Frank Agsteribbe a versatile musician who works as a conductor, keyboard player, and composer. In all his activities he strives for direct expression, flexibility, and living colour, whether in opera (as director and continuo player) or in baroque or modern music. He has played with La Petite Bande, the Huelgas Ensemble and Anima Eterna, giving concerts in various European countries, in Mexico and in China.

He is the founder, harpsichordist, and director of the Belgian baroque orchestra B’Rock (until 2013), which has gone on to striking success in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, and South Africa. He has also worked as a guest conductor with the Collegium Vocale Gent, Concerto Köln, the Luxembourg Philharmonic and the National Orchestras of Belgium and Portugal.

Frank Agsteribbe is musical director of the Luxemburg based vocal ensemble cantoLX. Since its inaugural concerts in 2010, cantoLX is now firmly established in the music scene of Luxembourg, and in 2011 made its debut appearances at the MA Festival Brugge, the Utrecht Early Music Festival and at the Philharmonie Luxembourg. In 2012 it presented its first recording with Frescobaldi and Cage. Further recordings include another Frescobaldi cd, and the Oratorio per la settimana santa by Luigi Rossi. Both cds were nominated for the International Classical Music Awards.

Meanwhile he has more than 100 compositions to his name. Important works have been performed in Brazil, Berlin (the Konzerthaus and the German Opera) and at the Gaudeamus Festival in Amsterdam. Since 1989 he teaches at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp.

www.frankagsteribbe.be/Home.html

Sabrina Avantario is an Italian pianist, opera/vocal and repertoire coach, and expert in Artistic Vocology (Master obtained in 2022 at the University of Bologna). She also trained as singer, composer, choir conductor and conductor. Avantario is currently based in Antwerp (Belgium) and has vast experience in Italian repertoire.  

She has worked in numerous international opera productions and Lieder recitals (winning several chamber music awards). Her international experience includes working in Belgium (regularly at Opera Ballet Vlaanderen and de Munt | la Monnaie), Greece (Greek National Opera), Switzerland (Luzern and Bern Opera House), Ireland (Wexford Festival Opera), Germany (Staatstheater Kassel), Japan (Otsu and Tokyo Bunkamura Hall), Lebanon (Al Bustan Festival, Beirut), Bahrein and many theatres in Italy (Teatro Comunale of Bologna, Festival dei due mondi of Spoleto, Ferrara Musica, a.o.). Conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Ottavio Dantone, Vladimir and Dmitri Jurowsky, Umberto Benedetti Michelangeli, Alberto Zedda, Alexander Joel; the composer Giancarlo Menotti; directors such as Michael Hampe, Luca Ronconi, and Graham Vick are some of the personalities she has worked with throughout her thirty years of activity.  

Sabrina Avantario worked from 1995 to 2015 at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro and more specifically as chief pianist and coach during the last ten years. She teaches in the singing department of the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, gives masterclasses at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels and has collaborated with the Royal Conservatory of Wallonia in Liège. 

Born in Spain in 1987, Pedro trained in Barcelona’s ESMuC as a pianist, as a singer and as a conductor (summa cum laude). He specialized in operatic repertoire and lyric diction in the National Opera Studio in London, with scholarships from the Amar-Franses & Foster-Jenkins Foundation and Royal Opera House-Covent Garden, and was part of the International Opera Studio in Opernhaus Zürich during the seasons 14/15/16. He has collaborated on several occasions with the Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona and he is a recurring guest in the Glyndebourne Opera Festival in the United Kingdom, as a pianist and vocal coach. 

With more than 50 opera titles in his repertoire, he has had the chance to know and work closely with conductors such as Maurizio Benini, Richard Bonynge, Philippe Herreweghe, Trevor Pinnock, Enrique Mazzola, Fabio Luisi, and Robin Ticciati. He has accompanied masterclasses and voice lessons by Carlos Chausson, Neil Shicoff, Angelika Kirschlager, Ann Murray, Brigitte Fassbaender, and Kiri te Kanawa. 

In 2016 he became permanent music staff of Opera Ballet Vlaanderen in Antwerp and Ghent as a pianist-repetiteur, where he has also debuted as conductor in Così fan tutte and Mozart Concert Arias, both creations of Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker. 

