Ten Members, Seven Nationalities, A Universe Of Ideas

Philip Mayers, piano

Born: Australia
Studied: Brisbane & Berlin
Lied accompanist and close association with the Rundfunkchor Berlin and the RIAS-Kammerchor
Special interests: composing; vocal coaching; presenting, arranging & performing Cabaret & light music

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Petteri Pitko, harpsichord

Born: Finland
Studied: Helsinki, Paris & Berlin
Professor for Chamber Music and Harpsichord at the NOVIA University of Applied Sciences in Vaasa, Finland
Special interests: commissioning & performing new solo & chamber music works for harpsichord 

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Oli Bott, vibraphone

Born: Germany
Studied: Boston
Freelance on the international Jazz scene
Special interests: composition, improvisation & exploring new musical worlds

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Mary Carewe, vocal artist

Born: England
Studied: London
International concert and recording artist
Special interests: researching & performing Cabaret from 1900-1940

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Michele Pasotti, theorbo

Born: Italy
Studied: Milan, Rome & Barcelona
Founder and director of "La Fonte Musica", ensemble for late Mediaeval music
Special interests: Mediaeval music, Rock music & Philosophy

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Inspired by her father, conductor John Carewe, the English cellist Anna Carewe has always been an avid supporter of New Music, commissioning her first work for solo cello at the age of fifteen and subsequently performing countless new solo and ensemble compositions with groups such as the Ensemble Modern Frankfurt, the Ensemble "L'art pour l'art" (which explores the cutting edge of experimental music) or with duo partner Philip Mayers

Projects with Thomas Hengelbrock, Bernhard Forck and Sergio Azzolini awakened Anna's interest in historical performance practice and the Manon Quartet Berlin, of which she is a founding member, has performed on both modern and period instruments at festivals in Germany, Denmark, Austria (Innsbrucker Festwochen für Alte Musik) and at the Tanglewood International Music Festival in the USA (where it was Quartet in Residence).

Artistic diversity being a very important aspect of her life, Anna also has a duo with vibraphone player Oli Bott. Their (partly improvised) repertoire ranges from Diego Ortiz (around 1550), Vivaldi and Bach to jazz standards by Miles Davis or Duke Ellington and compositions by Oli Bott. In the trio "Panama Hat Trick", with her sister, Mary (soprano) and Philip Mayers (piano), she performs works by the greats of the Musical and Cabaret world of the 20th Century.

For many years she was principal cellist and a leading figure of the Ensemble Oriol Berlin. In 2007 she left the group to concentrate more on her own projects - especially the Sheridan Ensemble, with which she aims to combine all her musical interests.

Anna Carewe studied with Florence Hooton and David Strange at the Royal Academy of Music in London, from which she graduated at the age of 20, before going to Berlin, where she counts her teacher Wolfgang Boettcher at the Hochschule der Künste as one of her most important influences.

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Gergely Márk Bodoky (flute) was born in Budapest in 1973. He studied in Munich with Paul Meisen and András Adorján and graduated in 2000 with the "Meisterklassen-Diplom", subsequently taking part in several masterclasses with Aurèle Nicolet in Sienna. Already during his studies he was a prizewinner of many competitions (such as the 1995 ARD Competition in Munich in and the Syrinx Flute Competition in Kobe). In 1997, Gergely Bodoky was appointed Principal Flute of the Hungarian National Philharmonic in Budapest. Since 1998, he has held the same position in the "Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin" under chief conductors Kent Nagano, Ingo Metzmacher and Tugan Sokhiev.

Gergely Bodoky is particularly interested in Early and New Music. From 2000 until 2002, he did a postgraduate course for traverse flute and historical performance practice at the Music Academy in Leipzig under Benedek Csalog and 2009 until 2011 he studied traverse flute with Christoph Hundtgeburth at the University of the Arts in Berlin. He also took part in courses given by Bart Kuijken. During his time in the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester he has worked with many leading composers of our day (including Karl-Heinz Stockhausen and George Benjamin) and has appeared as soloist under such conductors as Kent Nagano, Andrew Manze, and George Benjamin on tours in the USA and China as well and Europe.

