"He's a peak performer. If he keeps this up, he'll probably climb other peaks altogether...a talent that combines rigor and playfulness." --Werner Theurich, Spiegel Online

German-Uzbek pianist Nuron Mukumi was born in 1996 in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. He began playing the piano at the age of six, won 1st prize at the International Piano Competition for Russian Music in California at the age of seven, and 1st prize at the Uzbek Republic Youth Competition in Tashkent. In the same year he began conducting training and at the age of eight made his conducting debut with the Uzbekistan National Symphony Orchestra performing Mozart's Piano Concerto in D minor, in which he also played the piano part. He studied with Prof. Lev Natochenny in Frankfurt am Main and in Zurich as well as with Marian Rybicki in Paris, was a scholarship holder of the Bad Homburger Schlosskonzerte Foundation and is currently studying with Prof. Hubert Rutkowski at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg, where he will take his concert exam.

For Prospero, Nuron has recorded Peter Tchaikovky's 18 Pieces for Piano, op. 72: The 18 multi-faceted, musically complex and virtuosic character pieces were written in May 1893 - just six months before Tchaikovky's death - and show a composer full of beans.

Daria Parkhomenko presents a wonderful compilation of piano works by the highly underrated Romanian composer George Enescu. Daria Parkhomenko, a young Russian pianist of Romanian origin, is one of the most promising talents of her generation. Described as a “leading lady” by the international piano press on her 1st place victory at the world-renowned George Enescu Piano Competition in 2018, Daria has performed at some of the world’s most renowned concert halls and has appeared with several of the world’s leading conductors and orchestras. In addition to her avid career as a soloist, Daria as a passionate chamber musician. Together with Korean violinist, Jiae Park, and German cellist, Jakob Kuchenbuch, Daria formed the “HON Trio”.

The present release is a stunning 2-album collection with songs, lieder and pieces referring to the topic "Heimat"; all pieces arranged for tenor and horn quartet.

The tenor Daniel Behle is equally successful in the concert, Lied and opera genres and is making a name for himself as a composer as well. His extensive repertoire ranges from Baroque masterpieces, Classical and Romantic works to compositions of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Founded in 2010 by four graduates of the French horn class of Christian Lampert at the State University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart, German Hornsound has earned a strong international reputation based on its exceptional profile. With their new concert formats and creative program concepts they have debuted at nearly all music festivals in German-speaking Europe over the past few years.

There is one phrase that Rudens Turku uses repeatedly whenever he is discussing his work: “to sink into the note.” The German-Albanian violinist employs it to underscore his principal concern, which is to feel his way into the deeper layers of a composition and at the same time to be aware of the story of its composer’s life and of the way in which that life is embedded in a particular period and its political background. He finds an almost ideal opportunity to do this in the music of Astor Piazzolla - concert music by a cosmopolitan Argentine musician of Italian ancestry who grew up in the United States.

Young Turkish-German Pianist Burak Çebi brings us an interesting program, combining Schubert's A Major Sonata with works by Turkish composers. An outstanding pianist and composer of his generation, Çebi captivates audiences with his poetic, introspective approach to music making. His playing is marked by tonal perfection, subtly structured voicing and a range of moods and colors, allowing meditative moments to unfold, for example, in the late piano sonatas of Beethoven and in Chopin’s nocturnes. Since his recent successes in competitions in Italy, Spain, and Turkey, the Germany-based artist has made guest appearances in Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Leipzig and practically all of Turkey’s major concert halls.

This delightful album contains an interesting Spanish and Latin-American piano program with Swiss pianist Marian Rosenfeld. Unknown and highly appealing works by Turina, Villa-Lobos and others are highlighted. Marian Rosenfeld immediately captivates the audience with her intensity: her passionate and personal playing leaves no one untouched. Born into a family of musicians in Lucerne, she was accepted into Homero Francesch's master class at the Zurich University of Music at the age of thirteen and made her debut at the Tonhalle Zurich at the age of fourteen. With second prize at the Eurovision competition for young musicians in Copenhagen in 1986, she is still the most successful Swiss in this competition. Further prizes and awards as a soloist or as a chamber musician followed, e.g. nationally the multiple award of the study prize of the Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund or a well-known sponsorship prize of the city of Zug, as well as the international competition of the ARD (in a duo with her brother Rafael Rosenfeld) and the International Robert Schumann Competition in Zwickau. Building on this, concerts followed in leading houses in Europe, including Vienna, Salzburg, Lisbon, Berlin and London (Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore Hall).

