Trio Accanto

Trio Accanto is a group of three internationally renowned soloists, united by a unique approach to chamber music. The combination of saxophone, piano and percussion is common in jazz, but was a rarity in classical music until Trio Accanto reversed this situation, leading to their description “a jazz trio that doesn't play jazz”. Over the years, they inspired well over a hundred composers to write new works, a.o. Helmut Lachenmann and Rebecca Saunders.

Georges Aperghis is a Greek composer, living and working in Paris. His compositions are characterized by a questioning about languages and the meaning. They explore the borders of the intelligible. He likes to create twisted tracks keeping the listener active. Aperghis’ music is not strictly linked to any dominant musical aesthetics of the contemporary musical creation but engages with other art forms in combination with innovation.

Nik Bärtsch is a Swiss pianist, composer, producer and author. He studied philosophy, linguistics and musicology. He is interested in the influence and the combination of music and body movement. He leads the music ritual group Mobile and the zen-funk quartet Ronin. For special projects and compositions, he also collaborates with artists and ensembles like Laurie Anderson, Bang On A Can All Stars and Les Percussions De Strassbourg.

Lilian Beidler is a sound artist based in Switzerland. Her practice explores the performative dimensions of sound across a range of contexts—investigating modes of listening, mediatic environments, and composing sound in relation to “non-sonic” elements. Attuned to space and context, and to human and more-than-human presences, her work often leads her into public space.

Dahae Boo (°1988) is a South Korean composer active internationally. Her music explores the extension of performers’ gestures and spatial flow as compositional elements, often incorporating electronic music and experimental sound design to create distinctive sensory experiences. She also engages in collaborative projects with artists from fields such as dance and installation art.

Annesley Black is a Canadian composer based in Germany and Austria. Her works span from instrumental music to electronics and video performances, from orchestra and chamber music to theatre, solo performances and installations. While exploring an extraordinary breadth of innovative settings, themes and concepts, she persists in embodying these in an intricate, expressive and distinct musical language.

Japanese-born composer Ezko Kikoutchi studied organ, piano, voice, Gregorian chant, harmony, counterpoint and music education. She moved to Switzerland in 1997 to study organ and further trained as an organist in Krakow and Strasbourg. In 2024, she was appointed co-titular organist of the parish of Vaulion-Romainmôtier. Kikoutchi also studied composition, music analysis and orchestration in Lausanne and Bern.

Swiss composer Cécile Marti developed a great passion for music at an early age thanks to the artistic environment within which she was raised. She learned how to play the violin and piano at the age of eight and discovered a fascination for contemporary music not long after. Marti's first musical sketches began to appear while studying violin in Zurich. She worked with composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Kaija Saariaho and Malcolm Singer.

Elnaz Seyedi was born in Tehran in 1982. She studied piano and music theory. She later also studied composition in Bremen, Basel and Essen. Seyedi was Composer in Residence at multiple music organisations in Germany, Switzerland and Italy. Her music has been performed at numerous festivals such as Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Darmstädter Ferienkurse and Gaudeamus Muziekweek.

Nadir Vassena was born in Lugano (Switzerland). He studied composition in Milan and Freiburg im Breisgau. He has received numerous invitations to renowned festivals for new music and earned multiple accolades. From 2004 until 2012, Vassena was director of the Tage für Neue Musik Zürich, together with Mats Scheidegger. He lectures in composition and analysis at the Conservatorio della Svizzera italiana.

Eric Wubbels (°1980) is a composer and performer. His compositions have been presented by a.o. New York Philharmonic, Ear We Are and the Zurich Tage für Neue Musik. As a performer, he has given premieres of works by composers such as Peter Ablinger, Richard Barrett, Clara Iannotta and Alex Mincek. For the last 20 years he has been pianist and Co-Director of the Wet Ink Ensemble (New York).