Konstantin Manaev - Ali-Zadeh: Chamber Music for Cello (2014)

Konstantin Manaev (*1983 Ekaterinburg / Russia) first studied at the special school of the Moscow Conservatory with Kirill Rodin, then with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt at the Musikhochschule Münster and at the Hochschule für Musik Carl Maria von Weber Dresden, later with Ivan Monighetti at the Musikakademie Basel . His mentors include David Geringas and Natalia Gutman. Konstantin Manaev has received international awards as a soloist and chamber musician. He won the Grand Prix at the Int. Wilkomirski cello competition in Poznan (Poland) and 1st prize at the Concorsi Int. di Musica Val Tidone (Italy), at the New Names Competition in Moscow and at the 12th Young Concert Artists European Auditions in Leipzig. In 2002 he won the GWK music sponsorship award in Münster. Konstantin Manaev performs as a soloist throughout Europe, Russia, Japan and the USA.

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh (*1947 Baku / Azerbaijan) was trained as a pianist and composer at the Baku Conservatory and completed an aspirant with Kara Karajew in 1976. She then taught at the conservatory in her hometown, from 1990 as a professor of contemporary music and history of orchestral styles. From 1993 to 1996 she was choir director at the Mersin Opera House in Turkey, after which she taught piano and music theory at the conservatory there for two years. With her "Piano Sonata in memoriam Alban Berg" (1970), the composer presented herself to western countries for the first time in 1976 at the music festival in Pesaro. After that, her music was heard at numerous renowned festivals, in portrait concerts, on the radio and on CD recordings in the USA and throughout Europe, Australia, Israel and Turkey.

In 1989, Alexander Matrosov (*1979 Chimkent / Kazakhstan) was the youngest student of Oleg Scharov at the Rimsky-Korsakov special school for gifted children in St. Petersburg, with whom he continued his education until 2002. In 2003 he came to Germany, where he studied with Mie Miki first at the Detmold University of Music, Dortmund department, and then at the Folkwang University in Essen. Alexander Matrosov received numerous prestigious awards. In 2005, for example, he won the Grand Prix at the 4th IAA International Accordion Competition in Tokyo and first prize at the Federal University Competition for Music in Hamburg in addition to the GWK Music Promotion Prize. He won first prize at the Gitta di Lanciano in Italy and at the Int. Accordion Competition in St. Petersburg. Three years earlier he had won the Grand Prix France in Geneva, in 1998 the 31st International Accordion Competition in Paris and in 1992 the Russian Federal Accordion Competition in St. Petersburg.