Professors

Matthew McDowell

Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Belgium

Viola

USA

American violist Matthew McDowell began his musical endeavors at the age of four on violin, and later shifted his focus to the viola. His primary teachers have included pedagogues such as Ettore Causa, Ivan Vukčević, Miguel da Silva, Boris Abramov, and Gérard Caussé.

Matthew is a founding member of the Amnis Piano Quartet, which won the bronze medal at the 50th Annual Fischoff Chamber Music Competition, Grand Prize and Audience Prize at the Yellow Springs Chamber Competition, third prize at the Premio Renzo Giubergia Competition, the Oneppo Chamber Competition, a fellowship at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, and the Yale Society of Chamber Music Competition. In addition, Amnis was announced as semi-finalists for the 2024 Concert Artists Guild Competition, were finalists at the Coltman competition, and were selected as finalists for the 2025 Schoenfeld International Competition. Matthew was also named a finalist in the Barbash J.S. Bach competition, quarter-finalist in the 2024 Primrose International Viola Competition, competed in the 2025 Tertis International Viola Competition, and was a semi-finalist in the 2025 YCAT Competition.

Matthew’s travels have taken him to major festivals throughout the United States, Europe, and Mexico, concertizing at places like the Verbier Festival Soloist Academy, Gstaad Menuhin Festival, Zermatt Festival, NUME Festival, YellowBarn, Festival Pablo Casals, Moritzburg Festival, Zwischentöne Kammermusik Festival, Festival Santa Pietra, Geneva International String Academy, Chamberlab, Centrum, and many others. He has performed chamber repertoire with world renown artists such as Martha Argerich, Sir András Schiff, Yura Lee, Miguel da Silva, Paul Watkins, Ivan Monighetti, Tai Murray, Sergey Ostrovsky, Xenia Jankovic, Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Renaud Capucon, and Oleg Kaskiv.

Matthew recently completed degrees with Ettore Causa at the Yale School of Music (MM '24, MMA '25) and is currently an Artist-in-Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium with Miguel da Silva.

Read more →

Claudio Bohorquez

Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler”, Germany

Cello

Germany

The German-born cellist of Peruvian-Uruguayan descent is one of the most sought-after musicians in his field. As a student of Boris Pergamenschikow, Claudio Bohórquez achieved success at an early age at international competitions such as the Tschaikowsky Youth Competition in Moscow and the Rostropovich Cello Competition in Paris.

This culminated in 2000 with three awards at the first International Pablo Casals Competition held under the auspices of the Kronberg Academy: Marta Casals Istomin presented Claudio Bohórquez with first prize, a special award for the best chamber music, and also the use of Casals’ Gofriller cello for a period of two years. He also won first prize at the International Music Competition in Geneva, an achievement that marked the start of his career as a soloist. Meanwhile he has become a teacher himself: from 2011 to 2016 he was professor at the Musikhochschule Stuttgart, in September 2016 he was appointed to the Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin, where he has been a guest professor since 2003.

Among others, Claudio Bohórquez has performed with almost all German radio orchestras, the Staatskapelle Dresden, the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, the Wiener Symphoniker, the Collegium Musicum Basel, the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, the Tonhalle Orchestra Zurich and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields. In Japan, he performs with the NHK Symphony Orchestra and the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra. In the US, Claudio Bohórquez recently gave concerts with the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Renowned conductors Claudio Bohórquez has worked with include Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Manfred Honeck, Sir Neville Marriner, Eiji Oue, Krzysztof Penderecki, Leonard Slatkin, Tugan Sokhiev, Lothar Zagrosek and David Zinman.

Read more →

Giuliano Mazzoccante

Conservatory of Music ‘Luisa D'Annunzio’, Italy

Piano

Italy

Born in Chieti, he studied under the guidance of Lucia Passaglia at the Conservatory “L. Cherubini” in Florence graduating with highest honours.

He participated as a student performer on a three-year piano perfection course at the “Accademia Musicale Umbra” where he achieved a “Diploma of Excellence”.

