Chamber Music Evening N° 8

The violinist and Kammervirtuose Thomas Meining graduated from Dresden’s Special School of Music before studying under Annemarie Dietze at the city’s Carl Maria von Weber College of Music. During this time he also attended numerous masterclasses by internationally renowned violinists such as Wolfgang Marschner and Václav Snítil. Thomas Meining was a prizewinner at national and international youth competitions. In 1985, at the age of twenty-two, he joined the ranks of the Staatskapelle Dresden. Only two years later he became the orchestra’s assistant first concertmaster. As concertmaster of the Musica Viva Ensemble Dresden, to which he has belonged for twenty years, and as the first violinist of the Dresden String Quartet, Thomas Meining has dedicated himself to the performance of contemporary music and the chamber repertoire. He began these activities directly upon taking up his orchestral duties with the Staatskapelle Dresden.

In 1999 he was awarded the Fritz Busch Prize of the Dresden Semperoper. Thomas Meining has appeared as a soloist with the Staatskapelle and has performed on multiple occasions with the Hamburg State Opera Orchestra, the Elbland Philharmonic Orchestra, the Dresden Chamber Orchestra and the Cypriot State Orchestra Nicosia. Concert tours as a soloist and chamber musician have taken him to various cities in Germany and to leading music festivals in Salzburg, Schleswig-Holstein, the Rheingau, Lugano and Warsaw. He has also made guest appearances in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Russia, China, Cyprus, Japan and the USA. As first concertmaster, Thomas Meining has been repeatedly invited to perform with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also given master classes at the University of Fine Arts and Music in Tokyo. In January 2009 he gave the highly successful Dresden premiere of Ferruccio Busoni's Violin Concerto, composed in 1896 for the then concertmaster Henri Petri, together with the Staatskapelle Dresden.

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.

Tibor Gyenge’s skills in chamber music have been honed through contact with members of the Fauré, Manderling, Lindsay and Carmina Quartets, as well as collaborations with artists such as Rudolf Leopold, István Várdai, Claudio Martinez-Mehner, Christian Euler, Ivan Monighetti and principal players of the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonic orchestras.

As a soloist he has performed with the Hungarian Chamber Orchestra, the Camerata Pro Musica, the Bad Reichenhaller Philharmonic, the Savaria Symphony Orchestra and the Satu-Mare State Philharmonic “Dinu Lipatti”.

After a 12-month contract with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, he was engaged as concertmaster at the State Philharmonic in Nuremberg.

Since 2016 Tibor Gyenge has been assistant 1st concertmaster of the 1st violins at the Staatskapelle Dresden.

Holger Grohs wurde 1972 in Erlangen geboren und erhielt seinen ersten Violinunterricht im Alter von sechs Jahren. Erste Erfahrungen im Orchesterspiel erwarb er als Konzertmeister des Bayerischen Landesjugendorchesters. Sein Musikstudium absolvierte er an der Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main bei Walter Forchert und an der Hochschule für Musik Würzburg bei Herwig Zack. Prägenden Einfluss auf seine künstlerische Entwicklung hatte Franco Gulli, bei dem Holger Grohs zwei Jahre an der Indiana University Bloomington in den USA studierte. Weitere Anregungen erhielt er bei zahlreichen Meisterkursen und Festivals wie z.B. als Stipendiat der Carl Flesch Akademie in Baden-Baden bei Saschko Gawriloff, bei der Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena und dem Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo.

Seit 2001 ist Holger Grohs Mitglied der Sächsischen Staatskapelle Dresden, 2013 wurde er stellvertretender Konzertmeister der Zweiten Violinen, im Dezember 2015 wurde er zum Konzertmeister der Zweiten Violinen ernannt. er widmet sich neben seiner Tätigkeit im Orchester auch intensiv der Kammermusik – und wechselt dabei häufig von der Geige zur Bratsche. So konzertierte er November 2015 im Rahmen einer China-Tournee der Sächsischen Staatskapelle als Bratschist mit dem Dresdner Streichquartett und ist auch regelmäßig als Geiger und Bratscher in diversen Formationen in Kammerabenden der Sächsischen Staatskapelle auf der Bühne der Semperoper zu erleben.

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.

Since 1998 he has been principal bass clarinet with the Staatskapelle. Apart from his orchestral duties, Christian Dollfuß can regularly be heard throughout Europe performing with diverse chamber groups such as the »Kapellquintett Dresden« and »Trio Contrasts«.    

In 2000 he was appointed to the teaching staff of Dresden’s Conservatory of Music as tutor in clarinet and bass clarinet.

Born in Dresden in 1975, Thomas Eberhardt’s career in music began with violin lessons at the age of six. Later he switched to the bassoon, receiving tuition from Bernhard Rose first at Dresden’s Music School and later as a student at the city’s College of Music. He also studied under Eberhard Marschall at Munich’s College of Music.

In 2000 he was engaged by the Bavarian State Orchestra in Munich. In the meantime he has toured with diverse ensembles throughout Europe as well as to North America, Japan, China and Korea. Thomas Eberhardt has been principal bassoon of the Staatskapelle Dresden since 2004.

Balázs Demény ist ein aus Transilvanien stammender junger Pianist, der in den letzten vergangenen Jahren eine vielversprechende Karriere in der klassischen Musikszene verzeichnen konnte. Er ist der erster Preisträger der Hans von Bülow, Ile de France, Lagny-sur-Marne und Carl Filtsch Internationaler Klavierwettbewerben, sowie der ISA Prag-Wien-Budapest (2012, Pianistenpreis) und zweiter Preisträger des Internationalen Chopin Wettbewerbs in Budapest. Diese und weitere Erfolge wurden mit dem Junior Prima Prize ausgezeichnet (2018), welcher für hervorragende künstlerische Leistungen verliehen wird. Er ist Solist in Residence beim

Staatlichen Orchester Dinu Lipatti in Satu-Mare (Rumänien) und verfügt über ein breites Repertoire an Klavierkonzerten, mit denen er bereits über 70 Mal europaweit aufgetreten ist. Er trat als Solist in renommierten Konzertsälen Europas auf, wie dem Gasteig München, der Salle Molière in Lyon, dem Liszt Festival in Raiding, dem Palast der Künste in Budapest (Müpa), der Liszt Akademie in Budapest, dem Athenäum in Bukarest sowie in der Konzertreihe Yokohama International Piano Concert Series in Yokohama und vielen anderen.