Pavel Sokolov - Bennett: After Syrinx I - Poulenc: Oboe Sonata - Britten: Temporal Variations - Haas: Oboe Suite - Dranishnikova: Poème (2014)

Pavel Sokolov (*1975 Moscow) began to learn the oboe in 1985 from Sergej Burdukov at the Moscow Gnessin Music School for particularly gifted children. In 1993 he moved to Ivan Puschethschnikov at the Gnessin Music Academy, where he graduated in 1998. He then went to Gernot Schmalfuss at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold, where he passed the concert exam in 2005. Pavel Sokolov received important awards, for example at the Russian Oboe Competition in St. Petersburg, at the Richard Lauschmann Competition in Mannheim and at the Sony International Oboe Competition in Japan. Pavel Sokolov was a member of the Moscow Modern Music Ensemble from 1994 to 1997. From 2004 he was solo oboist with the Bergische Symphoniker and in the same position in 2006/7 with the Deutsches Symphonieorchester Berlin. In 2014 he became professor of oboe at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo.

Kimiko Imani (*1975 Hamamatsu / Japan) studied from 1991 to 1998 in Tokyo at the Toho Gakuen High School and the Toho Gakuen Academy of Music with Yasushi Hirose. From 1999 to 2000 she completed postgraduate studies at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold with Anatol Ugorski, where she passed the concert exam in 2005 with distinction. She received important artistic impulses in master classes with Peter Lang, Michail Woskresensky, Edith Picht-Axenfeld, Markus Hinterhäuser and Andras Schiff. Between 1987 and 1990, Kimiko Imani won the Young Music Students' Competition in Japan three times, and at the age of seventeen won 2nd prize at the prestigious Kanagawa Music Competition. In 2000 she received the GWK music sponsorship award in Münster. Kimiko Imani has made guest appearances at well-known festivals such as the International Wind Festival in Hamamatsu, the Karuizawa Arts Festival and the Sony International Oboe Competition.