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Yuki Kasai was born in Basel in 1979 and started to play the violin at the age of five. She was a student of the "Konzertklasse" of Rafael Oleg at the Basel Music Academy and was a post-graduate student of Antje Weithaas at the "Hanns Eisler" Academy of Music in Berlin. Other important influences were Sandor Zöldy on the violin and chamber music lessons with Gerard Wyss and Hatto Beyerle, as well as masterclasses with Lorand Fenyves and Ferenc Rados.

Yuki Kasai has received many prizes, such as from the Hans Huber Foundation Basel in 2002 and the "Migros-Kulturprozent" Scholarship in 2003 and 2004. In 2002 she was a prizewinner of the 8th International Mozart Competition in Salzburg. Standing in for the regular violinist of the Trio Castell, in 2004 she won the chamber music competition of the Alice Samter Foundation Berlin.

A passionate chamber musician, Yuki Kasai has appeared at many festivals: Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; Rheingau; Ultraschall Festival for New Music in Berlin; Forget in Quebec, Canada; "Sommets Musicaux" in Gstaad, Switzerland; Open Chamber Music Weeks at Prussia Cove and Cheltenham in England, and she has appeared in concerts at the Wigmore Hall in London partnering musicians such as Stephen Isserlis, Pekka Kuusisto and Joshua Bell. With the Italian bassoonist Sergio Azzolini, who introduced her to the variety and vivacity of performing Baroque music on period instruments, she has appeared in concerts in Germany, Switzerland and Italy.

In 2006, Yuki Kasai was appointed Leader of the "Kammerakademie Potsdam" and the Ensemble Oriol Berlin. She also plays as a regular guest in the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and as Guest Leader of the "Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen", the "Ensemble Resonanz" in Hamburg and the "Orchestra Lorenzo da Ponte" in Padova.

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Oli Bott studied vibraphone and composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston with teachers such as Gary Burton and Bob Brookmeyer, graduating with "summa cum laude". Since then he has been living and working as a freelance vibraphonist and composer in Berlin. On several occasions he has been awarded scholarships by the city of Berlin, has received a number of commissions to compose pieces for his own jazz orchestra and the "Oli Bott String Orchestra" and has recorded many times for radio and television.

Since 1997, he has been touring with guitarist Thomas Wallisch by invitation of the Goethe Institute. The duo appears regularly at international festivals such as the European Festival Izmir, Calcutta Jazz Festival, Hamm Jazz Days, Meppen Night of Jazz, Burghausen Jazz Autumn, Augsburg Jazz Summer or Jazz Festival Würzburg.

His ensemble "Vibratanghissimo" (vibraphone, viola, double bass and piano) has quickly gained an enviable reputation through its original mixture of Jazz and Tango and is acclaimed by public and critics alike for both its live performances and its CD recordings.

Oli Bott also has a duo with the cellist Anna Carewe. Their (partly improvised) repertoire stretches from Diego Ortiz (around 1550), Vivaldi and Bach to jazz standards by Miles Davis or Duke Ellington, as well as compositions by Oli Bott, and opens the door to a totally new sound world.

Oli Bott was a prizewinner of a number of international competitions such as the NDR Music Prize for Jazz Conductors, the Leipzig Improvisation Competition (1st Prize), the Europ Jazz Contest and the Wayne Shorter Award, USA.

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Florian Donderer (violin) received his first musical training from Myrna Nordstrom and Bernhard Hartog in Berlin. After studies under David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, he completed his training in Berlin with Thomas Brandis, whose assistant he was for many years. He was a scholarship holder at the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. From 2001 to 2004 he was concertmaster of the Kammerakademie Potsdam and was professor of violin at the North Netherlands Conservatory in Groningen from 2002 to 2008. Florian Donderer is currently concertmaster of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.

A major focus of his musical career has been his work with chamber orchestras. Whether as concertmaster, soloist, or – recently – also as conductor, Florian Donderer often assumes the artistic direction of his two orchestras or other ensembles as a welcome guest. During the coming seasons, Florian Donderer will continue to lead the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen as concertmaster and director on numerous concert tours, collaborating with such outstanding soloists as Lisa Batiashvili, Martin Fröst, and David Fray. He will conduct the Ensemble Oriol Berlin in a concert with Christiane Oelze as well as a recording of Ernst Toch's Cello Concerto with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and Tanja Tetzlaff. He is also responsible for preparations for the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen's recordings of the Schumann symphonies with Paavo Järvi.

