Jeunes Etoiles Prize Winners 2023

Last year, the “Jeunes Etoiles” online voting honoured two (!) artists – cellist Samuel Niederhauser from Bern and the Belarusian pianist Denis Linnik. This summer, they are back in Gstaad with an entirely new programme: at times in duet, as in Brahms’ romantically reverie-inducing Sonata No. 1, but also solo, as in Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes or when performing three rather new compositions for solo cello, including EFEU by the Bernese composer Thomas Demenga and the remarkable Sonata for Solo Cello by György Ligeti. By the choice of music for their programme, both artists illuminate the 2024 Festival motto (“Transformation”), expressed here through Brahms and, even more notably, by the variation form we find in Schumann’s Etudes.