Béatrice
Martin
Professor of Harpsichord
Born in Annecy, Béatrice Martin began studying harpsichord at the age of six. Her musical journey led her to study with prominent harpsichordists such as Christiane Jaccottet at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève, Kenneth Gilbert, and Christophe Rousset at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. She obtained numerous first prizes with highest honors and completed an advanced cycle of studies there. She also received valuable guidance from Huguette Dreyfus, Ton Koopman, and Lars-Ulrik Mortensen during masterclasses.
In 1998, she won first prize at the International Harpsichord Competition in Bruges, along with the Audience Prize and the Bärenreiter Prize. The following year, she was named a Revelation by ADAMI at MIDEM in Cannes.
Highly regarded for her skills as a continuo player, she has performed at numerous festivals and with a variety of ensembles. She has been a close collaborator with William Christie and Les Arts Florissants for twenty years.
Recognized for her teaching abilities, Béatrice Martin established the harpsichord class at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona and currently serves as a guest professor at the Juilliard School in New York.
In 2000, Béatrice Martin co-founded Les Folies françoises with Patrick Cohën-Akenine, actively contributing to its development.
Learn more about Béatrice Martin.
Denis
Rouger
Professeur de direction de chœur
Denis Rouger est reconnu pour la riche sonorité de ses ensembles et la finesse de son interprétation.
Il a fait ses premiers pas musicaux au sein d’une famille parisienne de musiciens et a ensuite étudié au Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris
ou il a remporté des premiers prix en harmonie, fugue et contrepoint. Pendant 20 ans, il a été professeur et chef de chœur à l’Université Paris-Sorbonne et pendant 10 ans il a assuré la direction des chœurs de la cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris.
Il est maitre de chapelle honoraire de l’église de La Madeleine à Paris.
En Allemagne, il a travaillé avec de nombreux ensembles et a ainsi été invité à
diriger différents chœurs de radio, le Balthasar-Neumann-Chor, le Chœur Régional des Jeunes de Bade-Wurtemberg, ainsi que l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Stuttgart. Des concerts l’ont conduit en Italie, aux Pays-Bas, au Canada, en Russie, dans les Emirats Arabes Unis et en Suisse (Festival de Lucerne). Il donne des masterclasses en Suède, en Bulgarie, en France, en Allemagne et en Suisse.
Depuis 2011, Denis Rouger est professeur de direction de chœur à la Musikhochschule (Haute école de musique) de Stuttgart. Le chœur de chambre de la Musikhochschule qu’il a créé à l’automne 2011 a remporté en 2014 le premier prix au Concours choral international de Mosbach (Allemagne).
En dehors de son travail de chef de chœur, il compose et arrange le répertoire mélodique français et allemand pour chœur. Les CD "Kennst du das Land ...,
... wo die Zitronen blühn (Carus) et Rencontre – Begegnung" (Carus/SWR) qui présentent ces arrangements ont été salués par la critique. En 2025 sortira un disque avec les œuvres du compositeur contemporain Philippe Mazé en coopération avec la radio SWR et le label Coviello. En coopération avec les éditions Carus, il a publié le recueil Musique chorale française qui s’est vu décerner en 2019 le Prix allemand de la meilleure édition musicale ≪ Best Edition ≫.
En 2016, Denis Rouger a créé le figure humaine kammerchor (www.figurehumaine.de) avec lequel il se produit régulièrement en concert lors de festivals de renom. À partir de septembre 2024 il enseigne également à la Haute école de musique de Genève.
On devrait faire faire un apprentissage à chaque futur chef de chœur auprès de Denis Rouger.
[…] Même dans le plus grand fortissimo, le geste de Rouger reste rond. Une „technique de battue anguleuse“ n’existe pas chez ce magicien du son. Le résultat est un jaillissement constant de sons, différencié de façon très variée. […]
Peter Skobowsky, Rems-Zeitung
Ricardo
Castro
Head of the Keyboard Instruments Department - Professor of Piano
Born in Vitória da Conquista, a small town in northeastern Brazil, Ricardo Castro began playing the piano at the age of three. At five, he entered the School of Music and Arts at the University of Bahia, and three years later, he made his debut giving recitals. At the age of ten, Ricardo Castro performed Haydn's Piano Concerto in D major as a soloist. Several orchestral concerts and national prizes followed immediately.
