Internationally renowned as a soloist as well as a pedagogue, Romanian-born French violinist Radu Blidar is the founder and president of the Vibrarte International Music Competition in Paris. Radu Blidar made his concert debut at the age of twelve. His career highlights include recitals and concerto appearances around the world, including New York(Lincoln Center), London(Barbican Centre, Royal Festival Hall), Paris(Cité de la Musique, Maison de Radio France, Musée d’Orsay, Salle Gaveau, Théâtre du Châtelet), Salzburg(Mozarteum), as well as Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxemburg, Poland, Spain, Switzerland, South Africa, Japan and South Korea. Radu Blidar studied in Romania, in Austria and in France at Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. He was a prize winner at numerous international violin competitions. Elected as 1993 Young Violinist of the Year by the European Council and the Juventus Foundation, he was awarded in 1994 the Fondation de France prize, then in 1997 and in 1999 the Musique Française and Musique de Chambre honorary prizes. Radu Blidar teaches at the prestigious Royal College of Music in London. Many of his students have been laureates at international competitions and are also members of major orchestras.

Choon-Soo Chung won prestigious Grand Prize at Dong-A Competition while he was studying with Professor Nam-Yun Kim at Kyung Hee University. He then continued to study with Professor Toyoda Koji at Hochschule der Künste Berlin. His spectacular career finds him performing recitals and as a soloist with leading orchestras in Korea including KBS, Seoul, Suwon, Busan, Bucheon, Daegu, Chungnam, Korean Symphony, and Seoul Chamber Orchestra. Abroad, he played as a soloist with Hong Kong Pan-Asia, Singapore, and Syenyang Symphony Orchestra along with Russian Philharmonic and Brugas Philharmonic Orchestra. His repertoire is most varied from acclaimed Beethoven Sonatas recitals to Isang Yun’s works. He is invited to perform at Darmstadt and Bremen festival for New Music and has recorded the Korea’ Artist album with KBS. As much as he loved his career as a solo violinist, he was also interested in orchestra. He began his orchestra career as the Associate Concert Master at Singapore Symphony Orchestra, became the Concert Master at Suwon Philharmonic Orchestra, Guest Concert Master at Bucheon Philharmonic Orchestra and Korean Symphony Orchestra. He is currently a Professor at Kyung Hee University, Concert Master at Seoul Chamber Orchestra and a member of Charity Chamber Ensemble and Korea Festival Ensemble.

Koichiro Harada studied violin, chamber music and conducting at the Toho Gakuen School of Music and the Juilliard School of Music under Saito Hideo, Akiyama Kazuyoshi, Dorothy Delay and Ivan Galamian. In 1969, Mr. Harada founded the renowned Tokyo String Quartet in which he played first violin for 12 years, and his chamber music engagements led him to prestigious venues such as Lincoln Center and John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Highly acclaimed for his talent, technique and musicality, he later began teaching overseas at major music learning centers including the Cleveland Conservatory and Aspen Music Festival. Mr. Harada returned to Tokyo in 1983 and has since formed several other notable chamber music ensembles including NADA and Mito Quartet. He has performed at numerous music festivals. Among them, there are Aspen Music Festival, Nagano- Aspen Music Festival, the Ishikawa Music Academy and Kurashiki Music Festival. Received acclaim also as a conductor, Koichiro Harada often appears with the New Japan Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, Hiroshima Symphony Orchestra, Sapporo Symphony Orchestra, Kyoto Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, and many others. In addition to his concert activities, Mr. Harada is a professor at the Toho Gakuen School of Music and has been invited as a jury member to many international competitions: Concours Musical International Reine Elisabeth de Belgique, International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Concorso Internazionale di Violino “Premio N. Paganini”, and Concours International de Violin “Henryk Wieniawski”. In 2005, he was president of the jury of the Concours International Long-Thibaud.

Violinist Kyung Sun Lee captured many awards from prestigious competitions such as Tchaikovsky Competition, Queen Elizabeth Competition, Washington International Competition, D’Angelo International Competitions and Montreal International Competition. Lee became an assistant professor of violin at the Oberlin Conservatory in 2001, associate professor at University of Houston in 2006 and a full professor at Seoul National University since 2009. Currently she is the music director of Daejeon Chamber Music Festival and National Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra. Kyung Sun Lee studied at Seoul National University, Peabody Conservatory and the Juilliard School.

