Maria bykova
Maria Bykova was born in 1992 in the city of Saint Petersburg (Russia). She started her violin studies with her father, who is assistant concertmaster of the Portuguese Symphonic Orchestra, when she was five years old. Later on she took part on masterclasses with the professor of Maxim Vengerov, Galina Turchaninova, in 2002 and Evgeny Bushkov in 2011. Maria finished her Bachelor in Lisbon, where she completed her studies in Metropolitana’s Higher Orchestra Academy in the class of professor Anibal Lima. Still in Portugal, she played has substitute in Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa (OML) where she had the opportunity to work with great conductors such as Michael Zilm, Evgeny Bushkov, Emilio Pomarico, Sebastian Perlowski, Jean-Marc Burfin and Pedro Neves.
In July of 2014, Maria won the place of concertmaster in the Orchestra de Jeunes de la Mediterranee (MYO) and spent three weeks being coached by members of LSO and the conductor Alain Altinoglu for a concert-tour starting in the Grand Theatre de Provence.
Between 2014 and 2016, Maria was studying at Codarts Rotterdam, from where she obtained her Master’s degree, from the class of professor Natalja Morozova. Between this period she took part in several projects, including concerts with the quartet Indigo, Nostos String Quartet, Rotterdam Ensemble and Gergiev’s Festival.
Mayuko takeda
Mayuko Takeda started playing clarinet at the age of 9 in Hokkaido, Japan.
In 2004, She joined the HBC Jr. Orchestra, appearing on the HBC television network and performed in Smetana Hall (Prague) and Musikverein (Vienna).
In 2011, she earned a Bachelor’s of Music from Sapporo Otani University with Noboru Taga. That same year, she relocated to Rotterdam to study at Codarts, Hogeschool voor de Kunsten. She finished her Bachelor’s program in June 2015 and her Master’s in 2017 where her teachers were N. Braithwaite on clarinet and Henri Bok, Davide Lattuada (Het Concertgebouw Orkest), Romke-Jan Wijmanga (Rotterdams Philharmonisch Orkest) and Fie Schouten on bass clarinet.
Mayuko has been an active member of the NJO (Nationaal Jeugd Orkest) since 2014. In October 2016 she has been selected for NPhM (Neue Philharmonie München) as a bass clarinet player. She has also performed in master classes for Luís Gomes (Portugal), José Luis Estelles (Spain), Sauro Berti (Italy), and Luís “Montanha”Afonso (Brazil) for Bass clarinet, Michel Arrignon (France) for clarinet, Christopher Redgate(England) for contemporary music master class.
Ulfhildur thorsteinsdottir
Ulfhildur Thorsteinsdóttir was born in Reykjavik, Iceland, in 1990. She comes from a musical family and early on started to show interest in music and the violin. Ulfhildur got her own violin when she was 2 and started a year later taking violin lessons with a Suzuki violin teacher. Later she went on to the Reykjavík Collage of Music where she had violin lessons with Auður Hafsteinsdóttir until she graduated in 2008. That fall Ulfhildur started her violin studies at the music department of the Iceland Academy of the Arts where her teacher was Ari Vilhjálmsson. During her studies in Iceland Ulfhildur started to explore the viola as her second instrument. After graduating from Iceland Academy of the Arts in 2011 she lived in Berlin for one year where she had lessons with the violinist Gerður Gunnarsdóttir. Ulfhildur plays the viola as her main instrument since summer of 2012 and started her viola studies at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague in fall of 2012 where her teacher was Asdis Valdimarsdottir. Ulfhildur graduated from the Royal Conservatory in spring of 2016, that same fall she started her Master studies at Codarts, Hogeschool voor de kunsten where her teacher is Julia Dinestein.
Úlfhildur is active in chamber music and orchestra playing. She has played with NJO in the Netherlands, Deutch Scandinavische Jugend Philhamonie in Germany and the Icelandic Youth Orchestra. Ulfhildur has had viola lessons from Mikhail Zemtzov, Mikhail Kugel, Hariolf Schlichtig and Nobuko Imai.
Sebastiaan carel van den bergh
Sebastiaan van den Bergh started playing cello at age 8. He started lessons at his school in Italy, with his teacher Saverio Gliozzi. After four years he moved back to the Netherlands and continued his lesssons with Rob Hageman and later with Rosalie Seinstra at the Hellendaal Institute. At the same time he completed his bilingual high-school studies at the Wolfert van Borselen in Rotterdam, after which he was accepted into the cello class of Jeroen den Herder at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
In 2013 he received his Bachelors' diploma at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam. During his studies there he attended several summer courses. Through the NJO Summer Academy, he participated in a number of projects with the Ligeti Academy. He also participated in numerous masterclasses with Pieter Wispelwey, Marcio Carneiro, Gavriel Lipkind, and Vladimir Perlin. During his final years at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam he took lessons in Baroque cello with Viola de Hoog. For two years during his studies, he was a member of the ensemble Looptail, which specialises in contemporary music, and aims to innovate and discover a wide range of unique settings and soundscapes.
In 2014 Sebastiaan started his Master studies at the Codarts Conservatory of Rotterdam, again taking his lessons from Jeroen den Herder. Whlist studying, he has been very active in the world of chamber music with his clarinet trio, which later expanded to become the Marbel Ensemble. He also took many masterclasses during the weeks of the Celloacademie Zutphen. As part of his studies in the Codarts Master het completed a research on the French composer Jean-Louis Florentz. In 2016 he received his Masters' diploma with distinction.
José Nascimento
José Nascimento was born in 1994 in the city of Braga (Portugal). He started his musical studies with is grandfather when he was 4 years old and only in 2001 started his violin studies. Over the years he studied with a lot of teachers like Tatyana Raleva, Marta Eufrázio, Oleg Martirosov and Alexandre Correia. José finished his Bachelor in Lisbon, where he completed his studies in Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra in the class of professor Agnés Sárosi.
Still in Portugal, he played with Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa (OML) where he had the opportunity to work with great conductors such as Michael Zilm, Emilio Pomarico, Sebastian Perlowski, Vitor Matos, Rodolfo Saglimbeni, Martin André, Jean-Sébastien Béreau, Scott Sandmeier, Jean-Marc Burfin and Pedro Neves. Also In Lisbon, he played as in Orquestra Gulbenkian where he worked with Joana Carneiro and Paul McCreesh.
At the moment, he is doing his Master degree at Codarts Rotterdam, in the class of professor Natalja Morozova.