Núria Rial
The soprano Nuria Rial, who was born in Manresa in Catalonia, initially studied voice and piano at the Conservatory of Barcelona; after earning a double degree, she continued her training from 1998 to 2002 in Kurt Widmer’s concert class at the Basel Academy of Music. In 2003 she won the Helvetia Patria Jeunesse Foundation Prize in Lucerne. Baroque music is the focus of her repertoire, but Rial is also a successful Mozart performer and lieder singer. She has performed in concert with such ensembles as Il Giardino Armonico, Les Musiciens du Louvre, Concerto Köln, The English Concert, L’Arpeggiata, Il Pomo d’Oro, and Café Zimmermann and has worked with conductors like Laurence Cummings, Teodor Currentzis, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Paul Goodwin, Thomas Hengelbrock, Gustav Leonhardt, and Trevor Pinnock. In addition to her concert activities, Nuria Rial also appears in selected opera engagements. She has performed in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo at the Staatsoper Berlin and in Cavalli’s Eliogabalo at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, both times under the direction of René Jacobs. At the Teatro Real in Madrid she participated in Osvaldo Golijov’s Ainadamar, in the staging by Peter Sellars, and Iván Fischer engaged her as Pamina for a performance series of Mozart’s The Magic Flute with his Budapest Festival Orchestra. Nuria Rial has won the Echo Klassik Award four times: in 2009, when she was named Young Female Singer of the Year for her recording of Haydn arias; in 2009 and 2010 for the projects Teatro d’amore and Via crucis, which she recorded with Christina Pluhar and L’Arpeggiata; and in 2012 for her Telemann album with the Basel Chamber Orchestra. Her CD Ave Maria won Holland’s Edison Award.

LUCERNE FESTIVAL debut on 31 August 2010, together with Philippe Jaroussky and L'Arpeggiata, under the direction of Christina Pluhar.

Edin Karamazov
Karamazov's thrilling virtuoso performances on the lute and guitar have garnered rave reviews and unprecedented critical acclaim in Europe and America. As a soloist he has performed and recorded with leading international early music ensembles and artists including the Hilliard Ensemble, Hesperion XX, Andreas Scholl as well as Sting. A consummate interpreter and master technician on numerous early and contemporary stringed instruments and outstanding recital artist Edin Karamazov has appeared at Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, Berlin Philharmonie, Berlin Konzerthaus, Konzerthaus Vienna, Herkulessaal Munich as well as at festivals such as Schleswig-Holstein, Rheingau, Mosel, Lower Saxony, Istanbul Bach, Espinho, among others.

Edin Karamazov plays several plucked instruments of various cultures and epoches and remains committed to exploring the use of lutes in modern music and contemporary improvisational contexts. In addition to his solo career he enjoys collaborating with singers and instrumentalists as Andreas Scholl, Nuria Rial and Dorothee Oberlinger in different styles and backgrounds.

His discography includes the CDs Come heavy sleep with works by Britten and Bach (alpha records), XXI (Contemporary Music for Solo Lute) (Lumaudis), The Lute is a Song (including arias with Andreas Scholl. Renée Fleming and Sting) (Decca), Songs From the Labyrinth with Sting (Deutsche Grammophon), Wayfaring Stranger – Folksongs as well as A Musical Banquet (Lutesongs) with Andreas Scholl (Decca), Reminiscences for guitar and string quartet, Mosaiques for guitar and violin with Stefan Milenkovich (Lumaudis) as well as Seance for guitar, lute and violoncello with Boris Andrianov (Lumaudis).

Sony Classical releases the album Bach a due with Dorothee Oberlinger in spring 2021, Coviello Classics the programme A Spanish journey with Nuria Rial in December 2020.

Protegé of Sergiu Celibidache, Edin Karamazov began his musical career with the classical guitar and was awarded First Prizes at four guitar competitions. He continued his studies of the Baroque Lute with Hopkinson Smith at the Scola Cantorum Basiliensis.