Dutch-American violinist Stephen Waarts began his studies with Li Lin at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and continued with Aaron Rosand at the Curtis Institute, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree. He was also admitted to the Perlman Music Program led by Itzhak Perlman.

With competition successes as a prizewinner at the Queen Elisabeth Competition (2015), first-prize winner at the Yehudi Menuhin International Competition for Young Violinists (2014), and second-prize winner at the Concours musical international de Montréal (2013), Mr. Waarts is in worldwide demand and takes part in numerous international festivals. In 2017, he was awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. In 2019, he received the Orchestra Award of the International Classical Music Awards from the Lucerne Symphony Orchestra; he returns to Lucerne this season for a recital at the KKL Luzern.

In 2015 and 2017, Mr. Waarts was an active participant in the Kronberg Academy Festival, during which he participated in master classes with Mihaela Martin and Christian Tetzlaff. In 2018, he took part in Chamber Music Connects the World, and in 2019, he performed Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante with Timothy Ridout and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe under the baton of Sir András Schiff as part of the Kronberg Academy Festival. Since October 2016, he has studied at the Kronberg Academy with Mihaela Martin. These studies are funded by the Bubmann/Rühland Stipendium.

American violist Matthew Lipman has come to be known as one of the leading players of his generation, frequently appearing as both a soloist and chamber music performer.

Highlights of recent seasons include appearances with the Minnesota Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and Juilliard Orchestra. Mr. Lipman has worked with conductors who include Edward Gardner, Osmo Vänskä, and Nicholas McGegan. His recent solo debuts include appearances at the Aspen Music Festival and School, Seoul’s Kumho Art Hall, Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Chicago’s Symphony Center, and Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles. This season, Mr. Lipman makes his debut at Carnegie Hall with the Soloists of the Kronberg Academy, as well as at Michael Tilson Thomas’s Viola Visions Festival of the New World Symphony in Miami Beach.

Mr. Lipman’s 2019 release by Cedille Records, Ascent, was celebrated by The Strad as a “most impressive” debut album, praised for its “authoritative phrasing and attractive sound.” The album marks the first-ever recording of a recently discovered work by Shostakovich—Impromptu for Viola and Piano—and Clarice Assad’s Metamorfose for viola and piano, which was commissioned for the recording. Mr. Lipman has also been featured on a recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia concertante with violinist Rachel Barton Pine and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conducted by the late Sir Neville Marriner.

Named the American Viola Society’s 2019 Artist-in-Residence, Mr. Lipman has also been featured on WFMT Chicago’s “30 Under 30” list of the world’s top classical musicians, and is a published contributor to The Strad, Strings, and BBC Music Magazine. He performs regularly with The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at music festivals that include White Nights of St. Petersburg, Music@Menlo, Marlboro, Ravinia, Bridgehampton, and Kissinger Sommer. His frequent chamber music partners include Martin Helmchen, Tabea Zimmermann, Mitsuko Uchida, Itzhak Perlman, Sir András Schiff, Henry Kramer, and Pinchas Zukerman. Dedicated to expanding the repertoire for viola, Mr. Lipman has also performed premieres of works by composers such as
Helen Grime and David Ludwig.

Mr. Lipman is the recipient of a 2015 Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Kovner Fellowship, and the Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Award, and is a major prizewinner in the Primrose, Tertis, Washington, Johansen, and Stulberg string and viola competitions. He studied at The Juilliard School with Heidi Castleman and was further mentored by Tabea Zimmermann at the Kronberg Academy. A native of Chicago and an alum of The Bowers Program (formerly CMS Two), Mr. Lipman is on the faculty of Stony Brook University. He performs on a 1700 Matteo Goffriller viola, loaned through the generous efforts of the Rachel Barton Pine Foundation.

Mishka Rushdie Momen studied with Joan Havill and Imogen Cooper at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama; she has also studied with Richard Goode and Sir András Schiff, the latter of whom presented her in recitals at Zurich’s Tonhalle, New York’s 92nd Street Y, Antwerp’s deSingel, and several cities in Germany and Italy for his Building Bridges series. A committed chamber musician whose partners have included Steven Isserlis, Midori, and members of the Endellion, Belcea, and Artemis string quartets, she has played in the Marlboro, Krzyżowa, and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern festivals, and regularly participates in Open Chamber Music at the International Musicians Seminar Prussia Cove.

Ms. Rushdie Momen has given solo recitals at the Barbican Centre, Bridgewater Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, and major venues across the UK, as well as in New York, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland, and India. Recent and upcoming concerts include performances at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Haydn Festival in Eisenstadt, and world premieres of commissions by Nico Muhly and Vijay Iyer.

Ms. Rushdie Momen appeared in her first commercial recording in 2017 as a soloist in Mozart’s Concerto for Three Pianos in F Major, K. 242, with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, produced by Somm Recordings to critical acclaim. Her debut solo recording, Variations, was released in October 2019 on the same label.

‘Ms. Rushdie Momen is currently studying at the Kronberg Academy as part of the Sir András Schiff Performance Programme for Young Pianists. This study is funded by the Henle Foundation.