Artists

Second flute soloist, the Orchestre National de France

Michel Moragues enjoys a varied career as a soloist, chamber musician, orchestral player and educator. Second flute soloist with the Orchestre National de France since 1989, Mr. Moragues is a Professor of Chamber Music at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris and aChamber music teacher at Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Rueil Malmaison.

Michel entered the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, in the class of Jean Pierre Rampal and Alain Marion at age 14, and two years later, in 1979, won first prize for flute and first prize for chamber music in the class of Christian Lardé. In 1978, he won the International Competition of the Guild of Artists Soloists of Paris, then in 1981, the International Competition in Budapest.

Michel began his teaching career at the age of 17 as a flute professor at the National School of Music at Chalon. Since then, he has taught at the Conservatoire National de Region de Saint Maur des Fosses, and the International Academy of Les Arcs. In addition to his current posts at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, and Conservatoire Regional de Paris, Michel Moragues is highly sought after as a master clinician around the world.

An avid chamber musician, he is a founding member of the Quintette Moragues, which he formed in 1980 with his two brothers Pierre and Pascal, David Walter and Patrick Vilaire, and which performs world-wide to great acclaim. Michel Moragues also has collaborated in chamber music with partners such as Barbara Hendricks, Sandrine Piau, Nora Gubbich, Shlomo Mintz, Regis Pasquier, Gerard Poulet, Raphael Oleg, Gerard Causse, Bruno Pasquier, Nicolas Angelich, Philippe Cassard, Dalberto, Claire Desert, Brigitte Engerer, Christian Ivaldi, Naoumoff Emile, Jean claude Pennetier, Alain Planes, Emmanuel Strosser, Alexandre Tharaud, Pascal Rogé, Christoph Henkel, Anne Gastinel, Roland Pidoux, Xavier Phillips, Marc Coppey, Jerome Perno, Frédérique Cambreling, Christine Icart, Isabelle Moretti, Marielle Nordman, Julie Palloc, Melanie Dutreil, or the Ysaÿe Quartet, Parisii, Elysee, Kocian, Sine Nomine, Psophos, Manfred, and the Trio Wanderer. As an orchestral musician, Mr. Moragues has performed under the baton of conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Pierre Boulez, Sir Colin Davis, Charles Dutoit, Daniele Gatti, John Elliot Gardinner, Neeme, Christian, and Paavo Jarvi, Eugen Jochum , Lorin Maazel, Seiji Ozawa, Bernard Haitink, Riccardo Muti, Georges Pretre, Kurt Masur, and David Zinman.

The discography of Michel includes an album of Ravel/Cras with Isabelle Moretti in Auvidis Valois, a disc with Mozart's Quintet Moragues which won the Grand Prix of the Charles Cros Academy, and a recording with Saphyr productions of the poems of Ronsard by Albert Roussel with Sandrine Piau, which was hailed by the journal World of Music in July 2006, as "the most beautiful version to date."

Michel was the founder and director of the festival "Music in Grésivaudan" from 1993 to 2003, and currently directs the summer festival of chamber music from Gourdon (Lot) with other members Moragues Quintet.

Solo Clarinet, Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale Fiorentino

Riccardo Crocilla was born in Palermo in 1967. He began studying the clarinet at the Niccolò Paganini Conservatory with G. Laruccia and, still very young, qualified with dinstinction. He continued his studies with Giuseppe Garbarino at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena and the professional music School of Saluzzo with Thomas Friedli.He won competitions for first clarinet in Cagliari, Genoa, Trieste, Lausanne and Florence.

He played with the Orchestra of italian Radio and Television ( RAI ), the Chamber Orchestra of Padua and Veneto, the Israel Philarmonic Orchestra, the Parma Opera Ensemble, the Filarmonica della Scala, the Orchestra of the Accademia di Santa Cecilia, under such conductors as Z. Mehta, Whun-Chung, G. Pretre, G. Sinopoli, S. Ozawa, C. Abbado, L. Maazel, W. Sawallisch, R. Muti.

As well as orchestral playing he also played in chamber ensemble with well know italian and foreign musicians like “ Trio di Parma “ , A. Pestalozza, K. Thunemann, the Contempoartensemble, the Cappella Andrea Barca of A.Schiff.

