AAA Culture Artists Classics

The guitarist and composer Angelo da Silva was born in Brazil. At 14, he discovered his love for the guitar and started to learn flamenco guitar in addition to classical training. Already at the age of 16 years he began to teach himself guitar. From 1999 onwards, after years of study numerous solo concerts and performances throughout Brazil followed.

In 2005 he produced the album “Notas por Gostar” with interpretations of Brazilian music and European classical music. In 2006 and 2008 followed the first two albums with his own compositions, “Meu Violao” and “Lembranças do Passado”.

In 2010 Angelo da Silva went to Europe to expand his musical repertoire and produced in the same year the album “Ich bin eine Frage”. This was followed by solo concerts, the album “Surpresa para Mim” in 2012, as well as projects with musicians from different genres in Austria, Germany and France. Together with Katja Greco, Angelo da Silva began in 2012 with the “Musiksalon Neustiftgasse”. This was a project in which the musicians invite a selected audience to a concert in a private setting – a tribute to the tradition of Viennese domestic music at home with high musical standards. Hence the idea of the concert series “Playing Together” emerged for his students. Music afternoons or evenings where Angelo da Silva performs for and with his students and they play their own concert in front of the audience.

In 2013 he began to write a selection of his own compositions for string orchestra and founded in 2014 NOVUM ENSEMBLE consisting of cello, violin, viola, double bass and the guitar, as the center of the musical work. Da Silva’s extensive repertoire ranges from the “Musica popular Brasileira” over to Brazilian Choro, Bossa Nova, Waltz and classics to masterful compositions of his own. Angelo da Silva is presenting at his concert evenings a varied cross-section of his repertoire and proves himself as a superb instrumentalist as well as a musician full of intuition and persuasion.

The american soprano singer started her study in 2003 in Chicago (Chicago College of Performing Arts) at Michael Best.

In Italy (Viterbo) thw sang in 2011 in the opera studio "International Lyric Academy Roma" and adopted the roles of Papagena und Pamina. In the same year. Data Hammeet went to Weimar and enhanced her repertoire with Barbarina, Despina, Susanna.

In 2012, she switched to Salzburg for studying at Prof. Barbara Bonne. Here she performed as Lucia di Lammermoor at the Mozarteum and is frequently engaged at the Landestheater Salzburg.

Born in Belarus, the Tenor studies singing at the university of Connecticut (USA). After the final degree Dmitry Iogman relocated ti russia and had appearances at the important opera events in russia and Ukraine.

From 2008 to 2010 Dmitry Iogman performed as soloist at Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Theater in Moscow, where he participated at all big productions and graduated in master classes of Mauro Trombetta, Eugene Kohn, Badri Maisuradze, Sherrill Milnes, Tito Capobianco and Galina Vishnevskaya. Engagements in various operas followed, where he presented the wide variety of his repertoire. Since 2010 he is member of the Opera Tampa’s New Artists.

2011 Dmitry Iogman debuted in Moscow as Mozart in „Mozart und Salieri“. On a Tour in Russia and Ukraine, he performed as Lensky in „Eugene Onegin“. Additional roles have been Gastone in „La Traviata“ with the Opera Tampa (Florida, USA) and in Summer 2012 as Arlecchino in „I Pagliacci“ at the Minnesota “Northern Lights” Opera Festival.

He took part at the Festival d’Aix en Provence and at Opera de Lyon under the direction of William Kentridge and Kazushi Ono in Dmitry Shostakovich’s „The Nose“

Dmitry Iogman received the second price at the Jacob Pustina singing contest 2013.

Russian soprano Elena Kononenko was born in Minsk. Also a trained pianist, she studied voice at the Gnessin Academy of Music in Moscow, and attended master classes directed by Francisco Araiza, Bruno Pola, Virginia Zeani,Grace Bumbry and Adriana Stamenova Porta.

