Vienna’s Morphing String Quintet is a world-leading ensemble performing stunning arrangements of unforgettable MET STARS live in concert.

Hailing from Vienna, the Morphing String Quintet has quickly become one of the world‘s most sought-after ensembles. With stunning arrangements of unforgettable opera arias for their Met Opera collaborations and their resident series at the famous Eroica Hall of Vienna‘s Lobkowitz Palace, Morphing have recorded widely for SONY Classical, BMG Classics, and Universal Music.

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T“The Vienna Morphing Quintet played a significant instrumental introduction to the next selection. Their first violinist is a gem.”

Classical Music Daily

“Congratulations and thanks! The Vienna Morphing Quintet played very well and your orchestrations were excellent!”MET STARS live in Concert, France with Aleksandra Kurzak and Roberto Alagna Peter Gelb, Metropolitan Opera NYC 25.08.2020

“EXCELLENT MUSICIANSHIP FROM THE VIENNA MORPHING QUINTET.”Seen & Heard International

YUUKI WONG – VIOLIN I

Winner of the 2011 Prix de la Ville de Lausanne, Yuuki Wong has been quoted by The Strad as an artist ‘with imagination and insight….a crowd-pleaser’. After just three years of violin lessons, he was admitted to the world renowned Yehudi Menuhin School in England at the age of 10. Subsequent teachers include Almita and Roland Vamos, Boris Kuschnir, Pierre Amoyal and Ilya Gringolts. Yuuki has participated in masterclasses with personalities such as Yehudi Menuhin, Itzhak Perlman, Tibor Varga, Aaron Rosand, Zakhar Bron, Leon Fleischer to mention a few.

Honours bestowed upon Wong include 1st Prize at the 2007 Summit Music Festival Competition in New York, 2nd Prize and Special Prize at the 2007 Michael Hill International Violin Competition in New Zealand, Special Prize and 4th Place at the 2005 Jean Sibelius International Violin Competition in Helsinki, the Grand Prix at the 2000 Kingsville International Competition. Yuuki has performed at the Menuhin Festival Gstaad as part of the ‚Jeunes Étoiles‘ Series, the Verbier Festival Academy, Perlman Music Program, Ravinia Festival. He was invited twice to perform at Carnegie Hall‘s Professional Training Workshop. Recital, concerto and chamber music highlights include performances for the President of Singapore, for HM Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace, and with orchestras such as the Helsinki Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Camerata de Lausanne, Auckland Philharmonia, Singapore Symphony, etc.

As concertmaster of the Vienna Morphing Orchestra, recent highlights include performances with the soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, the 2020 CD release by Sony Classical of her album ‘Desire’ and the New York Metropolitan Opera Live-Streaming series ‘Met Stars in Concert’ with Aleksandra Kurzak and Roberto Alagna from Èze, France. This led to an immediate re-invitation from the Met to play at the New Year’s Eve Gala Livestream in the same Met Stars Live in Concert Series. Upcoming engagements with the Morphing Chamber Orchestra include a recording of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with violist and founder Tomasz Wabnic and Mozart Arias with soprano Aleksandra Kurzak for the French label Aparté.

LUKAS MEDLAM – VIOLIN II

Lukas Medlam was born in 1985 into a musical family in rural southern England and began to play the piano aged 5. One year later, he started the violin and juggled the two instruments until starting composition at music school in London, aged 15. He studied all three disciplines simultaneously (along with jazz piano) before eventually deciding to focus exclusively on the violin.

He spent one year studying at the Royal College of Music in London, before pursuing another of his many interests and completing a four year Masters in Physics at Imperial College, London. During this time, he completed an Erasmus exchanfge programme in which he moved to Italy for a year to work & study in a laboratory, thus adding Italian to his already fluent French and German.

Lukas moved to Vienna in 2010 to complete a four-year violin masters at the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied with Thomas Christian, a former student of Jascha Heifetz. He tours China and Japan regularly, performs chamber music in diverse festivals around Europe, and plays twice/thrice weekly in a quartet concert series in the Peterskirche in Vienna. In addition to his performing activities, he has been an active composer. His compositions have been performed in Vienna’s most renowned concert halls, including the Musikverein and the Konzerthaus, where he has also appeared as a soloist. In 2013 he appeared as a concertmaster of the Vienna Feuerhaus Sinfonietta, in the Beijing concert hall. His diverse activities on board P&O ships and within the Marcel Rubin Quartet, London Baroque, and many more such ensembles, have allowed for an intense and rewarding international career, but working within the Morphing Chamber Orchestra is currently one of his main activities.

