der chor: For eight years now 10 to 20 women have been meeting in living rooms in Munich and singing international, classical choir music. During their performances they like to perform in costume and with choreography, using playback or singing songs live, which are arranged and produced by the choir director Auður Jónsdóttir.

Estelle Costanzo (born in 1985 in Italy) studied harp under G. Bosio in Turin; C. Mathieu at the School of Music in Lausanne; S. O'Brien at the School of Music in Basel; and F. Cambreling at Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP). She won Second Prize at the international harp competition "V. Bucchi" in Rome (2012), and Second Prize at "Concours Nicati" in Bern (2015). She has been a member of the Lucerne Festival Academy since 2013. Estelle founded the new music ensembles "neuverband"; "TooHotToHoot"; and "ensemble viceversa." She worked at Theater Basel and with the Lucerne Festival on the show "HEROÏCA" ("Young Ears Prize" in 2014). Estelle has performed with the Intercontemporain ensemble; Berner Symphonie-Orchester; Sinfonietta Basel; Orquesta Filarmonica de Bogotà; Ensemble Phoenix; and at festivals such as Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele; ManiFeste IRCAM; MITO Settembre Musica; and Lucerne Festival, among others.

Marie Delprat (b. 1991, Bordeaux)
She began studying the recorder at the music conservatory in Bordeaux. At the same time she attended different academies, such as, for example, the early music festivals in Sablé and Lisieux, where she attended classes taught by Beengt Toïgo and Pierre Hamon. In 2009 she started her studies under Pierre Boragno at the music conservatory in Versailles, where she had the opportunity to perform during the "jeudis Musicaux" at the Centre de Musique Baroque de Versailles (CMBV) under the direction of Olivier Schneebeli.

In 2012 she met Michael Form at Festival d'Urbino in Italy and started her studies at the Bern University of the Arts. There she discovered the world of music theater and took part in the project "Happy Hour," which was written by Hanz Wütrich; Pierre Sublet and Françoise Rivalland were in charge of the project.

Last year she received her bachelor's degree with honors in the recorder and she made the decision to expand her artistic field: she became involved in music theater and also in the area of early music.

In 2015 she began to study music theater under Xavier Dayer. In order to expand her knowledge of contemporary music she attended Jan van Hoecke's classes at the Institute of Advanced Musical Studies (HEMU) in Lausanne.

The ensemble she founded in Basel, El Gran Teatro del Mundo, has been "en résidence" at the Théâtre des Quatre Saisons for three years now. Here she has the opportunity to study chamber music under Amandine Beyer and the musicologist Olivier Fourès.

Béatrice Gaudreault-Laplante studied with Philippe Magnan, Lise Beauchamp, Éric Speller and Matthias Arter. In 2012, she received her Master's diploma from the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin and is now focusing on Théâtre Musical at the Bern University of the Arts.  Béatrice has played in the KKL Lucerne, Berliner Philharmonie and the Gewandhaus Leipzig with Sir Simon Rattle, Heinz Holliger, Pierre Boulez, and Peter Etvös, among others. In addition to classical repertoire, Béatrice is also passionate about modern works. Since 2012 Gaudreault-Laplante has played English horn in the new music ensemble “Ostravska Banda” and performed in a variety of festivals, including the Prague Spring Festival, Beyond Cage Festival (New York) and Klangwerkstatt Berlin. In 2012 and 2014, she was "akademist" with the Ensemble Intercontemporain (Lucerne Festival), Ensemble Moderne (Klangspuren Festival). Since 2014 Gaudreault-Laplante continues to develop her abilities within the universe of Théâtre Musical at the Bern University of the Arts. She has received scholarships from the Conseil des Arts du Canada, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec and Les Offices Jeunesse Internationaux du Québec. In 2009, she won first prize in the Concours International de l’UFAM in Paris, and also first prize in her category for the Canada Music Competition in both 2005 and 2007.

A native of Atlanta, Georgia, K​atelyn King​is a percussionist without boundaries, finding non­traditional and unexplored ways to connect with audiences. When Katelyn is not attempting to learn German, she is working on her Master in Composition and Theory in Théâtre Musical at the Hochschule der Künste Bern in Switzerland. In addition to working with her colleagues and professors at the HKB, Katelyn is involved in multiple projects: speak/strike–a duo repertoire initiative project bringing together American composers to create new music for speaking and percussion; Dressage Percussion–an all­women theatrical percussion trio; an experimental duo with Actor Nico Delpy; and a production of Heinrich von Kleist’s E​rdbeben in Chili a​t the Stadttheater in Bern.

