Bae Ik-Hwan was born in Seoul, Korea and made his professional debut with the Seoul Philharmonic at the age of 12. He studied at the Juilliard School and has been a very busy person ever since. His performances in recitals and concerto concerts have taken him to most of the major cities in Europe, Asia and the United States. In 1985, he received the gold medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussels and also was a prize winner at the Munich International Competition in 1984. In 1986, he was a recipient of the Solo Recitalist Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. As an enthusiastic participant in many of the world’s best chamber music festivals, he has been seen everywhere from Seoul to Alaska. He was an artistic director of the Bargemusic Ltd., one of the leading presenters of chamber music in New York City, for fourteen years until 1995. Much sought after as a pedagogue, Mr. Bae has taught at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, the Manhattan School of Music, and the Korean National Institutes for the Arts. Every year he gives master classes worldwide. Currently he is a professor at the Jacobs School of Music, Indiana University. Mr. Bae has been a jury member of the Munich ARD competition in Germany, the Carl Nielsen International Violin Competition in Denmark, the Benjamin Britten International Violin Competition in London, and the Jean Sibelius International Violin Competition in Helsinki, Finland. Mr. Bae has recorded for the RCA, ECM, Delos, and Koch labels.

David Cerone served as president of the Cleveland Institute of Music from 1985 to 2008 and was a co-founder of the ENCORE School for Strings, where he co-directed and served as faculty member since 1985. Mr. Cerone serves as a juror for many prominent national and international violin competitions and presents master classes around the world. An active chamber musician, he toured extensively with the Canterbury Trio from 1984 to 1989, under Columbia Artist Management. He was a Director of the Meadowmount School of Music and member of its faculty for 19 summers. Mr. Cerone is a board member of the Avery Fisher Artist Program and is an Auxiliary Director of the International Board of the Suzuki Association. He was a Professor of Violin at Oberlin Conservatory from 1962 to 1971 and Chairman of the String Department and Kulas Professor of violin at CIM from 1971 to 1981. He was a member of the violin faculty at the Curtis Institute of Music from 1975 to 1985 and head of its violin department from 1981 to 1985. Mr. Cerone’s extremely popular recordings of the Suzuki Violin Method Books I through IV have been reissued by Alfred Publishing. He presented a series of master classes, lectures and a recital for the Talent Education Research Institute’s Teachers Convention in Hamamatsu, Japan, the first foreigner to address this illustrious group, and has performed in the St. Barts Music Festival for several seasons.

Boris Kuschnir was born in Kiev in 1948 and studied the violin at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatoire with Boris Belenky and chamber music with Valentin Berlinsky of the Borodin Quartet. His many encounters with Dmitri Shostakovich and David Oistrakh (with whom he also studied), had a lasting influence on his artistic development. He was a founder member of the Moscow String Quartet, with which he played for nine years. He has also founded the Vienna Schubert Trio and the Vienna Brahms Trio, and has made numerous recordings for labels including EMI(complete Mozart Piano trios), Naxos(Schumann’s complete works for Piano trio) and Nimbus Records(recordings with the Kopelman Quartet) and has won numerous prizes at international violin and chamber music competitions(Paris, Belgrade, Sion, Trapani, Bratislava, Florence, Trieste, Hamburg). Since 2002 he is also a member of the Kopelman Quartet. Mr. Kuschnir is a Professor at the Konservatorium Wien University and at the University of Music in Graz. His reputation as a teacher won international recognition with the recent outstanding success of his pupils, Julian Rachlin, Nikolaj Znaider, Lorenzo Gatto, Lidia Baich, Dalibor Karvay and Alexandra Soumm. Boris Kuschnir appears with such illustrious partners as L. Leonskaja, B. Berezovsky, E. Bashkirova, L. O. Andsnes, J.-Y. Thibaudet, I. Golan, J. Rachlin, N. Znaider, M. Vengerov, D. Sitkovetsky, R. Capucon, D. Garrett, J. Bashmet, G. Caussé, N. Imai, V. Hagen, L. Power, D. Carpenter, M. Maisky, B. Pergamenschikow, N. Gutman, S. Isserlis, G. Capucon, S. Gabetta, J.-G. Queyras and E. Brunner. At the same time he constantly gives master classes and is a jury member of various International Music Competitions(such as Queen Elizabeth Competition in Brussels, Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow, International Violin Competition of Indianapolis, Nicolo Paganini Competition in Genua, Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris and others). In 2008 the President of the Republic of Austria awarded Boris Kuschnir with the “Grand Decoration of Honour in Silver for Services to the Republic of Austria”. He was awarded the use of the Stradivarius violin(La Rouse Boughton, 1698) by the Austrian National Bank in recognition of his services to music.