Between 2001 and 2003, she sang two principal roles at the Bolschoi Theatre in Moscow, in operas by Rimsky-Korsakov: Marfa in The Tsar's Bride and the Queen of Schemachan in The Golden Cockerel. In 2000, Elena Kononenko performed with the celebrated tenor José Carreras in Moscow and St. Petersburg, under the baton of David Gimenez. She gave further successful performances at the Johann Strauss Festival in St. Petersburg under the auspices of the Mariinsky Theatre, with Roberto Alagna and Lubov Kazarnovskaya in Moscow (2003), and with Simon Estes in the House of Music in Moscow (2007). Until 2007, Kononenko was lyric coloratura soloist in the Moscow Chamber Opera under the direction of Boris Pokrowsky. Guest performances have taken her to major opera houses and concert halls worldwide, including Teatro Colón/Buenos Aires, Cairo Opera House, Oji Hall/Tokyo, Grand Théâtre de Bordeaux, Milan Summer Festival, Teatro Regio/Turin, Tel Aviv, Vienna, Amsterdam, Paris, Strasbourg, Rome and Taipei. Also well-versed in the concert repertoire, Elena Kononenko has appeared in the St. Petersburg Philharmonia, the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall and the Great Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yuri Simonow.

Elena Kononenko's repertoire includes not only the leading soprano roles in Italian opera, but also works by Denisov, Schnittke and Shostakovich. In October 2006 she sang the Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok in the Gasteig concert hall/Munich, in the first performance by the Zeitsprung ensemble, to mark Shostakovich's 100th birthday. Her rendering of the role of Violetta in Verdi's La Traviata in winter 2007 led to a successful début in the Small Festival Hall [now Haus für Mozart] in Salzburg. During the 2008/09 season she sang the title role in Puccini's Tosca, which saw the start of her development as a dramatic soprano, and brought her guest performances as Tosca in many theatres and at opera festivals in Norway, Denmark, Germany, England and Austria.

Elena Kononenko has lived in Salzburg since 2008, and continues to celebrate international successes as an opera - and recital soloist. Her repertoire has expanded to include great Verdi heroines such as Abigaille and Lady Macbeth, and Wagner roles such as Elisabeth and Isolde. Russian opera is represented by roles including Tchaikovsky's Lisa and Tatyana as well as the title role in Alexander Dargomyzhsky's opera Rusalka.

Fernando Araujo was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, where he began his piano studies at the age of seven and composition at eleven. At the age of twelve he sang his first operatic role, the Third Spirit in Mozart´s The Magic Flute in his native city. As a teenager he was the winner of prices in international music competitions both as a pianist and as a singer in Brazil and in the USA, collecting subsequently his first stage experiences. He studied piano and voice at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, and at the Mozarteum in Salzburg where his teachers were among others James King, Carlos Montanè, Boris Bakov, Lilian Sukis and Wolfgang Holzmair.  

He began his musical path as a pianist accompanying the singing classes of bel canto legend Virginia Zeani at Indiana University and the opera classes at the Mozarteum University.  Since recent years he follows a successful career as a singer his repertoire covers the leading roles for the baritone voice. Recent successes include Escamillo in the Carmen production of Arnaud Bernard at the Lithuanian National Opera; Papageno at the Munich Philharmonie in the Zauberflöte production of Ludwig Baumann; Don Alfonso in Così fan tutte at the Verbier Festival (Opernstudio and concert with Dame Kiri Te Kanawa); Rigoletto and Amonasro at the Festival Winds of Baikal under the baton of Ilmar Lapinsch; Marcello in the La Bohème production of Sir Anton Juan at the Samsung Hall in Manila; Schaunard at the Gut Immling International Opera Festival in Bavaria with the Munich Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Figaros of  Mozart and Rossini directed by Eike Gramss at the Mozarteum.

He participated as soloist in concerts under the direction of  Dennis Russell Davies during the Bernsteintagen in Salzburg, of  Fabio Luisi at the Pacific Music Festival in Japan and aside Ruggero Raimondi at the Auditório Nacional de Música de Madrid. On a scholarship to the Stage d´Eté in the Champagne, France, he had one more time the opportunity of working with Maestro Luisi, this time as Guglielmo and Leporello in scenes from Così and Don Giovanni.

Equally at home on the concert stage, he interpreted Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in Russia under the baton of Ilmar Lapinsch and Frank Martin´s Sechs Monologe aus Jedermann für Bariton und Orchester in the Orchesterhaus in Salzburg under the baton of Hans Graf. His repertoire encompasses many contemporary and new works: in the Austrian premiere of Manfred Trojahn´s Die Limonen aus Sizilien directed by Kai Röhrig and Mascha Pörzgen at the Mozarteum he interpreted the role of Alberto Serra; in Jeppe Jacobsen’s Der Sonnenkreis staged by Barbara Bonney at the Oper im Berg Festival, he sang the role of Aryandes, and in the joint premieres of Christopher Preissing´s Inferno and Robert Kyr´s Paradiso at the DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts in Notre Dame, IN, under the patronage of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, NY, he created the part of Dante. Future engagements include Papageno in the Zauberflöte of the Kulturvereinigung Salzburg conducted by Elisabeth Fuchs and moderated by Helga Rabl-Stadler, President of the Salzburg Festival.

