Program and Artist Biography

"Here is a master of his instrument at work . . . the most delicate pastel tones, oscillating changes between light and shade, between advance and retreat . . . Every imaginable color of tone seems to be at Reto Bieri's disposal."
—Musik & Theater, April 2002

Reto Bieri is among of the most promising clarinetists of his generation. His compact disc Portrait (Pan Classics) documents this most convincingly. On it, Bieri can be heard in works by Copeland, Bernstein, Carter, and Benny Goodman, accompanied by the Prague Chamber Orchestra and the pianist Riccardo Bovino. Bieri has also recorded a recital CD for Claves on which he plays music by Schubert with pianist Gérard Wyss and a CD of Mozart's complete chamber music with the Casals Quartet for Solo Musica.

Born in Zug, Switzerland, in 1975, Bieri grew up listening to Swiss folk music before discovering classical music. He studied the clarinet with Francois Benda in Basel and with Charles Neidich at the Juilliard School in New York. The experiences which most influenced him were chamber music lessons from composer György Kurtag and pianist Krystian Zimerman in Basel.

In 2001 he won the International Rostrum for Young Performers, a contest organized by the European broadcasting corporations and UNESCO. Since then he has been invited to play all over the world as a soloist and a chamber musician. He has played with numerous orchestras and with conductors who included Vladimir Fedoseyev, Kurt Masur, Roger Norrington, Tibor Varga, and Howard Griffiths.

Beside the "normal" repertoire of his instrument, Bieri particularly enjoys incursions into new music. He has studied various works with such eminent composers as Elliott Carter, Millton Babbitt, György Kurtag, Franco Donatoni, Jürg Wyttenbach, Thomas Larchner, Otto Zykan, and many others, and makes time to regularly collaborate with younger composers as well.

Pianist Benjamin Engeli comes from a family of musicians and started his musical education on various instruments at an early age. He did not decide to take his first regular piano lessons until age 15. Engeli studied with Adrian Oetiker, with whom he continued to work until he completed his first diploma at the Musikhochschule in Basel, Switzerland. He later studied with Homero Francesch at the College of Music in Zurich. His lessons with Lazar Berman, Andrzej Jasinski, Maurizio Pollini, and András Schiff were also of major importance for his creative development.

Engeli has won prizes at many music competitions and has received various scholarships and support funding grants. His concert activities have taken him to most European countries as well as to Australia, India, and North and South America. In 2009 he received the cultural prize of his home state, the Swiss canton of Thurgau.

In 2003 he became a founding member of the Tecchler Trio, which is one of today’s leading chamber music ensembles. The trio, which was the first prize winner at the International ARD Music Competition in Munich in 2007, has performed in numerous venues, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the Herkulessaal in Munich, the Konzerthaus in Vienna, and the Tonhalle in Zurich, and has made numerous recordings. He is also one of the four pianists of the Gershwin Piano Quartet, which has recently been touring China and the United Arab Emirates and has a busy schedule for the coming years.

Engeli is a faculty member for chamber music at the Musikhochschule in Basel.