Ivo-Jan van der Werff & Friends

Violist Ivo-Jan van der Werff has garnered a global reputation as a chamber player, recitalist, guest artist, and teacher. From 1983 to its last concert in Vienna in 2014, he was a member of the Medici String Quartet, performing in well over 2000 concerts in more than 50 countries, broadcasting regularly on radio and television. The Medici Quartet recorded over 100 works for EMI, Nimbus, Koch, and Hyperion, ranging from Haydn, Mozart, Britten, Janáček, Schubert, and the complete Beethoven cycle to more eclectic works of Saint-Saëns, Wajahat Khan, and Nigel Osborne. The quartet had collaborations with many artists across the musical, literary, and theatrical spectrum, including the Royal Shakespeare Company, George Martin, Alan Bennett, John Williams, Mitsuko Uchida, Jack Brymer, Dudley Moore, and Sir Clifford Curzon, amongst others.

Mr. van der Werff has performed as a recitalist in New York, New Zealand, Portugal, and Hong Kong, as well as numerous venues throughout the United Kingdom. His recordings for ASV and Koch include the Sonata Op. 107 by Max Reger and the complete works for viola and piano/harp by Arnold Bax. His most recent recording is of works by Al-Zand, Shostakovich, and Britten, released on the Guild label.

Desmond Hoebig, Professor of Cello at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, has had a distinguished career as a soloist, orchestral and chamber musician.

Desmond was born in 1961 and raised in Vancouver, Canada. He studied with James Hunter, Jack Mendelsohn and Ian Hampton. In 1978, he moved to Philadelphia to study with David Soyer at the Curtis Institute of Music. He received his BM and MM at The Juilliard School with Leonard Rose and Channing Robbins, and participated in master classes with Janos Starker and Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi at the Banff Centre.

Mr. Hoebig won the First Prize at the Munich International Competition (1984), the Grand Prize of the CBC Talent Competition (1981) and the Canadian Music Competition (1980). He was also an award winner at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow (1982).