Chamber Music Evening

Program:

• Rachmaninoff – Trio élégiaque No. 1
• Franck – Sonata for Violin and Piano
• Ravel – Tzigane
• Glière – Two Pieces for Violin and Cello, Op. 39
• Shostakovich – Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 9

Pianist Olga Shkrygunova received her first piano lessons at the age of five. She studied at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and in Germany at the Rostock University of Music and Drama, where she graduated with honors. As a prize winner of international competitions, she has performed on major stages worldwide. For nearly ten years, she was a member of the internationally acclaimed chamber music quartet Salut Salon and toured the world with the ensemble. With the quartet, she has performed at venues including the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Cologne Philharmonie, the Frankfurt Opera, the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, and the KKL Lucerne. In addition to her work as a soloist, she is dedicated to innovative concert formats for young audiences and is a co-founder of the ensemble “Klavieriki.”

The St. Petersburg-born violinist, violist, and conductor Daniel Austrich is undoubtedly one of the outstanding musicians of his generation. His active concert career as a soloist and chamber musician regularly takes him to the most important concert halls and festivals throughout Europe, the Middle East, Japan, East Asia, and North and South America. As a soloist, Austrich has performed with orchestras such as the Moscow Philharmonic, the Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, the New Japan Philharmonic, the Sapporo Symphony, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, and the Charleston Symphony, and collaborates as a chamber musician with Itzhak Perlman, Donald Weilerstein, Olga Scheps, David Geringas, Nobuko Imai, Antoine Tamnestit, Pamela Frank, Kolja Blacher, Renaud Capuçon, and many other musicians. In 2012, he became a member of the Michelangelo String Quartet, with which he performed the complete cycle of Beethoven’s string quartets in Germany, Scotland, and Japan. Furthermore, the ensemble gave the world premiere of the first version of Op. 131 in Bonn, which was first published by Henle Verlag in 2014. Daniel Austrich was trained at the Special Music School of the State Conservatory in St. Petersburg, as well as at the Oberlin Conservatory (USA) under Alla Aranovskaya, and continued his studies with Viktor Tretjakov (violin) and Harald Schoneweg (chamber music) at the Cologne University of Music, graduating in 2012 with a concert exam. Since 2015, Daniel Austrich has taught violin and chamber music there and lives in Berlin. He made his conducting debut at the Elbphilharmonie in 2021 with the Neue Philharmonie Hamburg. Daniel Austrich is the founder and developer of “Mindfreemusic”—the world’s first holistic self-development method for musicians.

Jakow Pavlenko (*2003 in Berlin) received his first violin lessons at the age of five from Olga Babenko; from 2013 to 2022, he was trained by Prof. Ina Kertscher as a young student at the University of Music, Drama and Media Hannover, and since 2022 he has been a student in Prof. Antje Weithaas’s violin class at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. He has successfully participated in masterclasses led by world-renowned professors and soloists, including Viktor Tretyakov, Ana Chumacenco, Julia Fischer, Ingolf Turban, and Kirill Truossov. At the “Jugend musiziert” competition, Jakow Pavlenko won numerous prizes. In 2017, the young violinist opened the foundation’s gala concert at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin, followed by further performances, such as at the summer concert on Sylt, the Aachen Coronation Banquet, the presentation of the Charlemagne Prize to Emmanuel Macron in Aachen, and the anniversary concert in the Grand Hall of the Elbphilharmonie. In 2021, as the youngest participant, he won second prize as well as several special prizes at the “Odessa International Violin Competition”; he also won second prize and two special prizes at the international “Viktor Tretyakov Violin Competition” in Krasnoyarsk. Starting in 2022, Jakow received support from the “Rotary Club Kurfürstendamm.” In addition, he is supported by a scholarship from the Friends of Young Musicians Bremen e.V. In 2023, he founded the “Quartett Mitte.” Since 2024, Jakow has been a scholarship recipient of the Cusanuswerk. At the “Stuttgart International Violin Competition,” he won the prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned work. In 2025, he won a scholarship from the German Music Council at the German Music Competition. Jakow has already performed with orchestras such as the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, the Baden-Baden Philharmonic, the Odessa Symphony Orchestra, the Krasnoyarsk Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Camerata, and many others under the baton of renowned conductors such as Christoph-Mathias Mueller, Hobart Earl, Colin Metters, Pavel Baleff, Vladimir Lande, and Daniel Austrich. He has appeared at renowned festivals such as the Ludwigsburg Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, the Hitzacker Music Week, the Euregio Music Festival, the Rheingau Music Festival, and the “Open Air Festival Idéal at the Potager du Roi” in Paris. In April 2024, he successfully made his solo tour debut in Japan with concerts in Tokyo, Kyoto, and Hiroshima, among other cities.

Polish cellist Susanne Szambelan was born in New York and grew up in Poznań, Poland. In 2014, Susanne moved to Berlin, where she completed her bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music under Prof. Stephan Forck and Prof. Claudio Bohorquez. She received further important musical guidance from Gary Hoffman. Susanne’s great passion for chamber music led to performances with artists such as Boris Brovtsyn, Daniel Hope, and the Scharoun Ensemble. From 2021 to 2024, Susanne was a fellow of the Villa Musica Rhineland-Palatinate chamber music program and the German Orchestra Foundation’s #MusikerZukunft 2023 initiative. She was also a fellow of the Kurt Sanderling Academy of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin for 2022 and 2023. In 2023, she gave a solo concert at the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg. Susanne has performed at festivals such as Krzyżowa-Music in Poland, Encuentro de Música in Spain, the Zermatt Festival in Switzerland, and the Paax Festival in Mexico. Her solo and chamber music performances have been broadcast on ARTE Concert, Deutschlandfunk Kultur, and Polish National Radio, among others. Susanne’s projects, such as “Dichterliebe” (a song cycle for cello, guitar, and poetry, released on the Prospero Classical label) and “Kodály Reframed,” which was presented at this year’s Classical:NEXT Festival in Budapest, demonstrate her keen interest in unconventional projects. “Flawless intonation, impeccable command of the tonal palette and dynamics, nobility of tone, and intimacy of expression come together here in an ideal way”: with these words, Pizzicato Magazine describes Susanne’s debut album, on which she performs Dvořák’s Cello Concerto and which was released in 2013 on the Polish label DUX.