Cuarteto Soltango

German violinist Thomas Reif was a prize winner at national and international competitions, most recently at the Queen Elisabeth Competiton in Brussels, the International Mozart Competitions of Salzburg and Augsburg and the International Brahms Competition. As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras throughout Germany, Austria and BeNeLux, including the Orchestre Royal de Chambre de Wallonie, the National Orchestra of Belgium and the Münchener Rundfunkorchester. 2018 he will give his debut with the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn at numerous prestigious concert halls such as Konzerthaus Berlin and Liederhalle Stuttgart.

A passionate chamber musician, Thomas regularly appears at festivals such as Festspiele MecklenburgVorpommern, Verbier Festival Academy, Classique Puplinge, Festivo Chiemgau and Harriet and friends. He has played with Clemens Hagen, Lukas Hagen, Herbert Schuch, Harriet Krigh and many more. As cofounder of the ensemble c4 he interprets early baroque music in new and daring ways. With the same chamber musical energy, he leads chamber orchestras without conductor. He works as guest concert master with the Vienna, Munich and Kurpfalz Chamber Orchestras and the Hamburg Camerata, performing with conductors such as Alexander Liebreich, Stefan Vladar and Johannes Schlaefli on internationally renowned stages of Berlin, Munich and Tokyo.

Thomas studied with Harald Herzl, Tanja Becker-Bender and Stephan Picard and has received further artistic ideas during masterclasses with Midori, Igor Ozim, Ferenc Rados, Gerhard Schulz, Vadim Gluzman and many more. He plays a violin by Tomaso Balestrieri from 1760. *** www.thomasreif.net

Andreas Rokseth is a highly virtuoso bandoneon player and a listening musician. Having played the bandoneon in the Orquesta Típica Tangueros del Norte since he was ten years old, he was lucky to gain concert experience and become a good chamber musician at an early age. He quickly fell in love with Argentinian Tango music, an expression that has internalised itself in him during extensive study trips and tours through Argentina, where he took lessons with some of the greatest names of bandoneon today. In Europe, he has studied with Kåre Simonsen, Per Arne Glorvigen and Pablo Mainetti. At the age of 17, he won the 1st prize at the International Bandoneon Competition Klingenthal (Germany) and graduated from his master studies at Codarts University of the Arts as the first bandoneon player ever to get highest grades in his final masters performance.

One of the projects he has put most of his energy into during the latest years is his duo Julie & Andreas, where he combines his tango instrument with the harp. In this line-up he explores new chamber musical sounds as well as new roles for the bandoneon, bringing the instrument into new styles such as Celtic music, Scandinavian folk music and classical music. The duo was very well received by the Argentine audience when they performed at the Buenos Aires Festival y Mundial.

As well as being an performer, Andreas also composes new music for the bandoneon. In his latest compositions he has been exploring how to fuse the rich tango tradition of the instrument with Irish folk music. He also has a strong voice as a tango arranger, with an elegant taste and instinctual feel for the genre. *** www.andreasrokseth.com