Herre-Jan Stegenga Herre-Jan studied cello with Paul Tortelier and chamber music with Jacques Fevrier at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris and graduated at the age of 17 with the Premier Prix distinction Premier Nomme. He has a successful career as an international soloist and travels extensively. Several composers have dedicated works to him – he played the first performance of the cello concerto by Ton de Kruyff in the Concertgebouw Amsterdam. Herre-Jan has recorded the sonatas of Lekeu, Grieg/ Pfitzner, Rachmaninov/ Shostakovich and the Brahms sonatas with the famous pianist Phillipe Entremont. Herre-Jan is professor at the Rotterdam Conservatory, where he regularly gives master classes. He plays a beautiful Guadagnini from 1800, nicknamed ‘The Soldier’. He is a member of the Ludwig Trio with Jean-Jacques Kantorow and Vladimir Mendelssohn. He is a member of the Schubert Consort and the Johannes Brahms Quartet. Philippe Entremont The conductor and pianist Philippe Entremont was born in Rheims in 1934 and entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of twelve, when he won the Harriet Cohen Piano Medal. Four years later he made his professional debut in Barcelona and in 1953 made his first appearance in America with concerts at the National Gallery in Washington and in New York. Since then he has continued to appear as a soloist with major orchestras throughout the world. At the same time his career as a conductor has included appearances with orchestras ranging from the Royal Philharmonic, the Orchestre National de France and the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields to a number of major American orchestras, including Philadelphia, Minnesota, St Louis, Pittsburgh and San Francisco. The recipient of many awards and honours, Philippe Entremont was appointed Music Director of the Orchestre Colonne de Paris in 1988. He is currently Conductor Laureate of both the Vienna Chamber Orchestra and the Israel Chamber Orchestra, as well as the Principal Guest Conductor of Shanghai Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra. He founded the biennial Santo Domingo Music Festival in 1997, which he returned for its fifth season in 2005.