Hiro Kurosaki was born in Tokyo . At the age of six he moved with his family to Vienna , where he grew up. Currently he lives in Valencia.He studied  the violin, graduating cum laude under Prof. Franz Samohyl in Vienna at the „Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst“, formerly the Vienna Academy of Music, and attended master classes with Nathan Milstein. He also studied architecture and art history at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.

Hiro Kurosaki has won prizes at two of the most prestigious violin competitions, the „Henryk Wieniawski“ competition in Poland and the „Fritz Kreisler“ in Vienna .  He has performed with such well known orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic, London ; the Staatskapelle Dresden; the Vienna Symphonic, and the Mozarteum Orchestra, Salzburg .

For many years now he has been working intensively on the Baroque violin and the historic performance practice of early mjusic, studying with Michi Gaigg, Ingrid Seifert and Wieland Kuijken.In the meantime he has been closely associated with Rene Clemencic (Clemencic Consort) and William Christie (Les Arts Florissants).

He is the soloist and concert master of the ensembles „Les Arts Florissants“, Paris; „Clemencic Consort“, Vienna; „London Baroque“; the „Ensemble Gradiva“, Paris; and the „Cappella Coloniensis“, Cologne, in concerts throughout Europe as well as on regular concert tours of Japan, America and Australia.  A grand concert tour of recitals with William Christie at the harpsichord took the two musicians to the most important concert halls in Europe in January 2003, when a recording of Händel’s violin sonatas (Hiro Kurosaki and William Christie) was issued by EMI/Virgin Classics (Virgin veritas 7243 5 45554 2 8).

Hiro Kurosaki is convinced that a deep insight into the aesthetics and performance techniques of different ages is basic to achieving an interpretation that is satisfactory - because it can be experienced immediately by both the player and the listener.

Gary Cooper studied organ and harpsichord at Chetham’s School of Music and was an organ scholar at New College , Oxford . Between 1992 & 2000, he was a member of the highly acclaimed baroque ensemble Sonnerie, with whom he performed regularly throughout Europe and the United States , and recorded frequently on both disc and radio. Gary predominantly makes appearances as soloist, director, accompanist and chamber musician; he also teaches harpsichord at the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham’s School of Music .

During 2000, Gary made his solo Wigmore Hall debut performing Bach’s complete Well-Tempered Clavier, and went on to perform the work in Japan and Europe . He has also given many performances of the Goldberg Variations at venues including Amsterdam ’s Concertgebouw and Christ Church , Spitalfields. As well as harpsichord recitals at the Halle Handel Festival, Finchcocks, the Ansbach Bach Festival, the Vantaa Baroque Festival and the Nordic Baroque Festival, he has played concertos with the Real Galicia Orchestra in Madrid and Santiago and with the Northern Chamber Orchestra.

Gary has conducted performances of Rameau’s Hippolyte e Arcie, Handel’s Julius Caesar, Tamerlano, Triumph of Time & Truth, Acis & Galatea, Messiah and Haydn’s Creation. He has also directed the Portland Baroque Orchestra, the Britten Pears Baroque Orchestra, the Bach Players at the Berlin Bachtage, and Florilegium. In 2001 he was appointed musical director of Kent Opera.

Paula Chateauneuf’s versatile playing on numerous instruments of the lute and early guitar families has been described as “one of the most exciting things on the pre-classical concert circuit”.  She came to London in 1982 as an American Fulbright Scholar and soon after established herself as one of early music’s leading soloists and ensemble players.

Her dances made you want to dance, her laments made you want to cry.  Chateauneuf possesses a magical ability to transcend technique and penetrate to the musical heart of a work. The Boston Globe

She performs with many of the finest early music ensembles, including the New London Consort, the Gabrieli Consort, Sinfonye, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Academy of Ancient Music and Jordi Savall’s Le Concert des Nations.  She is especially in demand as a chamber musician and accompanist for dancers and singers, particularly for early 17th-century monody.  She has coached singers in preparation for productions she has been involved in at the Bayerische Staatsoper, Maggio Musicale Fiorentino and the New Israeli Opera, and in addition has performed as a continuo player for the Royal Opera House, English National Opera, Kent Opera, the Early Opera Project, Glyndebourne, Vlaamse Opera, Opera Factory, City of London Baroque Sinfonia and the Stuttgart, Hanover and Bologna opera houses.