The cellist Lana Kostic was born in 1988 in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After graduating early from secondary school with her music final exams in 2006, she studied at the University of the Arts Bremen in Professor Alexander Baillie's class. In 2008/2009 she had private instruction from Professor David Grigorian in Munich. In 2014 she received her diploma with honors in Johannes Krebs' class at the University of the Arts Bremen. Since 2014 she has been studying at the Bern University of the Arts in Professor Conradin Brotbek's class and in the musical theater department in the master's degree program of composition and theory.

She has won many international and national competitions, including the special award in the International String Competition Rudolf Matz.

From 2010 to 2014 she was a member of Cellowerk in Bremen, where she taught and performed concerts regularly. She also was the director of the master course at Musiktage Spiekeroog.

In 2014/2015 she received a grant from the Gesellschaft zu Ober-Gerwern, and in 2015 she received grants from the Foundation Iréne Delerez and the Rita Zimmerman Music Foundation. She will perform with Ensemble Vertigo and the composer H. Lachenmann on the occasion of his 80th birthday during the 2016/2017 season.

In the area of pop music she will go on tour in Germany with the group Adoro.

The press has described her playing as markedly competent and beautiful in tone (Göttinger Tageblatt, Rotenburger Rundschau, etc.).

In addition to performances of classical and contemporary music she devotes herself to researching and performing traditional music from the Balkans, including, among other activities, as a member of BalkanCello and as a duo with the accordion player Gyorgi Spasov.

She is especially interested in the interdisciplinary conjunction of different art forms, such as the interplay of instruments, language, and movement. In this connection, the close collaboration with other artists who have different focuses is of great importance to her, and as a result she has participated in various interdisciplinary projects such as, for example:

The film "Dvorak who?" directed by J. Harlan (executive producer: S. Kubrick)
As a theater musician in the project "Junges Theater Sarajevo" at Theater am Goetheplatz in Bremen
Movement and dance projects, such as eurhythmy and concept improvisation
Electronic music projects in collaboration with genereticartensemble, and also as a member of the Stein&Staub quartet

In addition, she has worked frequently as a studio musician in the areas of contemporary, classical, pop, and world music in Bern; Sarajevo; Osnabrück; and Bremen.

Ruben Mattia Santorsa is an Italian classical and electric guitarist. He graduated the Master of Performance at the Hochschule of Bern with Elena Càsoli with Auszeichnung. He is attending the Solistendiplom in Bern and won the scholarship Swiss Government Excellence for the years 2013-2015. He graduated with the maximum note at the conservatory of Verona and with the maximum note and lode at the Biennio Sperimentale of guitar with Walter Zanetti at the conservatory of Bologna. He has given several solo recitals in Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Germany and Colombia in cities like Wien (Istituto Italiano di Cultura), Bogotà (Universidad de los Andes), Lugano (Auditorium Rsi) etc. He is specializing in contemporary music, and met and worked with composers like H. Lachenmann, H. Oehring, S. Sciarrino, G Manzoni, S.Bussotti, M. Pisati, C. Peralta. He played the premieres of pieces by many composers among which H. Oehring, C. Peralta, R.Quindici, M. Azzan and R. De Cia.    

Born in 1991 in Biel, Switzerland, Sibill Urweider has been intensely interested since her early childhood years not only in piano but also in voice and movement. Up until she started studying piano under Pierre Sublet at the Bern University of the Arts she trained intensively in rhythmic gymnastics and dance, and she started taking voice lessons from Eliane Geiser at the Musikschule Biel when she was nine years old. This led to a huge interest in contemporary music and interactive manners of expression. To experience music through the body and the voice, to explore it through improvisation and composition, and to create a personal interpretation of the pieces are the central points of her artistic work. After graduating from the program for talented pupils at the secondary school Hofwil Gymnasium and receiving her bachelor's degree in 2012, Sibill Urweider studied for one semester at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland. In January 2015 she received her master of arts degree with honors in music education, and immediately afterwards she started studying for her second master's degree, this time in musical theater; she expects to complete her master's degree in the summer of 2016.

Sibill Urweider performs in two bands: in a street musician group by the name of "Sibill et les Beaux," and as a singer in the post-punk band "I MADE YOU A TAPE."

Noémie Brun, born in Geneva in 1990, is a pianist and composer.

Noémie begins her composition studies at the Haute Ecole de Musique of Geneva with Nicolas Bolens in 2009. Then, she enters the class of Xavier Dayer in the Bern University of the arts (HKB) where she obtains in 2012 a bachelor’s degree in composition with honours. In parallel, Noémie studies the piano with Pierre Sublet and graduates in 2015. She is currently attending a master degree in Théâtre Musical in the HKB.

