Přemysl Vojta, Florence Millet, Ye Wu
Biography Přemysl Vojta, Florence Millet, Ye Wu
Premysl Vojta
winner of the „International ARD Music Competition“ 2010, tours worldwide as a soloist with orchestras such as the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Camerata Salzburg, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Prague Philharmonia and the Kanagawa Symphony Orchestra.
After his successful debut at the Beethoven Festival in Bonn, Premysl Vojta was awarded the prestigious Beethoven Ring, past recipients of which include artists such as Igor Levit, Lisa Batiashvili and Gustavo Dudamel. Premysl Vojta has received much international acclaim for his exceptional album productions, including one complete recording of the horn concertos by Joseph and Michael Haydn, and his album Metamorphosis, which was recorded using three different types of horns.
In October 2021, Premysl Vojta was appointed as a professor of horn at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen to succeed the horn legends Hermann Baumann and Frank Lloyd. In the past, he has also taught at Berlin University of the Arts and the Cologne University of Music and Dance.
At the age of 10, Premysl Vojta received his first horn education from Olga Voldánová at the Brno Music School. A talented competitive swimmer at the time, Vojta had to choose between sports and music, but soon enough, his heart was set on the instrument. Later, he pursed his studies at the Prague Conservatory under the mentorship of Bedˇrich Tylšar (1998-2004) and at Berlin University of the Arts under Christian-Friedrich Dallmann (2004-2010). While he was a student, Premysl Vojta had already started his career as a principal hornist at the Berlin Konzerthaus Orchestra, and continued holding the same position at the WDR Symphony Orchestra in Cologne until 2019.
Vojta is a member of the Carousel Ensemble, PhilHarmonia Octets, Breeze Quintets and Dispar Trios.
His chamber music partners include Tobias Koch, Annelien van Wauwe, Fabrice Millischer, Oliver Triendl, the Pražák Quartet and the Armida Quartet.
Premysl Vojta plays a Mod. 3 double horn from Klaus Fehr Horns, natural horns from Jungwirth and Curtois Paris and the F horn by Daniel Fuchs Vienna.
Florence Millet
of Franco-German descent, performs with orchestra, in recitals and ensembles in venues across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Conductors she worked with are Charles Dutoit, Robert Kapilow, Pascal Verrot, Simon Blech, Heinz Holliger, Julia Jones, Elena Schwartz, Jonathan Darlington. She is a founding member of the Lions Gate Trio, since 1988. Residencies include Tanglewood Festival, Universities of North-Carolina-Greensboro, Yale, W. Hartford and the Fairfield Library, CT. A professor at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, she was Chair of the Piano Department from 2018 and was elected Executive Director of its Wuppertal Campus in 2021.
She has worked worked closely with renowned composers: Luciano Berio, Elliott Carter, Pierre Boulez, George Crumb, Johannes Schöllhorn, Jörg Widmann, Hans Werner Henze, Hans Abrahamsen. She played with the Ensemble Intercontemporain under Pierre Boulez and David Robertson from 1992-2000.
Millet received her master‘s and doctoral degrees at State University of New York Stony Brook, where she studied with Gilbert Kalish. Her other mentors were Leon Fleisher, Paul Badura Skoda, Peter Serkin and Jean Hubeau.
Florence Millet is the artistic adviser for the Lichterfeld Foundation, promoting tolerance, intercultural understanding and creator of the Echospore.de platform which propagates music from persecuted composers.
She explores multidisciplinary concert formats with actors, choreography and dance (Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch) and arts in the Tony Cragg Foundation, Van der Heydt-Museum, The Phillips Collection, 70th anniversary of „Rundgang“ Music of the time (Musik der Zeit), or lecture recitals.
Ye Wu
Chinese violinist Ye Wu took her first violin lessons in her home town Shanghai before continuing her studies in the USA as well as in Berlin. As concertmaster, she has been invited to perform with many orchestras, playing under such conductors as Kurt Masur, Kent Nagano and Christoph Eschenbach.
She has performed extensively in America and Europe as a soloist.
Ye Wu has attracted attention with numerous recordings and concerts as a chamber musician, particularly in recent years as Primaria of the WDR Chamber Players. In 2017 their recording of the string quintets by Johannes Brahms, released by the Pentatone label, was awarded the Diapason d‘Or. Their newest CD of the string quintets and octet by Max Bruch was rewarded the Choc de Classica in 2021.
Since 2014 she has been second concertmaster in the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne. Ye Wu plays a Joseph Rocca violin (1851), on loan from Mr. Jianquan Ge and Mr. Peng Bai.
