Concert Artists Guild Announces
2009 International Competition Winners

Calmus, vocal quintet
 First Prize

Sebastian Bäverstam, cello
Ching-Yun Hu, piano
Hye-Jin Kim, violin

Calmus, vocal quintet (First Prize)
(Germany)
Anja Lipfert, Soprano; Sebastian Krause, Counter-tenor;
Tobias Pöche, Tenor; Ludwig Böhme, Baritone; Joe Roesler, Bass

A group of Leipzig singers founded Calmus immediately after finishing school, and gave their first public performance in 1999. All five musicians are former members of the famous Thomanerchor and grew up in the tradition of German church music and the great Thomaskantor Johann Sebastian Bach. The present group, now with a soprano on top, while still very much at home in the renaissance and baroque repertoire, also sings a great deal of German romantic music, contemporary compositions and a wide range of lighter repertoire. FONO FORUM, the renowned German music magazine, greeted them as rising stars of the a capella scene, and the juries of quite a number international competitions agreed and gave them first prizes.

Sebastian Bäverstam, cello
(US, Sweden)

Twenty year-old cellist Sebastian Bäverstam performed his first concerto with orchestra at the age of seven and has since performed concerti in the U.S, Europe, China, Venezuela and Brazil. He was the 2006 Winner of the Boston Symphony Orchestra Concerto Competition and in 2007 was asked to substitute for Lynn Harrell, playing the Schumann Cello Concerto with the Cape Cod Symphony. He gave his Weill Hall debut in 2002 and has appeared multiple times on the nationally syndicated radio program From the Top and in a PBS documentary filmed in Carnegie Hall. Mr. Bäverstam has attended the following festivals: Aspen, Banff Centre, Verbier and the International Music Academy of Switzerland with Seiji Ozawa. He currently studies with Paul Katz at the New England Conservatory.

Ching-Yun Hu, piano
(Taiwan)

Winner of the 2008 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition, Ching-Yun Hu has performed with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Aspen Concert Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic and the National Symphony Orchestra of Taiwan. Recital appearances include Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall, Concertgebouw, Southbank Centre, Wigmore Hall, Ruhr Klavier Festival, Salle Cortot, Tel Aviv Opera House and the Chopin Festival in Duszniki, Poland. Her music has been broadcast on Mezzo TV to 38 countries, reaching as far as South Africa and Mozambique.  She has worked extensively with Sergei Babayan at the Cleveland Institute of Music and received Bachelor and Master’s Degrees from Juilliard. She presently works with Karl-Heinz Kammerling in Hannover, Germany. 

Hye-Jin Kim, violin
(Korea)

Violinist Hye-Jin Kim has performed as a soloist with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Christoph Eschenbach and with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and Hannover Chamber Orchestra. First Prize Winner of the 2004 Yehudi Menuhin International Violin Competition in London, Ms. Kim has also won the Philadelphia Orchestra Concerto Competition, the Virtuosos of the 21st Century in Moscow and was awarded the Kay H. Logan Chamber Music Award. Ms. Kim studied at The Curtis Institute of Music with Jaime Laredo and Ida Kavafian and is currently with Miriam Fried at the New England Conservatory as a recipient of the Emma V. Lambrose Presidential Scholarship. Ms. Kim plays a Gioffredo Cappa violin, crafted in Saluzzo, Italy in 1687.