Soloists
International soloists curated for concert hall recitals and orchestral engagements.
Alexandra Soumm
Dmitri Makhtin
Alexei Volodin
Danielle Akta
International soloists curated for concert hall recitals and orchestral engagements.
Duo Gurfinkel, twin brothers Alexander and Daniel, were born in Israel in 1992. They began playing the clarinet at the age of nine, and by the age of twelve, they were invited by Zubin Mehta to perform as soloists with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra—an early milestone that launched their international careers.
Since then, they have performed with leading orchestras in Israel and Europe, including the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, Nürnberger Symphoniker, Cottbus Philharmonic Orchestra, and Heilbronn Chamber Orchestra. Their debut album, recorded with the Cottbus Philharmonic Orchestra under Evan Christ, received widespread praise.
Duo Gurfinkel has toured extensively across Europe, including with the Tonkünstler Orchestra performing in Austria, Slovenia, and beyond, and has played on some of the world’s most prestigious venues, such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and the Konzerthaus in Berlin. They have also appeared at major international festivals, including the Verbier Festival and Germany’s Rheingau Festival, under conductors like Gianandrea Noseda, Charles Dutoit, Zubin Mehta, and Yuri Temirkanov.
Both brothers studied at the Hanns Eisler University of Music in Berlin with Professor Martin Spangenberg. Their repertoire spans classical, jazz, and klezmer, and includes works written especially for them, such as Remembering Benny Goodman by Evgeny Levitas and Images of the Soul by Benjamin Yusupov, which they recorded in July 2025 with the Sondershausen LOH Orchestra under the composer’s direction.
Alexander and Daniel are proud third‑generation clarinetists. Their grandfather, Arkady Gurfinkel, was a renowned clarinetist, teacher, and arranger, and their father, Michael Gurfinkel, served as principal clarinetist of the Israel Symphony Orchestra and the Israeli Opera for over 30 years. Today, the brothers continue this family legacy on stages around the world.
In addition to their work as a duo, they have won chamber music competitions in the United States, Italy, and France. Alexander is principal clarinetist of the Osnabrück Theater Orchestra in Germany, and Daniel is principal clarinetist of the Győr Philharmonic Orchestra in Hungary. Both also perform as members of the West‑Eastern Divan Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Daniel Barenboim.
Duo Gurfinkel continues to delight audiences with their expressive playing, versatility, and deep musical connection.
French violinist Alexandra Soumm is a multi-faceted artist who is equally at home in concerto and chamber repertoire.
Alexandra has appeared with the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Israel Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal, Galicia Symphony, Danish National Symphony, NHK Symphony, Detroit Symphony, Baltimore Symphony, and the LA Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl, among many others. She has given recitals at the Auditorium du Louvre (Paris), Palais des Beaux-Arts (Brussels), and Wigmore Hall (London), and appeared at the City of London Festival, plus the Deauville, Schleswig-Holstein, Verbier, and Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad festivals.
A passionate supporter of younger generations of musicians, she has worked with the Youth Orchestra of the Americas, the Animato Foundation, the Sphinx Foundation, and Orchestre Francais des Jeunes, and has maintained involvement with the Seiji Ozawa International Academy in Switzerland for over ten years.
Alexandra has long-standing ties to France and England, with ongoing relationships with leading orchestras including Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Lyon, Montpellier, and most of the BBC ensembles, including through her period as BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist and London Music Masters Awardee.
Born in Moscow, Alexandra began violin at age five and gave her first concert at age seven. She later moved to Vienna to study with Boris Kuschnir and won the Eurovision Competition in 2004. In 2012, she co-founded Esperanz'Arts, a non-profit making the arts accessible in schools, hospitals, prisons, and homeless shelters. She was named Godmother of El Sistema France.
She has given masterclasses in the United States, Venezuela, Brazil, the UK, Japan, Israel, and Kenya. In 2018, she joined the Artistic and Pedagogical Committee of Musica Mundi (Belgium), and from October 2021 she has taught at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.
