I Fagiolini Vocal Ensemble
Art and music had an amazing influence on people’s lives in Venice in the 16th century. Music continued to be performed in the churches but it also became an important accompaniment to secular events and various celebrations held to mark victories or the occupation of positions of power. The traditional structure of the compositions also changed, groups of instruments and soloists engaged in a lively dialogue and the concerto form took shape. Splendour and elegance marked everyday life. The influence of Renaissance joie de vivre also reached the English royal court where madrigal comedies, the forerunners of operas, soon became popular. The I Fagiolini Vocal Ensemble was formed to revive this colourful music. They have recorded works by Gabrieli, Tomkins, Gesualdo, Vecchi and Monteverdi and also give live performances at early music festivals, among others in London, Brighton, Barcelona, Beverley and now in Budapest.

Concerto Copenhagen
The ensemble specialising in the performance of early music was formed by Danish and Swedish musicians in 1990. The core repertoire of Concerto Copenhagen (known to the Danish public as CoCo) is Baroque and early Classical music. They pay special attention to Nordic composers of the period, such as the Dane C. E. F. Weyse (1774–1842). In co-operation with the Royal Library of Copenhagen they have dusted down and brought to life many previously unknown scores worth discovering. Thanks to the combination of high standard playing and the rarely performed repertoire, the CoCo has become a unique phenomenon in the Danish (and international) music world. Since 1999 the ensemble’s music director has been the harpsichordist Lars Ulrik Mortensen who has given new impetus to the work of the ensemble. In 2002 they staged a performance of Handel’s Julius Caesar in the Royal Theatre, the biggest undertaking so far in the history of the orchestra.
Mortensen studied at the Danish Royal Academy of Music, then he was a student of Trevor Pinnock in London. Between 1988 and 1990 he played in the London Baroque orchestra, then until 1993 in the Collegium Musicum 90. His recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations won the French Diapason d’Or. In 2000 the Royal Theatre invited him to conduct Kunzen’s opera “Holger Danske”. Following the success of the performance Mortensen was appointed permanent conductor of the Royal Theatre and has since conducted many operas, including Mozart’s “Idomeneo”.

Shlomo Mintz
In the unanimous opinion of critics, colleagues and the public, Shlomo Mintz, violinist, violist and conductor is regarded as one of the outstanding musicians of our age, esteemed for his impeccable musicianship, stylistic versatility and commanding technique alike. Besides his solo recitals acclaimed throughout the world, he regularly appears with leading string quartets, chamber ensembles, symphony orchestras and conductors. He has won many prestigious music prizes, including Sienna’s Premio Accademia Musicale Chigiana, the Diapason D’Or, the Gramophone Award and the Edison Award; he has been awarded the Grand Prix du Disque three times.
Mintz was born in Moscow in 1957. In 1959 he emigrated with his family to Israel where he was a student of the outstanding Ilona Fehér. He made his concert debut at the age of eleven with the Israel Philharmonic. Shortly after he attracted great attention by standing in at short notice for Itzak Perlman: at the request of Zubin Mehta he learned Paganini’s 1st Violin Concerto in a week for the performance. With the support of Isaac Stern and the American Israel Cultural Foundation he first appeared in Carnegie Hall, New York with the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra at the age of sixteen. He continued his violin studies under Dorothy DeLay at the New York Juilliard School of Music.
He began his career as a conductor at eighteen. Since then he has conducted such leading ensembles as the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London, the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Japan and the Israel Philharmonic.
He holds master courses in many places around the world, among others he is one of the founders and supporters of the Keshet Eilon International Violin Master Course for talented young musicians.

Adrienne Krausz
Pianist, she graduated from the Budapest Ferenc Liszt Academy of Music where her teachers included György Nádor and György Kurtág. She has given recitals with Yuri Bashmet, Boris Pergamenshchikov, and Shlomo Mintz. In 1997 she won the piano competition of the Brussels Chimay Foundation, for which she was nominated by Sir Georg Solti. She has appeared as a soloist, among others, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra.

René Clemencic and his ensemble, the Clemencic Consort have already been guests at the Budapest Spring Festival. The ensemble’s founder and director, the virtuoso baroque flautist, was born in Vienna. His father was a public notary and the family travelled around the Central European region, from the Istrian peninsula to Poland. René Clemencic not only studied music but also philosophy and musicology. Together with the Clemencic Consort, both as performing artist and researcher, he deals with the music of the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque music, but he is also well acquainted with contemporary music and the avant-garde related arts. His musicological writings cover the same themes and he often holds master courses in these fields in Europe and the United States.

The English Chamber Orchestra (ECO) was formed in 1960. It is one of the world’s most celebrated chamber ensembles, its members work full-time for the ensemble which is supported by the English Chamber Orchestra and Music Society under the patronage of the Prince of Wales. Over the decades it has been associated with Benjamin Britten, Sir Colin Davis, Daniel Barenboim, Raymond Leppard, the virtuoso Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida, a student of Alfred Brendel, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman. In Budapest the ensemble will be conducted by Daniel Stern. Stern was born in New York, graduated in piano and conducting from Yale University then continued his studies at the Juillard School. He has participated in many international competitions and festivals in the United States and South America. He has been successful in festivals in Europe too (e.g. Aix-en-Provence) and in opera houses conducting works by Britten, Mozart, Bizet, and Richard Strauss. On a number of occasions he has conducted the Orchestre de Paris. He made his debut in Great Britain together with violinist Sarah Chang in 1999, and has since returned a number of times.
Born in Philadelphia to Korean parents, Sarah Chang is still only in her early twenties. She began as a child prodigy: she was only 9 when she made her first recording of virtuoso violin pieces by Sarasate, Paganini, Elgar and Prokofiev. At the Juillard School she was a student of the best string teacher, Dorothy Delay. She has been invited by the world’s best orchestras, from the Concertgebouw Orchestra to the Vienna Philharmonics and the big American orchestras. Her concerts have been conducted by Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti, Sir Simon Rattle, James Levine, Michael Tilson Thomas – in short, the leading conductors of our time. Major festivals from Peking to London vie to have her appear in their programmes. Her repertoire is exceptionally wide and includes the Sibelius and Goldmark violin concertos, as well as compositions by Mendelssohn, Richard Strauss and Dvořak. In recent years her attention has turned to chamber music, as her Budapest concert also indicates.