Suzanne Gessner studied in Strasbourg, Paris and United States at University of Michigan and Conservatory of Chicago. She is teaching in Conservatoire à Rayonnement Regional and also in Conservatoire National Supérieur de Paris. She trained some remarkable students and a lot of them won prizes in international competitions like Mozart in Salzbourg, Menuhin in Fokelstone, Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud(first prize), etc. Other students are working in orchestras in France, Germany, Spain, Poland, USA and other are qualified for teaching in conservatories.

Ilya Grubert was born in Riga, Latvia. He began his studies at the E. Darzin School of Music in Riga. At the age of fifteen, the late Yuri Yankelevich invited him into his school in Moscow and later at the Moscow Conservatory. He continued his studies with Leonid Kogan at the Moscow Conservatory. Ilya Grubert graduated with a doctorate in 1980. He earned his first international success at the Sibelius Competition in Helsinki in 1975. Subsequently, he won first prize in two prestigious international competitions, the Paganini Competition in Genova and the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow in 1978. He then embarked on a highly successful career and performed with exceptional talented pianist Naum Grubert and manny distinguished orchestras such as the Moscow Philharmonic, St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Russian State Orchestra, Dresden Staatskapelle, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Helsinki Philharmonic, Leningrad Philharmonic, etc. He has worked eminent conductors such as Mariss Jansons, Gennady Rozhdesvensky, Voldemar Nelson, Jaap van Zweden. In January 1996, he won the Golden Tuning Fork award for his performance of Sibelius and Bruch concertos. He has recorded for major recording companies such as RCA, Naxos, Chandos, Channel Classics and Ondine with a repertoire that includes the Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Bruch / Paganini 1 and 2 concertos and all Prokofiev’s violin compositions. Ilya Grubert now lives in Holland and is a professor at the Amsterdam Conservatory. He is professor in Portogruaro winter academy(Italy) and University of Minho(Portugal). His students are very successfully in national and international competitions.

Kun Hu is a legendary violinist, conductor and pedagogue. He has been described already in the 80s as “a great artist.”(Le Monde), as having “Undoubtedpower”(The Times), as “Hu Kun…Chinese musicians, especially violinist, are establishing an increasingly high profile on the Western concert scene.”(The New York Times / International Herald Tribune), and as “One of the most individual stringplayers to burst on to the scene…the fines to the younger generation of violinist.”(The Strad). Kun has studied violin with his father Prof. Hu Wei Min and Prof. Lin Yao Ji, piano with his mother Prof. Peng Shi Jun and conducting with Prof. Xu Xin. Kun gained his first soloist post at age of thirteen in the Chinese Radio Symphony. He was the first mainland Chinese violinist ever to establish a solo career on the international stage after winning the fifth prize at the Sibelius Violin Competition at just seventeen years old in Helsinki 1980, raising Chinese flag on the international violin competition stage. He has toured around world, became the late Lord. Yehudi Menuhin’s only private student for 15 years. Kun has taking up conducting under the personal direction of late Sir. Colin Davis for 10 years and founded his own orchestra HUKUN and Friends in London. Kun currently enjoys touring as a conductor, a Professor/Hon RAM at the Royal Academy of Music, giving masterclass at music festivals, chairing and serving as a jury member at the world’s major violin competitions and building bridges for East and West cultural exchanges. There have also been a number of films and TV documentaries about his pioneering musical career.

The Ukrainian-American violinist Oleh Krysa, long esteemed in the former USSR as a distinguished soloist, chamber musician and teacher, made his American debut in 1971 at Carnegie Hall. Heralded by the New York Times as “a performance to make a violinist’s reputation had he come without one”. After an 18-year absence from the American concert stage, his appearances in 1990 at Carnegie Hall and the Kennedy Center confirmed his reputation as a master of violin. A prominent student of David Oistrakh, Oleh Krysa won major prizes in such international competitions as the Wieniawski, Tchaikovsky and Montreal, and was outright winner of the Paganini Competition. After completing his postgraduate work, Oleh Krysa began his teaching career as chairman of the violin department at the Kiev Conservatory. In 1973 he took the same position at the Gnesins Musical and Pedagogical Institute in Moscow and, two years later, returned to the Moscow Conservatory as professor of violin, where he remained until 1988. Currently he is professor of violin at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. Oleh Krysa has performed in major music centers throughout the world, with leading orchestras and conductors. He has also appeared at major festivals in North America, Europe and the Far East. Also, Oleh Krysa was leader of the Kiev Conservatory Quartet(1970-1973), Leontovych Quartet(1999-2003) and celebrated Beethoven Quartet(1977-1987). Oleh Krysa is also a champion of contemporary music and has worked closely with Alfred Schnittke, Edison Denisov, Sofia Gubaidulina, Krzysztof Penderecki, Valentin Silvestrov.