Includes the Suite from Gloriana, composed for HM Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953

The present album presents a very challenging but also very interesting program with vocal works by Benjamin Britten with world class tenor Mark Padmore. Mark Padmore was born in London and studied at King’s College, Cambridge. He has established an international career in opera, concert and recital. His appearances in Bach Passions have gained particular notice, especially his renowned performances as Evangelist in the St Matthew and St John Passions with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra and Simon Rattle, staged by Peter Sellars. He is joined on this release by the Basler Sinfonieorchester and Ivor Bolton.

Timothy Hopkins is a German/American cellist living in Leipzig, Germany. He has a special fascination with performing arrangements and transcriptions of other instruments' literature for the cello. These include, for example, his own arrangements of the Chaconne from the 2nd Partita for Violin by Johann Sebastian Bach, the 24th Caprice by Nicolò Paganini, Rondo Capriccioso by Camille Saint-Saëns, or, for example, the famous Violin Sonata by César Franck, which he performs in his own version on the cello. Timothy is a passionate chamber musician and has performed several times as a member of the Lipsia String Quartet and the Max Klinger Piano Trio at the HARMOS Chamber Music Festival in Portugal and at Rice University Houston/Texas. He also forms the Cello Duo Grancelli with his fellow student Moritz Klauk from Leipzig. Solo and chamber music performances have taken him to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and the USA. As a soloist he has played several times with the Göttingen Symphony Orchestra, the MDR Symphony Orchestra as well as the Castello Symphony Orchestra (Spain) and is a prize winner of national and international competitions.

Oliver Schnyder (piano), and Andreas Jahnke (violin) and Benjamin Nyffenegger (cello) perform Smetana's Piano Trio in G Minor and the famous "Dumky"-Trio by Antonín Dvořák. The Oliver Schnyder Trio made their debut at the Zürich Tonhalle in 2012. Their recording of Schubert’s Piano Trios was hailed “a new benchmark recording” by the magazine Die Bühne and was chosen as “Switzerland’s Best Classical Album of the Year” by the Aargauer Zeitung. This immediate success was confirmed by the recording of Brahms’ complete Piano Trios, which also received great critical acclaim and was given a “Milestone” from Musik & Theater. Past and present concert appearances and festival residences include the SWR Schlossfestspiele Ettlingen, WDR Funkhaus Köln, Liederhalle Stuttgart, Festspiele Baden-Baden, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Schloss Elmau, Meisterzyklus Bern, Ittinger Pfingstkonzerte, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw and Muziekgebouw, Musikdorf Ernen, the Hirzenberg Festival and the festival Universum Beethoven, where they took part in a complete cycle of Beethoven’s Piano Trios at Boswil and Muri, alongside the Trio Jean Paul and the Wanderer Trio.

The present release is a highly original piano recital with widely unknown works by Swiss composers, such as Arthur Honegger or Frank Martin. Born in 1994, Jérémie Conus had his first piano lessons at the age of 6 with Christian Thomann at the music school Solothurnisches Leimental. At the age of 13, he switched to Alicja Masan at the Music Conservatory in Basel. Since September 2013, Jérémie is studying at the Zurich University of the Arts in the Piano Class of Konstantin Scherbakov. After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 2016 and the Master of Arts degree in Music Pedagogy in 2018 with distinction, he is currently studying in the Master of Arts in Music Performance.

