For the past ten years, Céline Moinet has been one of the most exceptional performing artists on her instrument. The young oboist’s concerts bring both audiences and critics alike to rapturous applause.

Céline Moinet is in demand as a soloist with all the major orchestras in the world. She has played at the Salzburg Easter Festival under Christoph Eschenbach, with the Staatskapelle Dresden, at the Pacific Music Festival under Fabio Luisi and with the New Japan Philharmonic Orchestra in Suntory Hall. She also regularly tours solo with the Dresden Kapellsolisten and the Kammerorchester Basel.

Céline Moinet was born in Lille, France in 1984 and completed her studies with highest honours at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique under the tutelage of David Walter and Maurice Bourgue. She continued her artistic training with the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and the orchestra of the National Theater Mannheim. At just 23 years of age, Céline Moinet won the prestigious position of solo oboist at the Staatskapelle Dresden. Since then, she has performed with conductors such as Christian Thielemann, Zubin Mehta, Claudio Abbado and Andris Nelsons. She is also a regular guest of orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra.

Céline Moinet is signed with harmonia mundi as an exclusive artist. Her CDs, with works for solo oboe and chamber music with oboe and harp, have been praised by the critics and have achieved outstanding sales for the French, German and British record industries. As a result, Céline Moinet was invited by renowned TV Network Arte and Rolando Villazón to appear on the show “Stars of Tomorrow”.

Since 2013, Céline Moinet has had a chair at the Carl Maria von Weber College of Music and she conducts master courses in France, Germany and Japan.

She plays oboe and cor anglais exclusively from Marigaux, Paris.

Christian Schmitt studied at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Lyon  and at the Musikhochschule Karlsruhe where he won top prizes. Then he improved his skill with renowned masters such as Thomas Indermühle, Maurice Bourgue, Paul Dombrecht and Heinz Holliger. In 1992 he was awarded first prize in music from the Fördergemeinschaft in Freiburg (European Cultural Foundation). During 20 years he performed as oboe soloist in Sinfonieorchester Basel and left it in 2012 to devote himself to the Stuttgart Musikhochschule’s class where he was appointed Professor in 2008, succeeding Prof. Ingo Goritzki.

He is as the cutting age of contemporary creation for the oboe and several pieces have been written for him by different composers as the French Vincent Paulet and Laurent Riou, the Italians Jacopo Baboni Schilingi and Nicola Sani, the Germans Hans Tutschku and Dirk Michael Kirsch… which were created in recent years at the Maison de Radio-France Paris, Birmingham Concert Hall, Istituzione Universitaria dei concerti di Roma, Academia Chigiana Siena… He has performed as a soloist under the baton of famous conductors such as Nello Santi, Armin Jordan, Marcello Viotti, Heinz Holliger, Walter Weller…  A collaboration with the pianist Alessandra gentile in 2018 resulted in the production of on CD dedicated to Jewish composers of the 20^th century with original pieces for oboe and piano. He recorded also for the Schweitzer Radio DRS, Radio Suisse Romande, Radio-France France Musique the Südwestrundfunk and the Bayrischer Rundfunk…

Christian Schmitt is invited for many recitals and master-classes in Europe (Germany, Spain, Italy, England, Romania, Portugal, Russia, Czech Republic, Swiss….) and also by universities in North America (Columbia-New York, Austin-Texas), South Korea (Seoul), China (Beijing, Shanghaï, Hong Kong), Japan (Tokyo), Argentina (Buenos Aires)… He served as jury for the Muri Competition in Switzerland, and for the prestigious ARD Oboe Competition in Munich.

Gregor Witt, Principal oboist with the Staatskapelle Berlin and Professor for oboe and chamber music at the “Hochschule für Musik und Theater” in Rostock, is one of Germany’s most sought after musicians.

After graduating from the Hochschule fuer Musik “Hanns Eisler” in 1989, where Mr. Witt studied with Professor Gerd Albrecht Kleinfeld, he became associate principal with Mecklenburgische Staatskapelle Schwerin.  In 1990 he accepted the position as first principal oboist at the Komische Oper Berlin.  Three years later, in 1993, Daniel Barenboim invited him to join the Staatskapelle and Staatsoper Berlin in the same capacity.

