Krusche / Mohrmann / Eß / Hengstebeck & Amaryllis Quartett
Biography Krusche / Mohrmann / Eß / Hengstebeck & Amaryllis Quartett
Markus Krusche
Born in 1985, clarinetist Markus Krusche studied under Prof. Martin Spangenberg at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar. He won First Prize at the national German youth music competition “Jugend musiziert” as well as winning a scholarship from the German National Academic Foundation. Krusche is a former member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie as well as of the European Union Youth Orchestra.
Markus Krusche has appeared as soloist with the Philharmonisches Orchester Regensburg, the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester and the Hofer Symphoniker. In 2011/12 Krusche was a member of the Orchestra Academy of the Bayerischer Rundfunk. Since 2012 he has been the principal clarinetist of both the Kammerakademie Potsdam as well as the Orchester M 18.
Daniel Mohrmann
Born in 1985, bassoonist Daniel Mohrmann studied with Dag Jensen, Albrecht Holder, Georg Klütsch, and Sergio Azzolini and has been awarded many scholarships in recognition of his artistry. Among others, he has appeared as soloist with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Bergische Sinfoniker, as well as performing with orchestras under the baton of Zubin Mehta, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Christoph Eschenbach, and Daniele Gatti. Daniel Mohrmann is principal bassoonist of the Saarländisches Staatsorchester and was previously engaged as a bassoonist with Zurich Opera and the Hamburg State Opera House. Mohrmann is also a dedicated chamber musician and regularly performs in recital at well-known festivals. His collaboration with Trio Idamante has been recorded by the German broadcaster hr, BR, and NDR. Daniel Mohrmann plays a Heckel bassoon the purchase of which was sponsored by the PE-Förderkreis Mannheim.
Christoph Eß
is one of the leading French horn players of his generation. In addition to performing as the Principle French Horn of the Bamberger Symphoniker he is also much in demand as a soloist and chamber music partner and has been a prizewinner at numerous international competitions. Eß studied with Prof. Christian Lampert at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart where he is now on faculty. Christoph Eß won the 2005 ARD International Music Competition in Munich and in 2007 won the internationally renowned Prague Spring International Music Competition. In 2008 he was honored with the WEMAG Solo Performance Prize of the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and in 2009 won a scholarship from the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb. In 2011 he was accepted into the Orpheum Foundation for the Advancement of Young Soloists. Christoph Eß appears in concert as a horn soloist with leading orchestras such as the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, the Bamberger Symphoniker, Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich, the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Berlin and the Munich, Stuttgart, and Salzburg chamber orchestras. In 2007 he gave a widely praised debut performance at the Berlin Philharmonie with the Symphonie-Orchester Berlin. Eß collaborates with conductors such as Jonathan Nott, Yakov Kreizberg, Rafael Frübeck de Burgos, Christoph Poppen, Michael Hofstetter, and Michael Sanderling. He is also an avid performer of chamber music and works with various formations including Christian Zacharias, Andreas Scholl, the Fauré Quartet, the Zemlinsky Quartet, Quatour Ebène, Boris Kusnezow, and Viviane Hagner.
Alexandra Hengstebeck
was born in Frankfurt am Main in 1983 and initially studied double bass in her native city under Prof. Günter Klaus. While studying she was a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and of the European Union Youth Orchestra. In addition she played in various chamber music recitals within the Villa Musica Rheinland-Pfalz concert series. As a scholarship recipient of the Orchestra Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic she also received further instruction from Prof. Klaus Stoll and performed in concerts conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, Daniel Barenboim, and Seiji Ozawa. From 2008 to 2010 she was a member of the Bamberger Symphoniker and is pursuing further studies with Prof. Nabil Shehata at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München. Alexandra Hengstebeck has been a member of the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra since 2011.
Amaryllis Quartett
At the latest after winning the Finalists’ Prize at the Premio Paolo Borciani 2011 in Reggio Emilia (no First Prize was awarded) and then, only four weeks later, winning First Prize and the Monash University Grand Prize at the 6th Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, the Amaryllis Quartett emerged as one of the leading string quartets of their generation. The four young musicians, who first studied with Walter Levin in Basel and later with the Alban Berg Quartet in Cologne and Günter Pichler in Madrid, have also won prizes at international competitions in Heerlen, Eindhoven, and Graz, and have been named scholarship winners of the Deutscher Musikrat (German Music Council). In 2012 they won the Chamber Music Prize of the Jürgen Ponto Foundation. Their 2011 release, “White,” featuring works by Haydn and Webern won the 2012 ECHO Klassik Award as “Chamber Music Recording of the Year.” The Amaryllis Quartett regularly performs in concert series and at festivals such as the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Heidelberger Frühling, and Lucerne Festival, as well as at venues such as the Muziekgebouw Amsterdam, the Tonhalle in Zurich, Vienna's Musikverein, Teatro della Pergola in Florence, the Gran Teatro La Fenice di Venezia, and at the Dai-ichi Seimei Hall in Tokyo. The quartet has been featured in recordings and productions by German broadcasters SWR, WDR, NDR, BR, by Swiss Radio DRS as well as by Radio France. In addition the string quartet has inaugurated its own recital series at the Laeiszhalle Hamburg, Lübeck’s Kolosseum, and at the Concert Hall in Solothurn, Switzerland. In its recital programming the quartet members constantly strive to innovatively combine the standard quartet literature with contemporary compositions. The musicians are devoted not only to giving premiere performances of New Music by composers such as Eino Tamberg, Johannes Fischer, or Chinese composer Lin Yang but also include forgotten masterpieces in their recitals. For example, the Amaryllis Quartett champions the music of the Hungarian composer and Béla Bartók pupil Géza Frid, completing the world premiere recording of his quartets in 2008. The string quartet particularly enjoys combining works from the Viennese classical period with those of the Second Viennese School – as they did on their previous CD, “White,” and have also done in this recording. The Amaryllis Quartett regularly performs with chamber music partners Barbara Westphal, Dimitri Ashkenazy, François Benda, Patrick Demenga, Paul Katz, Jens Peter Maintz, Gustav Rivinius, Gerhard Schulz, and Michael Tree.
