New Professors 2022-2023

nina uhari
head of the vocal department

Born in Finland, Nina Uhari studied piano professionally at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, in the piano class of Matti Raekallio and Eero Heinonen, before perfecting her skills in Baltimore (USA) with Julian Martin, and then in Paris with Bernard Ringeissen. She also studied accompaniment at the Conservatoire National de Région de Rueil-Malmaison.

Following her studies she worked as a conductor at the CNIPAL (Centre National d'Insertion pour des Artistes Lyriques) in Marseille from 2003 to 2012, where she became principal conductor in 2008. At the same time she is a member of the role class at the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris.

In September 2012, Nina Uhari was hired by the HEM in Geneva as a conductor for voice classes at the Neuchâtel and Geneva sites.

She has performed in recitals and opera productions in Finland and France - MIDEM Festival, Chorégies d'Orange, Théâtre du Châtelet, Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, Festival d'Aix en Provence and at several French opera houses - but also in Germany, Austria, Spain, Colombia, Togo and the USA. She has been invited to accompany master classes with artists such as Tom Krause, Yvonne Minton, Mady Mesplé, Regina Werner and Janine Reiss.

STEPHANE N. GINSBURGH
Piano

Stephane Ginsburgh has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in numerous international festivals such as Ars Musica, Quincena Musical, ZKM Imatronic, Agora Ircam, Bach Academie Brugge, Ultima Oslo, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, Gaida (Vilnius), Warsaw Autumn, Musica Strasbourg, Klara Festival and at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena.

A tireless surveyor of the repertoire, but also an explorer of new combinations of voice, percussion, performance and electronics, he dedicated himself to contemporary music at a very early stage while developing a vast classical repertoire. He plays regularly with the ensemble Ictus and has collaborated with composers such as Frederic Rzewski, Jean-Luc Fafchamps, Stefan Prins, Alec Hall and Matthew Shlomowitz, whose works he has created, as well as with choreographers such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker. Stephane Ginsburgh is a fan of immersive performances and has performed the complete Prokofiev sonatas or the last six Beethoven sonatas in one evening.

After obtaining a master's degree in music, he studied with Paul Badura-Skoda, Claude Helffer, Jerome Lowenthal and Vitaly Margulis. He was artistic director of the Centre Henri Pousseur, a mixed and electronic music studio based in Liège. He holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy of science from the Université Libre de Bruxelles and a doctorate in arts from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel.

Stephane Ginsburgh has recorded some fifteen albums for Sub Rosa, World Edition, Grand Piano (Naxos) and Kairos. His complete piano sonatas by Prokofiev, described as a "captivating" and "essential" version (La Libre Belgique), have been published by Cypres records.

SARAH BRANCHI-CASCONE
Piano

Born in Aix-en-Provence, Sarah Branchi Cascone began her musical studies there, which she then completed at the CRR of Montpellier.  After obtaining her Diplôme d'Etudes Musicales in piano and chamber music, she joined Cefedem-Sud (currently IESM) at a very young age, where she obtained a teaching diploma in piano. 

Her musical path then led her to the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève to continue her studies in the class of Dominique Weber. She obtained a teaching diploma and a concert diploma.

Passionate about pedagogy and transmission from a very young age, Sarah has been teaching piano since 2003 in the classes of the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute and is currently an internship supervisor for the Master of Pedagogy students at the Haute Ecole.

She has performed as a soloist and in various chamber music ensembles in Switzerland, France and Argentina.

In 2008 she founded the duo Tashko-Branchi with the pianist Olta Tashko. The two pianists perform regularly in recital in France and Switzerland. In 2017, they participated in the complete concertos of J.S. Bach for 2, 3 and 4 pianos with the Terpsycordes quartet. In 2019, they will create the show "Vagabond et Visionnaire" by S. Arnauld on poems by F. Nietszche.

VALENTIN PEIRY
Improvisation instrumentale

Born in 1972, Valentin Peiry studied music at the Conservatoire de Lausanne, where he obtained a first prize in piano virtuosity in the class of Christian Favre, with the congratulations of the jury, and a diploma in music theory.