Florian Donderer is an enthusiastic chamber musician. He often performs with his partner, Tanja Tetzlaff, her brother, Christian, and other musician friends, including Lars Vogt, Gunilla Süssmann, Antje Weithaas, Hanna Weinmeister, Sergio Azzolini, Hans-Kristian Kjos Sørensen, and Ingo Goritzki. He appears at major festivals, such as the Cologne Music Triennale, the Beethovenfest Bonn, Berlin's Ultraschall Festival, the Ultima Festival in Oslo, the Vestfold Festival in Tonsberg, Norway, and Helsinki's Early Music Week, and is a frequent guest at Lars Vogt's Spannungen Festival in Heimbach, Germany. Florian Donderer is particularly interested in different performance practices. Since 2006 he has performed regularly on historical instruments as concertmaster of the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble under Thomas Hengelbrock. In the Sheridan Ensemble he plays Baroque, Classical or modern violin in repertoire ranging from 1650 up until the present day.

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The Australian-born pianist Philip Mayers is not only a sought-after Lied accompanist, chamber musician, soloist, specialist for New Music and vocal coach but is also known as a conductor, composer and brilliant presenter, arranger and performer of Cabaret and light music.

In Berlin, he regularly performs with the RIAS-Kammerchor and the Rundfunkchor Berlin, with both of whom he has also recorded for CD and radio. His long association with the Berliner Kammeroper has led to productions at venues and festivals such as Maerzmusik, the Schwetzingen Festival and the Konzerthaus and Hebbeltheater in Berlin under his musical direction. Indeed, his own chamber opera "Trieste" was premiered in 1997 by the Berliner Kammeroper under his direction. He has also directed on several occasions at the Opera Festival in Schloss Rheinsberg.

Philip Mayers partners the English cabaret singer Mary Carewe in their programme "Serious Cabaret" and they have performed not only in Great Britain but also all over Europe, at venues such as the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, at the Alicante Festival for Contemporary Music or the Winter Music Festival in Riga. Joined by Mary's sister, cellist Anna Carewe, the trio "Panama Hat Trick" performs a combination of classical, cabaret and musical theatre repertoire, presented with inimitable wit and charm by Philip at the piano.

Philip Mayers studied at the Queensland Conservatorium in Brisbane with Max Golding, graduating with honours and subsequently completing a post-graduate course at the Conservatorium's Opera School. Further studies led him to Phillip Moll in Berlin and Zelma Bodzin in New York and he also took part in master classes with Dalton Baldwin and Geoffrey Parsons.

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A native of Finland, Petteri Pitko studied harpsichord at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, with Huguette Dreyfus in Paris and with Mitzi Meyerson at the University of Arts in Berlin, from which he graduated with Honours.

As a soloist and chamber musician (among others as a member of the prize-winning trio "U3"), Petteri Pitko is a busy international performer as well as playing with the Finnish Baroque Orchestra. He has performed at international Festivals in many European countries (Chamber Music Series of the Berliner Philharmoniker, Musica Festival Strasbourg, Ultraschall-Festival Berlin, Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival, among others), in China, Korea (Tongyeong International Music Festival) and the Canary Islands. He has worked as continuo player for numerous ensembles, including the Berliner Philharmoniker, the Ensemble Resonanz in Hamburg, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra.

His main interest is in New Music for harpsichord and he has given many World Premieres of chamber music compositions by composers such as Misato Mochizuki, Sarah Nemtsov, Yoav Pasovsky, Sebastian Elikowski-Winkler, Perttu Haapanen and Sebastian Fagerlund.

Since 2012, Petteri Pitko has had a professorship for Chamber Music and Harpsichord at the NOVIA University of Applied Sciences in Vaasa, Finland.

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Mary Carewe is one of the most accomplished and versatile concert and recording artists in the UK. A dynamic stage performer, Mary has performed all over the world with repertoire encompassing stage and screen, 20th century cabaret and contemporary classical music.

