Germany
Born in 1945 in Zinnwald, Germany, Rolf-Dieter Arens receiverd his first piano lessons at the age of five. He pursued his musical studies in Leipzig and attended master classes given by Paul Badura-Skoda in Vienna.
From 1986 until 1991, he was a regular soloist with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra and toured Europe with them. He also gave worldwide concerts both as a soloist as in chamber ensembles and worked with renowned conductors as Kurt Mazur, Herbert Blomstedt and Neville Marriner. He also took part in numerous broadcast and TV productions and CD recordings.
Arends has also been active as a jury member at important international piano compe- titions, such as Bolzano, Vienna, Dublin, Santander and the Liszt Competitions held in Budapest, Weimar and Utrecht. The name Franz Liszt also pops up frequently in the life of Arens; since 1986, he has been professor for piano at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar, of which renowned institute has been the director since 2001. He gives master classes in many European countries including Japan and South Korea.
He has been chairman of both the Franz-Liszt-Gesellschaft and the International Franz Liszt Piano Competition in Weimar as well as the artistic director of several Liszt Festivals.

Russia
This Russian pianist graduated at the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow after which she settled in Germany in 1992. She gave solo performances in Germany, The Netherlands, Austria, the U.K., Spain and Russia. She also participated in various chamber music ensembles with concerts in Vienna, Bregenz, Zurich, Lucerne, Berlin, Leipzig, Baden- Baden, Amsterdam etc.
Apart from the above range of activities she is both the initiator and artistic director of the Chamber Music Festival �Oldenburger Promenade� in Germany while at the same time she is the artistic director of the International Competition for Young Musicians.
Further successful projects initiated by Elena Nogaeva are e.g. the so-called �Classical Manuscript� concert series and the first recording of Franz Schubert�s unfinished piano works, which could be realized thanks to the generous support of various local authorities and bank- ing institutions.
Additionally, she took the initiative of founding the �New European Chamber Soloists�in 1992 while in 2000 she had the artistic responsibility for the �Oldenburg Bach Tage� held in com- memoration of the 250th anniversary of J.S. Bach�s death. Finally, her current radio pro- grammes of classical music broadcast by Oldenburg radio, should not remain unmentioned.

China
Ying Wu was born in Shanghai and received his first piano lessons from his mother at the age of five. He gained his master degree at the Piano Department of the Central Conservatory of Music. Afterwards he went to Vienna and studied under Paul Badura- Skoda, after which het came back to teach at his Alma Mater.
In 1994 Wu became a professor and advisor of the master program and director of the Piano Department of Shanghai Conservatory. In 1999 he was awarded the Ministry of Culture�s title as specialist with the Department of State. Since 2004 Wu is professor and director of the Piano Department at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, China.
He gave live concert performances for the BBC broadcasting program at the Enescu Musical Festival in Bucharest and the Chopin Music Festival in Duszniki. He performed in many cities in China as well as in he Czech Republic, Romania, Austria, Spain, Switzerland, Greece and France. He has made many solo, chamber music and concerto recordings.

France
Born in 1945 in Kiev, Ukraine, he studied at the Kiev Gliére State Music College and after that he graduated as a pianist and composer from the Ufa State Institute of Arts. After graduation, he worked in Chelyabinsk for several years as a Professor at the Music College and at the same time composed in different genres - ballet, symphonies, choir-, chamber-, and theatre music. In Moscow, where he moved to, Youli Galperin has continued his successful mix of pedagogy and composer work. He worked as a Professor at the Moscow Gnessine National Conservatory and a Musical Director of the State Theatre �Hermitage�. Since 1990, he has worked in Paris, at the Conservatory �Claude Debussy� and at the Municipal Conservatory at Ivry-sur-Seine as a Professor of piano and composition. Youli Galperin is the founder and first director of �l�Academy d�Art Franco- Russe� in Paris and the President of Association �Tradition Musical Russe� in France. His compositions are performed at the different festivals of modern music at the famous concert halls in Russia, Ukraine, Germany, The Netherlands, Romania, and France. Galperin�s works have been published and recorded in different countries.

Poland
Grzegorz Kurzyñski is a graduate of the University of Music in Wroclaw (Poland), under the tutelage of Professor Wlodzimierz Obidowicz. He has also earned degrees from the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels where he studied under Professor Jean Claude Vanden- Eynden, and the prestigious Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he studied under Professor Joseph Kalichstein and Professor Abbey Simon. He was awarded fellowships by the Belgium Ministry of Culture as well as The Barbara Piasecka-Johnson Foundation in the United States, and also received a scholarship from the outstanding American pianist Malcolm Frager. He has done concert tours in Poland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Russia, the Ukraine, Luxemburg, the United States, the Czech Republic, Australia and Italy. He has been recorded many times on radio, television and for CDs. He has been and continues to be a juror for many national and international piano competitions.
He has been teaching piano since 1972 at the University of Music in Wroclaw and the University of Music in Poznan (Poland). Presently, he is the head of the piano section and rector of the University of Music in Wroclaw.

The Netherlands
Sytze Smit (1944) studied violin and composition at the Conservatory of Music in Groningen, his native city. For more than ten years he was a member of the Amsterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, before he decided to combine composing with writing about music and with consultancy.
The Dutch choreographer Rudi van Dantzig used Smit�s composition Quipu for his ballet Niemandsland. In 1997 Isabelle van Keulen opened her Delft Chamber Music Festival with the composition Songs and Games for Violin and 8 percussionists, a piece Sytze Smit especially wrote for her. As an adviser, he played a conspicuous role in the process of reorganizing the Dutch orchestral world.
For almost fourteen years Smit was the editor in chief of the highly regarded monthly musical magazine Entracte. In that quality, he made a series of interviews with almost all leading musicians and choreographers in the world.
Between 1996 and 2001, Sytze Smit worked in Enschede as a director of the Conservatorium Hogeschool Enschede. Since spring 2001 he is using all his time for composition and for running his consultancy company Uilenspiegel, advising all kinds of musical and governmental institutions. In 2007 Sytze Smit was appointed to be the Artistic Advisor of the Amman Symphony Orchestra in Jordan.

The Netherlands
Born in Moscow in 1951, Michail Markov began studying piano at the age of 7. Three years later, he performed his first solo concert in his hometown with an orchestra in the Concert Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, where he later continued his musical education with Professor Victor Merzjanov. In 1975 M. Markov graduated with honours at the Conservatory. Including an honourable mention for concert and chamber piano, accom- paniment, as well as for professorship.
In the following years, Michail Markov successfully performed in the Eastern countries of the former Soviet block. In the years just before leaving Russia, he was a deputy director and piano teacher at the famous Moscow Gnessin Special School for musically gifted children. Since 1991, the musician has been living in the Netherlands where he has continued his successful combination of teaching and musical performances. M. Markov has made CD recordings in France and Germany with works of D. Schostakovtch, Y. Galperine and R. Shchedrin. Since mid-nineties he is working as professor at the piano department of the Conservatory Saxion Hogeschool in Enschede, the Netherlands. M. Markov is also the co-founder of the special Young Talents piano department of this Conservatory.
M. Markov has been invited to give Master Classes at many International Music Festivals and Summer Schools in the Netherlands, USA, Austria, Russia, Poland and Ukraine.
M. Markov is the founder and president of the Foundation �Russian Music Tradition in the Netherlands� and also the artistic leader of the International Piano Competition for Young Musicians in Enschede, the Netherlands.