After a career spanning more than 20 years as a gifted cello soloist and orchestral musician, Umberto Clerici is widely regarded for his seamless transition to the podium now as an acclaimed conductor. The 2025 season will mark Clerici’s third as Chief Conductor of the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in addition to being a frequent guest with several leading orchestras.

Umberto began his career as a virtuoso cellist making his solo debut at the age of 17 performing Haydn’s D Major cello concerto in Japan. After years of performing on the stages of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, Umberto took up the position as Principal cello of the Teatro Regio di Torino following which he was Principal Cello of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra from 2014 to 2021. It was in Sydney in 2018 that Umberto made his conducting debut with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the Sydney Opera House. Following a swift trajectory of prestigious conducting engagements, Umberto is now in high demand with the major symphony orchestras throughout Australia and New Zealand.

As a cellist, Umberto is beloved by audiences worldwide, having performed internationally as a soloist at New York’s Carnegie Hall, Vienna’s Musicverein, the great Shostakovich Hall of St Petersburg, Auditorium Parco della Musica in Rome, the Salzburg Festival and is one of only two Italians to have ever won a prize for cello in the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition.

Praised by The Strad for her ‘magical simplicity’ and described as a ‘true aristocrat of the violin’ by La Libre, Hungarian violinist Júlia Pusker gained international recognition as a laureate of the 2019 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition.

Highlights of recent seasons include her Wigmore Hall recital debut (2025), Beethoven’s Violin Concerto with the Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liège under Gergely Madaras—broadcast live on Medici TV and Mezzo—and her debut with the Basel Chamber Orchestra performing Bartók’s First Violin Concerto at the Bartók Spring Festival and Basel Stadtcasino. She has appeared as soloist with major ensembles such as the Belgian National Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Hungarian National Philharmonic, Orquestra Sinfónica do Porto Casa da Música, Franz Liszt Chamber Orchestra and the London Mozart Players.

A 2023–24 European Concert Hall Organisation Rising Star, Júlia has performed at leading venues such as the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Philharmonie de Paris, Wiener Konzerthaus, Konserthuset Stockholm, Kölner Philharmonie, Müpa Budapest and Casa da Música Porto.

Her discography features Eric Tanguy’s Second Violin Concerto with Jyväskylä Sinfonia (Ondine) and Schubert on Violin with pianist Zoltán Fejérvári (Hungaroton). Born into a family of musicians in Hungary, Júlia studied at the Franz Liszt Academy in Budapest and with György Pauk at London’s Royal Academy of Music. From 2016 to 2021, she was Artist-in-Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel working with Augustin Dumay. She performs on the c.1714 ‘Massart’ Stradivari, generously loaned by the Pauk Family through Beare’s International Violin Society.

Born in Japan, Natsuko Yoshimoto began playing the violin at the age of three. She studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and Royal Northern College of Music in England and the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She received direct guidance and teaching under Lord Menuhin and Wen Zhou Li.

She has won many awards and prizes in international competitions including the Gold Medal in both the prestigious 1994 Shell/London Symphony Orchestra Competition and the Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa Award and the Iwaki Award for outstanding achievement as a Japanese artist.

In great demand as a soloist, she has appeared with many world renowned orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia (London), Halle Orchestra, Odense Symphony (Denmark), Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Orchestra Ensemble Kanazawa, Hong Kong Sinfonietta, Melbourne Symphony and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras.

Natsuko is also a member of highly acclaimed chamber group, Ensemble Q. She has been the leader of both the Australian String Quartet and the Grainger Quartet as well as the Concertmaster of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. Natsuko frequently guests as a Concertmaster with many major orchestras in Australia and Asia and continues to perform chamber music as a guest artist with various groups and musicians in many of the festivals.

Natsuko is also a passionate teacher and is a staff member at the Conservatorium of Music in Queensland teaching violin and chamber music. She has given many world premieres of works by Australia’s most prominent composers and has recorded for Virgin Classics, ABC Classics, Melba Records and Tall Poppies.

