Teachers

Szabolcs Illés is a Baroque violinist, musicologist and a specialist in HIPP (Historically Informed Performance Practice). He obtained degrees in the modern and Baroque violins in Budapest and Leipzig, and a Masters in Baroque violin in Brussels, studying in the class of Sigiswald Kuijken, where he was the teacher’s only Hungarian student and the only exponent in Hungary of the world-famous Baroque violin school founded by him. Since 2009 he has performed in many events as a member of his teacher’s world-famous ensemble La Petite Bande. Since 2008 he had been the concertmaster of the Czech Hof-Musici ensemble for ten years. They worked mainly on the reconstruction and premiering of Baroque operas in Ceský Krumlov with period instruments, costumes, original scenery, without conductor. He gives concerts throughout Europe as a soloist and chamber musician, as a member of the chamber ensembles dolce risonanza in Vienna, La Moresca in Germany and Recurring Company in Hungary, with whom he has made many recordings. Szabolcs Illés released the following solo CD-s, based on his own research, featuring French and Italias Baroque sonatas, some of which were there recorded for the first time: „Sonate, que me veux-tu? (2011, Hof-Musici), Corelli’s Legacy (2015, Hungaroton), „Les Forjerons” (2020, Hungaroton) with first recordings of Sonatas composed by Jean-Jacques Baptiste Anet. In 2021 he recorded the 12 Telemann Fantasias with historical playing technique.  Alongside his extensive concert activity he regularly gives courses and lectures in the countries of Europe and in New Zealand.

Recorder player Sheng-Fang Chiu, who comes from Taiwan, is active both as a soloist and as a chamber musician and is also passionate about teaching. She received her musical training from Michael Posch and Anna Januj. She regularly performs as a soloist on international concert stages in Europe and Asia. In 2016, she co-founded the ensemble Vivid Consort and also plays in various chamber music formations and orchestras and performs in a wide range of musical genres. She has performed at festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Istanbul Music Festival and the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. She has given masterclasses in Austria, Germany, Taiwan, South Korea, the Czech Republic, Iran, Poland and Hungary. From 2017 to 2021 she was a lecturer for recorder at the Leipzig University of Music and Theatre, and from 2014 to 2023 a lecturer for recorder and chamber music at the Music and Arts Private University of the City of Vienna.

At the age of 21, Katalin Károlyi was accepted into the Baroque Opera Studio of the Centre de musique baroque de Versailles under the artistic direction of René Jacobs. In 1997, she was invited to attend courses at the Steans Institute for Young Artists of Ravinia, directed by Zubin Metha, where she was taught by Christa Ludwig and Thomas Hampson, among others. Katalin Károlyi holds a Master’s degree in Opera from the CNSMDP in Paris and a Master’s degree in Artistic Studies from the Faculty of Arts of the University of Tartu. She received a summa cum laude distinction for her doctoral thesis (DLA). In addition to her performances and master classes at home and abroad, she has been a private singing instructor at the Faculty of Arts of the University of Tartu since 2018 and a member of the chorus of the Hungarian State Opera House. In 1990, at the suggestion of Nicholas McGegan, she recorded with Capella Savaria the most profound female arias of Pál Esterházy’s cantatas (Harmonia Caelestis), and subsequently joined Philippe Herreweghe’s Paris-based ensemble La Chapelle Royale. Since 1993, he has been soloist with Les Arts Florissants under William Christie. He performs on the world’s most prestigious stages M-A. Charpentier, Monteverdi, Landi, Rameau, Vivaldi, Peri, Lully in operas and oratorios: Teatro alla Scala de Milan, Opéra de Paris, Opéra de Lausanne, Teatro Colón, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore, Barbican, Royal Albert Halls, Cité de la Musique, Theater an der Wien, Wiener Musikverein, Théâtre de Champs Elysées, Theater Basel, Concertgebouw, Palacio de Bellas Artes, Berliner Philharmonik, Budapest Spring Festival, Festival d’Aix-en-Provence…). He sings with Le Parlament de Musique under the direction of Martin Gester, gives a series of concerts of J.S. Bach’s cantatas with the Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra and performs regularly in Hungary with the outstanding musicians and vocal soloists of the Hungarian Baroque music scene. Among her more than 20 recordings, Gerald Barry’s opera The Impertinence of Being Earnest, in which she sings the role of Gwendolen Fairfax, composed for him, was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2016. Several of his recordings with William Christie have been awarded a Diapason d’or, and his album of works by Bartók, Kodály and Ligeti was nominated for a German Critics’ Prize in autumn 2023.

Kinga Gáborjáni, originally from Hungary, studied baroque cello with Jennifer Ward Clarke and viola da gamba with Richard Campbell at the Royal Academy of Music in London. She gained her postgraduate degree with distinction in 2007. Kinga performs with many UK period instrument orchestras with whom she has toured all over the world. Since 2008, she has played with the English Baroque Soloists, under Sir John Eliot Gardiner, since 2022 as a principal cellist and gamba player. She was co-principal cellist for the English Touring Opera for 8 years and she has been guest principal cellist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the English Concert. She is part of chamber groups and viol consorts, as well as giving recitals as a soloist. She also plays the Lirone, an instrument with 14 strings, used by Monteverdi and other 17th century composers in operatic works. Kinga also works as a mindset coach, helping fellow musicians cope with performance anxiety as well as non-performers develop in confidence.

Born in Budapest (Hungary) in 1984, Márton Borsányi studied harpsichord, continuo playing, and historical improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater ‘Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’ Leipzig and the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, where he was taught by Nicholas Parle, Jesper Christensen, and Rudolf Lutz. In 2009, he held a scholarship at the Academia Montis Regalis in Mondovì (Italy). For many years, he has focussed his musical endeavours on seventeenth-century keyboard music from German-speaking, Lutheran regions. Márton Borsányi gives regular concert performances as a soloist and chamber musician, at the harpsichord as well as the organ. He is the organist at the Reformed Church in Oberwil (Basel-Landschaft) and at the Roman-Catholic church of St Martin in Egerkingen. Between 2016 and 2019 he held a teaching appointment at the Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst in Graz. Since 2017 he teaches harpsichord specific organology at the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music in Budapest. Since 2017 he also teaches the harpsichord class at ISAEM Festival in Warsaw and organises the Pannonia Early Music Academy in Hungary, since 2019 he teaches at MDW Vienna. He is also an enthusiastic harpsichord and organ teacher with a huge interest and experience in organology and early music research.