Musicians

Artistic Director and Conductor

Alexander Znamenskiy is an Austrian conductor and violist with a particular focus on Viennese Classicism, opera, and early and contemporary music. His artistic work combines stylistic versatility with a pronounced sense of musical precision, historically informed performance practice, and the connection between concert life and music theatre.

His recent engagements include productions at the Neue Oper Wien, where he worked as musical assistant and conductor on Manfred Trojahn's Eurydice – Die Liebenden, blind (2025) and Pascal Dusapin's Passion (2024). At the Theater an der Wien, he served in 2025 as prompter (Maestro suggeritore) for Miroslav Srnka's opera Voice Killer; in the 2026/27 season he will be engaged there as assistant to the musical direction of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov's The Golden Cockerel. At the Vienna State Opera, he was responsible for the musical preparation of Peter Eötvös' Tri Sestri and took on coaching, conducting and orchestral duties. At the Wiener Volkstheater, he conducted the production of MALINA, after Ingeborg Bachmann.

As a concert conductor, Znamenskiy made his debut with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in the Golden Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. Since 2022, he has regularly conducted performances of Johann Sebastian Bach's St Matthew Passion at the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid.

As a violist and chamber musician, he has also appeared at the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Salzburg Festival and the Schubertiade Hohenems. He was principal violist of the Orquestra Sinfónica Casa da Música Porto and has performed with ensembles such as the Concentus Musicus Wien and the Quasars Ensemble. He is also a member of the Lerchenfeld Quartet, heard regularly in Vienna's Annakirche. As a chamber musician, he co-founded the Razumovsky Quartet and has worked with artists including Elisabeth Leonskaja, Paul Gulda and Jean-Bernard Pommier. This long-standing experience as a violist and chamber musician forms an essential foundation for his work with orchestras and shapes his approach to tonal balance, chamber-musical communication and stylistic differentiation.

As artistic director of the Camerata Classica, he is responsible for the development of the ensemble's artistic profile, its programming, and its interpretative direction. At the heart of his work lies the connection between historically informed engagement with the repertoire, careful rehearsal work, and a vibrant, present-day interpretation.

Orchestra Manager and Artistic Associate

Arne Kircher, born in Klagenfurt in 1972 and now based in Vienna, is a cellist and chamber musician with extensive experience in historically informed performance practice, contemporary music, and the organisation of artistic projects.

He studied cello performance at the Klagenfurt Conservatory and at the music universities of Vienna and Salzburg, followed by string quartet studies with the Melos Quartet at the Stuttgart University of Music and Performing Arts, graduating with the soloist diploma with distinction. Further studies and masterclasses brought him into contact with renowned cellists and pedagogues such as Harvey Shapiro, Heinrich Schiff, Françoise Guye, Wolfram König and Yossi Gutmann.

He is a founding member of the Goldberg Quartet Vienna, the Janus Ensemble for modern and experimental chamber music under Christof Cech, the Lerchenfeld Quartet, and the IPG Ignaz Pleyel Piano Trio, with which he performs on original instruments of the Viennese Classical era. Further long-standing musical activities connect him to the Max Brand Ensemble, the New Classic Community, the Stradivari String Sextet, the Ensemble Die Reihe, and the Quasars Ensemble for 20th- and 21st-century chamber music. At the Mozart Collegium Wien he worked as co-organiser and principal cellist, he regularly performs as principal cellist of the Beethovenphilharmonie, and since 2024 he has been engaged as a musician at the Burgtheater Vienna.

Concert appearances have taken him to festivals and concert series including the Klangbogen Wien, Generator X, Wien Modern, the "Schwingungen" series at the Vienna Musikverein, the Haydn Festival Eisenstadt, the Saalfelden Jazz Festival, the JIMS – summer academy for Jazz and Improvised Music Salzburg, the Melos-Ethos Festival, the Feldkirch Festival, the Sejong Art Center Mozart Festival, the Kanazawa Mozart Festival, the Maison de la Culture Montréal, the Musikforum Viktring, the Musiksommer Millstatt, the Carinthischer Sommer, CAMMAC Québec, and the Distat Terra Festival in Argentina.