The violinist Lee Mi-kyung studied in Gstaad, Switzerland with Alberto Lysy, in Colone with Igor Ozim, at the Mozarteum in Salzburg with Sándor Vegh and privately with Ana Chumachenko. Her major awards included the first prize at the German music university(hochschule) Competition in 1982, the silver medal at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in Brussel(1985) and she won at the ARD Competition in Munich(1988). As a soloist she has performed with Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra, Camerata Academica Salzburg, Radio Orchestra and Philharmonic Orchestra in Helsinki, English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scotland, KBS, Korean Chamber Orchestra. As a soloist and chamber musician she has played at the Berlin Festival, Casals Festival, Salzburg Festival, Napoli Festival, Olderburg Festival, Kuhmo Festival, Helsinki Festival and Menuhin Festival. From 1994 to 2003 Lee Mi-kyung was an artistic director of Lemi-Lappeenranta Music Festival in Finland. She gave master classes in many european countries, including England, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, France, Finland, Sweden as well as in Korea. She was appointed professor of violin at the Hochschule Für Musik und Theater in Munich in 2005.

Lee Sung-Ju is a graduate of New York’s Juilliard School, where she studied with Ivan Galamian, Margaret Pardee and Dorothy DeLay, and won the Fritz Kreisler Fellowship upon graduation. Her other teachers include Felix Galimir, Josef Gingold, Lee Eun Dong and Kim Yong Yun. Her list of prizes includes Wieniawski, Sibelius, Tchaikovsky and Queen Elisabeth International Competitions. In 1994, Lee Sung-Ju was appointed as a professor at the Korean National University of Arts in Seoul, Korea. After returning to Korea, not only she continues to perform actively in her native country, she became a welcome guest to many appearances throughout Asia and Eastern Europe. In Korea, some of her highlight performances include guest solo appearances with the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra(Vladimir Ashkenazy, conductor), the Hungarian State Symphony, the Berliner Symphoniker, and the Busan Philharmonic, the KBS Symphony Orchestra, the Seoul Philharmonic, the Suwon Philharmonic, and many others. In 2007, she was invited to play chamber music with Martha Argerich. Some of her concerts abroad include a recital in Shanghai Concert Hall in China, a solo with the Moravian Orchestra, the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra, the Almati Academic State Symphony and the Pleven Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1997, Professor Lee has founded a young string ensemble, Joy of Strings, which now has become the “Rising stars of Korea” and actively performing in Korea and abroad.

Petru Munteanu received his professional training in Bucharest from Prof. George Manoliu and participated in master classes with Juri Jankelevitsch(Moscow) and Michael Weimann(St. Petersburg). A life-long artistic friendship with Stefan Gheorghiu, one of the most important Romanian violinists has also influenced him. After finishing his studies, he became a director of the Special School of Music in Bucharest and supervised the music studies of approx. 1000 pupils. After a period, he became a professor at the University of Music in Bucharest. After moving to Germany, he became in 1970 a violin professor at the Universities of Music in Lübeck and in Hamburg, where he has been teaching since. In 1994 he was offered a professorship at the newly founded University of Music and Theater in Rostock. As a founding professor and as the head of the string department until 2010, he had a lasting impact on the development of the string section. The German section of ESTA(European String Teachers Association) has chosen him for the years 2000-2004 as their president. He became nationally and internationally well known, through concerts, master classes and numerous publications and speeches. By invitation of several universities, he taught in master classes in many countries. In 1986, he established the International Violin Competition and the International master classes for strings in Kloster Schöntal(Baden-Württemberg) and has since been their artistic director. He was invited to be jury member of major international competitions, such as Tchaikovsky, Jampolsky, Kocian, Concertino Praga, Wieniawski, Bach, Enescu, Premio Paganini, Premio Lipizer, Queen Elizabeth, Szigeti-Hubay, Vibrarte. His achievements have gained wide recognition; he is “honorary professor” at the University of Brasov and was awarded by the President of the Republic of Lithuania, Adamkus, with the highest medal of the Republic of Lithuania.