Pedro is also a teacher at the International Opera Academy in Ghent and in the International Opera Studio (Dutch National Opera) in Amsterdam. 

He is currently preparing his debut for the Salzburger Festspiele 2023, where he will be the Principal Vocal Coach and continuo player in a new production of Le Nozze di Figaro, with the Wiener Philharmoniker and maestro Raphaël Pichon. 

www.pedroberiso.com

Hein Boterberg is Head of Music and vocal coach at the IOA and works as a visiting vocal coach at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester (UK). He is also an acclaimed accompanist for song recitals.

He studied at the Conservatoire in his birth city of Ghent. At the Royal Scottish Academy and the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama he specialised in singing accompaniment. He was also holder of the Geoffrey Parsons Junior fellowship at the Royal College of Music.

In de Munt | la Monnaie in Brussels, he assisted Antonio Pappano and Renato Balsadonna and worked in productions with singers such as Susan Graham, José van Dam, Jonas Kaufmann and Joseph Calleja. He has also played for conductors such as Kazushi Ono and Alessandro de Marchi. In addition to this, he has worked with singers for the Filharmonie, the Flemish Radio Choir, the Flemish Opera, Covent Garden, the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel and the Collegium Vocale, Ghent.

In song recitals he has played in Europe, Asia and Australia in venues such as the Wigmore Hall and the Purcell Room in London, the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels and many more, for singers such as Sophie Karthäuser, Christian Immler, Malin Christensson, and Jonathan Lemalu. In 2006 he started the recital seriesVocal Journey, for which he devised and played concerts with young singers from all over the world.

He was coach and pianist for singing courses in the UK, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Portugal and France. He was official accompanist for vocal masterclasses by Sir Thomas Allen, Robin Bowman, Emma Kirkby, Ann Murray, Loh Siew-Tuan, Graham Johnson and Dame Margaret Price.

Muriel Corradini completed her vocal and musical studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and at the New England Conservatory of Boston (USA), where she graduated as a Master in vocal performance in 1989.

Since 1992, she has been in great demand as a language coach for French and Italian repertoire and as a vocal coach. She has worked for the Opéra National de Paris, the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden, the Amsterdam and Brussels Opera Houses, as well as the festivals of Glyndebourne and Salzburg.

For the last 15 years, Muriel has been guest coach at the opera studios of L’Académie de l’Opéra de Paris, the Young Artist Program of the Royal Opera House in London, the IOA in Ghent, the International Academy of Voice in Cardiff and the Young Singers Project of the Salzburg Festival.

At the same time, Muriel has kept studying vocal technique with Michelle Wegwart, and over the last 8 years, she has developed her activity as a voice teacher in a private studio in Paris.

Sára Gutvill is an Amsterdam based singer and language coach for singers. Hungarian by birth, Sára studied German literature and linguistics in Vienna, and later classical singing at the Conservatory of Amsterdam with Pierre Mak.  

Sára currently teaches German for singers at the Conservatory of Amsterdam, at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels and at the International Opera Academy in Gent. She also works as German and Hungarian language coach in opera productions, e.g. at the Nationale Reisopera.  

Since 2012, Sára has been working as lecturer at the Amsterdam University College, teaching the courses German as well as Performing Arts: Music. 

As a singer, Sára is specialized in German Lied and Yiddish art song. Her album “Akh, nit gut!” is to be published in 2023. 

Elien Hanselaer works as an acting tutor, actress and theatre-maker in the United Kingdom and Belgium. She studied acting at School of Arts/KASK (Belgium) and East 15 acting school. She did a practise-based PhD research on actor training. The research looks at co-performer empathy and how actors can “play off each other.”  

Hanselaer is also part of Hobo Theatre, a British performance collective founded in 2012 that sets up participatory projects that reflect on ecologies in an increasingly interconnected world. Recent work includes Two to Tango (Polar Bear); Ashes to Ashes (TAZ); The Tale of the Last Thought; Afropean (KVS); Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (KVS); Europe in Autumn (Malpertuis).  

At the IOA, Hanselaer teaches spatial awareness and acting. She collaborated with director Stefaan Degand on IOA productions Love Musik (2021, 2022) and Bad Composers (2022).  

