Chamber Music Evening N° 8

Yuki Manuela Janke

Born into a family of musicians in Munich, her career began at an early age. Her breakthrough came at the latest with numerous prizes at the Sarasate, Paganini and Tchaikovsky competitions, which quickly took her to the world's most important stages as a soloist. As a soloist and chamber musician, Yuki Manuela Janke also inspires as concertmaster of the most traditional orchestras. Her interpretation of Richard Strauss' "Heldenleben" in the Golden Hall in Vienna with the Staatskapelle Dresden and Christian Thielemann attracted particular attention.

As concertmaster of the Staatskapelle Berlin, she enjoys the trust of conductors such as Daniel Barenboim and Zubin Mehta. She is a regular guest with the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and various orchestras abroad. She received her most important musical impulses from Igor Ozim at the Mozarteum Salzburg and through chamber music collaborations with Christoph Eschenbach, Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, the Hagen Quartet and the Tokyo String Quartet. Her broad repertoire ranges from baroque and romantic music to contemporary composers such as Jörg Widmann, Wolfgang Rihm, Krzysztof Meyer, Nicolas Bacri and Markus Schmitt. Her repertoire also includes forgotten works such as Franz Clement's Violin Concerto, which Janke recorded with Reinhard Goebel and the Nuremberg Symphony Orchestra. 

She plays on a violin by Robert König & Michael Betcher.

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.

Tibor Gyenge

Born in Sibiu, Romania, in 1989 into a Hungarian-Romanian family of musicians, Tibor Gyenge received his first violin lessons from his father. 

Subsequently he attended the Béla Bartók Music School and the Music High School in Szombathely before moving to Graz to study at the city’s University of the Arts under Prof. Silvia Marcovici. In 2012 he completed his bachelor’s degree with distinction. From 2014 to 2016 Tibor Gyenge studied for a master’s degree under Prof. Daniel Gaede at the Nuremberg University of Music. During these years he also held a teaching position at the university.

His musical education was further enriched by numerous master classes given by star violinists such as Zakhar Bron, Leonidas Kavakos, Daniel Stabrawa, György Pauk, Itzhak Rashkovsky, Krzysztof Wegrzyn, Ulf Hoelscher and Kristóf Baráti.

Lukas Stepp

Lukas Stepp has been concertmaster of the 2nd violins of the Staatskapelle Dresden since the beginning of 2019.

He received the most important impulses for his violin playing from Stephan Picard and Feng Ning at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin and from Ida Kavafian at the Juilliard School of Music in New York from 2016 to 2018.

Lukas Stepp is a multiple first prize winner and special prize winner of the national competition ‘Jugend musiziert’. He has won further prizes as a soloist at international competitions such as the Johannes Brahms Competition (2010), the ‘Julio Cardona’ competition in Portugal (2011) and the ‘Schoenfeld International String Competition’ (Harbin/China 2014).

Lukas Stepp has performed as a soloist with the Stuttgart Philharmonic Orchestra, the Carinthian Symphony Orchestra, the Young Ensemble Berlin, the Baden-Württemberg State Youth Orchestra, the Hildesheim State Theatre, the Baden Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra and the Hamburg Camerata, among others.

Lukas Stepp was first violinist of the ‘Stepp Quartet’, which performed at festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival and the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival between 2001 and 2012.

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.

Volker Hanemann

Volker Hanemann wurde 1966 in Köln geboren und studierte Oboe und Englischhorn bei Winfried Liebermann an den Musikhochschulen von Lübeck und Heidelberg-Mannheim. Von 1987 bis zum Sommer 2000 war er als Englischhornist am Nationaltheater Mannheim engagiert und wirkte als Lehrbeauftragter an der dortigen Musikhochschule.

Christian Dollfuß

Born in Bochum in 1969, Christian Dollfuß began his musical education at the Music Academy of Dortmund. He later studied under Hans Gutmann at Folkwang University in Essen. Together with the other members of »Trio Contrasts« he also studied chamber music performance under Vladimir Mendelsohn from 1997 to 2000. With this ensemble Dollfuß has recorded a CD of 20th century chamber music. 
 
Before Christian Dollfuß joined the Staatskapelle Dresden he was principal clarinet with the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra from 1993 to 1998. Between 1996 and 1998 he was engaged by the Duisburg Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Gürzenich Orchestra of Cologne.