Zoltan Despond, violoncelle & Vesselin Stanev, piano

Presented by A & A - Hervé Archambeau (Lic. 2-1018545 ) Ludwig van Beethoven - Sonata for cello and piano no. 5 op. 102 no. 2 Robert Schumann - Romances for oboe and piano, op. 94 (version for cello and piano) Richard Strauss - Sonata for cello and piano in F major op. 6 Born in 1992, cellist Zoltan Despond trained with Pierre-Bernard Sudan in Fribourg and Marc Jaermann in Lausanne, then with Thomas Grossenbacher at the Hochschule der Künste Zürich, where he earned a soloist master's degree in 2018. At the Pavia Cello Academy, he benefited from the invaluable advice of Enrico Dindo and took part in masterclasses with Antonio Meneses, Christophe Coin, and Giovanni Sollima. His concert tours take him throughout Europe. He enjoys performing with musicians such as Ilya Gringolts, Silvia Simionescu, Marko Milenkovic, and Anahit Kurtikyan. He participates in the activities of the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester. Pianist Vesselin Stanev, a native of Varna (Bulgaria), trained at the Sofia Academy of Music and then with Dmitri Bashkirov at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, with Alexis Weissenberg, and at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris. He received additional guidance from Peter Feuchtwanger in London. He was a laureate of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow and the Marguerite Long – Jacques Thibaud Competition. He performs regularly in major European concert halls such as Wigmore Hall in London, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and the Salle Gaveau in Paris. He also travels to the Nordic countries, Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Russia, and Japan. He is particularly dedicated to chamber music, performing for example with violinist Ekaterina Frolova, flutist Eva Oertle, and cellist Zoltán Despond. He has recorded numerous CDs for RCA, Sony Classical, and the Bulgarian label Gega New.