Alexandra actively performs repertoire from baroque to contemporary music and develops cross-disciplinary projects with poetry, literature, and philosophy. She collaborates with contemporary composers including Christoph Ehrenfellner, Krystof Maratka, Benoit Menut, Emile Daems, and Eric Tanguy. Alexandra plays on a Gioffredo Cappa violin made around 1700.
Born in St Petersburg in 1975, Dmitri Makhtin started his musical education at the age of 4 with his parents, both professional violinists. In 1981 he entered the conservatoire for highly talented children. In 1989 he won the National Competition for Young Violinists in Novosibirsk and was invited to perform recitals in Russia, appearing as a soloist with the St Petersburg Philharmonic and Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestras.
In 1990, he obtained a scholarship from the Young Musicians' Foundation in the USA and gave his first recitals in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Dallas.
From 1992 to 1995 he continued his musical education with Philip Hirshborn and Hermann Krebbers. From 1993 to 1996 he won international competitions including Kloster Schontal, Premio Paganini, Louis Spohr, Tibor Varga, Montreal, Sibelius, and Pretoria.
Dmitri Makhtin made his French debut in Paris in 1997 with Evgeny Svetlanov and the Russian State Symphony Orchestra, followed by his American debut in 1998 with the Cleveland Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. He has since performed with Het Residentie, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, St Petersburg Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestras, Sydney Radio and TV Orchestras, Monte-Carlo Philharmonic Orchestra, Montpellier National Orchestra, New Sinfonietta Amsterdam, Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Solistes Europeens du Luxembourg, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra.
Acclaimed for his highly sensitive touch and technical brilliance, Alexei Volodin is in demand by orchestras at the highest level. He possesses an extraordinarily diverse repertoire, from Beethoven and Brahms through Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov, Prokofiev, and Scriabin, to Shchedrin and Medtner.
Highlights of the 2022/23 season include returns to Singapore Symphony, Philharmonia Orchestra, Winnipeg Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege, and Euskadiko Orkestra, as well as first appearances with Kyoto Symphony, Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, and Sinfonieorchester Wuppertal. Volodin also joined Orchestre de chambre fribourgeois at the Besancon International Music Festival and toured with Symfonieorkest Vlaanderen across Belgium and the Netherlands with Chopin Piano Concerto No. 1.
He returned to SWR Symphonieorchester in a chamber concert of Franck and Schoenberg at the Pentecost Festival Baden-Baden and joined Igor Levit for duo performances at Wigmore Hall and the Lucerne Piano Festival.
Previous seasons have included performances with Orchestre symphonique de Montreal, NCPA Orchestra China, BBC Symphony Orchestra, NHK Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, The Mariinsky Orchestra, and St Petersburg Philharmonic, collaborating with conductors including Semyon Bychkov, Stanislav Kochanovsky, and Robert Trevino.
Born in 2002 to a family of musicians, Danielle plays an Enrico Orselli cello graciously put at her disposal by Dr. Moshe Kantor through the Vladimir Spivakov International Foundation. Danielle currently studies with Prof. Frans Helmerson at the Barenboim-Said Music Academy in Berlin.
An active soloist from an early age, she has performed with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, The Moscow Virtuosi Chamber Orchestra and Vladimir Spivakov, National Philharmonic of Russia, DARMSTADT Staatsorchester (Germany), Budafok Dohnanyi Orchestra (Budapest), ORCHESTRE FILHARMONIA DE BELLO HORIZONTE (Brazil), National Symphony of Slovakia, Macedonia National Philharmonic, Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, Cannes Symphony Orchestra, Georgian Chamber Orchestra Ingolstadt, Vadim Repin and The Novosibirsk Philharmonic Orchestra, Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, Israel Symphony Orchestra Rishon LeZion, Israel-Jerusalem Camerata, Haifa Symphony Orchestra, Israel Chamber Orchestra, and Tel Aviv Soloists Ensemble.
Danielle performed as soloist on major stages worldwide, including Carnegie Hall Stern Auditorium (NY), Tchaikovsky Concert Hall (Moscow), The Barbican (London), Lincoln Center (NY), Teatro Colon (Buenos Aires), Sala Sao Paulo (Brazil), Palacio de Bellas Artes (Mexico City), Symphony Center (Chicago), and Roy Thomson Hall (Toronto).