In 1984, he moved to Europe to study piano and conducting at the Conservatoire de Musique de Genève with Maria Tipo and Arpad Gerecz, respectively. He also studied with Dominique Merlet in Paris. Castro won First Prize at the Rahn Competition in 1985 and the Josef Pembaur Competition in 1986. He graduated from the Conservatoire de Genève in 1987, receiving the First Prize of Virtuosity with distinction and congratulations from the jury. That same year, he became co-winner of the ARD International Music Competition in Munich and in 1988, he won Third Prize at the Géza Anda Competition. In 1993, he received First Prize at the Leeds International Piano Competition, becoming the only South American winner to date.
In 2003, he formed a piano duo with Maria João Pires. They performed a series of recitals in major European venues and released a CD of Schubert's works on Deutsche Grammophon. Ricardo Castro has recorded several other CDs with BMG/Arte Nova, both in recital and with orchestra.
As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras such as the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Zurich Tonhalle, BBC Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Tokyo Philharmonic, and Mozarteum Orchestra of Salzburg. He has played and conducted in prestigious concert halls, including the Barbican Centre and Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, Santa Cecilia in Rome, Philharmonie de Paris, and Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. His partners have included Sir Simon Rattle, Midori, Leif Segerstam, Martha Argerich, Antonio Meneses, Yakov Kreizberg, Kazimierz Kord, Jean-Yves Thibaudet, Maria João Pires, and Shlomo Mintz.
In 2007, Ricardo Castro, invited by the government of the State of Bahia, founded NEOJIBA (Centers of Youth and Children's Orchestras of the State of Bahia), a pioneering program in Brazil. He serves as the general director of this program, which in 2020, involved around 6,000 young people and children throughout the State of Bahia. With the program's main orchestra, the NEOJIBA Orchestra, Ricardo Castro has conducted seven international tours, performing in some of the world's most important concert halls.
In 2013, Ricardo Castro became the first Brazilian to be named an Honorary Member of the Royal Philharmonic Society, joining the ranks of the greatest names in Western music. Highly committed to social causes, Ricardo Castro has dedicated a significant portion of his time to educational activities over the years. He is the founding director of the NEOJIBA Orchestra and a professor of advanced piano classes at the Haute école de musique de Genève and the Haute école de musique de Lausanne, as well as at the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole in Italy.
Sébastian
Jacot
Professor of flute
Sébastian Jacot joins the HEM as flute professor for the 2026–2027 academic year
Sébastian Jacot is an internationally renowned flutist, recognised for his demanding artistic career and unique musical approach. Born in Geneva, he trained with Jacques Zoon and began his professional career at the age of eighteen as assistant principal flute with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra. He was then appointed principal flute with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, followed by the Berlin Philharmonic.
A winner of major international competitions – the Kobe International Flute Competition, the ARD in Munich and the Carl Nielsen Competition – he pursues a career as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral musician on the major stages of Europe, Asia and the Americas, collaborating with many leading conductors and ensembles.
Alongside his concert activities, he is deeply committed to teaching. He has taught at the University of the Arts in Bremen, the Hanns Eisler Hochschule in Berlin and the Karajan Academy, and regularly gives masterclasses internationally. He has also carried out extensive work in the field of contemporary music, notably with the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva. His teaching is based on a holistic approach that integrates body awareness, movement and fidelity to the musical text, informed by a concrete knowledge of current professional realities.
Pierre
Goy
Professor of Fortepiano, Clavichord, and Historical Keyboards
Pierre Goy studied piano with Fausto Zadra, Edith Murano, Esther Yellin, and Vlado Perlemuter, and attended masterclasses with Jörg Demus and Nikita Magaloff. A laureate of several competitions, he has performed concerts in Europe and the United States. Passionate about the expressive possibilities of historical instruments, he attended seminars by Paul Badura-Skoda and Jesper Christensen on rubato.
Pierre Goy strives to render the music of each era with the corresponding instrument. He forms a duo with Nicole Hostettler, performing on two fortepianos, the harpsichord and fortepiano, or two clavichords. They recorded the keyboard works of J. G. Müthel (Cantando 2016). He also recorded Liszt's "Années de Pèlerinage: Première année: Suisse" on a Richard Lipp piano from 1870 (Cantando 9814). For the Lyrinx Srumenti label (LYR 247), he recorded Chopin's early works on a replica of an 1826 Graf fortepiano, a recording unanimously praised by critics (five Diapasons, a Coup de cœur - Revue du son). His recording "Claviers mozartiens" (LYR 2251) won a Diapason d’or, a Coup de cœur, and an Opus d’or – Opus Haute Définition. Recently, with Nicole Hostettler, he recorded the two-keyboard works of Armand Louis Couperin on the Taskin fortepiano and the Ruckers-Taskin harpsichord at the Musée de la Musique.
