Joan Tower is a Grammy-winning contemporary American composer, concert pianist and conductor. Lauded by The New Yorker as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time", her bold and energetic compositions have been performed in concert halls around the world. After gaining recognition for her first orchestral composition, Sequoia (1981), a tone poem which structurally depicts a giant tree from trunk to needles, she has gone on to compose a variety of instrumental works including Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman, which is something of a response to Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the Island Prelude, five string quartets, and an assortment of other tone poems. Tower was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her early works, including her widely performed Petroushskates.
The Cello Concerto in A minor, Op. 129, by Robert Schumann was completed in a period of only two weeks, between 10 October and 24 October 1850, shortly after Schumann became the music director at Düsseldorf.
Truls Olaf Otterbech Mørk is a Norwegian cellist.
David Geringas is a Lithuanian cellist and conductor who studied under Mstislav Rostropovich. In 1970 he won the gold medal at the International Tchaikovsky Competition. He also plays the baryton, a rare instrument associated with music of Joseph Haydn.
Ilya Kaler is a Russian-born violinist. Born and educated in Moscow, Kaler is the only person to have won Gold Medals at all three of the International Tchaikovsky Competition ; the Sibelius ; and the Paganini.
Theodore Kerkezos is a Greek classical saxophonist.
Daniel Müller-Schott is a German cellist.
James Zuill Bailey, better known as Zuill Bailey is an American Grammy Award-winning cello soloist, chamber musician, and artistic director. A graduate of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University and the Juilliard School, he has appeared in recital and with major orchestras internationally. He is a professor of cello and Director of the Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Texas at El Paso. Bailey’s extensive recording catalogue are released on TELARC, Avie, Steinway and Sons, Octave, Delos, Albany, Sono Luminus, Naxos, Azica, Concord, EuroArts, ASV, Oxingale and Zenph Studios.
Maxim Viktorovich Fedotov is a Russian violinist and conductor, People's Artist of Russia, son of the conductor Viktor Fedotov.
Marat Bisengaliev is a Kazakh violinist and conductor of both the West Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra and TuranAlem Kazakhstan Philharmonic Orchestra. He is the founding Music Director of the Symphony Orchestra of India. In addition, he is head of the Uralsk International Violin Competition. Most of the time he lives and works in the UK and India.
Avner Dorman is an Israeli-born composer, educator and conductor.
Natalia Grigoryevna Gutman, PAU, is a Russian cellist. She began to study cello at the Moscow Music School with R. Sapozhnikov. She was later admitted to the Moscow Conservatory. She later studied with Mstislav Rostropovich.
Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi is a world renowned Japanese cellist. In an international career which began in 1954, Tsutsumi has performed and recorded all of the principal standard works in the cello repertoire, both solo and concerto. He has appeared as soloist with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C..
Vasily Eduardovich Petrenko is a Russian-British conductor. He is currently music director of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
The International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians is the junior section of the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition, and it is the largest competition for junior performers up to 17 years of age. The competition was established in 1992 on the initiative of the Association of Tchaikovsky Competition Stars and is held in the sections of piano, violin, and cello.
Dmitry Albertovich Yablonsky is a Russian classical cellist and conductor, who was educated at the Juilliard School of Music and Yale University.
Tatjana Vassiljeva is a Russian cellist with many prizes.
Arthur Arnold is a Dutch orchestra conductor.
Li-Wei Qin is a Chinese-Australian cellist. He won the Silver Medal at the 11th International Tchaikovsky Competition in 1998, and First Prize at the 2001 International Naumburg Competition in New York.
Natalia Khoma is a Ukrainian-born cellist. She is the first and only Ukrainian cellist to become a laureate of the International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, Russia.