Igor Ozim was born in Ljubljana, Slovenia. After finishing his studies in his hometown he studied with Max Rostal in London, winning the Carl-Flesch-Competition in 1951, followed by the first prize in the ARD Competition Munich in 1953. This was followed by an intense concert activity in Europe and overseas. His large repertoire encompasses some 60 violin concertos and numerous chambermusic works. Many contemporary works of which he has given first performances are dedicated to him. He has performed with important international orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra and many others. Igor Ozim has recorded many works extensively from classical to contemporary repertoires. As one of the most sought-after violin teachers in Europe, he taught at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and at the Hochschule für Künste Bern. Currently he teaches at the Mozarteum in Salzburg/Austira and has been giving masterclasses all over the world. He also works as a jury member at the most prominent competitions.

Violinist Lucie Robert has received enthusiastic praise from audiences and critics alike for the expressive lyricism and tonal beauty of her playing. Ms. Robert has appeared as recitalist and chamber musician throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Far East in major music centers. She has performed as violin soloist with major orchestras in Canada, including the Montreal Symphony under Charles Dutoit. Ms. Robert has also collaborated in chamber music with artists such as Menahem Pressler, Philippe Entremont, Claude Frank, and Isidore Cohen. An active participant in the summer music festival scene, Ms. Robert has been guest artist or faculty member at festivals such as Bowdoin, Orford, Waterloo, Busan Music Festival and the Hida-Takayama Festival. She is currently on the faculties of the Texas Music Festival at the Moores School of Music, the MusicAlp Academy in France, and the Duxbury Music Festival. Highly sought after as a violin pedagogue, Ms. Robert has served for over twenty-five years as violin professor at the Manhattan School of Music and the Mannes College of Music in New York City. She has given master classes throughout the world at prestigious institutions such as Seoul National University, the Central Conservatory in Beijing, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, Oberlin Conservatory, and the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal. Her students have won prizes in major international competitions including the Indianapolis, Paganini, Sendai, China International Violin Competitions. Ms. Robert has served as an adjudicator for many competitions including the the Montreal International Violin Competition, the International Fritz Kreisler Violin Competition, and the Jozsef Szigeti International Violin Competitions.

Conductor, violinist and eminent pedagogue Joel Smirnoff, a native of New York City, was appointed President of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 2008 and holds the Mary Elizabeth Callahan President’s Chair. A long-time member of the Juilliard String Quartet(JSQ), he served as first violin from 1997 to 2009. Mr. Smirnoff had joined the Juilliard String Quartet in 1986 and performed on four continents with the group during that time. Mr. Smirnoff replaced Robert Mann as first violinist of the quartet in 1997. Encouraged by Seiji Ozawa to “take up the baton,” Mr. Smirnoff developed into a highly acclaimed conductor with an impressive and wide-ranging repertoire. In the summer of 2000, Mr. Smirnoff made his official American conducting debut with the San Francisco Symphony, conducting an all-Tchaikovsky program. Engagements quickly followed with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Phoenix Symphony, the Louisiana Philharmonic, the Chicago Philharmonic, the New World Symphony and others. In Europe, Mr. Smirnoff has led the Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and the Basel Sinfonietta and in Japan, Mr. Smirnoff has conducted at the Saito Kinen Festival in Matsumoto. In the summer of 1997, Mr. Smirnoff was featured violin soloist at Tanglewood in a concert dedicated to the memory of violinist Louis Krasner, performing the Berg Violin Concerto under the direction of Bernard Haitink. As second-prize winner of the 1983 International American Music Competition for Violin, he was awarded debuts at Carnegie Hall on its Emerging Artists series and at Town Hall on its Midtown Masters series. Mr. Smirnoff has received the Lifetime Grammy Award for his many recordings with the Juilliard String Quartet and the Alumni Professional Achievement Award from the University of Chicago, his Alma Mater. Mr. Smirnoff has served on the juries of the Naumburg and Indianapolis Violin Competitions.

