Artists
Born in Castro Urdiales (Cantabria Region), in 2006 Carmen Santamaría entered the Higher School of Music of the Basque Country (Musikene), specialising in chamber music. With grants from the Cantabrian and Hungarian governments, in 2011 she travelled to Budapest, where she became a part-time student of piano and chamber music, and in 2013 she began her master’s degree studies in Interpretation. In 2015, Carmen took a master’s degree in Lied at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya (ESMUC), where she collaborated as a pianist from 2016 to 2018. Since 2011, Carmen Santamaría has performed in various venues in Budapest, Barcelona, Alicante, Tarragona, Galicia, Mexico City, Bilbao, Santander and León, as well as in the LIFE Victoria, Aurora (Stockholm) and Talent Barcelona festivals. Likewise, since 2018 she has collaborated with the visual artist Inés García on the projects Winterreise and Sis cançons populars muntanyeses. She forms a duo with the soprano Mireia Tarragó.
Precise vocal control, clear diction, intelligent musicality and an ability to get to the heart of everything he sings ensure Christoph Prégardien’s place among the world’s foremost lyric tenors. He performs regularly with orchestras from around the world, including the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Staatskapelle Dresden, and Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. His extensive orchestral repertoire includes the great baroque, classical and romantic oratorios, as well as seventeenth-century (Monteverdi, Purcell, Schütz) and twentieth-century works (Britten, Killmayer, Rihm, Stravinsky). Teaching is an important part of the tenor's musical life; since 2004 he has been a professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne and, in addition, regularly gives masterclasses to young singers from all over the world.
Claire Huangci began her international career at the age of nine. After studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, she moved to Germany in 2007 for further studies at the Hannover Musikhochschule, completing them with honours in 2016. Among other prizes, she won the first prize and the Mozart prize at the 2018 Geza Anda Competition. With an irrepressible curiosity and penchant for unusual repertoire, she proves her versatility with a wide range in repertoire spanning from Bach and Scarlatti, to Bernstein, Gulda, and Corigliano. In solo recitals and with international orchestras, Claire has appeared in some of the most prestigious halls such as Carnegie Hall, Paris Philharmonie, Leipzig Gewandhaus, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie or Salzburg Festspielhaus., as well as in renowned festivals including Lucerne Festival, Verbier Festival or Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.
El Cor de Cambra del Palau de la Música Catalana és un cor professional creat per l’Orfeó Català l’any 1990 amb la missió de difondre la música coral universal, promoure la recuperació del patrimoni musical català i fomentar la nova creació. Ha estat dirigit per Jordi Casas i Bayer, Josep Vila i Casañas i Simon Halsey. Actualment, Xavier Puig n’és el director i Jordi Armengol el pianista. Ha estat dirigit per grans mestres com René Jacobs, Marc Minkowski, Kent Nagano, Simon Rattle, Gustavo Dudamel, Daniel Barenboim, Christophe Rousset, Vladimir Jurowski, Daniele Gatti i Simon Carrington, i ha col·laborat amb els cantants Philippe Jaroussky i Mark Padmore. Des del 2010 és membre de The European Network for Professional Chamber Choirs (TENSO).
Helena Satué i Bernat Prat, violins | Lara Fernández, viola | Oriol Prat, violoncel
Despite the fact that it is a recently formed ensemble (2014), the Cosmos Quartet has already gained an international career winning the First Prize at the 2018 Competition Irene Steels - Wilsing Foundation in Heidelberg, and the 13th Premi BBVA de Música de Cambra Montserrat Alavedra, among others. They have been invited to play at venues such as Heidelbergerg Streichquartettfest, String Quartet Biennal organized by L’Auditori in Barcelona, Liceo de Cámara - Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, the Quincena Musical in San Sebastián, Wigmore Hall in London, Gent Festival van Vlaanderen in Belgium, East Neuk Festival in Edinburgh, Sociedad Filarmónica de Bilbao and Circulo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. From season 2021-2022 until 2024 they will be the Quartet in Residence at Palau de la Música Catalana, with the complete works by J. Brahms, R. Schumann and A. Webern. The quartet is based in Barcelona and plays four instruments builded specially for them from the catalan wellknown luthier David Bagué.