Homesickness for Italy

Amsterdam Sinfonietta

Candida Thompson, Conductor & Violin
Since 2003, Candida Thompson has been the Artistic Director of Amsterdam Sinfonietta. When leading a project, she places great value on the individual contributions of all orchestra members. Her musical approach demands maximum commitment and deep involvement from the musicians.

Candida Thompson studied with the renowned pedagogue David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she graduated with distinction. She continued her studies at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. Candida Thompson has won various prizes at competitions, including the International Jeunesses Musicales in Belgrade. As a soloist, she has performed with numerous orchestras across Europe, the United States, and the Far East, including the Moscow Chamber Orchestra, Wiener Symphoniker, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, English String Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, and Radio Chamber Philharmonic.

From a young age, Candida Thompson has led chamber orchestras in Scandinavia, Spain, the Netherlands, and Great Britain. Since 1995, she has been the concertmaster of Amsterdam Sinfonietta and has also served as its artistic director since 2003. Under her leadership, Amsterdam Sinfonietta has recorded 14 CDs with Channel Classics, including "Schubert String Quintet" (2015), "Tides of Life" (2017), "Bartok Brahms" (2018), and "Tschaikovsky Arensky" (2019), and "Lento Religioso" (2020). The latest CD, "Formidable!" with singer Thomas Oliemans, was released in 2021.

Candida Thompson is a passionate chamber musician. She has performed with artists such as Isaac Stern, Janine Jansen, Julian Rachlin, Isabelle Faust, and Bruno Giuranna. She has also been a guest at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland and La Musica in the United States. She has been invited to the Canossa Masterclasses in Reggio Emilia, the Gubbio Festival in Italy, and various chamber music festivals in Switzerland and Austria. In her home country, she regularly performed at the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht.

Candida is also a member of the Hamlet Piano Trio, which she founded with Paolo Giacometti and Xenia Jankovic. The trio has released CDs featuring the piano trios of Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Beethoven on the Channel Classics label. In 2015, the ensemble toured the United States and recently made a successful debut at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Candida Thompson plays a Guarneri del Gesù violin (1698–1744).

Bruce Liu, Piano

"You don’t always know where Bruce Liu is taking you, but you feel compelled to follow him" — RESMUSICA

First prize winner of the 18th Chopin Piano Competition 2021 in Warsaw, Bruce Liu’s “playing of breathtaking beauty” (BBC Music Magazine) has secured his reputation as one of the most exciting talents of his generation and contributed to a “rock-star status in the classical music world” (The Globe and Mail).

Highlights of Bruce Liu’s 2023/24 season include international tours with the Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich and Paavo Järvi, the Philharmonia Orchestra and Santtu-Matias Rouvali, and the Warsaw Philharmonic and Andrey Boreyko, as well as the Münchener Kammerorchester in a play-direct programme. Furthermore, he makes anticipated debuts with the New York Philharmonic, Finnish Radio Symphony, Danish National Symphony, Gothenburg Symphony, and Singapore Symphony Orchestras. He works regularly with many of today’s most distinguished conductors such as Gustavo Gimeno, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Gianandrea Noseda, Rafael Payare, Vasily Petrenko, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Lahav Shani, and Dalia Stasevska.

Bruce Liu has performed globally with major orchestras including the Wiener Symphoniker, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, and NHK Symphony Orchestra.

As an active recitalist, he appears at major concert halls such as Carnegie Hall, Wiener Konzerthaus, BOZAR Brussels, and Tokyo Opera City, and makes his solo recital debuts in the 2023/24 season at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Philharmonie de Paris, Wigmore Hall London, Alte Oper Frankfurt, Kölner Philharmonie, and Chicago Symphony Center.

“Elf-like virtuosity.”— DIAPASON

Having been a regular guest at the Rheingau Musik Festival since 2022, Liu will return in summer 2024 to feature in a series of wide-ranging events. In recent years, he has appeared at La Roque-d'Anthéron, Verbier, KlavierFestival Ruhr, Edinburgh International, Gstaad Menuhin, and Tanglewood Music Festivals.

An exclusive recording artist with Deutsche Grammophon, Liu’s highly anticipated debut studio album “Waves,” spanning two centuries of French keyboard music (Rameau, Ravel, Alkan), is being released in November 2023. His first album featuring the winning performances from the Chopin International Piano Competition received international acclaim, including the Critics’ Choice, Editor’s Choice, and “Best Classical Albums of 2021” from Gramophone Magazine.

Bruce Liu studied with Richard Raymond and Dang Thai Son. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and brought up in Montréal, Liu’s phenomenal artistry has been shaped by his multi-cultural heritage: European refinement, North American dynamism, and the long tradition of Chinese culture.