Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä

Violinist/Finland

“Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä, through means of her technical ability and passionate playing, proved why she is one of the most interesting Finnish violinists of our time.” — HBL (6/2014) Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä served as a concertmaster of the Danish National Chamber Orchestra and Vaasa City Orchestra and the Oulu Symphony Orchestra in Finland.  Besides an extensive solo career, Heikkilä is also a recognized leader in Europe, holding engagements as a concertmaster in orchestras such as the London BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Arctic Philharmonic, the Norwegian National Opera and the Malmö Opera orchestras, the Copenhagen Philharmonic, the Stavanger and Trondheim Symphony orchestras, etc.  As a guest concertmaster and a leader of the London BBC Symphony Orchestra, she was the featured soloist on Rufus Wainwright: Prima Donna and Take All My Loves – 9 Shakespeare Sonnets, with the London BBC Symphony Orchestra, released on Deutsche Grammophon in 2015. Heikkilä has soloed with orchestras and given recitals as soloist and chamber musician across Europe, South-Korea, the USA, and Russia.  In recent years, she has performed at many leading festivals: the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, KuruFest, the Helsinki Festival, the Riga New Music Festival, the Classica NordicBaltic Conference in Latvia, the Ecuentro de Musica de Santander in Spain, the iPalpiti Festival of International Laureates in Los Angeles, the Gumi International Music Festival in Korea, the Music Alp Music Weeks in France, the Harmos Festival in Portugal and the Lake District Summer Music Festival in the UK.  Kreeta-Julia is also the artistic director, founder and a violinist of the TEOS - Finnish Chamber Music Series in Helsinki and is currently a violinist in the Copenhagen-based Trio Nord along with iPalpiti alumnus cellist Jacob Shaw.  The summer of 2017 inaugurates the 1^st Helsinki Chamber Music Festival of which she is an artistic director and violinist.  A prizewinner at numerous national and international competitions, including the prestigious Pro Musica and Nordea Awards, Kreeta-Julia graduated with distinction from the London Royal College of Music in 2012 and from the Sibelius Academy in 2015, where she studied under Jan Repko, Tuomas Haapanen, Mi-Kuyng Lee and Päivyt Meller.  Heikkilä plays an Andrea Guarneri (1680), kindly on loan from The Finnish Cultural Foundation. Kreeta-Julia Heikkilä’s Website

Yury Revich

Violinist/Austria

Yury Revich's website

Young Artist of the Year 2015 by the International Classical Music Awards, at only 23 years of age, Yury Revich already is a very mature and serious artist. He is one of the most expressive musicians of his generation and is based in Vienna, Austria.

Whenever he is not at performances in all corners of the world – in 2009, he played his debut at Carnegie Hall and in 2013 at La Scala, Milan, he has performed at the Berlin Konzerthaus, Vienna Musikverein, Vienna Konzerthaus, Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, Metropolitan Art Space Tokyo, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall, Cadogan Hall London as well as the Preston Bradley Hall in Chicago and many others, and can be heard at many international festivals – Yury tries to use his music for charitable events.

Together with the European-Russian Society for International Cooperation, where Yury functions as Artistic Director, he organized a concert in Vienna in 2011 for the victims of the tsunami in Japan. Additionally, he collaborates with the organisation „Kleine Herzen“ that helps Russian and Ukranian children.

He records for Sony Classical, ARS, Odradek and OnePointFM , WDR, BR, Radio France, among many other European and American radio and television networks.

Midori Maruyama

Violist/Japan

Midori started playing violin at the age of four and has studied at the Tokyo college of Music from 2004-2010 with Prof. Takashi Shimizu and Saiko Azuma. During these years she attended many master classes in Japan, Portugal, Italy, and Austria. In 2008 she won the third prize at the Japan Players Competition and also began to study the viola and play a lot of chamber music. She won the 2nd prize at the Osaka International Competition and received a Special award at the Japan Ensemble Competition with quartet. Midori continued her studies as a violist at Scuola di musica di Fiesole in Italy with Antonello Farulli and Felice Cusano as a scholarship student in Corso di Perfezionamento, and participated in master class of Jürgen Kussmaul and in summer course of Jurij Bashmet at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. Midori is a recipient of numerous awards: the "Grand Prix d'Honneu" at the Concours International de Musique Léopold Bellan in Paris, France with piano quintet (2011), First Prize as a soloist at the 4th Concorso Musicale Europea Città di Filadelfia and 10th International Music Competition Premio Vittoria Caffa Righetti (2012), First Prize at Concorso Internazione di Musica “Euterpe” di Corato and VII Concorso Internazionale di Musica da Camera Città di Chieti as member of duo (2013). As Mozarteum Summerakademie "praistreger", Midori performed in prestigious concert halls in Salzburg Festspiele in 2012 and the same season was selected to join iPalpiti. A leading violist at The Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra, Japan since 2014, in 2017 Midori accepted principal position at the Kyoto Symphony.

