Classics 2015 (Switzerland), the 2015 Kastela Summer School (Croatia), the International Summer Academy in 2016 and 2019 (Austria) and the 2019 Chieti Classica (Italy). In 2018, he joined the International Academy for Talented Young Musicians in Germany. He regularly participates at international courses where he has worked with renowned musicians such as Michael Erxleben, Frithjof-Martin Grabner, Felix Korinth, the Ensemble Modern or Roeland Gehlen. In 2020, he became a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Germany (BJO). He has performed at many concerts and festivals as a soloist and in a duo with his brother Michael Lewin. These include the 27th Brandenburg summer concerts, amongst others. He has been studying at the Carl Philippe Emanuel Bach Music School since 2017.