In chamber music, he collaborates with members of "Il Giardino Armonico," the Quatuor Mosaïques, and the Ensemble Baroque de Limoges. He has published various articles on performance practice and instrument making.
Pierre Goy is the instigator of the Rencontres Internationales Harmoniques de Lausanne, which has gathered instrument makers, musicians, musicologists, and museum curators around historical instruments every two years since 2002.
Learn more about Pierre Goy.
Joshua
Hyde
Professor of Saxophone - Chamber Music with Saxophone - Contemporary Chamber Music
Joshua Hyde is a saxophonist, improviser, and composer.
Internationally recognized as a contemporary music performer, he is the co-artistic director and saxophonist of the Paris-based ensemble soundinitiative and a member of the duo scapegoat with Canadian percussionist Noam Bierstone. He is also a member of Australia's leading contemporary music ensemble, Elision, and is frequently invited to perform with major European ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Musikfabrik, Ensemble Nadar, and Ensemble Intercontemporain.
Joshua has recorded with Kairos, Integrated Records, NMC, HCR, Wergo, and Torpor Vigil. His collaborations with composers worldwide have resulted in a long list of premieres. Comfortable in the world of improvisation, his latest album on Integrated Records, Sol, features a series of improvised reflections.
Particularly interested in creating immersive performance contexts, his compositions often incorporate his own videos and visual arts. In 2018, the New Thread Quartet premiered Bring mir einen Engel zurück at the DiMenna Center in New York City, and in 2017, part of his Vertical Horizons series was premiered by the ensemble Son d'Arte at Casa da Música in Porto.
Joshua has been invited to perform and teach at universities worldwide, including Harvard, Oxford, and Stanford. He is also part of the artistic leadership team of the Asia Pacific Saxophone Academy. In 2011, he won the First Prize and the Audience Prize at the 3rd Jean-Marie Londeix International Saxophone Competition, and in 2014, he was a laureate of the Kranichsteiner Musikpreis at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse.
A graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in saxophone (class of Claude Delangle), chamber music (class of Hae-Sun Kang and Frédéric Stochl), and generative improvisation (class of Vincent LeQuang and Alexandros Markeas), he also studied at the CRR de Bordeaux (class of Marie-Bernadette Charrier), CRR de Versailles (class of Vincent David), and the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne (classes of Barry Cockroft and Ian Godfrey).
Learn more about Joshua Hyde.
Sylviane
Deferne
Professor of piano
Pianist Sylviane Deferne distinguished herself early on in the music world, where the press noted ‘her expressive nobility, intuition, temperament, sense of plasticity and impressive instrumental technique’.
This brilliant performer completed all her musical studies at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva, her hometown, where she was unanimously awarded a First Prize for Virtuosity.
Winner of several international competitions and named ‘Soloist of the Year’ by the French-speaking radio community, Sylviane Deferne's career quickly took off. She has performed in Europe, America and Asia and has played as a soloist with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington and the Philharmonia Orchestra in London under the baton of Charles Dutoit.
Pianist Sylviane Deferne has made numerous recordings for the DECCA, Musica Viva, Riche Lieu, DORON music and Aparté labels. She is invited to sit on the jury of international competitions and at music colleges in Switzerland and France, and shares her passion in masterclasses and with her professional students at the Geneva University of Music.
Since 2019, Sylviane Deferne has been artistic director of the Concerts d'Artémont. She brings her artistic vision to an ever-growing audience, developing season after season the highlights and intergenerational sharing.
Her latest albums, recorded at the Salle de Musique in La Chaux-de-Fonds by the Aparté label, are dedicated to Franz Schubert (Der Wanderer, solo piano, 2022), Felix Mendelssohn (complete works for violin and piano with Denitsa Kazakova and the Orchestre des Jeunes de la Suisse Romande, 2024) and Robert Schumann (Zwielicht, solo piano, autumn 2025).
Learn more about Sylviane Deferne.
Nurit
Stark
Professor of Violin
Born in Israel, violinist and violist Nurit Stark received her musical education in Tel Aviv, Berlin and Cologne with Ilan Gronich, Haim Taub and the Alban Berg Quartet. Following her first appearance as a soloist at the age of 16 in Paganini's First Violin Concerto with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, she continued to perfect her skills, performing all over the world.