Gregor Witt has forged numerous musical bonds with chamber ensembles and and solosist, including the Wind Quintet of the Staatskapelle Berlin, Berlin Wind Soloists and he partners with musicians such as Daniel Barenboim, David Geringas, Julia Fischer, Klaus Thunemann, Marie Luise Neunecker.

Musical travels as a soloist, teacher and conductor have taken him to many of Europe’s great musical centers, Japan, the Americas and Isreal.   He has been heard as guest principal oboe with many of the great European orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, the Saechsische Staatskapelle Dresden, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, the North German Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Radios Symphony Orchestra of Berlin and the German Symphony Orchestra.  At the invitation of Gidon Kremer, Mr. Witt and the Wind Quintet of the Staatskapelle Berlin performed at the International Chamber Music Festival in Lockenhaus and he was a guest at the Jerusalem Chamber Music Festival in Jerusalem and New York.

Gregor Witt is a passionate and dedicated teacher.  He has been teaching since1993, first at the Universiteat der Kuenste in Berlin and currently at the “Hochschule für Musik und Theater” in Rostock.  He is in much demand as a teacher.  Several of his pupils have won national and international awards.  He gives international master classes around the world such as at Juilliard in New York, Scandinavia, Asia and Russia.  Together with Daniel Barenboim, he mentored for ten years the Isreali-Arab Youth Orchestra “West-Eastern Divan” as well as the students of the Orchestra Academy of the Staatskapelle Berlin.

In the last decade, Gregor Witt has also taken to conducting at the Mecklenburg Wind Academy, of which he is a the founder. As a conductor and soloist he worked recently with numerous chamber orchestras and the frequently with the State Orchestra of St. Petersburg. His latest cd “my oboe”, recorded with the “Kammerakademie Potsdam” and Daniel Barenboim as his partner in Robert Schumann`s  “Drei Romanzen für Oboe und Klavier” got outstanding reviews in Germany and abroad.

Juri Vallentin was appointed professor of oboe at the Karlsruhe Musikhochschule in 2021, succeeding Thomas Indermühle. He studied at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris with Jacques Tys and David Walter and at the Hochschule für Musik Nürnberg with Clara Dent-Boganyi.

Juri is prizewinner of renowned competitions such as the XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition St. Petersburg, International Oboe Competition of Japan, The Muri Competition or the German Music Competition and has performed as soloist with the MDR Symphony Orchestra, the Mariinsky Orchestra St. Petersburg, the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn, the Lower Saxony State Orchestra Hanover, Musikkollegium Winterthur, the Brandenburg State Orchestra Frankfurt and the Munich Chamber Orchestra. In 2021, he won the Berlin Prize for Young Artists curated by VAN magazine for new concert formats by young soloists with his solo performance INNER VOICES.

As a principal oboist, he has played at the Hanover State Opera and as a guest with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Bavarian State Opera, Hamburg State Opera, Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, SWR Symphony Orchestra and the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra. During his studies he was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra.

His debut album BRIDGES with music from five centuries as well as numerous radio productions for BR, SWR or Deutschlandfunk document his artistic work. In 2022, his second album EBENBILD will be released.

Born in Paris in 1958, David Walter has pursued an original career: after obtaining First Prize in oboe and chamber music at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris (Paris Conservatoire), he quickly gained recognition outside of France by winning five international prizes one after the other in Ancona, Prague, Munich, Belgrade and Geneva. Despite this impressive record, he did not choose to pursue a solo career and has preferred to focus on chamber music and teaching, which he deems richer in human values. His chamber music activities include first and foremost playing with the Quintette Moragues, of which he is a founding member (1980) : together they have won the Grand Prize of the Nouvelle Académie du Disque and were nominated for the first Victoires de la Musique Classique. His other partners include S. Richter, C. Zacharias, M. Dalberto, P. Rogé, A. Planès, G. Nicolic, M.A. Nicolas, C.M. Le Guay, Yuki Nakajima, Nicolas Angelich and the Sine Nomine, Endellion, Manfred and Parisii string quartets. He played as a soloist with the Guildhall String Orchestra, The Sofia Soloists, l’Orchestre d’Auvergne, l’Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse, The Lituanian Philharmonic, le Filarmonica et l’OSSDRE from Montevideo etc.
David Walter was only 29 years old when, owing to his enthusiasm and dedication to teaching, he was appointed the youngest-ever oboe and chamber music professor at the renowned Paris Conservatoire. He has also taught at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama since 1997, and regularly gives numerous masterclasses all over the world.
In an attempt to enrich the relatively limited oboe repertoire, Mr. Walter has proved himself a tireless and authoritative transcriber: to date he has made more than 230 arrangements, and many of which are now well known. He also encourages new works by young composers such as Gilles Raynal , Gilles Silvestrini or Thierry Escaich, and is himself a composer (18 works to date). David Walter’s experience of group performance has led him naturally to conduct small orchestras and ensembles such as the Bretagne Orchestra, Auvergne Orchestra or the Bourgogne Camerata. Lastly, he also is the artistic director of two collections with the music publisher Billaudot, and contributes also the recently founded Notissimo publishing company. She trains body awareness and coordination so that movement sequences flow through the whole body and pain-free playing becomes natural. Strengthening musical expression and identity as a unique artist on stage is enormously important to her. She prepares highly gifted young people and students for competitions, entrance exams, auditions and concerts.
(Biography taken from www.marigaux.com)

