Chamber Music Evening N° 5

Robert Lis

Robert Lis, born in Dabrowa Gornicza, Poland, began playing the violin at the age of 6. He is one of the most talented Polish violinists of his generation and has won numerous national and international violin competitions. In 2011, he graduated with honours from the Ignacy Paderewski Academy of Music in Poznan as a student of Prof. Dr Marcin Baranowski. In 2012 he obtained his second master's degree at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam as a student of Ilya Grubert.

From 2010 to 2012 he was assistant conductor of the 2nd violins in the Radio Kamer Filharmonie and from 2012 to 2018 
2nd concertmaster in the Nederlands Philharmonisch Orkest. Since 2018 he has held the position of 2nd concertmaster of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden.

Robert Lis plays a Pietro Floriani violin from 1835.

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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.

Michael Horwath

Michael Horwath, born in 1974, initially received violin lessons in his hometown of Berlin before studying viola with Felix Schwartz at the Hanns Eisler School of Music there. In 1998, he continued his studies with Erich Krüger in Weimar, where he also completed a postgraduate programme. Michael Horwath has been a member of the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden since August 2000 and has held the position of principal viola since 2004.

Michael Horwath has taken part in numerous international masterclasses with Kim Kashkashian, Jürgen Kussmaul, Thomas Riebl and Norbert Brainin.

He is particularly dedicated to chamber music and is a regular guest at international chamber music festivals such as the Festival Concerts aux Iles du Bic in Canada. He is a member of the Dresden String Quintet and the ensemble frauenkirche.

He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician at the Semperoper in Dresden, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Schwetzingen Festival and the Cologne Philharmonie.

Friedrich Thiele

Friedrich Thiele, born in Dresden in 1996, has won numerous prestigious national and international prizes, including 2nd prize, the audience prize and the prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned work at the 2019 ARD International Music Competition and the 2019 German Music Competition prize.

Successes at the International Instrumental Competition Markneukirchen 2019 (2nd prize, audience prize, orchestra prize), the ‘Ton & Erklärung’ competition in Munich 2017 (1st prize) and the TONALi competition 2015 in Hamburg (3rd prize and audience prize) paved the way for his international career.

He has already performed as a soloist with many outstanding orchestras, such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of the National Theatre Brasília, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, the Kammerakademie Potsdam, the Dresden Philharmonic, the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin and the Orquesta Sinfónica Simón Bolívar in Caracas. These engagements have taken him to many prestigious venues and concert halls, such as the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg, the Elbphilharmonie and Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Meistersingerhalle in Nuremberg, the Konzerthaus Berlin and the Herkulessaal and Gasteig in Munich.

He has been 1st concertmaster of the cellos in the Staatskapelle Dresden since 2021. As a passionate chamber musician, he has already performed at renowned international festivals with Igor Levit, Julia Fischer, Tabea Zimmermann, Antoine Tamestit, Patricia Kopatchinskaja and Nils Mönkemeyer, among others.

Friedrich Thiele began his studies in 2011 with Peter Bruns as a junior student at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater ‘Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’ in Leipzig before completing his Bachelor of Music at the Hochschule für Musik ‘Franz Liszt’ Weimar in 2016. He received his Master of Music in 2023 at Kronberg Academy in the class of Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt.

Friedrich Thiele plays a cello by Francesco Goffriller (ca. 1740), which is on generous loan to him from the Stradivari Foundation Habisreutinger-Huggler-Coray.

Teresa Beldi

Teresa Beldi, born in Hamburg in 1993, studied with Prof. Hillel Zori in Tel Aviv, with Frans Helmerson at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin and with Claudius Popp at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler. She also received important musical inputs from David Geringas, Arto Noras and Jens Peter Maintz.

Teresa’s concert engagements as a soloist and chamber musician have taken her outside Germany to France, Holland, Romania, Bulgaria, Israel and Italy.

Teresa has performed as a soloist with the Banatul Timisoara Symphony Orchestra, the Oltenia Craiova Symphony Orchestra (Romania), the Philharmonic Orchestra oft he Plovdid State Opera (Bulgaria) and the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, among others, in venues such as the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, the Halle aux Grains Toulouse and the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg. In addition to Haydn’s cello concerti (D major), Shostakovich No. 1 and Lalo, she performed Haydn’s Cello Concerto in C major under the baton of Zubin Mehta in Tel Aviv in 2016 and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra and Ion Martin in 2019.

As a chamber musician, Teresa performed several times in the Pierre Boulez Hall, in various groups and as part oft he Boulez Ensemble, at the Whitsun Festival Schloss Ettersburg, at the Usedom Music Festival and at the Mozart Festival Würzburg (in collaboration with the Minguet Quartet).

Viktor Osokin

Viktor Osokin was born in Ukraine in 1992. At the age of twelve he received his first double bass lessons at the music school in Odessa. From 2010 to 2015 he also studied in Odessa at the Antonina Nezhdanova Academy of Music in the class of Professor Vladimir Chekalyuk. Already during his studies he won prizes at numerous music competitions in the Ukraine and Moldova; at the International Instrumental Competition in Markneukirchen 2015 he was awarded 2nd prize.