Nikita Akulov - violin

Nikita Akulov was born in Chelyabinsk (Russia) in 1990. He started his musical education in Chelyabinsk Music School. He studied also in Ural State Music College (Yekaterinburg) with Wolf Usminsky and Irina Mezrin and obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory with professor Irina Bochkova in 2014. During his study Nikita was working in the Moscow Chamber Orchestra ''Musica Viva" (under direction of Alexander Roudine) for one year and afterwards in the Moscow State Chamber Orchestra (under direction of Alexey Utkin) for 4 years. Since 2015 to this day Nikita has been working in the Antwerpen International Chamber Orchestra (LCO). Nikita finished his studies at the Maastricht Conservatorium in 2022, under guidance of Yuzuko Horigome. He is currently working as first violinist at the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège.

Dimitri Astashka - violin

Dimitri Astashka started taking violin lessons at the age of 6 with Olga Zolotareva, prof. at the Conservatory of Ghent. In 2005 he made his solo debut, when he was invited as a young talent to perform in Arras, France on a concert organised by the European Union. He has already appeared as a soloist in festivals such as the Flanders Festival (BE), Festival de Wallonie (BE), Tiberius Festival (RO) and Orlando Festival (NL). Dimitri is very active in chamber music with ensembles like the Eurasia Quartet, MSM Quartet and the Etereo Trio, with which he has won several prizes. In 2016 he was invited as guest teacher at the Silpakorn Music University of Bangkok. In 2017 he won the Henriëtte Hustinx prize for promising young musicians in the Netherlands. He finished his bachelor studies with Boris Belkin and Kyoko Yonemoto at the Conservatory of Maastricht, and finished his master studies at the Hochschule für Musik Basel and Universität Mozarteum with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet). Other important teachers in his education were Mikhail Bezverkhni, Lilia Umnova, Henk Guittart and Michael Kugel. Since 2021 he is first violinist of the Opéra Royal de Wallonie in Liège.

Júlia Ferrer Torrescasana - viola

Júlia Ferrer is a Catalan violist dedicated to the performance of orchestral and chamber music. From a young age until the present she has evolved a sensibility for classical music, and at the same time she keeps refining her abilities with it. Her studies brought her from Barcelona to Maastricht, where she finished her Master. She has been part of several orchestras such as the Jove Orquestra Nacional de Catalunya or the Simfònica de Cobla i Corda de Catalunya and different chamber music groups, especially in Catalonia, being able to perform at many of the most important halls of the region like the Palau de la Música Catalana or the Auditori de Barcelona, as well as some halls in The Netherlands, like the Theater aan het Vrijthof (Maastricht), the Muziekgebouw Eindhoven or the Parkstad Limburg Theaters (Heerlen).

Judit Díaz Álvarez - cello

Judit was born in Barcelona in 1994 and started playing the Cello at the age of five. After finishing elementary musical studies with Adam Glubinksy in Barcelona, she moved to Berlin in 2012 to receive private guidance by Beate Altenburg and Katarzyna Polonek. In 2014 she started Bachelor studies with Mirel Iancovici at the Maastricht Conservatorium and in 2018 started her Master of Music with Prof. Gabriel Schwabe. She is currently focused on Chamber Music, having extensive experience specially in string quartet formations. She is also member of the Spanish ensembe "Falla Ensemble", concentrated on the performance of contemporary music. She has been member of the NJO in 2019 and of the GMJO in 2020, as well as an active substitute of the "Vigo 430", a professional orchestra based in Galicia, Spain. Judit is currently playing an instrument built by Saskia Schouten in 2005, provided by the foundation Nationaal Instrumenten Fonds in the Netherlands.