Okayama Kiyoshi was born in 1942 in Tokyo and studied violin at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music by T. Uzuka and H. Holst. He completed the Graduate School of the University in 1967. Receiving a scholarship from the Government of West Germany, he studied at Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg by W. Hanke and E. Hauptmann. He won the first place in the string quartet division of the Mendelssohn Competition held in Berlin in 1970. The Ysaÿe Foundation in Brussels awarded Ysaÿe Medal to the violin duo with Yoshiko Hattori. From 1971 he performed as first concertmaster of the Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn for 13 years, in addition to leading the Bonn String Quartet. The German Government conferred a Cross Order upon him for his cultural service in 1984, after which he returned to Japan to become the first concertmaster of the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra. From 1990 until 2010 he was Professor at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music. Currently, he heads the “OKAYAMA String Quartet”. He is also the music director of the Risonare Music Festival and the Tama Music Forum. He is Honorary Professor at the Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music and Visiting Professor at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.

György Pauk was born in Budapest, Hungary, and received his musical education at the Franz Liszt Academy. He won the Paganini Competition, the Jacques Thibaud Competition and the Munich Sonata Competition. He made his London debut with the London Symphony Orchestra under Lorin Maazel and his recital debut at the Wigmore Hall in 1962. He has regularly performed with the world’s leading orchestras in collaboration with conductors like Haitink, Blomstedt, Boulez, Rattle, Dutoit, Colin Davis, Fischer Ivan, etc. He made his United States debut with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1971, at the invitation of Sir Georg Solti. He became a frequent soloist with most of the major orchestras of America as well, also at the Aspen, Hollywood Bawl, Saratoga, Santa Fe, Ravinia summer festivals. In Britain he has performed with all the London orchestras as well as in the Provinces, at the Henry Wood Promenade seasons, Edinburgh, Cheltenham festivals. He boasts an exceptionally rich repertoire that includes some of the masterpieces of the 20th century and has given world and national premieres of the works by Lutoslawski, Penderecki, Schnittke, Maxwell Davies and Michael Tippett under the baton of the composers. His numerous recordings include several award winning releases: Cecielia Prize, Grammy nomination for one of his Bartók records. He is professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he has a permanent Master Class. He is often invited to the Juries of the most prestigious international violin competitions. He has received several public honours in Britain and in Hungary he was presented the Highest Order of the Republic by the President of Hungary for his contribution to music throughout the world. Recently he received the title Professor Emeritus from the Liszt Academy in Budapest in 2006. He plays on, the MASSART Stradivarious, made in 1714, the master’s Golden Period.

Dora Schwarzberg was born in the backstage of a Jewish Theatre where her musician parents worked. Personal and artistic communication with musicians such as Prof. Yankelevich, Valent Berlinsky, Abram Shtern, Isaac Stern, Dorothy Delay, Yehudi Menuhin, Mstislav Rostropovich and Pablo Casals made such an impact on Dora Schwarzberg. In her early career she won several major international competitions including Carl Flesch in London, ARD München, Paganini and Romano Romanini Competitions in Italy. For Dora music is not only a profession but a lifestyle. It is a means of communication with people, as varied and individual as the artists with whom she collaborated. They include Martha Argerich, Misha Maisky, Boris Berezovsky, Pavel Gililov, Nobuko Imai, Alexander Rabinovitch, Jaime Laredo, Sasha Schneider, Valery Affanasiev, Yuri Bashmet, etc. Among her many recordings, the live performances published by EMI are especially acclaimed by audience and critics. Her recent album with Martha Argerich including works by Frank, Debussy and Schumann received excellent reviews by several major magazines. She holds a professorship at the University of Music and performing Arts Vienna, where she continues to explore music and life with her students. She is also very demanded to impart master classes around the world. In the last years she has intensively collaborated with the composer Jorge Bosso, who dedicated her a big number of compositions, including the world premiere of the arrangements of Ravel, Debussy and Strauss Sonatas for violin and orchestra, performed in major festivals and concert halls in Europe and abroad including the Martha Argerich Festival in Switzerland and the Moscow Conservatory among others. The repertoire of Dora Schwarzberg embraces music from baroque sonatas to Argentinian Tangos.

Recognised as one of the leading teachers of today in China, Tong Wei-Dong is a professor for violin and the Head of Violins at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. His students have won many major awards and competitions including top prizes of National Violin Competition, Yehudi Menuhin Competition, Gyeongnam Competition, etc, and appeared in concerts and recitals on all continents. Wei-Dong has served as a jury member of several international competitions and national competitions. He regularly takes part in summer courses and prestigious music festivals, and has given master classes in the US, Canada, Europe, Singapore, Hong Kong and China. In addition, Wei-Dong is a recipient of the National Model Teacher of the Bao-Gang Award, the highest of its kind in China (2008, 2009).