Rachel Harland studied music as an undergraduate at The University of Manchester. As a postgraduate she trained at Central School of Speech and Drama and Flanders Operastudio (later IOA). She also has an LRSM in vocal teaching. She has sung with opera companies including de Munt | la Monnaie, Opera Holland Park and Carl Rosa Opera, working in Belgium, UK, Canada and the U.S. and has given solo recitals across Europe, Egypt and Australia including for The International Gilbert and Sullivan Festival, Theatrical Adventures cruises and Flanders Music Festival. In addition to teaching at the IOA, Rachel is the director of Sing Salon, which organises singing events, groups and team building in Belgium and the U.K. Other educational work includes work as an English coach at the Royal Conservatory of Antwerp, teaching singing at Liverpool University and leading music and vocal workshops for Music in Prisons, Manchester International Festival in collaboration with Studio Orka and Aldeburgh Music.

Guy Joosten started his career as a stage director and the artistic head of the Blauwe Maandag Compagnie theatre collective. He also directed plays at the NTG, the KVS and the Brussels Kamertoneel, as well as for various companies in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Groningen). 

At the age of 28 he made his debut at the Burgtheater in Vienna; a year later he became the head director at the Thaliatheater in Hamburg.  

In 1989 he was awarded the Theatre Festival Prize in Rotterdam for his directing of Lars Noren’s play Nachtwake and received the Belgian Thalia Prize for his work with the Blauwe Maandag Compagnie.  

In 1999 the Flemish authorities honoured him with the title of Cultural Ambassador of Flanders for his opera directing. In 2010 he received the Prix de L’Europe Francophone/grand prix de la critique in Paris. 

He received the Premio Franco Abbiati /Melior Regista for his production of Elektra in Bologna (2015). 

In 1991 he directed his first opera at the Flanders Opera (Antwerp/Ghent). He has also directed works in the opera houses of Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bern, Bologna, Brussels, Duisburg, Düsseldorf, Essen, Genève, Göteborg, Hamburg, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Leipzig, Lisbon, London (English National Opera), Liège, Madrid, Maribor, Marseille, Monte Carlo, Montpellier, Oviedo, Sankt Gallen, Rouen, Saint-Étienne, Sofia, Vienna (Volksoper and Theater a/d Wien) and Zürich. In 2005 he made his debut at the Metropolitan Opera in New York with Gounod’s Roméo & Juliette.  

Guy Joosten made his debut in Asia in 2018 with productions in Seoul (Korean National Opera) and Tokyo (Japanese National Opera-Nikikei). 

In addition to his work as a director, he was also a professor at the University of Hamburg and a lecturer at university colleges in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Saarbrücken, Maastricht and Barcelona. He teaches the opera course at the Royal Flemish Conservatoire in Antwerp and founded the International Opera Academy in Ghent where he is the general manager since 2013.  

He gives regular master-classes, e.g. in Antwerp, Sofia, Tel Aviv, Leipzig and Madrid. 

As a freelance vocalist, Ibernice MacBean surprises with very diverse projects. She toured Europe with Zap Mama and has been supporting Paul Michiels and Soulsister for years during their concerts in Belgium.  

In 2013, the release of her jazz album Little Black Curls was a dream come true. With her jazz combo, she can be seen regularly in Flanders and the Netherlands. She performs the most beautiful jazz standards from The American Songbook in her own unique way. 

Under the direction of conductor Dirk Brossé, she performed at the Palace of Fine Arts with the National Orchestra of Belgium.  In 2013, together with the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra, she paid a tribute to film composer Riz Ortolani at the World Soundtrack Awards. 

In 2016 and 2017, Ibernice toured Belgium with the National Orchestra of Belgium. Subject of this tour was performing themes of the finest film music. 

In 2019, she had the honour of touring Flanders under the baton of British choral conductor Ken Burton with the Flemish Radio Choir and the strings of the Brussels Philharmonic.  

The next collaboration as a soloist with the Flemish Radio Choir took place in February 2020 and reprised in March of 2022. There she sang from the repertoire of The Great American Songbook (arrangements of pianist/arranger J. D’hoe). In 2022, she also sang with the symphony orchestra the Philharmonie Zuidnederland conducted by Dirk Brossé.  

