Artists 2025
David Coucheron
Violin
His phrasing is elegant and his concentrated tune a thing of beauty.
David Coucheron
Violin
David Coucheron is Concertmaster of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra. He won the position in competition with more than 200 contestants, becoming the youngest Concertmaster of any major US orchestra. Born in Oslo, Norway, David Coucheron began playing the violin when he was three years old. He earned a Bachelor’s of Music degree at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, a Master’s of Music at the Juilliard School of Music in New York and a Master’s of Performance from Guildhall School of Music in London. He has studied with such eminent professors as Igor Ozim, Aaron Rosand, Lewis Kaplan and David Takeno. David plays a 1732 Stradivarius, loaned to him by the Anders Sveaas Almennyttige Fond.
Julie Coucheron
Piano
She has a beautiful legato and rubatoplay with great sense of melodic lines and exact vocals.
Julie Coucheron
Piano
At twenty-seven years of age, Ms. Coucheron has already established an international career, winning prizes in Italy, Germany and the United States. Ms. Coucheron has worked with musicians such as Claude Frank and Emanuel Ax. She has toured Europe, America, South America and Asia, performing on such great concert stages as Verizon Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Kennedy Center and Carnegie Hall.
Born in Oslo, Norway, Ms. Coucheron began to play the piano at the age of four. She earned her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees at the Royal Academy of Music in London, with honors. Ms. Coucheron has performed at festivals such as the Oslo Chamber Music Festival, the Bergen International Music Festival and at the La Jolla Summerfest. For the last two years, Julie has been artistic director of the Fjord Cadenza festival in Norway. She is also a founding member of the Kon-Tiki Classical Music Fest in Oslo, Norway. In September, 2002, she released her first recording, ‘Debut’, on the Naxos label, performing with her brother, David. The CD includes lyrical and virtuoso music from the classical repertoire. In September, 2008, Ms. Coucheron and her brother released their second recording, ‘David and Julie’, on the Mudi/Naxos label. This recording, which includes sonatas by Grieg and Brahms, received superb reviews worldwide. Ms. Coucheron is a member of the Georgian Chamber Players and recently performed the Brahms piano quartet with them in Spivey Hall in Atlanta.
Cynthia Phelps
Viola
Cynthia Phelps, principal violist of the New York Philharmonic, is an award-winning musician recognized as one of the world’s leading violists.
Cynthia Phelps
Viola
Violist CYNTHIA PHELPS‘s versatile career includes appearances as chamber musician, soloist, and as Principal Violist of the New York Philharmonic, with which she has appeared as soloist on major stages across the globe, performing an extensive repertoire including 2 specially commissioned works; a concerto by composer Julia Adolphe, which also premiered at the Eastern Music Festival, and a double concerto commissioned for her with Associate Principal violist Rebecca Young by the acclaimed Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, among other repertoire. She has also been featured in several nationwide “Live from Lincoln Center” telecasts with the Philharmonic and Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and on National Public Radio, Radio France, and RAI in Italy. Other solo appearances include the Minnesota Orchestra, Shanghai, Vermont, and San Diego Symphonies, Orquesta Sinfonica de Bilbao, and Hong Kong Philharmonic. She has collaborated internationally with such artists as Itzhak Perlman, Emmanual Ax, Pinchas Zukerman, Gil Shaham, Yo-Yo Ma, Lynn Harrell, and Yefim Bronfman, among many others, and has given recitals in the major music capitals across the globe.
A much sought-after chamber musician, she performs regularly with the Boston Chamber Music Society, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and at New York’s Tisch Center for the Arts at the 92nd Street Y, as well as with ensembles including the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, the Guarneri, American, and Brentano String Quartets. She is a frequent guest at the Marlboro, Summerfest LaJolla, Bridgehampton, Vail, Mostly Mozart, Santa Fe, Cremona, and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals and is a founding member of “Les Amies,” a flute-harp-viola trio.
Ms. Phelps many honors include First Prize in both the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition and the Washington National Competition, and she is a recipient of the Pro Musicis International Award. Her most recent recording, Air, for flute, harp and viola, was nominated for a Grammy Award and her recordings can be heard on the Marlboro Recording Society, Covenant, Nuova Era, Polyvideo, Virgin Classics, and Cala labels, and itunes, in a recording of Harold in Italy with the New York Philharmonic.
