Trio Chronos
A few years ago the paths of clarinetist Andreas Langenbuch and pianist Gottlieb Wallisch crossed for a concert in Berlin – one was an instructor, the other a newly-appointed professor of piano in Geneva. It was not until years later that the clarinetist met cellist Simon Deffner in the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne.

These two musicians inspired Langenbuch to launch his favorite chamber ensemble and found a trio that, with the very different instruments and associated playing techniques and sounds, contains an immense range of possibilities. In its ¬first concerts, the Trio Chronos presented a repertoire of great works from the Classical to the Romantic and modern periods.

José Maria Blumenschein
was born in Freiburg im Breisgau into a family from Goiânia, Brazil. He completed his studies with Vera Kramarova in Mannheim and with Joseph Silverstein at the renowned Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. During his studies he founded the Vertigo String Quartet, which won the Duchi d’Acquaviva award. As a committed chamber musician, he has since appeared regularly on concert stages around the world with artists such as Christoph Eschenbach, Roberto Diaz, Joseph Silverstein, Kirill Gerstein, André Watts, and Chantal Juillet.

As a soloist he has won awards in such major international competitions as the International LOUIS SPOHR Competition for Young Violinists, the Nelson Freire Competition in Rio de Janeiro, and the Concours International de Violon Tibor Varga in Switzerland. He has received scholarships and grants from the Carl Flesch Academy, among others.

At the age of twenty-two he was named associate concertmaster of the world-renowned Philadelphia Orchestra. In the 2014 season Blumenschein served as first concertmaster at the Bayreuth Festival under the direction of Christian Thielemann. He has also received invitations from the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra and the Staatskapelle Dresden. In 2010 he was named first concertmaster of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne before becoming concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic in September 2016. Since autumn 2018 he has once again held the position of first concertmaster of the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne.

Cristian Suvaiala
hails from a Romanian family of musicians and began learning the violin at the age of six. After completing his studies at the National University of Arts George Enescu in his hometown of Iaşi, he became a pupil of Mihaela Martin at the Cologne Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, from which he graduated with a concert exam degree. For five years he was a member of the Düsseldorf Symphony Orchestra/German Opera on the Rhine, where he beame acquainted with the great operatic repertoire.

In 2005 he moved to the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne and has been furthering his interest in opera since 2013 as a member of the orchestra of the Bayreuth Festival. Suvaiala developed a great passion for chamber music while still a student. In recent years, he has devoted himself with great energy to this musical genre, performing regularly since 2018 in a wide variety of chamber music ensembles as a member of the WDR Chamber Players

Junichiro Murakami
studied at the Toho Gakuen School of Music in Tokyo with Mazumi Tanamura until 2000. Since 1999 he has performed as a guest principal violist in renowned orchestras and chamber music ensembles such as the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Osaka Philharmonic Orchestra, Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo Ensemble, and others. From 2004 he studied on a scholarship from the Japanese government at the Conservatorio di Musica Luigi Cherubini in Florence with Augusto Vismara.

Junichiro Murakami was the ¬first prizewinner at the Tokyo Chamber Music Competition (1998) and at the International Competition for Chamber Music Ensembles “Premio Trio di Trieste” (2005), where the President of Italy awarded him the gold medal. In 2008 he won ¬first prize at the Premio Vittorio Gui International Chamber Music Competition in Florence. This was followed by numerous appearances at music festivals in Europe, Asia, and North America. From 2011 to 2021, Murakami was solo violist with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne.