Formerly a member of the esteemed Vermeer Quartet, Ms. Imai combines a distinguished international solo career with various teaching commitments. She has appeared with numerous world's prestigious orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw, the London Symphony, and the Chicago Symphony. As a keen chamber musician, Ms. Imai has performed with various prominent artists such as Gidon Kremer, Midori, Isaac Stern, Mischa Maisky, and Martha Argerich. In 2003, she formed the Michelangelo Quartet. The quartet gained the international reputation quickly and now became one of finest quartets in the world. Ms. Imai has dedicated a large part of her artistic activities to explore the diverse potential of the viola.

She returns to Japan several times a year, to perform as soloist and notably for the annual "Viola Space" project. In 1995/1996 Nobuko Imai was artistic director of three Hindemith Festivals at the Wigmore Hall in London, at Columbia University in New York and at the Casals Hall in Tokyo. In 2009 she founded The Tokyo International Viola Competition, the first international competition in Japan exclusively for viola.

An impressive discography of over 40 CDs shows her recordings for BIS, Chandos, Hyperion, Philips, Sony among others. Ms. Imai taught as a Professor at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold from 1983 to 2003 and at the Geneva Conservatory from 2003 to June 2014. She currently teaches at Amsterdam Conservatory, Kronberg Academy and Queen Sofia College of Music in Madrid.

Veronika Hagen is the viola player in the famous Hagen Quartet with which she has performed over the past 40 years throughout the world.

In early childhood Veronika received her first music lessons , at the age of eleven she discovered her love for the viola. Veronika went on to study at the Salzburg Mozarteum University with Helmut Zehetmair, then in Vienna and Hanover with Hatto Beyerle. Her regular collaboration with artists such as Gidon Kremer, Ivry Gitlis, Heinrich Schiff , Nikolaus Harnoncourt and György Kurtag has had a lasting influence on her playing.

Veronika Hagen also performs as a soloist in major concert halls in Europe and Japan, as well as at the Salzburg Festival, the Salzburg Mozart Week, in Vienna, Cologne, Zurich and Barcelona, at the chamber music festival in Lockenhaus, at the chamber music seminar in Prussia Cove, at the Menuhin Gstaad Festival and at the Lucerne Festival. Her chamber music partners include artists such as Mitsuko Uchida, Krystian Zimerman, Maurizio Pollini, Sabine Meyer, Jörg Widman, Sol Gabetta, Steven Isserlis, Leonidas Kavakos and Joshua Bell .

In 1998 she was commissioned by the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz to give the first performance in Germany of Sofia Gubaidulina’s Viola Concerto. She has given concerts with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Fabio Luisi, with the MDR Orchestra and the Vienna Symphony Orchesta. Her recording of the Brahms Sonatas, together with Paul Gulda was issued by Deutsche Grammophon , then , on the same label, Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with Alexander Dumay and the Camerata Salzburg was released.
Through many years of experience she is a sought-after chamber musician in various ensembles, from trio on to septet and octet.

And she is member of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, with which she has been performing many years under Claudio Abbado, Bernhard Haitink, Andris Nelsons, Riccardo Chailly, Yannick Nézet-Séguin and Paavo Järvi.

V. Hagen holds a professorship at the University Mozarteum and helds masterclasses in Paris, Madrid, Lissabon,Bern, Luzern , Leipzig, Bruxelles Verbier and the International Summer Academy Salzburg.

After having played the famous „Paganini“ - Stradivari , generously loaned by the Nippon Foundation, she now performs on a viola by J. B. Guadagnini from 1765.

Garth Knox was born in Ireland and spent his childhood in Scotland. He studied with Frederic Riddle at the Royal College of Music in London where he won several prizes for viola and for chamber music. Thereafter he played with most of the leading groups in London in a mixture of all repertoires, from baroque to contemporary music.

In 1983 he was invited by Pierre Boulez to become a member of the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris, which involved regular solo playing, including concertos directed by Pierre Boulez, and chamber music, touring widely and playing in international festivals.

In 1990 Garth Knox joined the Arditti String Quartet, which led him to play in all the major concert halls of the world, working closely with and giving first performances of pieces by most of today's leading composers including Ligeti, Kurtag, Berio, Xenakis, Lachenmann, Cage, Feldman and Stockhausen (the famous“Helicopter Quartet”).

In 1998, Garth Knox left the quartet to concentrate on his solo career. As a soloist, he has given premieres by Henze (the Viola Sonata is dedicated to him), Ligeti, Schnittke, Ferneyhough, James Dillon, George Benjamin and many others. He also collaborates regularly in theatre and dance projects, and has written and performed a one-man show for children.

He has recently become a pioneer of the viola d’amore, exploring its possibilities in new music, with and without electronics, and is in the process of creating a new repertoire for this instrument.

Garth Knox now lives in Paris, where he enjoys a full time solo career, giving recitals, concertos and chamber music concerts all over Europe, the USA and Japan. He is also an active composer, and his «Viola Spaces », the first phase of an on-going series of concert studies for strings (published in 2010 by Schott) combines ground-breaking innovation in string technique with joyous pleasure in the act of music making. The pieces have been adopted and performed by young string players all over the world.

Garth Knox is International Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

Since 2001, Naoko Shimizu has served as Principal Viola of the Berlin Philharmonic and is also in demand internationally as a soloist and chamber musician.

Born in Osaka, Japan, violist Naoko Shimizu studied at the Detmold University of Music, where she completed her studies in 2000 with the Konzertexamen.

In 1997, she won First Prize at the ARD International Music Competition, a prize that had not been awarded in the viola category for 21 years. Prior to this, she had already won First Prize at the Markneukirchen International Instrumental Competition in 1995 and the Geneva International Music Competition in 1996. In 1998, she was further recognized at the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in the United States.

As a soloist, she has appeared with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, and numerous orchestras in Japan. Recital tours have also taken her to the United States, Italy, and Japan.

A passionate chamber musician, she has appeared at major festivals including the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival in Austria, the Marlboro Music Festival in the United States, and the Ashiya International Music Festival in Japan. She has also performed with ensembles such as the Tokyo String Quartet and the Emerson String Quartet.

In addition to her concert activities, she regularly gives masterclasses in Germany and internationally.

She has also served as a juror at several prestigious competitions, including the 2021 International Hindemith Viola Competition and the 2023 ARD International Music Competition in Munich.

A highly respected chamber musician, Ridout performs in major venues including Wigmore Hall, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, Vienna's Musikverein, Seoul Arts Center and New York's Alice Tully Hall. He appears regularly at major international festivals such as Verbier, Salzburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Rheingau, Kissinger Sommer, Solsberg, Klosters, Evian, Beethoven Easter Festival and La Jolla. Forthcoming collaborations include projects with Benjamin Grosvenor, Kian Soltani, Hyeyoon Park, Federico Colli, Frank Dupree, Lucie Horsch, Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky and Janine Jansen.

As an Associate Artist at Wigmore Hall, Ridout appears this season with Sol Gabetta, Hana Chang, Jonathan Ware, the Doric String Quartet, Adam Walker and Anneleen Lenaerts, and curates a day-long celebration of the viola showcasing the instrument's remarkable versatility and breadth of repertoire. As a Junge Wilde artist at Dortmund's Konzerthaus, he presents a solo recital, while further engagements include tours with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and appearances at the Kaohsiung Festival in Taiwan, Viola Space in Japan and the Z+ Festival in Shanghai.

A recording artist of exceptional versatility, Ridout records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi. His latest album Alto Appassionato, recorded with pianist Jonathan Ware, explores the rich world of twentieth-century French music. Ridout received the BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Award (2026) and the Opus Klassik Young Instrumentalist of the Year Award (2025) for his solo album featuring works by Telemann, Bach, Britten and Caroline Shaw. In 2024 he released an album which paid tribute to the great violist Lionel Tertis. In 2023, he won a Gramophone Award for his recording of Elgar's Cello Concerto, arranged for viola by Lionel Tertis, with BBC Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins. His extensive catalogue also includes recordings of works by Prokofiev, Britten, Schumann, Vaughan Williams, Hindemith and Martinů, in collaboration with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, and pianists Frank Dupree and James Baillieu.

A graduate of the Royal Academy of Music and Kronberg Academy, Ridout is the recipient of numerous international honours, including First Prize at both the Lionel Tertis and Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competitions. A former BBC New Generation Artist and Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellow, he received the Royal Philharmonic Society's Young Artist Award in 2023 and was the inaugural recipient of the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra's Sir Jeffrey Tate Prize. He is also an alumnus of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's prestigious Bowers Program.

Timothy Ridout performs on a viola by Peregrino di Zanetto (c.1565-1575), generously loaned by a patron of the Beare's International Violin Society.

German violist Veit Hertenstein plays with “admirable precision, dedication and strong musical expression“ (Augsburger Allgemeine 2013) as well as “maturity, technique, thoughtful musicianship, and a tone of dark honey” (The Boston Musical Intelligencer 2013).

Mr. Hertenstein is Professor for Viola at the Musikhochschule Detmold, Germany and at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, England. Furthermore he founded the Orion String Trio.

Mr. Hertenstein has been invited to the Marlboro Music Festival, the Seiji Ozawa International Music Academy, the Viola Space Festival Tokyo, Menuhin Festival in Gstaad and the Verbier Festival, where he was awarded the “Henri Louis de la Grange” viola prize. He has also been several times invited to the La Folle Journée Festival in Nantes and Tokyo. 

As a chamber musician he collaborated with Trio Wanderer, Modigliani and Ysaye Quartets, Brigitte Engerer, Valentin Erben (Alban Berg String Quartet), Nobuko Imai and with Midori. 

In the United States Mr. Hertenstein performed in concert halls such as The Merkin Hall in New York and The Kenendy Center in Washington D.C., after winning First prize as well as eight performance prizes in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions 2011 in New York City. 

Mr. Hertenstein has won several prestigious competitions.  In 2009 he was the first violist to win the New Talent Competition of the European Broadcasting Union in Slovakia founded by Yehudi Menuhin, which was followed by world-wide radio broadcasts. He was a prize-winner of the first Tokyo International Viola Competition 2009. In 2007 he was the first violist to win First Prize at the Orpheus Competition in Zurich, Switzerland, which enabled him to record his debut CD with Euro Classics.

Pro Helvetia commissioned a Viola Concerto by Swiss composer Nicolas Bolens which was premiered in Geneva 2014. 

Born in Augsburg, Germany, Mr. Hertenstein began studying the violin and piano at the age of 5 and switched to the viola when he was 15. In 2009 he graduated with distinction from the Haute Ecole de Musique in Geneva, where he worked with violist Nobuko Imai. He also has been artistically influenced by György Kurtag, Krzysztof Penderecki, Gabor Takács-Nagy, Yuri Bashmet and Kim Kashkashian.

2011 until 2017 Mr. Hertenstein was the principal violist in the Basel Symphony Orchestra in Switzerland.

Realizó sus estudios musicales en Real Conservatorio Superior de Música de Madrid y en la Hochschule für Musik und Theater München (Escuela Superior de Música y Teatro de Múnich).[4] Su primer trabajo profesional fue como pianista del Coro Nacional de España durante más de dos años.

Entre 1980 y 1988 fue director titular y artístico de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Asturias, que partía casi desde cero y que fue la precedente de la Orquesta Sinfónica del Principado de Asturias. Víctor Pablo en 1987, a partir de la entrega de los Premios Príncipe de Asturias, el director Jesús López Cobos lo llevó como director invitado de la Orquesta Nacional de España (ONE). Desde ahí saltó a la dirección de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Tenerife (OST) entre 1986 y 2005, que simultaneó un tiempo con la dirección de la Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia (OSG) (1993 - 2013).

Ha colaborado de forma habitual con el Teatro Real de Madrid, el Gran Teatro del Liceo de Barcelona, o el Festival Mozart de La Coruña y en diversos festivales internacionales de música como el de Canarias, Perelada, Granada, Santander, Schleswig-Holstein, Festival Bruckner de Madrid, el festival de ópera Rossini (ROF), el Festival de San Lorenzo de El Escorial o la Quincena Musical de San Sebastián.

Entre septiembre de 2013 y septiembre de 2021 fue director titular y artístico de la Orquesta y Coro de la Comunidad de Madrid (ORCAM), titular del Teatro de la Zarzuela.

Con motivo del día internacional de la música el 24 de junio de 2017, el Centro Nacional de Difusión Musical promovió la celebración de un maratón musical en el que Víctor Pablo dirigió ese día en el Auditorio Nacional de Madrid 9 sinfonías novenas (Garay, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Dvorak, Bruckner, Mahler y Shostakovich) con cinco orquestas distintas (La Sinfónica de Madrid, la de la Comunidad, la Nacional, la Joven Orquesta Nacional (JONDE) y la de Radiotelevisión Española.

Kiyoko van Bochove is a performance coach and facilitator dedicated to helping musicians, artists, and creatives master both their craft and their well-being. Specializing in holistic artist development, she empowers artists to cultivate authenticity, resilience, and sustainable performance—ensuring they thrive personally and artistically. 

Kiyoko has worked with musicians from all over the world, including coaching musicians at the renowned Marlboro Music Festival, as well as leading workshops at the Universities of Cincinnati and Madison. As the founder of OpusLab, she provides 1:1 and group coaching online and in Amsterdam (The Netherlands), guiding artists toward sustainable artistry and self-mastery. Other key projects include the Kiyoko & Nobuko Workshop for violists, which combines musical artistry with personal development, and The Artist’s Way Course, a 12-week program designed to uncover creative potential. 

Beyond her work with artists, Kiyoko spent a decade as a lecturer, coach, and trainer at the Leiden Leadership Programme (Leiden University Honours Academy), specializing in leadership, authenticity, and positive psychology.

Kiyoko holds a cum laude MSc in Social & Organizational Psychology, a BA in Psychology with an emphasis on Philosophy and Counseling, and certifications in leadership studies at Harvard Business School, postgraduate Executive Coaching, Life Coaching, Holobody Coaching, and Business Coaching. Her additional training and credentials includes Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Practitioner Step I & II, and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Practitioner.

With a Japanese-Dutch heritage, Kiyoko blends Eastern and Western philosophies in her coaching, bringing deep cultural awareness and a unique perspective. With a father in business and a mother in music, she naturally bridges the worlds of leadership and artistry. A lifelong creative herself, with experience in music, craftsmanship, and design, she understands the artist’s path firsthand. Having overcome health challenges, she prioritizes well-being as the foundation of sustainable performance.

Art is a reflection of the artist—creativity, expression, and success are deeply connected to the person behind the craft. Artistic growth happens when artists strengthen not just their technique, but also their mindset, well-being, and resilience. Kiyoko is dedicated to helping artists build that foundation—so they not only create, but thrive.

At the 2027 Tenerife Viola Festival, Kiyoko van Bochove will offer one-on-one coaching sessions tailored to each musician’s artistic and personal growth. She will also lead a workshop focused on essential skills to strengthen participants’ artistic expression and confidence.

Acknowledgements