Fernando is a recipient of the Audience Prize and the Verdi Prize at the 2016 Grandi Voci International Singing Competition under the patronage of KS Grace Bumbry. Fernando is a soloist of the Philharmonie Salzburg, the Salzburger Konzertgesellschaft and Oper im Berg Festival. He is Senior Lecturer at the Opera Department of the Mozarteum University and sang as a guest in several Mozarteum opera productions under the direction of Josef Wallnig, Hermann Keckeis, Reinhard Seifried, Gernot Sahler and Alexander von Pfeil. Fernando is cultural ambassador and co-founder of the Amadeus International Culture Committee. He is a dual citizen of Brazil and Italy and lives in Salzburg.

Luz Leskowitz Violin was born in Salzburg and started to play violin at the age of six. At the age of thirteen, he was admitted to the Music-Academy in Vienna where he studied with Vasa Prihoda and later with Riccardo Odnoposoff. At the Mozarteum in Salzburg, he studied viola and violin with Ernst Wallfisch. After that studies with Ernst Wallfisch in Lucerne and with Yehudi Menuhin in London. Luz started a successful career with concerts in Europe, the Far and the Middle East, Africa, the USA (New York - Carnegie recital-hall and Alice Tully hall in Lincoln Centre) South America, Russia, Korea and Japan.

Inspired by the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad Luz Leskowitz founded his first Chamber Music Festival in Germany, the Harzburger Musiktage in 1970. Motivated by the enormous success of his festival, he then founded 11 other International Chamber Music Festivals and Competitions in Austria, in Russia, in Korea, in Romania and all over Germany. Luz was the first and only one who started together with Hermann Baumann the “First International Hand-Horn Competition”. In 1979, he formed his own ensemble, the Salzburger Solisten. Since its formation, the ensemble performs regularly all over the world (Vienna-Musikverein, Amsterdam-Concertgebouw, London-Wigmore Hall, Milano – Verdi-Hall, Moscow-Rachmaninow Hall/Conservatory etc.).

Luz Leskowitz’s chamber music partners in the past and at present are Paul Badura-Skoda, Wilhelm Kempff, Ingrid Haebler, Jörg Demus, Detlef Kraus, Jeremy Menuhin, Igor Oistrach, Alberto Lysy, Mstislav Rostropovitsch, David Geringas, Heinrich Schiff, Elly Ameling, Karl Leister, Hermann Baumann, Michala Petri, the Bartók-Quartet, Voces-Quartet, Members of the Amadeus Quartet and many, many others.

He recorded as soloist and chamber musician for Cetra, Syrinx, Mirabell, Arte Nova, Sony/Demusica, EMI-Classics, BIS and Brillant.

Since 1991, Luz Leskowitz has been for 25 years the owner and artistic Director of the Salzburger Schlosskonzerte with about 250 concerts per year at the most beautiful concert hall in Salzburg, at the Marble Hall in Castle Mirabell. Lately, in 2008, Luz Leskowitz founded in Russia the competition and Festival “Yuzhnouralsk-Salzburg”, the Festivals “Ufa-Salzburg” and “Chelyabinsk-Salzburg”.

Luz Leskowitz was invited to the jury of the first Brahms-Competition in Hamburg. In 2010 he was invited to the jury of the “International David Oistrakh Competition”. In addition, Luz started in Tokyo the “Intern. Salzburg-Mozart Chamber Music Competition” where he is the president of the jury. The “Festival Shiogama-Salzburg”. In May 2016 first Salzburger Schlosskonzert in Kyoto and in Obihiro.

He is giving masterclasses, especially on classic and romantic chamber music repertoire, in Japan, Korea and Russia. Luz took part in the Film “The Piano player” by Elfriede Jelinek. Luz Leskowitz got from the Russian Government the “Lomonossov-Medaille” for cultural engagement in and outside Russia and from the President of the Republic of Austria the title “Professor” for cultural engagement worldwide.

Luz Leskowitz is playing on the Stradivari Violin “Ex Prihoda” from 1707.