He then studied electro-acoustic composition, sound synthesis and computer techniques with Rainer Boesch and Nicolas Sordet in Geneva.

From 1999 to 2018, Valentin Peiry was one of the pianist-composers of the ensemble "Piano Seven" - founded by François Lindemann - with whom he recorded four albums and performed in a number of large venues (Geneva, Montreux, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Shanghai, Beijing, Taipe, Bangkok, Sao Paulo, Beirut, etc.).

Currently, his activities are divided between composition, collaborations in the fields of music, theatre and visual arts.

In 2009, he founded "Les Athénéennes" in Geneva, with pianists Audrey Vigoureux and Marc Perrenoud, and runs this festival every year as programmer and co-artistic director.

HÉLÈNE ESCRIVA
Chamber music (brass)

Hélène Escriva is part of this young generation of curious and dynamic tuba players who wish to give the euphonium and the bass trumpet a prominent place in ensemble music.

Hélène started playing the euphonium at the age of 6 at the CRD du Tarn before entering the CRR of Toulouse where she obtained in 2011 the first prize with honours. She continued her studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris in the class of Philippe Fritsch and Jean-Luc Petitprez. In 2015, she obtained her DNSPM with honours and the congratulations of the jury. At the age of 18, she won the gold medal at the European Competition for Young Soloists in Luxembourg and two first prizes at the National Tuba-Euphonium-Saxhorn Competition in Tours in 2011 and 2013 in the Prestige category.

In 2013, she was chosen to join the academy of the Orchestre Français des Jeunes on euphonium and bass trumpet and also works with prestigious orchestras such as the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse, the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris, the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchestre de l'Opéra de Lorraine or the Frivolités Parisiennes. She has worked with renowned conductors such as Tugan Sokhiev, Philippe Jordan, Emmanuel Krivine and many more.

Hélène Escriva has been a laureate of the Yamaha Foundation and the Meyer Foundation since 2015.

NANCY RIEBEN
Education coordinator

Nancy Rieben is a musicologist and has been teaching at the Musicology Unit of the University of Geneva since 2007. At the Haute école de musique de Genève - Neuchâtel, she has been teaching music history since 2004 and, more recently, music mediation and yoga. Her work at these two institutions has led her to take care of teaching exchanges between the HEM and the University, as well as to imagine common courses of study, such as the Bachelor's degree in "Music and Musicology" which she has been coordinating since 2008.

Her taste for transmission and mediation has enabled her to forge numerous links with local institutions such as the Department of Culture of the City of Geneva, the Classical Encounters of Vernier, the Association Arts et Lettres in Vevey, the Grand Théâtre de Genève, the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the RTS and the Geneva Music Competition. Her long-standing collaboration with the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey has led her to take care of the pianist's archives held at the Lausanne Cantonal and University Library and to sign an exhibition dedicated to the musician at the Palais de Rumine in Lausanne in 2021.

CARINE TRIPET LIÈVRE
Pedagogy and head of educational programmes

Carine Tripet holds a doctorate in social and political sciences, specialising in educational sciences, and is also a musician. Coming from a jazz background, but specialising in world vocal music, she is active in Valais where her musical projects revolve around issues of immigration and Valaisan heritage. She was awarded the Musique Pro Valais cultural grant for the period 2014-2017 with her ViaVallesia project. She is currently a professor at the Haute école pédagogique du Valais, where she has led several training courses, and she is well acquainted with the field of music pedagogy, having taught this discipline for six years at the HEMU. As such, the content of her courses is resolutely interdisciplinary, drawing on all useful sources in order to establish a solid network of concepts and notions enabling young teachers to self-analyse their practice. It is in this perspective that her recent publications focus on the construction of the professional identity of music teachers.

BÉATRICE MARTIN
Harpsichord

Born in Annecy, France, Beatrice Martin began studying the harpsichord at the age of six. Her musical path led her to study with great harpsichord personalities: Christiane Jaccottet at the Geneva Conservatory of Music, Kenneth Gilbert, and Christophe Rousset at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris. There she obtained numerous first prizes with the highest distinctions, and completed a cycle of advanced studies. She also received valuable advice from Huguette Dreyfus, Ton Koopman and Lars-Ulrik Mortensen during masterclasses.