A grant-holder of the Vladimir Spivakov International Foundation, she is also a recipient of the Oleg Yankovsky Prize of Artistic Discovery (2016), the Young Artist Award presented by Maestro Vladimir Spivakov, and America-Israel Cultural Foundation scholarships with distinction since 2013, including the Wolfgang Laufer Memorial Cello Scholarship for Outstanding Merit.
Praised by critics as one of the leading young prodigy cellists, she was named by the Daily Gazette among the Top 10 classical music performers in 2016 and earned the Critic's Choice by the Times Union.
The Bronze medallist at The XVI International Tchaikovsky Competition, Alexei Melnikov was born in Moscow in 1990. After completing his studies at the famous Gnessin School, Alexei entered the Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory, the class of the People's Artist of Russia Sergei Dorensky, and his assistants — Nikolai Lugansky, Pavel Nersesian and Andrei Pisarev. Since entering the Conservatory, Alexei's musical activity has intensified and he became the laureate of numerous international and national competitions:
In 2017 Alexei released his first CD with works by Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin on "Acousence classics" label (Germany). The recording received many positive reviews in the English, French, German press: «Insightful, intelligent, adventurous, and abidingly musical, Melnikov is a young artist whose life and training span two millennia but whose passion for the communicative power of music is shown by this disc to be of timeless profundity» (Joseph Newsome, voix-des-arts.com).
The list of orchestras with which Alexei performs includes Moscow State Symphony Orchestra, The Mariinsky Theatre Symphony Orchestra, Bogota Philharmonic Orchestra, State Academic Orchestra "Evgeny Svetlanov", Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, St. Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra "Virtuosi di Praga", Orchestra Filarmonica "Mihail Jora" di Bacau, Arts Symphony Orchestra (Seoul), Sochi Symphony Orchestra, The Orchestras of Belgorod, Tomsk, Nizhny Novgorod Philharmonics, the Chamber Orchestra of Veliky Novgorod Philharmonic and so forth. He has collaborated with many world-renowned conductors, such as Vladimir Fedoseev, Vasily Petrenko, Vladimir Spivakov, Valery Gergiev.
Alexei has played recitals in many cities of Russia, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, France, Japan, Argentina, Vietnam, Macedonia, Uruguay, USA, Austria, Spain, including such venues as Seoul Arts Centre, Weill Recital Hall of Carnegie Hall, Mariinsky Concert Hall, Salle Cortot in Paris, Linz Brucknerhaus, Concert Hall Bunka Kaikan in Tokyo, "La Fenice" Theatre in Venice, Palace Žofín in Prague, The Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory and many others. Alexei performed at such international music festivals as: The Stars of White Nights at Mariinsky theatre, The International Chamber Music Festival in Cervo (Italy), Monschau Music Festival, Music Festival "Animato" in Paris, International Festival in Trieste (Italy), "Opera Estate" Festival in Bassano del Grappa (Italy), The Festival of Romantic Music in the Grand Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Heinrich Neuhaus Festival in Moscow, Meeting Rimini Festival (Italy).
Winner of the First Prize at the 18th Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition in 2026, Dmitry Yudin is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most compelling pianists of his generation.
Born in Moscow in 2001, Yudin began his musical education at the Gnessin Moscow Special School of Music, where he studied with Lydia Grigorieva. From 2019 to 2025, he continued his studies at the Manhattan School of Music with the distinguished pianist Horacio Gutiérrez. Since 2025, he has been further developing his artistry under the guidance of Stanislav Ioudenitch.
Yudin has received major distinctions at several international competitions. In 2024, he was awarded Second Prize at the Géza Anda International Piano Competition in Zurich, as well as Second Prize at the New York Liszt International Piano Competition.
His success at the 2026 Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition marked an important milestone in his career. During the final stages of the competition, he performed Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22 and Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 2, the latter with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Dmitry Yudin has appeared in recital and with orchestras in Europe, the United States and beyond, earning recognition for his technical command, musical intelligence and distinctive artistic personality.
Following his First Prize victory at the Rubinstein Competition, he enters a new stage of his international career, with growing interest from orchestras, festivals and presenters worldwide.