In the summer of 2022, Ibernice performed as a soloist during the final concert of the Walter Boeykens Ensemble at the Festival of Bornem.  

As of September 2013, Ibernice teaches pop singing as a guest professor at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent. Since 2019, she has also been working at Codarts in Rotterdam. 

In addition, Ibernice is the vocal coach of The Voice of Flanders, The Masked Singer, I can See Your Voice and Belgium’s Got Talent. 

It all started at the Conservatory of Arnhem, where Charlotte was more or less ‘discovered’ by Aafje Heynis, with whom she completed her studies as a Performing Artist in 1982. Later, after two years at the Opera Studio in Amsterdam, Charlotte left for Berlin where she continued to learn under the passionate guidance of director Harry Kupfer.

Back in the Netherlands, Charlotte met her manager and good friend Pieter Alferink, who, from that moment on, took care of all of her artistic engagements – and still does to this day. The first engagement she obtained through him was a series of concerts, in 1986, in Rotterdam with James Conlon, where she sang as a soloist in Mahler’s Symphony #2, together with contralto Jard van Nes.

A variety of different roles in various international opera houses quickly followed. The highlights of Charlotte’s career include: Berlin, where she sang Mimì in La Bohème under Rolf Ruiter and Harry Kupfer in 1984; Amsterdam, where she performed Fiordiligi in Così Fan Tutte under the baton Nikolaus Harnoncourt, directed by Jürgen Flimm; London, where she recorded Beethoven’s concert aria “Ah, perfido!” with Sir John Eliot Gardiner in 1991, and Salzburg that same year: Vitellia in La Clemenza di Tito with Sir Colin Davies and director Peter Brenner. In 1993, she sang the soprano solo in Haydn’s Die Schöpfung with Frans Brüggen. In 1994, she performed Desdemona in Verdi’s Otello with Antonio Pappano, Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni) in Parma, conducted by Sir John Eliot Gardiner and directed by Lorenzo Mariani, and the Contessa in Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro in Tokyo with Claudio Abbado and Jonathan Miller. In London, 1995, she performed Strauss’ Vier Letzte Lieder with Bernard Haitink. A little later came a stretch of especially fond memories in her home country: the title role in Dvorak’s Rusalka with Leos Svarovsky in Utrecht and a lied recital in Rotterdam with conductor Ed Spanjaard (1998), Marguerite in Berlioz’ La Damnation de Faust with Bernard Haitink (1999). In 2001 she sang in Beethoven’s Fidelio as Leonore with Simon Rattle, conducted by Deborah Warner. After that came Elsa in Wagner’s Lohengrin with Edo de Waart and Pierre Audi (2002), Szymanowsky’s Stabat Mater with Jaap van Zweden and Wagner’s Die Walküre as Sieglinde with Hartmut Hänchen and Pierre Audi (2004), all in Amsterdam. Then in 2005 came Der Freischütz in New York City, where she sang Agatha under Eve Queler. In 2011 Simone Young and Charlotte Margiono performed a selection of Alma Mahler songs in Hamburg, Germany.

Another immensely important part of her career is her musical partner and the other half of her Lied duo: Peter Nilsson, with whom she has done many beautiful and exciting recitals.

The CD recording and concerts in collaboration with pianist and composer Frans Ehlhart – singing his own compositions with texts by Ingrid Jonker – is also a highlight in her musical life.

Charlotte Margiono has been teaching for quite a while. From May 2008 until June 2015, she was a main subject teacher at the classical voice department of the HKU Utrecht Conservatory. For the past ten years, teaching has been a very important part of her life. She teaches privately in her studio, and guides a number of young singers, all working at different levels as singers and performing artists. For her, this work is equally fulfilling as singing herself, only in a completely different way. The stage now plays a small but joyous part in her life, as a role here and there, a recital, or a concert with an orchestra – but passing on the craft and artistry of music and singing is now her main passion.

