Silke Lange studied accordion at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. Topical and contemporary music form the main focus of her musical interests with innovative concert programs and genre-crossing projects. She works closely with composers, and countless world premieres have been a result of her initiative. Together with Ruth Velten, she manages the ensemble for contemporary music LUX:NM. For their debut album “LUXUS”, they were featured on the Quarterly Critics’ Choice by the German Record Critics. She performs around the world at notable festivals, such as Ultraschall Berlin, MaerzMusik, Warsaw Autumn, Festival de música contemporánea Santiago de Chile and Edmonton New Music. She can be heard on CD recordings by Wergo, DUX and GENUIN classics and was on radio broadcasts on Deutschlandradio and rbb, among others. She also appears as a musician and performer in theater productions (at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin, the Berliner Festspiele, the Hamburg State Opera, the Staatstheater Mainz, the HAU and the Tehran Independent Theater, and with the artistic group “club real” and the Schauplatz International, among others) in addition to working as a curator and director of concert projects and series. Together with Florian Juncker, she plays in the DUO Lange Juncker (www.langejuncker.de) and with Sebastian Berweck and Martin Lorenz in the synthesizer trio Berweck//Lange//Lorenz.

As a performer of modern works, Ruth Velten has earned an international reputation for herself with innovative programs. Her artistic flexibility and quest for that which is new characterize her work. Growing up in a musical family, Ruth Velten has always been fascinated by multifaceted musical styles and concepts which overlap genres. In her own work and choice of repertoire, she focuses primarily on music of the 20^thand 21^stcentury.

In order to encourage the creation of new works for saxophone, she collaborates closely with contemporary composers. A number of works have already come into existence in this way.

As an enthusiastic chamber musician, she has won first prize at national and international competitions, such as the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb (German Music Competition) and the International Music Competition for Contemporary Music in Krakow, Poland. As a guest soloist, she has performed at important venues, such as the Berliner Philharmonie, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Gasteig in Munich, the Gewandhaus Leipzig, the Izumi Hall in Osaka, and the BASF Kultur, and with orchestras, such as the Sinfonieorchester Aachen or the Landessinfonieorchester Schleswig-Holstein.

In her stylistically diverse work, she realizes studio and concert projects with artists such as Nils Frahm, Ib Hausmann, members of Ensemble Modern, the trombonist Christian Lindberg and string players of the Bochumer Symphoniker and the Hamburg Symphoniker. Moreover, she can be heard around the world in different ensembles and projects at renowned festivals including Warsaw Autumn, the World New Music Festival, the Ultraschall Festival Berlin, the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, the Festival de música contemporánea Santiago de Chile and the Festival de México. The Ensemble LUX:NM, which she helped found in 2010 and with which she won the 2017 German Record Critics’ Award, has become a particularly important aspect of her work.

Ruth Velten works with various orchestras such as Ensemble Modern, the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Staatskapelle Weimar, the Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz and the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserlautern under renowned conductors such as Péter Eötvös, Karlheinz Steffens, Sakari Oramo, Ingo Metzmacher, Markus Stenz and John Storgårds. As a teacher, Ruth Velten regularly gives master classes and shares her experience with young saxophone players and composers. Since 2018, she has taught at the University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar.

Besides her activities as a performer, she is also active as a curator, director and initiator of concert series and projects in the international music scene.

In 2013, she founded the concert series IM FOKUS for contemporary music in Berlin within which she realizes her own productions in this genre and commissions compositions. CD recordings have been released by GENUIN classics, Wergo, DUX and EM Medien, among others. Several of her concerts have been documented by broadcasters such as the BR, HR SWR, Deutschlandfunk, NDR, WDR and the rbb.

Rike Huy is a trumpeter and composer and works in a variety of artistic fields.

She studied trumpet in Berlin, Paris and Hanover and has won several international music competitions. Rike Huy was a scholarship holder of the International Ensemble Modern Academy and has since worked primarily in the contemporary music scene, both as a soloist and in ensembles. She has also worked as a solo trumpeter in various orchestras and has been a permanent member of the Basel Sinfonietta since 2017.

Rike Huy studied with composer and director Heiner Goebbels and has composed for cinema, TV and streamers as well as a soundwalk and a TikTok opera. She has toured internationally with singer Peaches, collaborated with video artist Yael Bartana and was part of the latest performance/film work by Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler.

Since 2020, Rike Huy has been supported by Bayer Kultur as an artist of the stART academy.

The pianist Neus Estarellas, who grew up on Mallorca, is passionately dedicated to avant-garde and contemporary music, and especially to cross-border areas in which interdisciplinarity and multimedia art play a decisive role. They are characterised by flexibility, curiosity, energy, motivation and enthusiasm. Collaborations with unusual instruments such as the theremin or the toy piano characterise her work and repertoire, and she is also involved in performances and music theatre. For example, in scenic concerts directed by Heiner Goebbels, Isabelle Kranabetter and Patrick Schimanski, among others. She has performed as a guest with international ensembles such as Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Ascolta Stuttgart and Crossing Lines Barcelona. Solo concerts have taken place at Sampler Sèries Barcelona and Südseite Nachts Stuttgart. She has also taken part in performances, sound art, contemporary chamber music and music theatre, including at Futurum Berlin, Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Resonant Bodies New York, Fundació Miro Barcelona and Theaterhaus Stuttgart.

She has won various awards such as the Karlsruhe Competition for the Interpretation of Contemporary Music, the Premi Primer Palau in Barcelona and the DAAD Prize for Outstanding Achievement. Several recordings for radio (BR, Deutschlandfunk, Catalunya Radio, etc.) complement her artistic activities.

Neus holds a professorship at the Hanover University of Music, Theatre and Media, heads the class for contemporary music (piano) at the Nuremberg University of Music, and teaches at the Conservatori Superior de les Illes Balears (Mallorca).

Born in Berlin, Olga Holdorff studied violin at the Berlin University of the Arts under Prof. Jan Tomes and Prof. Tomasz Tomaszewski and at the University of Music and Theatre Leipzig under Prof. Mariana Sirbu and Prof. Lothar Strauß. She has played at the Komische Oper Berlin, Staatstheater Braunschweig and the Staatsoper Hannover, and with the Berliner Symphoniker and  the Brandenburg Symphonic Orchestra as well as in various chamber music formations with the Miranda Quartett, at the Infektion! Festival für Neues Musiktheater at the Staatsoper Berlin and with the Ensemble Modern Summer Academy on the island of Paxos, among others.

She worked for the Barenboim Said Foundation in Palestine and taught for several months for “El Sistema” in Venezuela sponsored by the Deutscher Musikrat and the Goethe Institut. She is the founder of the Berlin Music Ensemble, www.berlin-music-ensemble.com.