Francisco Vila

Cellist/Ecuador

  “Vila brought out the fervour and vitality…consummate projection.” — The Strad Magazine, April 2012 Ecuadorian cellist Francisco Vila began playing the cello at age 8 and had his solo debut with orchestra at 14. Concert activities have taken him throughout Europe, North and South America. Vila was granted a Presidential Scholarship to the Boston Conservatory for his Bachelor studies, after which he received a Performance Diploma from Indiana University where he was a student of Janos Starker and Sharon Robinson. In 2012, he was selected to the inaugural cello class at the prestigious Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Belgium, where he earned an Artist Diploma under the famed cellist Gary Hoffman. Performing collaborations have included those with artists such as Nobuko Imai, Maria João Pires, Gary Hoffman, Wolfram Christ, Martin Chalifour, members of the Juilliard String Quartet, violist Kim Kashkashian and others. Mr. Vila has appeared as a soloist with the Houston Symphony, Liège Royal Philharmonic, Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia, Santander Festival Orchestra, Aalborg Symphony, Indiana University Philharmonic, the Central Florida Orchestra, and all principal orchestras of his native Ecuador. He has been a participant at the Ravinia Steans Institute and guest artist at the Beaumaris, Santander, and Stavelot music festivals among others; as a member of the iPalpiti Festival of International Laureates performed in such venues as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall, Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, Los Angeles’ Disney Hall, Mozarteum Salzburg, and on international tours. Vila views teaching as an important aspect in music-making. In March of 2015, supported by a grant from iPalpiti Artists International, Mr. Vila founded the International Music Festival of Esmeraldas (Ecuador) in his hometown. This project that unites gifted young artists from Central and South America for two weeks of masterclasses with international artists, providing all concerts free of charge to the public. Principal cellist of the Aalborg Symphony in Denmark since 2016 - a happy collaboration with iPalpiti alumni concertmaster Vesselin Demirev and Principal 2nd Alexander Dzyubinsky - he performs on a fine 1790 Vincenzo Panormo cello on generous loan from the Saul B. and Naomi R. Cohen Foundation. iPalpiti artist since 2009, this season Francisco joined iPalpiti Artists International as a Fellow of the New Leadership Initiative.

Svetlana Smolina

Piano/Russia-Belgium-USA

Svetlana Smolina's website

“Music is the most amazing gift a human being can have, and I pour all my feelings into each piece I perform.”

Svetlana, born in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, has performed with orchestras and in recitals worldwide. Notable solo appearances with orchestras include Mariinsky Orchestra at Carnegie Hall, New York Philharmonic at Avery Fischer, St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Orchestra National de France, Pittsburgh Symphony, and many others.

A frequent guest at festivals worldwide, Ms. Smolina performances included Salzburg Festival, Hollywood Bowl Festival in Los Angeles, Ravinia Rising Stars Festival in Chicago, White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg, Maggio Musicale in Florence, Rotterdam Phillips Gergiev Festival in Holland, International Gilmore Keyboard Festival, Hennessy Artists Series at Hanoi Opera House, Vietnam.

As recitalist she appeared in prestigious halls such as Royal Covent Garden Opera, Mariinsky 3 Concert Hall, Tchaikovsky Moscow Conservatory Hall, Kravis Center in West Palm Beach, Lincoln Theater in Miami, Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Grand Artists Series in Tel-Aviv, Academia Santa Cecilia in Rome, Vienna’s Sacher Hall, and many others.

Recordings and broadcasts include Stravinsky’s Les Noces (Valery Gergiev, conductor on Decca/Phillips and on Mariinsky Label which received ICMA award for Best Choral Work in 2011), a recording of solo works for the Chopin Project, a recital with violinist Vadim Repin for Deutsche Grammophone in Berlin and broadcasts for NPR, BBC, PBS, RAI, Cultura TV and other networks.

Recipient of the “New Names” Scholarship program in Russia, Svetlana has been a prizewinner of many international piano competitions, as well as Murray Dranoff International Duo Piano Competition (with Maxim Mogilevsky) in Miami, a triumph which has been echoed many times in distinguished prizes and awards.

DMA graduate from the University of Michigan, Svetlana received her BM from the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, M.M. from the College of Musical Arts at Bowling Green State University. Her principal teachers include Alexander Toradze, Arthur Greene, Natalia Fisch, Evgeny Mogilevsky, Monique Duphil. In the summer of 2011 Svetlana joined iPalpiti Festival of International Laureates in Los Angeles, making her debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall with iPalpiti Orchestra (Eduard Schmieder, conductor) and since, has been returning to iPalpiti festivals in solo and chamber concerts, and playing series of recitals in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Orange Counties in California.

Svetlana Smolina was the Samuel Barber Artist -In-Residence at West Chester University of Pennsylvania's School of Music, and is a member of the piano faculty at Philadelphia International Summer Festival. Her current projects include recording a solo album at Cove City Sound Studios; the recording of Martin Matalon works for Naxos; the soundtrack for the upcoming film “You are Not You” starring Hilary Swank; and a tour of China with the Russian European Orchestra in 2014. This season she performed to critical acclaim in a duo with famed violinist Vadim Repin (iPalpiti’ Artistic Advisor) at Kroener Hall in Toronto.