As orchestra manager of the Camerata Classica, Kircher combines his musical expertise with organisational skill. Working closely with the artistic director, he contributes to shaping the orchestra's line-ups. His knowledge of instrumental practice, of individual musicians' capabilities, and of the demands of different areas of repertoire feeds directly into the ensemble's artistic planning and development.

First Concertmaster

Canadian violinist Lucia Hall performs internationally as a soloist and chamber musician and has toured extensively across Europe, North and South America, and Russia. She has appeared in renowned halls such as the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, the Cologne Philharmonic and the Place des Arts in Montréal, and has been a guest at major festivals including Martha Argerich and Friends, the Haydn Festival Eisenstadt, and the Progetto Martha Argerich in Lugano.

She was the youngest founding member of the ensemble I Musici de Montréal, with which she undertook extensive concert tours, solo appearances and recordings. As a chamber musician she has performed with, among others, Martha Argerich, Mischa Maisky, Nobuko Imai, Dora Schwarzberg, Ivry Gitlis and Gautier Capuçon. Several composers have dedicated works to her, including a duo for violin and cello by Lucio Bruno Videla, premiered at the Vienna Musikverein, and the Austrian premiere of Hans Kunstovny's Violin Concerto with the Wiener Concertverein under Lorenzo Viotti. Further premieres include Andrea Liberovici's Mavrya in Lugano and Alexander Rabinovitch-Barakovsky's Die Zeit, performed and recorded at the Cologne Philharmonic together with Martha Argerich.

She trained with Eleonora Turovsky in Montréal and with Dora Schwarzberg at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where she graduated with distinction and received the Austrian Federal Ministry's Award of Distinction. Following many years as Dora Schwarzberg's assistant, she now teaches gifted young musicians, as well as at the Postgraduate Academy in Pinerolo and at international masterclasses. In addition to radio and television recordings, she has released recordings on the labels Chandos Records, Gramola and EMI Classics. As first concertmaster of the Camerata Classica, she shapes the ensemble's sound through her soloistic brilliance and chamber-musical sensitivity.

Concertmaster

Violinist Julia Rubanova comes from a family of musicians and trained at the specialised music lyceum in Kharkiv and at the National Music Academy of Ukraine in Kyiv, where she also completed her postgraduate studies. A prize-winner in international competitions, she was appointed deputy concertmaster of the first violins of the Kyiv Philharmonic at the age of just twenty-three.

Following her move to Austria, Julia Rubanova quickly established herself in Vienna's musical life. She performs with renowned ensembles and orchestras including the Camerata Salzburg, the Concentus Musicus Wien, the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna State Opera, the Volksoper Wien and the Bach Consort Wien. Her collaboration with Les Musiciens du Prince – Monaco under the direction of Cecilia Bartoli has brought her particular international visibility, reflecting her close artistic partnership with one of today's most celebrated singers.

Alongside her work as an orchestral musician, Julia Rubanova is actively engaged in solo and chamber-music performance in Vienna and on stages across Europe. Her artistic range extends from Baroque music to contemporary works – a stylistic breadth also reflected in her role as concertmaster of the Camerata Classica. Her experience at the helm of major ensembles, combined with a deeply rooted chamber-musical sensitivity, makes her a defining voice within the string sound of the Camerata Classica, shaped by the stylistic precision that has always characterised Viennese music-making.

Soloist

Austrian violinist Karin Adam was born in Vienna and received her musical training under Franz Samohyl at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She gave her first public performance at the age of eight, and after success at several youth competitions was awarded the Mozart Interpretation Prize for young artists by the Mozartgemeinde Wien.

