Irene Zandel
Marina Baranova
Marina Baranova was born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, and has lived in Hanover since the age of 19. As the daughter of a couple of pianists, she grew up in a world of classical music, jazz and improvisation. She began playing the piano at the age of five. After moving to Germany, she studied at the HMTM Hanover. After numerous successful competitions and debuts, she realized that a career as a classical pianist only expressed part of her musical personality. At the same time, she also remembered another talent that had already made itself felt in her childhood, in addition to absolute pitch: synaesthesia. In Marina Baranova’s case, it is the combination of sounds and colors that leads to creative explosions in her head. She returned to improvisation and composition. To date, she has released seven albums in which she combines classical music, jazz, minimal music and synaesthesia. Since spring 2024, she has been running her own music salon at Villa Seligmann in Hanover. The aim of this space is not only to listen to music, but also to reflect on it, discuss it and experience it in a comprehensive sense.
© Christian Meuwly
Beatrice Berrut
Beatrice Berrut is a Swiss pianist and composer. Her dynamic work as a successful soloist, composer, arranger and artistic director of her own festival “Les Ondes” in Switzerland, has made her a cultural visionary in the European art scene. Her musical vision is inspired by the legacies of European spirituality and mysticism, skillfully navigating the wide range of music by composers such as Bach and Liszt to create a series of acclaimed recordings that serve as a meeting point for her listeners to find common ground and shared experiences. Deeply convinced of the exclusive existence of either good or bad music, Beatrice’s work is fluent in all compositional genres, which is why she has also been commissioned to write works for classical music series as well as for electronic music festivals and for films. An iconoclast and ardent defender of the classical tradition, Beatrice’s strong desire to democratize classical music and break down the barriers between genres has led her to create her own festival, where traditional classical music concerts meet klezmer, jazz or flamenco.
Nikolaj Lund
Jean-Baptiste Doulcet
Jean-Baptiste Doulcet was born in Paris in 1992 and is a pianist, improviser and composer. He has won prizes at numerous international competitions, including the Piano Nordic Competition. Alongside Alexandre Kantorow and Rémi Geniet, he is regarded as one of the rising stars of the French piano and released his first CD with works by Beethoven, Schumann and his own improvisations on themes from the public. His second album (Schumann and Liszt) was released in 2022 on the Mirare label. Jean-Baptiste is a versatile artist, known for his musical personality both as a soloist and as a chamber musician, but also for his improvisational concerts. As a composer, he has written more than twenty works for solo instruments, chamber music or larger ensembles.
© Sebastian Madej
Damian Marhulets
Damian Marhulets was born in Minsk in 1980 and was accepted to the renowned Minsk Academy of Music at the age of 6. In his early childhood he won prizes at numerous important international music competitions. His musical career took a new turn in 2000 when he moved to Germany. Following his artistic curiosity, he soon immersed himself in the underground scene of experimental music. He is known for his unconventional graphic and interactive digital scores as well as immersive musical experiences in virtual spaces. With a background equally rooted in classical music and the avant-garde tradition, enriched by his unique expertise in sound design and multimedia as well as his extensive experience in working with new technologies, he rejects conventional musical norms to create a distinctive sonic identity and embark on journeys through uncharted realms of creativity.