The accomplished Chinese violinist Lina Yu gained instant acclaim when, at the age of 18, she premiered the ‘Butterfly Lovers’ Violin Concerto. Since then she has recorded this concerto many times with orchestras such as the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Russian Philharmonic, and the Shanghai Symphony. Since her first rise to attention, Lina Yu has been sought out to premiere many works by various composers and has won numerous awards for her outstanding performances. Led by her, the earliest Chinese string quarter participated and won a prize at Berlin’s 2nd Schumann International Competition in 1960. She appears frequently in recitals and as soloist with orchestras in the United States, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Australia, and China. In 1962, Lina Yu was appointed to the faculty of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music where she is currently chairwoman of the violin and viola Department and professor of violin. Many of her students are top prize winners at the Paganini, Menuhin, Tchaikovsky, Wieniawski, Sendai, Lipizer, and Sibelius International Violin Competitions. Professor Yu regularly teaches master classes throughout United States, Canada, Israel, Australia, Japan, and China. Professor Yu has served on the jury panel of many prestigious international violin competitions, including the 1998 and 2007 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competitions in Moscow, Russia; the 2006 Wieniawski International Violin Competition in Poznań, Poland, as well as many international competitions in Germany, Italy, Austria, Denmark, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, and her native China. Professor Yu founded the Yu Lina Violin Foundation in 1993, in order to promote talented young violinists.

Pavel Vernikov, a student of David Oistrach and Semyon Snitkowsky, won the International ARD Violin Competition and the Grand Prix at the International Violin Competition “Vittorio Gui”. He has appeared at prestigious venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Carnegie Hall and Kennedy Center in New York, Wigmore Hall in London, La Scala in Milan and Santa Cecilia in Rome. For the last 30 years he has been a member of the Tchaikovsky Trio. His artistic partners have included Yuri Bashmet, Elisso Virsaladze and Christian Zimmermann. He was the Artistic Director of the Gubbio Music Festival, the Dubrovnik Chamber Music Festival and the Eilat Chamber Music Festival. He teaches and gives master classes around the world, in Italy, France, Finland, Spain, Israel, Germany, etc. and has been invited to be a member of the jury at international competitions(Kreisler, ARD, Sendai, Budapest, Sarasate, Wieniawski, etc.). He was a professor at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Lyon. At present he is a professor at the famous Konservatorium Wien University and at the Haute-École de Musique de Lausanne(Site de Sion). Among his many laureate students are people like Massimo Quarta(1st Prize Paganini International Violin Competition), Fumiaki Miura(1st Prize Hannover International Violin Competition), Lorenza Borrani(Leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe), Fanny Clamagirand(1st Prize Fritz Kreisler International Violin Competition, Vienna and 1st Prize International Monte Carlo Violin Competition) and Miki Kobayashi(2nd Prize Wieniawski Competition). In 2013 he was appointed as Artistic Director of the Sion Festival in Switzerland.

Krzysztof Wegrzyn was born in Poland. He studied in Warsaw, Freiburg and London. His musical personality has been strongly influenced by Zenon Brzewski, Wolfgang Marschner, Yfrah Neaman and Dorothy DeLay. He was a laureate at renowned international competitions(Spohr, Montreal) and was the winner of the Karol Szymanowski and Rodolfo Lipizer Competitions. His concert activities have taken him around the world and he has made numerous recordings for radio, television and CD. Krzysztof Wegrzyn served as concertmaster of the Hannover State Opera and Philharmonic Orchestra for many years and since 1993, has been a professor at the University of Music and Drama Hannover. Many of his students have won prizes in major international competitions and have become members of leading German orchestras. Krzysztof Wegrzyn regularly holds master classes in Europe, the United States and Asia. He has served on the juries of numerous international competitions(e. g. the Tchaikovski, Kreisler, Paganini, ARD and Sendai). Furthermore, he has also been greatly involved in chamber music and has founded the ensemble ‘Il Gioco col Suono’. In 2004 he was awarded the State Music Prize. Krzysztof Wegrzyn is the founder and Artistic Director of the Joseph Joachim International Violin Competition Hannover.