With The Mystic Lamb, the first name of the platform founded in 1987 to promote classically trained musicians next to visual artists, Pascale Montauban makes her first steps in cultural management. Being trained as a singer, actress and visual artist herself, the platform became in 1989 fully-fledged management agency under her proper name. International breakthrough in 1991 when the agency acquires a satellite in Salzburg as a partner of the Salzburger Schloßkonzerte, a legendary institution that made a name for itself with its ‘international young talent stage’ next to multiple concerts series at Schloss Mirabell, Mozarteum and Salzburg Residenz, with members of the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras and many others.

Mrs Montauban co-founded the ‘Brüssel-Salzburg-Festival’ which alternated between Brussels and Salzburg from 1991 to 1995 (i.e. until Austria joined the E.U.). Equally noteworthy was the Festival coproduced with the Stiftung Mozarteum Argentina in Brazil, to finish in style the Mozart Year 1991. 

Upon her return in Belgium in 2015 Ms Montauban was offered a merger between her agency and the Concert Agency Gaston Ariën, managed at the time by her Lied coach  baritone Albrecht Klora. Founded in 1928 by Gaston Ariën, the agency was the first to reinvite the Berliner Philharmoniker to Belgium and stood at the cradle of the renowned Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of Flanders, today Antwerp Symphony Orchestra.  

In 2028 the Ariën Agency will celebrate its 100th Anniversary. Today’s activities include career coaching and worldwide promotion of Belgian and foreign artists with a focus on conductors, opera directors, classically trained opera and concert singers, next to various chamber music ensembles,s solo instrumentalists and orchestras.

Since 2007 Mrs Montauban is a regular guest lecturer at the conservatoires of Ghent and Antwerp, where she gives audition training. Occasionally she enlarges this activity to opera studios. 

At home she served as a jury member at the 1st edition of the International Competition for Opera Conductors by the Polycarpe Foundation & Royal Opera House of Wallonie 2017), next to the competitions of Verviers, Namur (CIALN) and  Brussels (Triomphe de l’Art).

Abroad, repeatedly at the International Singing competitions of Pienza, Filignano (Mario Lanza), next to Pamplona and Cologne (MHKöln). Due to the covid-19 protective measures she had to decline the invitation by the International Virgilijus Noreika Competition for Singers in Lithuania (2020). 

Mrs Montauban is the driving force behind Castellaria, the first multinational Children’s Opera Festival that will open Summer 2024 with the world première of Jungle Book- The Opera.

Born in Manresa (Barcelona), Mireia Pintó was rewarded with the most important prizes in several singing competitions in Spain and in Italy. Her extensive repertoire, which ranges from baroque to contemporary music, includes opera, oratorio and Lied. She has performed as soloist with several instrumental chamber ensembles and several orchestras, with well-known conductors such as L. Maazel, G. Dudamel, P. Maag, R. Bonynge, H. Rilling, P. Goodwin, E. Ericson, A. Zedda, J.C. Malgoire, O. Dantone, M. Armiliato, R. Frizza, M. Benini, F. Haider, M. Mariotti, F.P. Decker, B. de Billy, S. Fujioka, S. Weigle, Y. Traub, A. Anissimov, G. Noseda, M. Guidarini, A. Allemandi, and many others. She takes part in several concert cycles, music festivals and opera performances in Italy, Russia, Holland, Germany, Greece, Andorra, France, Monaco, Japan, Czech Republic, Colombia and Spain, including outstanding performances in the main concert halls and opera theatres.  

In opera she performed: Giulio Cesare-Händel, La Cenerentola/Il Barbiere di Siviglia/ L´Italiana in Algeri/Il turco in Italia/Il viaggio a Reims (Rossini), Così fan tutte/II re pastore/Die Zauberflöte (Mozart), La serva padrona (Pergolesi), La Sonnambula/I Puritani/Norma (Bellini), Sly (Wolf-Ferrari), Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti), Andrea Chénier (Giordano), Otello (Verdi), Carmen (Bizet), Les contes d’Hoffmann (Offenbach), Roméo et Juliette/Faust (Gounod), Béatrice et Bénédict (Berlioz), Les Huguenots (Meyerbeer), Manon (Massenet), L´enfant et les sortilèges (Ravel), Evgeny Oneguin/Pikovaia Dama (Tchaikovsky), Katia Kabanova (Janacék), Parsifal/Die Walküre (Wagner), Ariadne auf Naxos/Elektra/Salomé (Strauss), Babel 46 (Montsalvatge), Tassarba (Morera), La vida breve (Falla), Iphigenia en Tracia (Nebra), La Partenope (Vinci), and others.  