In June 2002, he played Mozart clarinet concerto under direction of Zubin Mehta at Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.

He has a special price“ Premio Galileo 2000 “ as young promise of italian artists. He has lived in Florence since 1996 and he is soloist clarinet in the orchestra of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino.

He's Yamaha artist.

Professor, Tokyo University of Arts

He has been invited to over 30 countries and hold recitals and master classes. He gave solo recitals at prestigious concert hall such as Wien Musikverein, Suntory Hall and so on. He has performed with almost all orchestras of Japan including NHK Symphony Orchestra under Charles Dutoit and Alan Gilbert. Outside Japan, he has also performed with BBC Philharmonic, The Philharmonia Orchestra, Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, Aargau Symphony Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Eastman Wind Ensemble, and Orchestra d’Harmonie de la Garde Républicaine, among others. He has also played with world class artists include Fazil Say, Ron Carter, Martin Taylor, Itamar Golan, Jean-Yves Fourmeau, Arno Bornkamp, Kenneth Tse, etc.

Since his debut, he has actively commissioned new works for saxophone to many remarkable composers. Many of these works have become internationally popular and been added to the important classical saxophone repertoires of the 20th and 21st centuries. Some examples among many are; ‘Fuzzy Bird Sonata’ and ‘Cyber Bird Concerto’ by Takashi Yoshimatsu, ‘Saxophone Concerto’ by Edward Gregson, ‘Cinnamon Concerto’ by Martin Ellerby, ‘Dance of Uzume’ by Piet Swerts, ‘Concerto du Vent’ by Toshiyuki Honda, ‘La lune en paradise’ and ‘Paganini Lost’ by Jun Nagao, and ‘BIRDS - A Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Band’ by Toshio Mashima, ‘SUITE for Alto Saxophone and Piano, Op.55’ and ‘Ballad for alto saxophone and orchestra, Op.67’ by Fazil Say, ‘Sonata for Alto Saxophone & Piano Florida to Tokyo’ by Chick Corea, ‘Fantasia for alto sax and piano’ by Ryuichi Sakamoto. He has recorded over 30 CDs includes solo album from CHANDOS and published “Play Along Series” by De Haske. In 2020, he has arranged 3 Partitas for violin solo by J. S. Bach to solo saxphone. His latest CD “Bach Sequence” is highly acclaimed among critics and won the Arts Festival Award for excellence.

He had assumed a role of the concert master of Tokyo Kosei Wind Orchestra for almost 22 years from 1989 through 2010, and the resident conductor of Yamaha Symphonic Band for 13 years.

Professor, Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media

Belgian trumpeter Jeroen Berwaerts is a musical powerhouse whose all-encompassing love for music knows no genre boundaries. Highly esteemed worldwide for his exceptional technical skills and sensitive musicality, he explores repertoire spanning all eras, from Baroque to contemporary music and jazz.

As a soloist, Jeroen Berwaerts has performed with leading orchestras including the NHK Symphony Orchestra, Vienna Symphony, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Het Residentie Orkest, Belgian National Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, Malmö Symphony Orchestra, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg. He has collaborated with conductors such as Alan Gilbert, Daniel Harding, Markus Stenz, Jun Märkl, and Matthias Pintscher. He is a regular guest at internationally renowned festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, BBC Proms, Takefu International Music Festival in Japan, Domaine Forget International Festival in Canada, Ars Musica in Belgium, Heidelberg Spring, and Rheingau Musik Festival. In the 2023/24 season, Jeroen Berwaerts begins his tour in Australia with concerts in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney. In October, he will premiere a new work by Vito Žuraj with the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra, followed by German and Japanese premieres with Ensemble Resonanz at the Elbphilharmonie and the Aichi Chamber Orchestra, respectively. Throughout the season, he will also perform with Camerata Bern and Alexander Melnikov, as well as at venues such as the Alte Oper Frankfurt, Liszt Academy Budapest, and Seoul Recital Hall.