But everything here delighted:...the Italian Corbetta’s guitar chaccone, flying off Paula Chateauneuf’s fingers...                                                                                                                                          The Times, London

Ms. Chateauneuf has recorded extensively for Decca, EMI, Deutsche Grammophon, Hyperion, CRD and Virgin Classics.  She researched, edited and recorded a CD of songs by Barbara Strozzi for Carlton Classics with Catherine Bott.  As a soloist and ensemble player she has travelled throughout Europe, North America, Japan and Australia , performing at major festivals and recording for radio and television.  In addition to her private teaching and coaching she is often invited to give masterclasses, and runs courses in continuo playing at the University of Birmingham , where she is also the lute tutor for the University of Birmingham ’s Centre for Early Music Performance and Research.

“Sublime performances... simply breathtaking, all thunder and lightning.”
classics.com

“Cerasi's performances are superlative throughout. Her playing is an object lesson in how to create light-and-shade on the harpsichord... from subtle, richly-nuanced reflection to dazzling virtuosity ”
Goldberg

After an unusual upbringing - born in Sweden of Sephardi/Turkish origins, with French as her first language - Carole Cerasi has been based in London since 1982. Her playing, like her background, resists being easily placed in any category.

She has long been recognised as having a special affinity with the French clavecinistes, while her repertoire extends from the English virginalists through all the national styles to the early sonatas of Haydn and Beethoven, which she performs on fortepiano.

She first became interested in the harpsichord at the age of eleven and was invited three years later by Kenneth Gilbert as the youngest participant on his course at the Vleeshuis in Antwerp . From that time until the present day one of her strongest musical influences has been Jill Severs, with occasional lessons from Gustav Leonhardt and Ton Koopman. She is now Professor of harpsichord at the Yehudi Menuhin School and of fortepiano and harpsichord at the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy of Music.

Performances have included concert work throughout Europe, including acclaimed recitals at the Wigmore Hall, the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Stockholm, the Festival du Perigord, the Istanbul International Festival, and a concerto appearance with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment on London's South Bank, recitals at the Harrogate, Warwick, Brno, Dieppe, Tallinn and Ludwigsburg festivals and the Musikinstrumenten-Museum in Berlin. She premiered a new work for harpsichord and tape by the South African composer Kevin Volans, touring throughout the UK as well as Munich and Copenhagen . In 2002/3 she performed in France (La Roque d'Anthéron, Sablé, Ambronay), Belgium , Israel , Norway , Germany , Denmark and Japan ; she has recently returned from a trip to Bogota , where she gave two recitals and a masterclass, and gave the opening concert at the 2003 Lausanne Bach Festival.

With her group Ensemble Türk, a flexible group with the classical trio format at its centre, performing on original instruments, and comprising some of England 's finest and most respected young musicians, she explores the classical fortepiano chamber repertoire; they have recently given concerts at the Wigmore Hall, Zürich Tonhalle and for the BBC.

Her first solo CD, the complete works of Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre on the Ruckers harpsichord housed at Hatchlands Park, received unanimous praise from the press and won the prestigious Baroque Instrumental Gramophone Award; discs of sonatas by C.P.E. Bach and works by Thomas Tomkins were received to great critical acclaim, including the Diapason d'Or de l'Année. Her next CD, J.S. Bach and the Möller Manuscript, was released in 2002, winning a further Diapason d’Or de l'Année and coming second in the Gramophone Baroque Instrumental Awards. Her latest disc has just been released, of music by one of Scarlatti's most colourful and quirky contemporaries, Manuel Blasco de Nebra.

REIKO ICHISE

Reiko was born in Tokyo and began her musical training as a pianist. She read musicology at the Kunitachi College of Music where she started playing the viola da gamba, having lessons with Yukimi Kanbe and Tetsuya Nakano.

In 1991 she came to Britain , winning the foundation scholarship at the Royal College of Music, to study gamba with Richard Boothby. Whilst there, she won the concerto prize and completed her post graduate study with distinction. Since leaving the RCM, she has established herself as one of the leading gamba players in the UK .

Reiko has performed extensively througout the UK as chamber musician and soloist, appearing in venues including the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall and the Royal Opera House. She has worked with many leading conductors and orchestras including Sir John Elliot Gardiner and the English baroque soloists, Sir David Willcocks and the English Chamber Orchestra, Paul MaCreesh and the Gabrieli Consort and Kurt Masur and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Reiko regularly works with early music ensembles such as Concordia, Passacaglia, Charvari Agreable and the Early Opera Company. She has recorded chamber music for Lynn, Metronome, ASV and deux-elles. Since 2001, she has been a core member of Florilegium.