Her compositions have been performed in Europe and in the USA and played by ensembles and soloists like the Ensemble Makrokosmos (CH), Ensemble Vertigo (CH),  the Ensemble Réponses XX-XI (FR), the Ensemble Hodiernis (CH), Peter Evans (USA), Dave Eggar (USA) and Vesselin Gellev (GB). At present, she is resident composer of the Ensemble Instrumental et Vocal InterAlpin (FR). She had the opportunity to work with accomplished artists like François-Xavier Roth, Stefano Gervasoni, Helmut Lachenmann, William Blank, and Matthias Rebstock

In October 1967 I was 13. I was home, in the house, in the bathroom, under the shower, the radio was playing, Schoenberg’s opus 11. Later I studied the wholly traditional piano repertoire, in order for me thereafter, in Paris, to tackle the 20^th century. Winning a number of competitions got a normal career under way, with tours on the continents, premieres and recordings, master classes from China through the Teatro Colòn to New York.

Back then, as member of a highschool management, I brought to life the workshop of contemporary music. Ever since, professional musicians came year after year from all corners of Europe to further their education. For a few years I was also vice-president of the Swiss Musicians Association.

I have been active in interdisciplinary projects with artists such as Alfred Brendel, Bruno Ganz, Roman Signer, Marianne Pousseur, and others.

I love Schubert, the Théâtre musical, the clavichord, gastronomy, and have staged Europera 2 and Staatstheater.

Cyrill Lim is a composer and sound artist. His examination of the aspects of perception and reflection of the used media leads mainly to performative and installative works that tries to experimentally gauge the physical qualities of space and material to offer a tangible experience on a musical level.

After his initial voice training with the Basel Boys Choir, he studied horn and voice in Biel/Bienne, Geneva, and Karlsruhe and at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. He performed at, among others, the Residenzwochen München; Les Pélerinages in Weimar; and at the Hugo Wolf Fest in Stuttgart. In addition to art songs he also devotes himself to oratorios, and he is very sought-after in this field, especially for the role of The Evangelist in Bach's Passions. He had engagements in baroque opera at Schloss Waldegg; the Lucerne Festival; and Theater Basel. Michael Feyfar received awards from the Ernst Göhner Foundation and the Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund (MGB). Most recently he could be seen onstage at Konzert Theater Bern in the roles First Stranger in "The Cousin from Nowhere"; Scaramuccio in "Ariadne auf Naxos"; Reverend Horace Adams in "Peter Grimes"; Artémidore in "Armide"; Tamino in "The Magic Flute"; Narraboth und Second Jew in "Salome"; and Second Pastore and Second Spirito in "L'Orfeo."

was born in South Africa, and after he studied voice the most significant roles he performed were Jupiter in "Semele"; Belmonte and Tamino in "The Magic Flute"; Nemorino in "L'elisir d'amore"; Ernesto in "Don Pasquale"; Lindoro in "L' Italiana in Algeri"; and Ferrando in "Così fan tutte." From 2001 to 2004 he was a member of the ensemble in Graz. Guest performances took him to, among others, the Wiener Kammeroper; Darmstadt; Cape Town; Johannesburg; Seville; the Innsbrucker Festwochen; and the Aldeburgh Festival. Since 2006 Andries Cloete has been a permanent member of the ensemble in Bern and most recently he performed there the roles of Jaquino in "Fidelio"; Malcolm in "Macbeth"; Pedrillo and Belmonte in "The Abduction from the Seraglio"; Schoolmaster and Mosquito in "The Cunning Little Vixen"; Egon von Wildenhagen in "The Cousin from Nowhere"; the Dancing Master and Brighella in "Ariadne auf Naxos"; Bob Boles in "Peter Grimes"; Renaud in Gluck's "Armide"; Monostatos in "The Magic Flute"; First Jew in "Salome"; Nobleman of Brabant in "Lohengrin"; Heger in "Rusalka"; and in "L'Orfeo" and in "Romeo and Juliet."

Born in 1987, Maxine Devaud grew up in Fribourg, Switzerland. After studying photography for two years at the École Cantonale d’Art de Lausanne, she studied musicology and art history at the University of Basel. The violin has accompanied Maxine Devaud almost her entire life, and as a violinist she was a member of the Swiss Youth Symphony Orchestra for many years. Since 2014 she has been an assistant director working on music theater and theater productions. She has worked with directors such as Calixto Bieito; Christian Zehnder; Ludger Engels; and Markus Bothe on successful productions at Opernhaus Zürich; Theater Basel; and Konzert Theater Bern. Maxine Devaud is currently working as an assistant director at Konzert Theater Bern.