Benjamin Schmid
originally from Vienna, won the Carl-Flesch and other competitions in 1992 in London, where he was also awarded the Mozart, Beethoven and audience prizes. Since that time he has performed at leading venues all over the world with famous orchestras such as the Vienna Philharmonic, The London Philharmonia Orchestra, the Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Tonhalle Orchestra Zürich directed by conductors such as Ch.v.Dohnányi, V. Gergiev, D. Zinman, S. Ozawa and I. Metzmacher. His quality as a soloist, the exceptional spectrum of his repertoire – besides traditional works, the violin concerts of Hartmann, Gulda, Korngold, Muthspiel, Szymanowski, Weill, Lutoslawski and Schönberg, for instance - and in particular his improvisational ability in jazz make him a violinist with an incomparable profile.

Benjamin Schmid’s CDs, around 40 in number, have been awarded the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, the Echo Klassik music prize, Grammophone Editor’s Choice, the Strad Selection and other such prizes. He plays concerts with a Stradivari violin ex 1731, is a lecturer at the Mozarteum in Salzburg and holds master classes at The Academy in Bern.

Several films have been made about Benjamin Schmid which have captured the outstanding artistic character of the violinist in worldwide TV broadcasts. In 2006 Benjamin Schmid received the ‘Internationaler Preis für Kunst und Kultur’ (International Prize for Arts & Culture) in his home town of Salzburg, where he lives with his wife, the pianist Ariane Haering, and their four children.

In June 2011 Benjamin Schmid accepted the repeated invitation from the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, this time with a Paganini/Kreisler violin concerto, at the open air concert ‘Sommernachtskonzert’, which, like the New Year’s Concert, is broadcast live on TV and appeared as a DVD and a CD released by the record label Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft.

Ariane Haering
started taking lessons at the age of six in her hometown of La Chaux-de-Fonds. Her major impulse for choosing the piano was led by an early wish to accompany her older sister Carole, a talented violinist. Moving on to complete her studies at the Conservatory , she received her Diploma with Honours at the age of 16. A year of intensive studies at the North Carolina School of the Arts opened up her musical and personal horizons. After returning to Switzerland to complete her Masters at the Lausanne Conservatory , and parallel to her solo concerts, she discovered the richness of chamber music repertoire. Through her many encounters with exceptional musicians, such as Dimitri Ashkenazy, Clemens Hagen, Matthias Schorn, Martin Fröst, Veronika Hagen, Ramon Jaffé, Sylvia Viertel, Sebastian Hess, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Peter Martens, the Brodsky-, St-Petersburg-, Stadler-, Mozarteum-, Petersen-, Sine Nomine- and Casal-Quartetts, she has had the opportunity to play in numerous festivals and venues throughout Europe, North America and Asia.

Her appearances with Orchestras such as the Tonhalle Orchester Zürich, the Houston Symphony, the Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Tonhalle Orchester St-Gallen, the Akademisches Orchester Zürich, the National Symphony Kuala Lumpur, the OENM, the Berner Kammer Orchester, the Orchestre de Chambre Neuchâtelois, the Johannesburg Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Genève, the Salzburg Orchester Solisten and the Kammer Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks have established her reputation as virtuoso soloist.

She has won many prizes and awards, including the Eurovision Competition, the Concours Suisse de Musique pour la Jeunesse, the Concerto Competition of the University of North Carolina, Prix de Jeune Soliste de la Communauté des Radios Publiques de Langue Française (CRPLF), Prix Miéville, Prix L’Express, Prix du Lyon’s Club, Prix Rotary International.

Her encounter with Benjamin Schmid has been by far the most inspiring and fertile , in more ways than one. Not only have they toured Europe, North and South America, Japan and South Africa together, playing at venues such as the Salzburger Festspiele, the Mozart Woche Salzburg, the Klavier Festival Ruhr, the Moritzburg Festival, the Middelburg Kammermusikfest, the Risor Chamber music Festival, the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Festival, in Tokio, Osaka, Kyoto, Bogota, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Stellenbosch, at the Musikverein Vienna, at Schloss Eggenberg in Graz, at the Brucknerhaus in Linz, at the Salle de Musique de La Chaux-de-Fonds, exploring a vast duo repertoire, they also joined their destinies by becoming husband and wife and the overjoyed parents of four children.

Now living in Salzburg and investing as much time and energy in pursuing her career as a pianist and a mother, Ariane Haering will never be thankful enough to those who have encouraged her along this musical path from scratch; Cécile Pantillon, Catherine Courvoisier, Clifton Matthews, Brigitte Meyer, Gerhard and Inge Schmid, Maestro Hans and Rita Graf, Johannes Schlaefli, Jean-Philippe Bauermeister, Martin Kelterborn, Mrs. and Mr. Springmann, Jan Dobrzelewski, the friends and colleagues who stood by no matter what; Esther Walker, Daniel Alfred Wachs, Samaela and Erik Bilic-Eric, Olivier Linder, Ilya Bregenzer, Etienne Frey, Nabila Irshaid and Fridolin Schaller.