She performed as soloist in: Weihnachts-Oratorium/Johannes Passion/Mass B minor/ Cantatas (Bach), Juditha Triumphans/Gloria/Moteten/Cantatas/Magnificat (Vivaldi), Stabat Mater (Pergolesi), Stabat Mater (Boccherini), Cantatas/The Messiah (Händel), Kantaten (Telemann), Jugendmesse/Cäcilienmesse/Scena di Berenice/Arianna a Naxos (Haydn), Requiem/Coronation Mass/Concert arias (Mozart), 9th Symphony (Beethoven), Petite messe solennelle/Stabat Mater/Giovanna d´Arco (Rossini), and many others.  

About Liederabende, since 1992 she has a duo with the pianist Vladislav Bronevetzky, carrying out a substantial performing activity that brought them to several countries, at festivals and concert cycles (including outstanding concert halls, like Gran Teatre del Liceu (Barcelona), Rachmaninoff Hall (Moscow), Hamarikyu Asahi Hall (Tokyo), and many others). 

She has recorded the opera Sly by Wolf-Ferrari (next to J. Carreras), Il Viaggio a Reims (Rossini), Die Walküre (Wagner) and Babel 46 (Montsalvatge). She also recorded the albums One life to live, next to Manel Camp, with works by Weill and Gershwin, and Pushkin in music, next to Vladislav Bronevetzky.  

She is Professor in Singing and in Lied at the ESMuC (High Music School of Catalonia-Spain) and in many masterclasses in several countries. In 2011 she was rewarded by the Òmnium Cultural with the Bages Prize of Culture and in May 2017 she was rewarded with Regió 7 Prize of Culture. She is Manresa´s Ambassador 2022.  

Born in Manchester, England, Darren Ross studied at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance in London. In 1988 he moved to France to dance in many creations with the ‘Compagnie de Brigitte Farges’. From 1992 he dances with the ‘Compagnie Larsen’, directed by Stéphanie Aubin, on different contemporary dance pieces and opera (Armide by Luly, Orphée et Eurydice by Glück).
In 1998 he choreographed his first opera La Traviata (Nancy, Rennes, Montpellier). This started a long collaboration as movement director and choreographer with director Jean-Claude Berutti. Together they worked on La Bague Magique by Giovanna Marini (Opéra de Nancy, Théâtre du Peuple Bussang), Faust (Lyon), Rusalka (Lyon, Tel Aviv, Bilbao), La Bohème, Wiener Blut and Othello (Nancy), Le Roi Candaule (Nancy and Liège) and Tannhaüser (Bordeaux).

He also collaborated with Jean-Claude Berutti for theatre: L’île des Esclaves — Marivaux (Brussels); Le Mariage de Figaro — Beaumarchais (Liège); Beaucoup de bruit pour rien — Shakespeare, La Cantatrice Chauve — Ionesco, L’Envolée -Granouillet, Family Art — Sales (Saint-Etienne); A tu et à toi, a ‘tour de chant’ with Yvette Théraulaz (Saint-Etienne, Genève, Lausanne)…

Together with director Caroline Petrick he worked on Weisse Rose — Zimmermann (La Monnaie Brussels) and The Golden Vanity, opera for children, by Benjamin Britten (La Monnaie Brussels, Royal Opera Stockholm).

With theatre company NUNC and Benjamin Van Torhout, he worked on Raisonnez (Ghent, Antwerp) and Het geslacht Borgia (Ghent, Antwerp, Leuven, Bruges). Together with Axel De Booseré and the Compagnie Arsenic, he worked on Le Dragon and Le Géant de Kaillass (Liège, Brussels, Paris). In January 2006, he directed Mozart onvoltooid/Mozart inachevé, a co-production of Pantalone, La Monnaie (Brussels) and Dschungel (Vienna).

Darren Ross also teaches movement and dance to singers (at the Chapelle Musicale de la Reine Elisabeth of Brussels, since 2004; Musikhochschule Frankfurt; Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et danse de Paris) and actors (amongst others, students of the Ecole d’Art Dramatique du CDN of Saint-Etienne).