In 1998 she won first prize at the Bruges International Harpsichord Competition, and also received the Audience Prize and the Bärenreiter Prize. The following year, she was named Révélation de l'ADAMI at MIDEM in Cannes.

Valued for her talent as a continuo player, she has performed at numerous festivals and in a variety of ensembles. She has also been a privileged partner of William Christie and his Arts Florissants for twenty years.

Renowned for the quality of her teaching, Béatrice Martin created the harpsichord class at the Escola Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona and is currently a visiting professor at the Juilliard School in New York.

In 2000, Béatrice Martin founded the ensemble Les Folies françoises with Patrick Cohën-Akenine, in the development of which she plays an active role.

GIULIA GENINI
Baroque bassoon

Born in Lugano, Switzerland, Giulia Genini began her recorder studies at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana with Giorgio Merati. Her interest in early music and period instruments led her to Basel where she continued her studies at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis with Conrad Steinmann. At the same time she began to study the dulcian and the baroque bassoon with Josep Borras and Donna Agrell. In 2008 she obtained her recorder diploma (interpretation and pedagogy) with distinction and in 2010 her Master's degree in historical performance practice on the baroque bassoon and dulcian, also with distinction.

She performs as a recorder player and bassoonist with numerous international ensembles and works with renowned conductors. As a soloist she has performed with the Venice Baroque Orchestra under the direction of Andrea Marcon at the Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Schleswig Holstein Musikfestival, Settimane Musicali di Ascona, Geneva Victoria Hall, Carinthischer Sommer Festival Ossiach and at New York Carnegie Hall.

Since 2015 she has been a frequent guest coach at the Conservatorio della Svizzera Italiana in Lugano, coordinating wind sections for orchestral projects on historical performance practice. There she also works as a co-leader of studies in the field of performance.

She is also a founding member and artistic director of the ensemble Concerto Scirocco and artistic director of the CaronAntica Festival.

LAMBERT COLSON
Cornetto

Lambert Colson trained with Françoise Defours, Pedro Memelsdorff, Bart Coen, Marleen Leicher, Bruce Dickey and Gebhard David; among others at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel, the ESMUC in Barcelona, the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis and the HFK in Bremen. His collaborations include ensembles and conductors such as Scherzi Musicali, Le Poème Harmonique (Vincent Dumestre), Holland Baroque, La Fenice (Jean Tubéry), Pygmalion (Raphaël Pichon), B'rock, Collegium Vocale (Phillipe Herreweghe), Correspondances (Sébastien Daucé), Cappella Meditteranea (Leonardo García Alarcon), Continuum...

He directs his own musical projects, directly resulting from research undertaken in recent years within his ensemble InAlto. InAlto's most recent recordings have been acclaimed by European critics: Diapason d'Or & Diapason D'Or de l'année 2017, Choc de Classica, 5 stars Rondo Magazin, Joker Crescendo, Cléf d'Or Res Musica, choice of the year for Libération and Le Monde...

As a researcher he has contributed to the thought of Midi (Actes Sud). As a teacher, he has been invited to give lectures and masterclasses at the Royaumont Foundation, notably on the history of notation and Lutheran music in the Holy Roman Empire. Today he is professor of cornetto and ensemble music at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Brussels and professor of 16th and 17th century ornamentation at the Royal Conservatory of Brussels.

In constant research on his instrument, he is currently pursuing a doctoral course on the mute cornet and its use in 17th century Germany in cotutelle between the Koninklijk Conservatorium and the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels. The thesis will be presented publicly in 2022. He is the dedicatee of several pieces by contemporary composers: Zad Moultaka, Fabrice Fitch, Bernard Foccroulle...

Eager for unusual collaborations, he works with the choreographer Catherine Contour and discovers the practice of hypnosis; he explores more and more the possibilities offered by his instruments in current music: collaborating with artists such as Liesa van der Aa, Shara Nova (My Brightest Diamond) , Petur Ben , Mugison or Efterklang . He is also the guest of several jazz and improvisation projects with artists such as Emmanuel Baily, Xavier Rogé, Franck Vagané, Adam Woolf, Jon Birdsong or Eric Vloeimans.