Her international breakthrough came in 1981, when she won first prize at the International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition. She has since performed in major musical centres including Vienna, Salzburg, Berlin, London, Paris, Prague, Milan, New York, Tokyo and Sydney, and has appeared with renowned orchestras such as the Vienna and Prague Symphony Orchestras, the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, the Mozarteum Orchestra Salzburg, the Staatskapelle Berlin and the Tokyo Symphony Orchestra. Her conducting partners have included Serge Baudo, Jiří Bělohlávek, Christoph von Dohnányi, Mariss Jansons, Fabio Luisi, Lord Yehudi Menuhin and Walter Weller – a roster that underscores the international recognition of her artistry.

Since 1985 Karin Adam has performed in duo with her sister, pianist Doris Adam, with whom she has appeared at major festivals. Numerous recordings document her versatile artistic output across the decades. As a soloist with the Camerata Classica, Karin Adam brings this long international career to the ensemble: her stylistic assurance in the Classical-Romantic repertoire and her chamber-music-trained sound meet a career that has taken her from the great concert halls of Europe to Asia and Australia – an artistic biography deeply rooted, at the same time, in the Viennese musical tradition.

Soloist

Vienna-based violinist Vira Zhuk carries forward the great tradition of the Ukrainian violin school, passed on to her indirectly, through her mentors in Ukraine and Austria, from David Oistrakh. In her playing she combines the virtuosity and characteristically melancholic tone of this school with the tonal refinement of the Viennese musical tradition.

Vira Zhuk began performing publicly at a very young age: at the age of seven she appeared in the Great Hall of the National Philharmonic, and at ten she made her solo debut with a violin concerto by Johann Sebastian Bach. She trained in Kyiv and Vienna, studying among others with Pavel Vernikov, and received artistic guidance from Mauricio Fuks, Alfred Brendel and Menahem Pressler. As a soloist and chamber musician, she has since performed in more than thirty countries on five continents, in halls including the Vienna Musikverein, the Vienna Konzerthaus, Flagey Brussels, the ORF RadioKulturhaus, the Auditorio Nacional in Madrid, and the Royal Danish Opera.

Vira Zhuk is a founding member of the multi-award-winning ensemble Immersio Vienna and has received honours including the Brivio Sforza Award from Le Dimore del Quartetto, the New Sound of Austrian Music Award from the Austrian Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs, and the Bank Austria Art Prize. Alongside her international concert career, she serves as a jury member – for instance at the Shenzhen International String Competition – and teaches masterclasses at festivals in Chile, Spain and Mexico. As a soloist with the Camerata Classica, Vira Zhuk brings this exceptional stylistic and intercultural breadth to the ensemble's artistic profile.

Harpsichord

Martin Gedeon was born in Prague, where he first studied aeronautical engineering and later computer science and telecommunication systems at the Czech Technical University. He came into contact with early music through private organ lessons with Lukáš Vendl. In 2013 he moved to Vienna and turned his focus entirely to historically informed performance practice, studying harpsichord with Erich Traxler and basso continuo with Augusta Campagne – first at the MUK Private University Vienna, then at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, where he completed his master's degree with distinction. There he also refined his organ playing with Philippe Delacour de Peretti and his fortepiano playing with Maria Balyan. An Erasmus year took him to the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague, where he studied with Fabio Bonizzoni and, in continuo and improvisation, with Patrick Ayrton.

Martin Gedeon has attended numerous masterclasses, among others with Jesper Bøje Christensen, Bertrand Martin, Tineke de Goede, Daniel Börner, Alexandre Zylberajch and Hille Franke, and has performed with ensembles including the L'Orfeo Baroque Orchestra, Capella Leopoldina, the Tonkünstler Orchestra, Academia Allegro Vivo, the Haydn Quartet, SchlossCapelle, Solamente Naturali and Il Cuore Barocco.

Alongside his performing career, he has gained extensive experience in teaching and coaching: he has worked as a répétiteur at the Valtice Early Music Summer School and at the Balthasar Neumann Academy in Vienna, and during the 2021/22 academic year taught at the MUK Private University of the City of Vienna and at the Joseph Haydn Conservatory Eisenstadt.

As harpsichordist of the Camerata Classica, Martin Gedeon brings his thorough grounding in historically informed performance practice to the ensemble's chamber-musical work.