Later, he participated in the “International Master Classes” in Klaipeda (Lithuania), held by Lazar Berman. With him, his concert repertoire deepened and improved with particular attention to the music of F. Liszt, at the European Academy of Music, Erba (CO). He perfected Chamber Music at the International School of Chamber Music in Duino under the guidance of “Trio of Trieste” achieving a “Diploma with Merit”.

He has won national and international competitions, including “M. Clementi” in Florence, “Agorà 80″ in Rome, “F. Liszt” in Lucca, and “Città di Stresa”. In 1997 he won second prize at the ‘T. I. M. ” – International Music Tournament; in 1998, he was awarded the prestigious “Prix Venice”; in 1999 he won second prize at the international competition “Ecomusic” of Monopoli (BA); in 2002 was the winner of the 40th International Piano Competition “Arcangelo Speranza” in Taranto. In October 2009 he was awarded in the “4th International Tbilisi Piano Competition” in Georgia (WFIMC).

Considerable concert activity has seen him engaged both as a soloist and as a chamber musician at major Italian venues and overseas such as, Milan (Teatro Dal Verme, Casa Verdi), Rome (Palazzo Venezia, Instituto Cervantes), L’Aquila (Teatro Comunale), Trieste (Teatro Verdi, Museo Revoltella), Bologna (Sala Mozart della Filarmonica, Sala Bossi del Conservatorio), Perugia (Sala dei Notari), Venice (Palazzo Albrizzi), Chiavari (Teatro Cantero), Alessandria (Teatro Parvum), Salerno (Sala Napolitano), Rovigno (Croatia), Szombathely (Hungary), Klaipeda, Palanka (Lithuania), Schloss Elmau, Weimar “Liszt House”, Munich “Prinzregenten” Theatre”, Cologne “Hochshule” (Germany), Brno “Sale Bretislava Bakaly” (Czech Republic), Istanbul (Turkey), Utrecht “Concert Hall” (Netherlands), Oxford “Holywell Music Room” (England), Schaffusen (Switzerland), Shanghai (China), La Valletta “Emmanuel Theatre” (Malta).

Read more →

Enrico Pace

Accademia Internazionale di Imola, Italy

Piano

Italy

Enrico Pace was born in Rimini, Italy. He studied piano with Franco Scala both at the Rossini Conservatory, Pesaro, where he graduated in Conducting and Composition, and later at the Accademia Pianistica Incontri col Maestro, Imola. Jacques De Tiège was a valued mentor. Winning the Utrecht International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in 1989 marked the beginning of his international career.

He has performed with many major orchestras such as the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic, the Bamberger Symphoniker, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestra of Santa Cecilia Rome, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Dutch Radio Philharmonic, the Netherlands Philharmonic, the orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, the Hungarian National Philharmonic, the Göteborg, London and Stavanger Symphony Orchestras, the Brussels Philharmonic, the Philharmonisches Orchester Freiburg, the Rheinische Philharmonie, the Sydney and Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the MDR-Sinfonieorchester Leipzig, the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra, the RTE National Symphony Orchestra, the G. Verdi Orchestra Milan and the Filarmonica Toscanini Parma.

He has worked with among others conductors Daniele Gatti, Roberto Benzi, David Robertson, Andrey Boreyko, Mark Elder, Janos Fürst, Eliahu Inbal, Lawrence Foster, Kazimierz Kord, Jiří Kout, Gianandrea Noseda, Walter Weller, Carlo Rizzi, Jan Latham-Koenig, Vassily Sinaisky, Stanislav Skrowaczewski, Bruno Weil and Antoni Wit.

Enrico Pace has toured extensively, performing in cities such as Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Milan (Sala Verdi and Teatro alla Scala), Rome, Berlin, London (Wigmore Hall), Dublin, Munich, Salzburg, Prague and various cities in South America. He has performed at numerous festivals including La Roque-d’Anthéron, Verbier, Lucerne, Rheingau, Schleswig-Holstein and Husum.

Enrico Pace enjoys on-going partnerships with violinists Leonidas Kavakos and Liza Ferschtman, as well as with cellist Sung-Won Yang and clarinettist Sharon Kam, performing with them throughout Europe, the USA and Asia.

Read more →

Claudio Bohorquez

Mihai Cocea

Yossif Ivanov

Giuliano Mazzoccante

Matthew McDowell

Enrico Pace