Lars Anders Tomter
Viola
The Giant of the Nordic Viola
The Strad
Lars Anders Tomter
Viola
Lars Anders Tomter is one of today’s most outstanding violists. The Giant of the Nordic Viola (The Strad) was born at Hamar, Norway. He began to play the violin at the age of eight and also took up the viola. Both instruments he studied with Professor Leif Jørgensen at the Oslo Music Conservatory and the Norwegian State Academy. He then continued his studies with Professor Max Rostal and with Sándor Vegh. He was awarded a special prize for his interpretation of Bartók’s Viola Concerto at the International Viola Competition in Budapest in 1984 and then went on to win the Maurice Vieux International Competition in Lille in 1986.
Lars Anders Tomter has distinguished himself by performing new music extensively, including the world premiere of four concertos by Ragnar Söderlind, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Rolf Wallin and Anders Eliasson, which have all been written for Lars Anders Tomter.
Lars Anders Tomter’s appearances as an international viola soloist has been greeted with the highest public and critical acclaim throughout Europe and the United States, such as Vienna Musikverein, New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin and the Kölner Philharmonie. He has performed with orchestras such as BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Dutch Radio Philharmonic, Swedish Radio Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic and Bergen Philharmonic. Conductors with whom he has worked together include among others Marc Albrecht, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Dennis Russell Davies, Daniele Gatti, Manfred Honeck, Krzysztof Penderecki, Arvid Jansons, Ervin Lukács, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and John Storgårds. In addition, Lars Anders Tomter collaborates frequently with internationally renowned musicians in chamber music projects.
Lars Anders Tomter is a regular guest at important festivals such as BBC Proms, Kissingen Summer, Mondseetage, Schleswig-Holstein, Schwetzingen,Verbier as well as at a number of festivals in Scandinavia. In addition, he is joint artistic director of the Norwegian Risør Chamber Music Festival. His large repertoire includes all major contemporary works, and he has recorded for Simax, Naxos, Virgin Classics, NMC, Somm and Chandos.
Lars Anders Tomter is a Professor at the State Academy in Oslo, supervising a number of Norway’s most talented string players. In 2013 he was appointed assistant professor at the Royal Danish Music Academy, Copenhagen. He plays a Gasparo da Salo viola dated from 1590.
Miriam Helms Ålien
Violin
Miriam Helms Ålien from Alta debuted as a violin soloist at the age of eight and is considered one of Norway’s most exciting young musicians.
Miriam Helms Ålien
Violin
Praised for her "extraordinary musicality" and "maturity way beyond her years", Miriam Helms Ålien is one of the most exciting young artists to emerge from Norway in recent years. Born in Alta in Northern-Norway, she started playing the violin when she was 6 ½ years old and has, since her solo debut at 8 years old, been a soloist with many of the Norwegian orchestras as well as with orchestras in Germany, Israel, Denmark, Italy, the Czech Republic and Russia.
Recent and upcoming highlights include performances with Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and Schweizer Camerata in KKL Luzern, as well as chamber music performances in the Liszt Academy (Budapest), Berlin Konzerthaus, the Intl. Bergen Festival, and the 2nd edition of FESTIVALTA - the world's northernmost chamber music festival of its kind, for which Miriam is the artistic director.
Recent seasons have included performances with orchestras like the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Bergen Philharmonic, Trondheim Symphony Orchestra, Arctic Philharmonic, Israeli Netanya Orchestra, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra Pardubice, Tromsø Symphony Orchestra, Arkhangelsk Chamber Orchestra and the Oslo Camerata.
A dedicated and passionate chamber musician, Miriam has been invited to play at numerous festivals, including the Bergen International Festival, Kissinger Sommer, Beethoven-Woche Bonn, Verbier Festival & Academy, Kronberg “Chamber Music Connects the World” Festival and OCM Prussia Cove, as well as the International Chamber Music Festivals in Oslo, Trondheim and Risør. Here she has worked closely with distinguished artists like András Schiff, Gidon Kremer, Tabea Zimmermann, Radovan Vlatković and Steven Isserlis.
Since 2020 she is also the founder and artistic director of her own international chamber music festival "FESTIVALTA" in her hometown, likely making it the world's northern-most festival of its kind.