As a chamber musician, she collaborates with pianist Cédric Pescia and soprano Caroline Melzer, with whom she performs at the Lockenhaus Kammermusikfest, Schleswig Holstein, Rheingau, Wien Modern and Donaueschinger Musiktage festivals.
Her passion for contemporary music has led her to give world premieres and collaborate with composers such as Sofia Gubaidulina, György Kurtág, Viktor Suslin, Peter Eötvös, Carola Bauckholt, Jennifer Walsh, Younghi Pagh-Paan, Isabel Mundry and Georg Nussbaumer.
She is also involved in avant-garde stage projects combining music and theater, and with visual artists Isabel Robson & Susanne Vincenz created Roundhouse Reverb, a video installation based on the music of György Kurtág.
Nurit Stark is a prizewinner in the George Enescu, Leopold Mozart and Ibolyka Gyarf international competitions.
Her first solo recording will be released in spring 2022 and includes solo works for violin/viola by Béla Bártok, György Ligeti, Sándor Veress and the world premiere ofAdventures of the dominant seventh chord dedicated to Nurit Stark by Peter Eötvös.
In 2019, she is appointed Professor of Violin at Stuttgart State University for Music and Performing Arts. Nurit Stark plays a P. Guarneri di Mantova violin, 1710.
Learn more about Nurit Stark
Ophélie
Gaillard
Cello Professor
An insatiable curiosity, a taste for risk, an immoderate appetite for the whole of the concerted cello repertoire, complete disregard of limits and petty quarrels: those are no doubt the features that have always set this brilliant Franco-Swiss musician apart. Her passion? Working from the sources, inquiring into the text, using her virtuosity to bring out the musical discourse and make the music loved by all.
Named “Revelation: Solo Instrumentalist of the Year” at the French Classical Music Awards (Victoires) in 2003, she has since appeared in recital at many reknowed venues: Concertgebouw Bruges and Amsterdam; Bozar and Flagey, Brussels; the theatres of Bordeaux, Avignon, Poissy, Aix-en-Provence; the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris; Oji Hall, Tokyo; London’s Wigmore Hall, as well as the most prestigous Orchestras such as l'Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, le Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, le Czech National Symphony Orchestra ou le New Japan Philharmonic
Fond of encounters, she regularly shares the stage with Lambert Wilson, hip-hop dancer Ibrahim Sissoko, choreographers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Damien Jalet, dancer Hugo Marchand (Etoile of the Opéra National de Paris), or Brazilian star singer of bossa nova Toquinho (live album Canto de sereia recorded for Aparté at the MiTo festival in 2017).
In 2005, she found Pulcinella, a collective of virtuosos with a passion for performance practice on period instruments. The recording devoted to Vivaldi, Boccherini and Bach reaped excellent ratings and several awards, among them a DIAPAON D’OR of the year.
A sought-after teacher, she regularly gives masterclasses in Europe, Asia and Central America. She is regularly invited as a member of the Jury at the ARD and Geneva Competitions and in 2014 she was appointed Professor at the Haute Ecole de Musique in Geneva.
Ophélie Gaillard plays a cello by Francesco Goffriller (1737), generously on loan from the CIC, and also an anonymous Flemish violoncello piccolo.
Learn more about Ophélie Gaillard
Mirela
Vedeva Ruaux
Professor of Double Bass
Mirella Vedeva received a virtuosity prize from the Conservatoire de Genève and graduated from the Giovanni Bottesini International Double Bass Competition. Michel Plasson, who noticed her during this competition, hired her as a soloist for the Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse. She has also collaborated with other symphonic ensembles such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande de Genève, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, and the Lausanne Sinfonietta.
Her passion for imparting her instrumental knowledge drives her towards teaching. At the Conservatoire de Genève and the Accademia, she created classes for very young double bassists starting from the age of six. In charge of directing the Music School Orchestra of the Conservatoire de Genève, she has carried out numerous educational projects.
At the Haute école de musique de Genève (HEM), she receives students from around the world, perpetuating the tradition of excellence from the school of her mentor Franco Petracchi.
She is also a professor at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Saragosse. Invited for numerous masterclasses in Italy, Spain, France, Switzerland, and China, her pedagogical talents are universally recognized.
Lastly, her activities as a soloist and chamber musician have garnered her much success both in Switzerland and abroad.
Learn more about Mirella Vedeva Ruaux.