Thamar Wahlberg is one of the leading producers of oboe reeds in Germany. Her reeds are used by oboists in prestigious orchestras in Germany and abroad, by music students and at music schools. She has also tought the art of reed making at the music academies in Leipzig and Frankfurt. Following her musical training under the supervision of Hans Elhorst, Fabian Menzel and Nick Deutsch, Wahlberg performed as an oboist in Orchestras such as the Budapest Festival Orchestra, HR Sinfonieorchester, Deutsche Radiophilharmonie Saarbrücken and the Gießener Stadttheater. She appeared on various CD recordings and performed in a number of radio and television productions. Thanks to her versatile experiences on the stage, Wahlberg is highly familiar with the oboist’s dependence on top-quality reeds and the considerable pressure deriving from that.

The Japanese-born pianist, Kimiko Imani, made her successful debut as a soloist with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, performing S. Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto at the Suntory Hall (Tokyo).

Alongside solo engagements with renowned orchestras in Japan and Germany, her concert activities also include regular participation in international music festivals and concert series in Europe and Asia (including Tokyo Spring, SONY Music Foundation, El Palau de la Música Catalana, F.Poulenc Musikfestival-Pentecôte en Berry and Festival Ljubljana).

Her artistic development was particularly influenced by her studies in Germany at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold under the exceptional pianist, Anatol Ugorski. Since the completion of her Konzertexamen and various successes at competitions (including the GWK Music Prize), her passion and commitment have increasingly also been directed towards chamber music. Especially in the woodwind scene, she has gained a considerable reputation for herself, resulting in a range of musical projects with world renowned soloists, such as Emanuel Abbühl, Sergio Azzolini, Maurice Bourgue, Albrecht Mayer, Ivan Podyomov, Guilhaume Santana.

She also performs with the internationally successful violinist, Keiko Urushihara, and with the string soloists of significant orchestras.

A continuous, intensive collaboration connects her with the bassoonist, Sergio Azzolini, and the oboist, Maurice Bourgue. Since 2011, they have come together to form the Maurice Bourgue Trio, an outstanding ensemble that can be heard in numerous international concert halls and has just released its first CD on Sony Classical with piano trios by J.Haydn, W.F.Bach and C.P.E.Bach.

In 2017, the interest awakened by this in the stylistic refinement of the early classical to romantic repertoire on historical instruments prompted Kimiko Imani to commence corresponding studies in fortepiano with Edoardo Torbianelli at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis.

Further CD productions in various chamber music formations were made for GWK-Records, CAvi-Music and Deutschlandradio Kultur.

Kimiko Imani currently teaches at the Universität der Künste Berlin und der Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin.

Stephanie is a trained mental coach for musicians, specialized in mental training, stage presence, and Alexander Technique.

She teaches how to become aware of your body so that motions can flow through its entirety, and the painless playing of a musical instrument becomes a normality.

While doing so, it is important to her to increase musical expression and to bring out the identity of each individual musician on stage. She prepares highly gifted youth and students for competitions, entrance examinations, auditions, and concerts.

Stephanie also trains herself mentally to embrace tasks, such as running marathons, or crossing the Alps with her racing cycle.