Miriam has been invited to perform in famous halls like Wigmore Hall, KKL Luzern, Louvre Paris, Berlin Konzerthaus, the Norwegian Opera House, and she is also a regular performer on international TV and radio broadcasts.
In 2012 Miriam won the prestigious Princess Astrid Music Price. Previously she won first prize at the Kocian Violin Competition in the Czech Republic, the overall winner and recipient of the the Grand Prix Laureate, EMCY Prize and Bärenreiter Prize. She was awarded the Sparre Olsen Prize and Norwegian Music Publisher's Prize of Honour in 2009, and was named Norway’s "Young Musician of the Year 2010". She was also chosen by the Oslo Philharmonic as Norway’s representative for the Nordic Soloist Prize.
Miriam recently graduated from the Kronberg Academy where she studied with Prof. Ana Chumachenco and Tabea Zimmermann. Previously she studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Munich, the HfM "Hanns Eisler" in Berlin and at the Barratt Due Institute for Music in Oslo. Former teachers include Ulf Wallin, Stephan Barratt-Due, Alf Richard and Henning
Wolfgang Plagge
Piano
Wolfgang Plagge made his debut as a pianist at the University Aula at the age of twelve and is renowned for his distinctive and engaging musical style.
Wolfgang Plagge
Piano
Wolfgang Plagge started playing the piano at the age of four, and at age twelve, he made his debut as a pianist in the University’s Recital Hall. Plagge has studied piano in Oslo and the Hamburg Academy of Music. His composition teachers in Norway were Øistein Sommerfeldt and Johan Kvandal, and in Germany he studied with György Ligeti. Plagge began composing as a child, and has developed an extensive list of works with a wide range of content throughout the years. As a piano soloist and chamber musician, he is active all over the world and collaborates with a number of renowned musicians, both at home and abroad. Plagge is passionate about historical and musicologic research, something which is often apparent in his compositions. His compositions are headstrong and his tonal language engaging, qualities that has resulted in a large audience and enthusiastic musicians across the globe. Over the years, Wolfgang has gained a large audience as a speaker and communicator of music, including numerous programs on NRK. Since 2009, he has been a professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music.
Andreas Brantelid
Cello
Andreas plays the 1707 ‘Boni-Hegar’ Stradivarius, which has been made available to him by the generous support of Norwegian art collector Christen Sveaas.
Andreas Brantelid
Cello
Andreas Brantelid was born in Copenhagen in 1987 to Swedish/Danish parents. After receiving early tuition from his father Ingemar, Andreas made his soloist debut at the age of 14 in a performance of the Elgar concerto with the Royal Danish Orchestra in Copenhagen. Today, Andreas is one of the most sought-after performing artists from Scandinavia, winning worldwide critical acclaim for his thought-provoking interpretations, uniquely colorful sound and engaging personality.
Highlights of recent orchestra engagements includes appearances with the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras, Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Seattle Symphony, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, Leipzig Radio Symphony, Hamburger Symphoniker, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Munich Chamber Orchestra, as well as all the major orchestras in the Nordic countries. He has worked with many distinguished conductors including Andris Nelsons, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Vasily Petrenko, and Heinrich Schiff.
Andreas Brantelid has appeared in venues such as Dortmund Konzerthaus, where he has been a ‘Junge Wilde’ artist, New York (Carnegie Hall and Alice Tully Hall), London (Wigmore Hall), Zurich (Tonhalle), Amsterdam (Concertgebouw), Barcelona (Palau de la Música), Salzburg (Mozarteum) and Tokyo (Metropolitan Theatre). He also performs at festivals including Verbier, Lockenhaus, Jerusalem, Stavanger, Bergen, Risør, Kuhmo, and Wiener Festwochen, and has been a member of the Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society.
Andreas won first prizes in the 2006 Eurovison Young Musicians Competion, the 2007 International Paulo Cello Competition and, in subsequent years, received music awards and fellowships including the Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship in 2008, the BBC’s New Generation Artist 2008-2011, The Europan Concert Hall Organization “Rising Star” tour in the 2008/09 season. In 2015 he received the Carl Nielsen Prize in Copenhagen. In 2018 Andreas Brantelid has become Artistic Director at the Stavanger International Chamber Music Festival.
Andreas plays the 1707 ‘Boni-Hegar’ Stradivarius, which has been made available to him by the generous support of Norwegian art collector Christen Sveaas.
