Isabel Gehweiler & Fiona Hengartner
Biography Isabel Gehweiler & Fiona Hengartner
Isabel Gehweiler
The cellist Isabel Gehweiler first attracted international attention when in 2007, at the age of 19, she won the European Bursary for Young Artists.
From 2016 to 2021 Isabel Gehweiler was a lecturer in cello at the University of Music, Drama and Media in Hanover. Since 2017 she has been teaching a cello class at the College of Music in Einsiedeln (in the Swiss canton of Schwyz), and since 2019 she has additionally held a lectureship in didactics and improvisation at the Zurich University of the Arts. She specialises in transdisciplinary projects and regularly works with internationally acknowledged artists such as the director Christoph Marthaler and the pop star Andreas Vollenweider.
Her teachers included Katharina Gohl-Moser and Ivan Monighetti (both at the Basel Musikhochschule in the pre-college phase), Richard Aaron (The Juilliard School, New York – Bachelor of Music), Gustav Rivinius (Musikhochschule Saarbrücken – orchestra diploma) and Thomas Grossenbacher (Zurich University of the Arts – Master of Arts Soloist and Master of Arts Music Education).
Isabel Gehweiler is a prizewinner of the European Bursary for Young Artists, the Art Prize of the Art Foundation of Baden-Württemberg, the Art Prize of the Markgräfler region; she is also a recipient of grants from the DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service), the Juilliard School of Music, the Rotary Foundation, the arteMusica Foundation, the Cultural Foundation of the Saarland region, the Richard Wagner Association, the Covid-19 Grant of the City of Zurich, the Notenstein La Roche Privatbank and the Vontobel Bank.
As a composer Isabel Gehweiler has produced a body of work encompassing chamber music and orchestral compositions, which are regularly performed at international festivals.
Fiona Hengartner
is a Swiss pianist who is active as a concert pianist, experienced chamber musician and orchestral pianist. In addition, she teaches a piano class and is a rehearsal pianist at the conservatoire in Fribourg (Switzerland).
Fiona Hengartner studied piano at the conservatoire in Fribourg with Francois Beffa and at the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne with Christian Favre. She attained a second Masters degree in interpretation at the Zurich University of the Arts with special emphasis on chamber music and Lieder as well as a Certificate of Advanced Studies (Piano Performance) in Christoph Berner’s class.
She has won many prizes at competitions, including the Longines Prize in the finale of the 5th National Competition at the Jura Festival, first prize at the International Piano Competition in Fribourg and the prize for interpretation of the compulsory piece. At the finale of the Swiss Youth Music Competition she twice received first prize, alongside the Astona Prize. She is the recipient of a number of grants including that of the Fonds Pierre et Renée Glasson, the Fondation Casino Barrière de Montreux pour le Talent et la Créativité, the Swiss Richard Wagner Society, the Vincent Merkle Foundation and the Rotary Club’s Elsner Prize.
In 2021 as a member of the Essor Quartet she released her CD „Music for 4 Musicians” featuring works for two pianos and two percussions. She is also the duo partner of cellist Isabel Gehweiler and the two performers give concerts that concentrate on diversified repertoire, combining different art forms and the works of forgotten composers. In 2024, their first CD „Notre amour” is released on the German label Solo Musica, featuring a selection of works by Swiss and French composers. This programme resonates with the emotions associated with love in all its diversity, whether romantic, friendly, familial, unconditional or spiritual.