FLORENCE JACCOTTET
Head of the music and movement department

Florence Jaccottet was introduced to Jaques-Dalcroze rhythmics at the Lausanne Conservatory from a very young age, while studying piano.

Fascinated by everything related to physical and musical expression, she joined the music and movement programme at the HEM where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts in 2011, completed two years later with a Master of Arts in Jaques Dalcroze pedagogy.

Since 2015, she has been teaching movement technique and composition as well as creation at the HEM, and in 2018 she was appointed as a lecturer in rhythmics at the institution.

Between teaching and artistic expression, Florence Jaccottet's activity also revolves around her passion for dance, whose various forms she has been experimenting with for many years. Placed at the heart of her artistic research, the expression of the rhythm and musicality of movement makes her dance a singular contemporary language.

PIERRE FOUCHENNERET
Violin

A child prodigy, Pierre Fouchenneret obtained his first prize in violin and chamber music at the age of 16 at the Paris Conservatoire in the classes of Olivier Charlier and Daria Hovora. He went on to win the Grand Prix of the Bordeaux International Chamber Music Competition, the Sacem's Georges Enesco Grand Prix, and became a laureate of the Natixis Foundation and an associate artist of the Singer Polignac Foundation.

Invited to perform all over the world, Pierre Fouchenneret is quickly brought to play with exceptional musicians such as the Fine Art Quartet, Jean-François Heisser, Jean-Frédéric Neuburger, Zongh Xu, Julien Leroy, Nicolas Angelich. In 2013 he founded the Strada Quartet with Sarah Nemtanu, Lise Berthaud and François Salque.

Pierre Fouchenneret is a complete artist recognised by French and international orchestras for his audacity and his vision of the repertoire.

JULIEN ZUFFEREY
Violin

Julien Zufferey is a talented violinist who trained with Tibor Varga in Sion, Margarita Karafilova in Lausanne and Berent Korfker in Amsterdam before perfecting his skills with Shmuel Ashkenasi in Chicago and Lübeck.

Julien Zufferey is a founding member of the trio Nota Bene with whom he has performed for more than ten years on the European scene, collaborating with artists such as Nobuko Imai, Ilya Gringolts, Silvia Simionescu, Gérard Caussé, Christoph Schiller, Jürg Dähler, Pierre Amoyal, Shlomo Mintz, Fabio di Càsola or Brigitte Fournier.

Internationally, he performs in many renowned festivals and prestigious concert halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam or the Teatro Sociale di Castiglione delle Stiviere.

He plays on a violin made by Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume (1866) generously provided by a Swiss patron.

BENOIT DE BARSONY
Horn

The excellent young horn player Benoit de Barsony, a graduate of the CNSM of Paris, has been the solo horn of the Orchestre de Paris since 2006

In parallel to his orchestral activity, Benoit pursues a chamber music career which has led him to perform at major festivals (Festival de la Roque d'Anthéron, Festival international de Salon de Provence, Festival de la Chaise-Dieu, Festival de Kuhmo...) with musicians such as Daishin Kashimoto, Paul Meyer, Emmanuel Pahud and Eric Lesage.

He has performed several times as a soloist with the Orchestre de Paris (Salle Pleyel, Philharmonie de Paris, NHK Tokyo), the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève and the Orchestre des Pays de Savoie.

Benoit de Barsony was guest juror at the last ARD competition in Munich. He is also the editor of La revue du corniste.

BERTRAND CHATENET
Horn

Born in 1990 in Paris, Bertrand Chatenet began learning the horn with Patrice Petitdidier at the Conservatoire de Gennevilliers, then with Jérome Rouillard (Horn), Paul Meyer and Eric Lesage (wind quintet). In 2009 he studied with Erich Penzel, Christian Lampert and Christoph Ess at the Musikhochschule in Stuttgart, and in 2013 with Christian-Friedrich Dallmann and Sebastian Posch at the University of Fine Arts in Berlin. Since 2010 he has been performing mainly as a soloist with major orchestras such as the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra (SWR), the Bavarian State Opera Orchestra or the Deutschen Symphonie Orchester Berlin.

He is currently solo horn of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and assistant professor at the UDK in Berlin.