The Morphing Chamber Orchestra is rapidly emerging onto the classical music scene and Lukas has as an orchestral member and manager, been privileged to take part in a CD recording for Sony, two livestreamed concerts through the New York Metropolitan in their reduced formation as a quintet and a variety of exciting musical endeavours in Austria, Poland and further afield. Further CD recordings with renowned opera star Aleksandra Kurzak are planned.

ATTILA PASZTOR – VIOLONCELLO

Attila Pasztor fulfills a prototype Image of a versatile talent, which gives him the ability to look at the works from the most diverse points of view. He studied cello at the Vienna Conservatory under Josef Luitz, at the Vienna University of Music under Tobias Kühne, and was trained as a soloist for six years by the legendary cellist Daniil Shafran.

Aditionally he worked for some time with Arto Noras. He is winner of numerous awards and competitions, including the “Vienna Philharmonic” award, 1 prize at the “International Chamber Music Festival Austria, 1st prize in the international competition in Liezen, 1st prize at the Bayreuth international music competition, After composing his first film scores at the age of 17. Pasztor began studying composition at the University of Music in Vienna with Dietmar Schermann, Heinrich Gattermeyer and Michael Jarrell.

Also interested in the legal system he studied Law at the University in Vienna. Attila Pasztor appeared as a soloist and sought-after chamber musician in Europe, Asia, South America, and the USA, doing many recordings for broadcast and TV.

Since 2017 he has is working as a product manager at the traditional Viennese company Thomastik-Infeld. Pasztor plays a cello by Carlo Giuseppe Testore from 1697, which was given him on loan by Mr. Gustav Ammerer. Attila Pasztor is solo cellist for the Morphing Chamber Orchestra and member of the Morphing String Trio and Vienna Morphing Quintet.

BENEDICT ZIERVOGEL – KONTRABASS

Benedict Ziervogel, from Vienna, began double bass lessons aged 16 at the Carinthian State Conservatory, going on to obtain a degree in double bass, composition and conducting from the same institution. He also studied at the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz (double bass with Johannes Auersperg, violone/viola da gamba with Lorenz Duftschmid) and at the Zurich Academy of Arts (double bass with Prof. Duncan McTier ), graduating from both with distinction. He has worked for the Vienna Volksoper, the Tonkünstler-Orchester Niederösterreich and as a principal bassist in the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa/Japan and the Wurttemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn.

He has taught at the Gustav Mahler-Academy Bolzano/Bozen and the International Summer Academy in Feldkirchen, as well as Masterclasses on Viennese Classical music all over Europe, Asia and South America. From 2012-19 he directed a double bass class at the Prayner Conservatory for Music and Dramatic Arts in Vienna. He appears regularly, among others, with the Zurich Opera House Orchestra, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the German Chamber Philharmonic Bremen, the Cologne Gurzenich Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, Basel Sinfonietta , the Basle Chamber Orchestra or the period instrument orchestra Le Cercle de l`Harmonie from Paris and has been principal bass with Ensemble Resonanz, Hamburg, since 2013.

As a passionate Chamber musician he collaborates with renowned artists like Jean-Guihen Queyras, Riccardo Minasi, Tabea Zimmermann, the Acies Quartet, the Quartetto di Cremona, the Parker Quartet or the Altenberg Trio Vienna, among others.

Benedict Ziervogel is internationally known not only as a passionate chamber musician with an intense interest in historically informed performance, particularly with regard to the period of Viennese Classicism, but also as an expert on contemporary music, a field in which he is in much demand both as a performer and a composer.

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TOMASZ WABNIC – VIOLA MUSIC DIRECTOR + MANAGER

Tomasz Wabnic is the founder and artistic director of the Morphing Chamber Orchestra and violist of the Morphing String Trio and Vienna Morphing Quintet in Vienna. Leading peer musicians and audiences around the world are amazed by the bold energy and inventive drive of this multi-faceted artist.

During the summer of 2020 he performed, together with Aleksandra Kurzak and Roberto Alagna, in the Metropolitan Opera Stars Live in Concert series. Recent appearances by Tomasz Wabnic also include performances at the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Moscow‘s Philharmonic Hall, Musikverein Vienna, the Tchaikovsky Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the legendary Teatro Amazonas in Manaus, Brazil, and the amazing Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall.