Sung-Ju Lee launched her New York career with debut recital presented by Young Concert Artists series in 1977 and was immediately recognized as “a first-rate violinist” by The New York Times. Her list of prizes includes the Ewha-Kyunghyang Concour of Korea at age of 11 and the New York Wieniawski, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth International Competitions. Her list of accomplishments is impressive, beginning with her appearance as a soloist with the Seoul Philharmonic at the age of 9. In the U.S, she has performed with the orchestras of Saint Louis, Seattle, Baltimore, Florida, Ft. Lauderdale, Duluth and Roanoke, among numerous others. Around the world, she has played solo with the Hong Kong Philharmonic, Taiwan Symphony, KBS Orchestra and Orquestra Sinfonicain Caracas, Venezuela. Ms. Lee is a graduate of New York’s Juilliard School, where she studied with Ivan Galamian, Margaret Pardee and Dorothy DeLay, and awarded the Fritz Kreisler Fellowship upon graduation. Her other teachers include Felix Galimir, Josef Gingold, Eun Dong Lee and Yong Yun Kim. In 1994, Ms. Lee was appointed as a professor at the prestigious Korea National University of Arts in Seoul, Korea. Ms. Lee is the founder and the Artistic director of a String ensemble Joy of Strings since 1997.

Violinist Daniel Phillips enjoys a versatile career as an established chamber musician, solo artist, and teacher. A graduate of Juilliard, his major teachers were his father, Eugene Phillips, Ivan Galamian, Sally Thomas, Nathan Milstein, Sandor Vegh, and George Neikrug. He is a founding member of the 30-year-old Orion String Quartet, which is in residence at Mannes College of Music and performs regularly at The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Available on recording are the complete quartets of Beethoven and Leon Kirchner. As a winner of the 1976 Young Concert Artists Competition, he has performed as a soloist with many orchestras, including the Pittsburgh, Boston, Houston, New Jersey, Phoenix, San Antonio symphonies. He appears regularly at the Spoleto USA Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Northwest, Chesapeake Music Festival, and has participated in the International Musicians Seminar in Cornwall, England since its inception. He also serves on the summer faculty of the Heifetz Institute and the St. Lawrence String Quartet Seminar at Stanford. He was a member of the Bach Aria Group, and has toured and recorded in a string quartet for SONY with Gidon Kremer, Kim Kashkashian, and Yo-YoMa. He is a professor at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College and on the faculties of the Mannes College of Music, Bard College Conservatory and The Juilliard School.

Ho Young Pi restlessly plays in recitals, concert stages, chamber music and orchestras every year. His “street performance” at the Seoul’s Gangnam Subway Station in 2007 drew an explosion of interest. His recent full-length plays including Brahms, Prokofiev, Mozart, Beethoven, Foley, and Schubert showed his academic interests. Pi started his career as a principle violinist of the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra when he was still a college student at the Seoul National University, and became a concert master of the Korean Symphony Orchestra upon returning from studying in Europe. Since then, he has been repeatedly invited as an honorary concert master performing with the Seoul, Bucheon, Incheon and other major philharmonic orchestras in Korea. Pi surprised audiences and attracted publics’ attention by playing the Paganini Concerto for Violin and Orchestra No.1 in D major Op.6 with the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra at the age of thirteen. Upon graduating from Seoul Art High School and Seoul National University with the highest honors, he was selected as a French government’s scholarship student and left his native country of Korea for Paris. In his 6 year stay in Europe, he studied under Professor Michele Auclaire’s instruction and graduated from The Conservatoire National Superieur de la Musique de Paris and Ecole Normale Suprieure with the highest honors. During his stay in Europe, he also studied at the Bern Konservatorium in Switzerland under Professor Igor Ozim and concluded his debut in Europe by appearing with Bern Symphony Orchestra. He is currently serving as a member of the DMZ International Music Festival Organizing Committee, Director of the Korean Symphony Orchestra, Musical Director of the Ensemble Unison, and teaches at the Sungshin Women’s University.

Born in Barcelona into a German-French family, Stephan Picard grew up in Spain and in Germany, where he studied violin from age 10, inter alia Saschko Gawriloff, Stefan Gheorghiu and Roman Nodel. As a winner of the International Maria Canals Competition, Barcelona, and the German National Music Competition, he launched a career as a soloist with major symphony orchestras and as chamber musician. Concerts and masterclasses have taken him throughout Europe and to Korea, Japan, USA, Canada, South America and New Zealand. Since 1995 Stephan Picard has served as professor at the highly acclaimed Academy of Music Hanns Eisler in Berlin. His students have attained positions in major symphony orchestras as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and top prices in such competitions as the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition and the Geneva International Music Competition.

Takashi Shimizu studying the violin with S.Tokunaga at the age of 6, and then with S.Sumi. He won first prize in the All Japan Student Music Competition at age of 10, and made his debut playing with the NHK Symphony Orchestra. Also he studied sometimes under Y.Yankelevich. After Shimizu won 3 first prize of the All Japan Music Competitions and others at the age of 17, the following year, he was dispatched to United States and studied under Jascha Heifetz at Southern California University. Shimizu studied French style of bowing and French Music under M.Auclair with advice of Heifetz. Shimizu went to London with advice of Auclair. and was studying chamber music with Y. Neaman for 14 years. In the meantime, introduced by Neaman, he studied with Yehudi Menuhin and Nathan Milstein. Shimizu won 1st prize or took high places in many international competitions, and won the Grand Prix at the many international competitions in France Shimizu made his London debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the leader of Yehudi Menuhin, which many critics praised as “a most unforgettable concert”. Shimizu has performed with many British orchestras, such as the London S., Royal P., BBC P., Bournemouth S., City of Birmingham S., London Mozart Players, The Halle, Scottish Chamber, Ulster and others. He has also performed with National de Belgique, Brussel P. and others in Belgium, Her Resident, Stuttgart P. and others in Germany, Austria, Spain and Italy in West Europe.