Jeroen Berwaerts is known for reinvigorating the standard trumpet repertoire by placing it in inventive and unusual contexts. For instance, he combines Handel’s Feuerwerksmusik and dances from Rameau’s opera Dardanus with chansons by Jacques Brel, often taking on the vocal parts himself. Alongside his vibrant career as a trumpeter, he also completed jazz vocal studies at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent.

His extraordinary commitment to contemporary music is evident in numerous world premieres, particularly Toshio Hosokawa’s second trumpet concerto Im Nebel and Francesco Filidei’s Carnevale. Following Håkan Hardenberger, he became the second trumpeter worldwide to incorporate HK Gruber’s Busking into his repertoire. In 2019, he premiered Tobias Broström's double concerto for two trumpets, Nigredo: The Dark Night of the Soul, alongside Håkan Hardenberger. His latest discography addition is the album Signals from Heaven, recorded in 2017 with Salaputia Brass, where he appears as a trumpeter, jazz vocalist, and ensemble leader. Jeroen Berwaerts studied with the renowned trumpet virtuoso Reinhold Friedrich in Karlsruhe. Since 2008, he has served as Professor of Trumpet at the Hanover University of Music, Drama, and Media. He is also Professor in Residence at the Royal Academy of Music in London and an official Yamaha Artist.

Solo Trombone, Danish National Symphony Orchestra

Lars Karlin is a Swedish trombonist and Arranger from Borlänge, Sweden living in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has been solo trombone with Danish National Symphony Orchestra, Denmark since 2020. Before that He was solo trombone with Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Germany.

He he started playing the trombone the age of twelve under Hans-Göran ”Bullas” Olsson at the Music School in Borlänge, Sweden. Further studies were made at the Conservatory of Music in Falun, The Royal College of Music in Stockholm under Prof. Sven-Erik Eriksson, The Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover under Prof. Jonas Bylund and at the University for Music and Arts in Berlin under Andreas Klein.

Lars also studied private courses in "Performance Mastery under Peak Performance" by Psychologist Ph.D. Don Greene in Los Angeles.

Lars is a Prizewinner of numerous National and International Music Competitions including: The Lieksa International Trombone Competition in 2008, The Aeolus International Competition for Winds in 2010 and Deutsche Musikwettbewerb in 2011.

From 2007 to 2020 Lars he was member of the Trombone Unit Hannover where he also created much of their repertoire in form of Arrangements. Their CD "Living on the Edge" was recorded exclusively with arrangements by Lars Karlin.

Lars also in 2018 joined forces with Basstrombonist Tomer Maschwkowski & Pianist Ohad Ben-Ari in the newly formed Show ”Sliding thru the opera”.

Principal tuba, Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Gene Pokorny has been principal tuba of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra since 1989. He also held principal tuba positions in the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Utah Symphony, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. While in Los Angeles, he played on the soundtracks for the movies Jurassic Park, The Fugitive and other motion pictures.

He grew up in Downey, California, about a mile from where the Apollo command modules were built that first took humans to the moon. He studied tuba in the Los Angeles area with Jeffrey Reynolds, Larry Johansen, Tommy Johnson and Roger Bobo.

When Gene Pokorny isn’t counting rests in the back row of Orchestra Hall, he can be found teaching at music festivals and performing solo recitals worldwide. He has recorded several solo and educational discs, and assisted former Rolling Stones trombonist Michael Davis in recording several educational workbook CDs. He received an Outstanding Alumnus Award from the University of Southern California and an honorary doctorate from the University of Redlands. He currently lectures and teaches at Roosevelt University, Northwestern University and the Pokorny Low Brass Seminar.

A member of the Union Pacific (Railroad) Historical Society and the Union Pacific Steam Club, Gene Pokorny spends time as a “foamer,” watching and chasing trains. He is a fan (actually a “victim of soicumstances”) of the Three Stooges and was an avid devotee of his good friend David “Red” Lehr, the greatest Dixieland sousaphonist in the known universe. He finds guidance in the overview of life through Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, passion in the music of composers Gerald Finzi and Giacomo Puccini, humility in Carl Sagan’s three-and-a-half minute video Pale Blue Dot, inspiration in listening to his fabulous colleagues onstage and perspective in all things through the basset hounds with whom he lives. They are always appreciative of a hug.