This new release from Mathis Rochat and Erdem Mısırlıoğlu is a collection of works by Sergei Rachmaninoff, imagined for solo viola or viola with piano. All of the works have been arranged by Mathis Rochat. Inspired by Yuri Bashmet's saying "Nobody knows how viola should sound!", Mathis Rochat enjoys the freedom that his instrument gives him in terms of sound coloring and likes to explore all kind of repertoire, new and old, originals or transcriptions. He has appeared as a soloist with the Walton Viola Concerto, Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante and the Hoffmeister Viola Concerto with orchestras such as the Norddeutsche Philharmonie and the Da Capo Ensemble.

Meinrad Alois Lienert (1865 -1933) is considered one of the most important dialect lyricists in Switzerland. He wrote a large number of poems, stories and novellas, as well as sensitive childhood memories and novels. His "Tales from Swiss History" became a regular popular book. Soprano Sybille Diethelm and her piano accompanist Fabienne Romer have dedicated themselves to the lyrics of this Swiss poet in settings by Swiss composers. Sybille Diethelm grew up in Schübelbach in the canton of Schwyz Canton. In 2004 she began studying voice at the Zürcher Hochschule der Künste with Professor Lena Hauser and in the Lied class of Daniel Fueter and Hans Adolfsen. In 2006, she moved to the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and was admitted to the Bayerische Theaterakademie August Everding. She studied in the vocal classes of Professor Maria de Francesca-Cavazza, Professor Wolfgang Brendel and Professor Rita Hirner-Lill, as well as in the Lied classes of Professor Juliane Banse, Thomas E. Bauer and Tobias Truniger. In 2010, she obtained the Concert Diploma in Lied and Opera and graduated in March 2012 from her postgraduate studies in both fields. She attended master-classes with Edith Mathis, Barbara Schlick, Silvana Bazzoni-Bartoli and Klesie Kelly. She won several study prize competitions, and is the winner of the 2011 Migros Singing Competition.

"In this music, border crossings become audible to me: from baroque to contemporary music, from music to religion, from the secular to the divine. That is why it is also about life and death, resurrection, enlightenment and remembrance - as in Bach's Chaconne in memory of his first wife Maria Barbara Bach". With these words, pianist Alexandra Sostmann describes her album Grenzgänge on PROSPERO, co-produced with Bayerischer Rundfunk, which cleverly combines music by Bach, Pachelbel and Frescobaldi with works by Ligeti and Pärt to create a fascinating musical journey from the beginnings of music for keyboard instruments to the composers of our day.

The pieces on the present album - in instrumentations ranging from duo violin/piano to arrangements for solo instruments and orchestra - cover a broad spectrum of Piazzolla's oeuvre. Of particular importance to violinist Rudens Turku is the piece Le grand Tango, written in Paris in 1982. Originally for cello and piano, it is heard here in an arrangement for violin, cello and piano. The nearly eleven-minute work in one movement contains three interrelated sections. "To reproduce the spirit of the music and to create a sense of joy and excitement among the musicians," was the intention of arranger Alexander Krampe in this and other pieces: This intention shows itself immediately and directly.

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach has brought accordionist Viviane Chassot out of a serious personal crisis. Since she discovered how well the music of the Thomaskantor can be reproduced on the accordion, she has now created a Bach album - after Haydn and Mozart. With works from the Woltemperierte Clavier, the well-known ''Italian Concerto'' as well as other suites and partitas. The artist explains: ''The liveliness and power may jump out at us first when we hear Bach's music. But the composer did not have an easy life and anything but a straight path through life - he had to put up with many strokes of fate, became an orphan at the age of ten, lost his first wife at an early age; children also died. Death accompanied him throughout his life - and I think that these aspects of pain and loss always resonate in his music, even when it is superficially dancing or simply cheerful''. Bach and accordion - this combination is not exactly obvious. But Viviane Chassot says: ''What is very much in favor of the accordion as a possible instrument for Bach's music for keyboard instruments are the wind-like shaping possibilities that I have thanks to the bellows. With it and with differentiated articulation, I can make the music breathe and speak; I achieve dynamics and a variety of colors through diverse registration possibilities. And the virtuoso dance movements are given a musical - even archaic - touch on the accordion''.