She appears regularly with the UK’s leading orchestras as well as with orchestras throughout Europe, Australia, North America and Malaysia. She has performed under the baton of such conductors as Sir Simon Rattle, John Rutter or Kurt Masur and her long-established artistic relationship with Carl Davis has led her to sing both ‘James Bond' and ‘Oscar Winners' programmes worldwide, including at the Carnegie Hall with the New York Pops.

With Australian pianist and arranger Philip Mayers, Mary presents a number of Serious Cabaret programmes exploring the development of cabaret and jazz throughout the 20th century. Their CD “Serious Cabaret” includes Berlin cabaret songs, re-inventions of popular songs by George Gershwin, Kurt Weill and Lionel Bart as well as contemporary art songs. A CD of Gershwin songs arranged by Mayers for voice, string orchestra and piano was released on Coviello in March 2016.

As a recitalist, together Philip Mayers, she has appeared at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Casa da Música in Porto, Opera Butxaca in Barcelona, the Berlin Philharmonie, the Sage Gateshead, the Southbank Centre and King’s Place, London, as well as the Aldeburgh and Cheltenham Music Festivals. Last season the duo returned to Australia to perform “Tell Me the Truth about Love” at the Melbourne Recital Centre and Sydney’s Independent Theatre.

Mary has appeared frequently as a soloist for BBC Radio 2. On their flagship live music programme Friday Night is Music Night she has starred in over 75 episodes.

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Michele Pasotti is without a doubt one of the leading lute players of his generation. He appears regularly on the concert platform with such artists and groups as Giovanni Antonini & "il Giardino Armonico", Thomas Hengelbrock & the "Balthasar-Neumann-Ensemble", Nathalie Stutzmann & "Orfeo 55" or Andrea Marcon & the "Venice Baroque Orchestra". Since 2012 he has been touring with Cecilia Bartoli & "i Barocchisti", with whom he has also appeared as a soloist. In this role he has also recorded works of Pergolesi with Claudio Abbado & the "Orchestra Mozart".

Michele’s repertoire includes music from the Mediaeval up until the late 18th century. The group “la fonte musica”, of which he is founder and artistic director, specializes in the music of the late Mediaeval and its first CD “Le Ray au Soleyl. Musica alla corte pavese dei Visconti” was awarded several international prizes.

Michele is professor for lute at the Conservatorio di Musica “B.Maderna” in Cesena and he taught theorbo and lute from 2012 to 2014 at the Rovigo Musica Antica summer courses. His great interest in music theory lead to wide-ranging studies (Renaissance Music and Counterpoint; "Ars Nova"; the Practice of Late Mediaeval Music; Italian Chamber Music of the Baroque Era) in Milan, Rome and Barcelona. Since 2012, Michele has been teaching a course on the "Ars Nova" an der Civica Scuola di Musica di Milano.

Michele received a first-class degree in Theoretical Philosophy from the University in his home town, Pavia.

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As a teenager, I never thought I would have a life that would involve performance, let alone dance. My only interest at school was art. I was fortunate to have an inspired art master whose mantra, regularly drummed into us, was ‘the eye perceives all’. I always think about what I see. I was also fortunate to have to wait for a bus home from school directly outside a small guitar shop. Idly wandering in one day, I met the Spanish guitar virtuoso, proprietor and teacher who inspired me to play.

At art school in Cornwall I danced to the Two Tone reggae and New Wave Punk of the eighties and discovered the unspoken joy of sharing and expressing rhythm with an accomplice. After art school, by coincidence and with no plan ahead of me, I met a man who owned a shop that sold craft materials and in a box, a little sheet music. When buying an arrangement for guitar of the Lachrimae Pavane of John Dowland, it transpired he also made musical instruments. He lent me a lute and so my interest in early music developed. With the winter country evenings to fill I went with him and his wife to a renaissance dance course. There I discovered pavanes, galliards, Italian balletti and the wonderful canarios.

One thing led to another and another and another and through a very happy life of coincidence and opportunity I met all the people I now enjoy working with. I count myself very lucky to have been inspired, led and encouraged to experience all these different means of communication, for I have hopped and strummed my way around the world and entertained people on four continents, and we are all the same.

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