Chamber Music Evening N° 2

Ami Yumoto

Ami Yumoto completed her bachelor's degree at Tokyo University of the Arts with Prof Kazuki Sawa, Gerard Poulet and Oleh Krysa. In 2011, she transferred to the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. There she initially studied with Prof Saschko Gawriloff. Under Prof Mark Gothoni, she successfully completed her master's degree in the instrumental soloist programme and her concert exam.

In 2011, she won 1st prize at the Queen Sophie Charlotte International Violin Competition. In 2015, she was a semi-finalist at the 54th International Paganini Competition and was awarded 3rd prize at the Ibolyka Gyarfas Foundation Violin Competition.

At the Carl Flesch Academy in Baden-Baden, she was honoured with the Carl Flesch Academy Sponsors' Association Prize and the Brahms Prize.

She has performed as a soloist with the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra and the Salzburg Soloists, among others.

She has been a member of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden since 2017 and 2nd concertmaster of the 1st violins since 2021.

Michael Schmid

Michael Schmid initially received his violin training as a junior student with Prof Conrad von der Goltz. After leaving school, he studied in Salzburg and Vienna with Prof Harald Herzl and Prof Christian Altenburger. He received further musical impulses in the class of Prof Ingolf Turban, in chamber music studies with Prof Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) and in masterclasses with Leonidas Kavakos, Christian Tetzlaff and Prof Igor Ozim.

He has already gained orchestral experience in the German National Youth Orchestra, later as an academy member of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, as a substitute in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera Orchestra and the Camerata Salzburg.

Michael Schmid was a scholarship holder of the Vienna Philharmonic Summer Academy and the Kronberg Academy Festival, is a first prize winner of the national competition ‘Jugend musiziert’ and a prize winner of the International Johannes Brahms Competition.

In 2017, he completed his studies at the Vienna University of Music with honours and became a member of the 2nd violins of the Staatskapelle Dresden.

He has performed as a soloist in Alban Berg's violin concerto Kapelle für alle Fälle ‘Dem Andenken eines Engels’, as a chamber musician at the Musikverein Vienna, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and on tours in Asia and South America.

In addition to chamber music, Michael Schmid is also passionate about promoting young musicians. From 2019 to 2022, he was a board member of the Giuseppe Sinopoli Academy of the Staatskapelle Dresden and has been a lecturer at the Regensburg University of Music since 2024.

Federico Kasik

Federico Kasík began his musical career at the age of 7. After being taught by Tibor Varga in Sion (Switzerland) from 1992, he took lessons with Igor Pylatyuk and Bogodar Kotorovych at the National Academy of Music in Lviv and Kiev from 1994. Due to this long-standing connection, Federico Kasík is a direct successor to the artistic and didactic lineage of Avram Jampolski and Yuri Yankelevich, two of the most successful teachers of the Russian violin school.

In 2008, he moved to the masterclass of the leading Czech violinist Ivan Zenaty at the Carl Maria von Weber Academy of Music in Dresden. He received further musical impulses in various masterclasses with Ivry Gitlis, Kevork Mardirossian, Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Pavel Vernikov, Igor Oistrakh, Robert Canetti, Yfrah Neaman, Jiří Tomášek and Michael Frischenschlager, among others. Federico Kasík won the International Lissenko Competition in 2002 and the Carl Flesch Violin Competition in 2003.

Since 1998, he has performed as a soloist in Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Russia and the Ukraine, as well as in Asia, particularly China and Japan.

In 2011, at the age of 26, Federico Kasík won the position of 1st Deputy Concertmaster of the Staatskapelle Dresden.

He is a passionate chamber musician who has performed with musicians such as Igor Levit, Denis Matsuev, Tatyana Mazurenko, Yuryi Bashmet and Oleg Krissa, as well as with the orchestra.