Stefanie grew up in Melbourne and began her studies on violin before making the switch to the viola at the age of 16. She describes her connection with the viola as instant, saying that from the moment she played the instrument for the first time she knew she ‘had found her voice.’

Stefanie studied at the Australian National Academy of Music and spent a year as an ACO Emerging Artist in 2008, before moving to Berlin to continue her studies with the renowned violist Tabea Zimmermann at the Hochschule für Musik. She has won numerous awards and chamber music prizes including the Asia Pacific Chamber Music Competition (as a member of the Hamer Quartet).

She has performed extensively throughout Europe, America, Asia and Australia with orchestras including the Berlin Philharmonic, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Camerata Salzburg. Prior to her role with the ACO she was Principal Viola with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and has performed as Guest Principal Viola with the Strasbourg Philharmonic, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Australian World Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Symphony Orchestra. She has performed as a soloist with the ACO, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and Melbourne Chamber Orchestra

Stefanie is passionate about commissioning and performing new music for the viola, and as recipient of the Freedman Classic Fellowship, she used her scholarship to commission several new works for the instrument. She performs on a 2016 viola made by Ragner Hayn in Berlin.

Musician, psychoanalyst and educator, Tommaso Lonquich is acclaimed by reviewers as a 'formidable clarinetist' and praised for his 'passion, sumptuous tone, magical finesse and dazzling virtuosity'. He is an Artist of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center in New York and has served as solo clarinetist with Denmark-based Ensemble MidtVest for thirteen years.

He has appeared on the world’s most renowned stages, partnering among others with Christian Tetzlaff, Ilya Gringolts, Pekka Kuusisto, Júlia Pusker, Umberto Clerici, Nicolas Altstaedt, Maximilian Hornung, Anneleen Lenaerts, David Finckel, Wu Han, Claudio Martinez Mehner, Radovan Vlatkovic and the Danish, Van Kuijk, Zaïde and Vertavo string quartets.

As a soloist and guest principal, he has collaborated with conductors including Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Fabio Luisi, and Leonard Slatkin. In Denmark, Tommaso Lonquich is the founder and Artistic Director of Schackenborg Musikfest, one of Scandinavia’s most prestigious festivals. Previously he served as Artistic Director of KantorAtelier, a vibrant and multidisciplinary cultural space in Florence. A devoted mentor, he has given masterclasses at the Juilliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, and at the Royal Danish Academy of Music, among others.

Alongside his artistic career, Tommaso Lonquich is a practicing psychoanalyst at the International Center for Lacanian Psychoanalysis, which he founded in Ljubljana, Slovenia. He is a lecturer in Theory and Clinic of Lacanian Psychoanalysis and a member of the Scientific Committee at OMANUT in Rome. The 2025–2026 season will take him to Korea, China, the United States, Australia, and throughout Europe.

A stunningly virtuosic pianist, Alexander is internationally recognised for his electrifying and poetic performances. His performance of Rachmaninov's Piano Concerto No.3 at the BBC Proms was described as 'revelatory' by The Times and 'electrifying' by Limelight. Alexander was Artist-in-Residence at Wigmore Hall for the 23/24 season.

Highlights of the 2025-26 season include debuts with Orquesta Sinfónica de Castilla y León, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Minnesota Orchestra, Tonkünstler Orchestra, Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Opera North orchestra and i Solisti di Pavia. Alexander will also return to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Auckland Philharmonia. Recent highlights also include Hamburger Symphoniker, Orchestre Philharmonique Royal de Liege, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Estonian National Symphony, Phil Zuid, Enescu Philharmonic and Taiwan National Symphony. This season also sees returns to Baerum Kulturhaus and the Piano Masters Series in Stoke-on-Trent as a recital artist along with his recital debut at Theater Heerlen.