Founded by Tomas Wabnic in Vienna in 2006, the Morphing Chamber Orchestra has quickly established itself as one of the most sought-after soloist ensembles at international level. The orchestra, composed of fixed members all of whom are award-winning soloists from fifteen countries, has its resident series at the famous Eroica Hall of Vienna‘s Lobkowitz Palace has recorded widely for SONY Classical, Gramola Vienna, and Universal Music. Following his concept of a congenial combination of musical styles and art forms in an unusually intense rehearsal process, Tomasz Wabnic established close musical partnerships with other extraordinary artists as diverse as star soprano Aleksandra Kurzak, US vocal artist Bobby McFerrin, counter-tenor legend Andreas Scholl, the Egyptian-Australian oud virtuoso Joseph Tawadros and major composers such as Arvo Pärt and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Tomasz Wabnic is also the founder of Capella Czestochoviensis and served as its artistic director from 2006 to 2012. Now the artistic director of Capella Claromontana since 2012, he leads another world-class, Early Music ensemble dedicated at unearthing lost music especially of the Polish Baroque era. Mr. Wabnic produced world- premiere recordings of several works by Daubeck and Gotschalk. The previously lost gems rediscovered by Tomasz Wabnic at the music archives of the Czestochowa monastery of Mons Clara include several works by W.A. Mozart and Joseph Haydn.

Born in Wrocław, Poland, into a family of musicians, Tomasz Wabnic received his education as a violinist and a violist at the conservatories and universities of Bydgoszcz and Poznan in the violin class of the internationally famed violinist Jadwiga Kaliszewska as well as at Vienna‘s Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität as a member of the highly regarded viola class of Herwig Zelle and of the chamber music masterclass of the Altenberg Trio Wien. He graduated with honours.

Numerous awards and honours were bestowed on Tomasz Wabnic as a soloist and chamber musician. With his Fidelio Quartet, he was a finalist in the 2003 International Chamber Music Competition in Melbourne. Morphing: the combination of several works of music and other art forms through seamless tranisition, is a concept which fascinated Tomasz Wabnic since his infant days: In his parents‘ living room, he used to play two or three records and the radio all at the same time, with the idea of creating a new sound. Today he lives with his family in Vienna.

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VOGLIATEMI BENEfrom Puccini’s Madama Butterfly

AH! LÈVE-TOI, SOLEIL! from Gounod’s Roméo et Juliette

UNA VOCE POCO FAfrom Rossini’s Il Barbiere di Siviglia

CARO ELISIRfrom Donizetti’s L’Elisir d’Amore

CH’ELLA MI CREDA LIBERO E LONTANOfrom Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West

TU QUI, SANTUZZA?from Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana

AVE MARIAfrom Verdi’s Otello

GIÀ NELLA NOTTE DENSAfrom Verdi’s Otello

LIPPEN SCHWEIGENfrom Lehár’s The Merry Widow

CIELITO LINDOby Quirino Mendoza y Cortés

FUNICULÌ, FUNICULÀby Luigi Denza

CHE GELIDA MANINAfrom Puccini’s La Bohème

SÌ, MI CHIAMANO MIMÌ from Puccini’s La Bohème

O SOAVE FANCIULLAfrom Puccini’s La Bohème

QUOI! VOUS M’AIMEZ?from Donizetti’s La Fille du Régiment

BEVO AL TUO FRESCO SORRISOfrom Puccini’s La Rondine

SON GELOSO DEL ZEFIRO ERRANTEfrom Bellini’s La Sonnambula

LIPPEN SCHWEIGENfrom Lehár’s The Merry Widow

MATTINATAby Ruggero Leoncavallo

TORNA A SURRIENTOby Ernesto De Curtis

O SOLE MIOby Eduardo di Capua

LIBIAMO, NE’ LIETI CALICIfrom Verdi’s La Traviata

AULD LANG SYNE(Traditional)

The Vienna Morphing Quintet specializes in arranging opera arias for solo voice and string Quintet.

arranged by Tomasz Wabnic (music director and manager Morphing Music Institute) and Lukas Medlam

MORPHING MUSIC INSTITUTEwww.morphingmusic.com

institute@morphingmusic.com

www.morphingmusic.com/tv

Eroica Saal, Theatermuseum Lobkowitzplatz 2, 1010 Wien

MORPHING TV

ALEKSANDRA KURZAK & VIENNA MORPHING QUINTET