With director Marguerite Borie he worked on Salome by Richard Strauss (Monte-Carlo, Liège, Vienna) and Reigen by Philippe Boesmans (Paris, CNSMDP). He also signed the choreography for Requiem for the Gods, a creation by Joachim Brackx with Nabla Muziektheater, co-produced by Concertgebouw Bruges. With Ivan Fisher, he collaborated on Le Nozze di Figaro — Mozart (Budapest, New York and Berlin).

Cara Van der Auwera was born in Brasschaat, 1981. Cara studied at a programme for Arts Education (dance, music, theatre) in Antwerp, and continued with a degree for classical singing at the Conservatory of Antwerp and Ghent.

Cara became famous as a singer for the band Spring in 2003. She played the character of Chantal in the Ketnet series Spring (since 2002). She left the band and the series in 2006. She presented a television programme for children, and a touristic programme on the channel Vitaya. She did voice-overs for the cartoon series De Drakenjagers (‘The Dragon Hunters’) on the Ketnet channel, and for several characters in the movie Robots. From September 2005 onwards, she appeared on VT4 as one of the channel’s announcers.

She was a co-presenter in the programme Huizenjacht (‘House Hunting,’ 2006-2010). In 2007, she presented Schoondochter gezocht (‘Looking for a daughter-in-law’). After House Hunting, she became news anchor at the VT4 programme Vlaanderen Vandaag (‘Flanders Today’, 2009-2011). In 2012, she transferred to the VRT channel, as a reporter for Iedereen Beroemd (‘Everybody Famous’).

In June 2014, Cara started at the classical radio channel Klara (VRT). She presented Espresso, Klara zoekt Academie (‘Klara is searching for Academy’) and Klara Serveert (‘Klara serves’). From 2019 until June ’22, she created and presented ‘Caramba’ on Klara, followed by Django and Music Matters – programmes she presents until today.

From 2017 to 2021, she presented the television programme Wonen (‘Living’) for the regional channels TVL, ATV and TV-Oost.

In November and December 2017, she participated in the successful reunion concert series Spring Throwback Thursday, in the context of 20 years of Ketnet at the Antwerp concert hall Sportpaleis. A repeat of these concerts is planned for December 2022.

Martin Wölfel was born in Potsdam, where he also grew up, received his first musical training and had his first experiences on stage and in front of the camera. 

After his initial desire to become an actor (he had an admission to the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” Berlin for 1990), he was drawn to music after all and began studying singing in Dresden in 1990, finishing with a specialized Master with Margret Trappe-Wiel. 

After unsuccessful attempts at tenor singing, he found his destiny as a countertenor in 1993. Since then his career has taken him to the State Operas of Berlin, Hamburg and Dresden, the Komische Oper Berlin, the Opéra National de Paris, the Teatro Colón Buenos Aires, the Theater Basel and the Oper Frankfurt, to which he has been a guest since 2006. 

As a concert singer, he has toured with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, among others, and has performed in Tokyo, Osaka, Toulouse, Cairo, Athens, Barcelona, Valencia and Amsterdam. 

Numerous radio, television and CD recordings document his work. 

Over the past 15 years, teaching has taken up an increasing part of his professional life, which he performs alongside his work as an opera and concert singer with fun, curiosity, great interest and awareness of the responsibility towards his students. 

Since 2007 he has taught at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, where he was appointed to a professorship in 2017, and shares his experience in workshops and masterclasses (Kronenburg Classes, Conservatoire de Lille, Conservatorio Superior de Música da Coruña, International Opera Studio Frankfurt). 

In 2016 Wölfel returned to Oper Frankfurt in the new production of Alban Berg’s “Wozzeck” (director: Loy, conductor: Weigle) and again in 2019 in the revival. He also appeared in this production at Norske Opera Oslo in 2017. In September 2016 he made his debut at Welsh National Opera Cardiff as Antonio in André Tchaikovsky’s The Merchant of Venice (director: Warner). He also appeared with this production at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden in London in 2017. In autumn 2017 he made his debut at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in the world premiere of Aribert Reimann’s L’Invisible (director: Barkhatov, ML: Runnicles).  

www.martin-woelfel.de