Alexander collaborates regularly with conductors including Rafael Payare, Alexandre Bloch, Thomas Søndergård, Donald Runnicles, Juraj Valcuha, Kirill Karabits, Edward Gardner & Gustavo Gimeno.

Born in Ukraine in 1984 and holding Australian citizenship, Alexander began his piano studies at the age of seven and gave his first concerto performance when he was nine years old. At the age of 13, Alexander moved to Sydney where he lived until 2006. He won First Prize and Gold Medal at the Horowitz International Piano Competition (1999), First Prize at the Hamamatsu International Piano Competition (2000), and Gold Medal at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition (2005).

As a recitalist Alexander has performed at the Musikverein in Vienna, Tonhalle Zurich, Victoria Hall Geneva, Southbank Centre’s International Piano Series, Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw Master Pianists Series, Suntory Hall, Tokyo Opera City Hall, Great Hall of Moscow Conservatory, Cologne Philharmonie, Tokyo City Concert Hall, San Francisco, Sydney Recital Hall and Melbourne Recital Centre.

Claudio Martínez Mehner was born in 1970. He began his musical studies at the Real Conservatorio Superior de Madrid with Amparo Fuster, Pedro Lerma, and Joaquín Soriano. In addition to his piano studies, he participated in several youth orchestras as a violinist, violist, and harpsichord player.

He continued his studies at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow and at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid with Prof. Dmitri Bashkirov; at the Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Germany, with Vitalij Margulis; at the Fondazione per il Pianoforte in Como, Italy; and at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, USA, with Leon Fleisher. He also took part in masterclasses given by Murray Perahia, Fou Ts’ong, Alexis Weissenberg, Karl-Ulrich Schnabel, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Mstislav Rostropovich, and György Kurtág, among many others. For almost a decade, he received invaluable guidance from Prof. Ferenc Rados.

Claudio Martínez Mehner has won several first prizes at the German competition Bundeswettbewerb Jugend musiziert. He was a finalist at the Paloma O’Shea International Piano Competition in Santander (1990) and won first prizes at the Pilar Bayona International Competition in Zaragoza, Spain (1992); the Fondation Chimay Competition in Belgium (1993); and the Dino Ciani International Competition in Milan, Italy (1993).

As a soloist, he has performed in most major cities across Europe, the United States, Russia, Central America, Japan, and Korea, with orchestras such as the Munich Philharmonic, Moscow Philharmonic, Filarmonica della Scala, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Prague Philharmonic, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Norddeutscher Rundfunk, Filarmonia Hungarica, and most of the major Spanish orchestras.

An avid chamber musician, he has performed with numerous ensembles throughout Europe and Asia. He is currently Professor of Piano at the Hochschule für Musik in Basel, Switzerland, and at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz in Cologne, Germany. In October 2026, he will assume a professorship at the University Mozarteum in Salzburg. He regularly gives masterclasses throughout Europe, Asia, and the United States.

Kees Boersma enjoys a multifaceted career as Principal Double Bass with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Lecturer of Bass at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, recitalist and chamber musician. As a soloist with the SSO he has given world premiere performances of concertos by Colin Bright (Young Tree Green) and Mary Finsterer (Ice Tales No. 1) the latter performances earning an APRA Music Award nomination for ‘Best Australian Performance of a New Work’. He also featured as soloist and presenter as part of the SSO ‘Playlist’ series of concerts.

Kees is a regular performer at such prestigious festivals as the Australian Festival of Chamber Music and a guest leader of Australian and International ensembles, with invitations to perform with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, West Australian Symphony Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra.

Kees has been a member of the Australian World Orchestra since its inception and was soloist in the groundbreaking Elena Kats Chernin concerto (The Witching Hour) for 8 Double Basses and orchestra. Prior to his appointment to the SSO he performed, recorded and toured internationally for several seasons with the acclaimed Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, Amsterdam, under such celebrated conductors as Bernard Haitink, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Antal Dorati and Carlo Maria Giulini.