ECHO Rising Stars Festival
Fresh. Bright. The stars of tomorrow.
Who’s on stage
Four of the best young classical musicians around, chosen by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) as their Rising Stars of 2025. Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir (soprano), Áron Horváth (cimbalom), Giorgi Gigashvili (piano), Maat Saxophone Quartet and Valerie Fritz (cello) will fill The Glasshouse with beautiful sounds all day long.
What they’re playing
Our four Rising Stars are all performing a mix of traditional and contemporary classical music chosen to showcase their incredible talents. Each programme includes a new work commissioned by ECHO for the Rising Stars tour. As well as the main recitals, there’ll be mini-concerts on the Concourse throughout the day and a Q&A with the performers.
Need to know
Price: £21.50 / £26 with hot drink and cake
Timing: the festival runs from 10am to 7.15pm with five recitals, five concourse performances and a Q&A panel during the day.
Age: under 14s must be accompanied by an adult.
Who you'll hear
Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir
The Icelandic award winning soprano and visual artist, Álfheiður Erla Guðmundsdóttir was named the Singer of the Year in the Classical and Contemporary Music category at the 2021 Icelandic Music Awards. Álfheiður’s versatility in her innovative approach to her craft has made her a sought-after collaborator with composers and other performers. As a musician, she effortlessly moves between genres, embracing classical, contemporary, and experimental styles. Her most recent collaboration, Poems, co-composed and conceived with composer Viktor Orri Árnason was released by Deutsche Grammophon in November 2023 as well as her song Notturno, her rework of Víkingur Ólafsson’s Brahms’ Intermezzo from his latest album, From afar. A passionate song interpreter, the young soprano was a participant in Renée Fleming’s SongStudio at Carnegie Hall in 2019 and was selected to represent Iceland in the 2021 BBC Cardiff Singer of the World Competition.
Áron Horváth
Áron Horváth began his musical journey at the age of seven by learning to play the cimbalom. Initially focusing on Hungarian folk music, he won the instrumental category of the prestigious TV folk talent show Fölszállott a Páva in 2016. In 2023, he was accepted into the prestigious Liszt Academy to further his studies in classical cimbalom. That same year, he became a member of two significant musical groups: Elán, a world music band that explores the folk music of Central and Eastern Europe, and Intergeese, a jazz trio focused on original compositions. Áron is passionate about bringing the cimbalom to a broader audience and exploring its potential in popular music, beyond its traditional use in classical, folk, and jazz genres. He is particularly interested in integrating electronics and effects into their performances and plan to design custom effects for the cimbalom with the help of collaborators.
Giorgi Gigashvili
Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 2000, Giorgi studied the piano without ever thinking about a professional career as a pianist. He is passionate about the folksongs of his country, which he likes to arrange and sing, and even won the Georgian version of The Voice at the age of thirteen! He later chose to study the piano at Tbilisi State Conservatory and in April 2019 he won First Prize at Vigo International Piano Competition, with Martha Argerich as president of the jury. His debut album Meeting my Shadow was released in April 2023 with Alpha Classics, featuring Scarlatti, Beethoven, Scriabin and Messiaen. This season, Giorgi will perform with the Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester, the Munich Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra as well as with the Konzerthausorchester Berlin (amongst others). Chamber music highlights of the season include recitals at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Konzerthaus in Vienna and at the Wigmore Hall in London.
Maat Saxophone Quartet
Maat Saxophone Quartet is a Dutch/Portuguese quartet, based in Amsterdam, that puts its own unique personality into each programme, from fado to new music. Maat is the winner of the most prestigious classical music competition in Portugal, “Prémio Jovens Músicos” (2018), and of the “Dutch Classical Talent Award” (2022). Their vision as a group is to create high level performances that celebrate classical music, that invite people to be aware of the world around them, and that highlight the voice of living artists from diverse artforms and backgrounds. Since their debut in 2018 as students of the saxophone class of Arno Bornkamp at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam, Maat has commissioned more than 20 new works for saxophone from composers as Luís Tinoco, Peter Vigh or Nuno Lobo. Maat took also part in NSKA – Dutch String Quartet Academy – where the ensemble worked the traditional string quartet repertoire under the guidance of Marc Danel (Quatuor Danel).
Valerie Fritz
The Austrian cellist Valerie Fritz is an explorer on her instrument. From electronics to gut strings, from the classical to the contemporary repertoire, she approaches a composition both with an open mind and a close attention to detail. She communicates with audiences in a similar way, curating her own concert programs and inventing new performance formats. Each of the styles in her wide repertoire benefits from her feeling for the whole. As a soloist and chamber musician, Valerie Fritz has performed at festivals such as Salzburg Festival, Klangspuren Schwaz, the Schumannfest of the Tonhalle Düsseldorf, and listening closely. She has prepared her repertoire in close contact with composers such as Helmut Lachenmann, Georg Friedrich Haas and Thomas Larcher. She is a member of Ensemble NAMES – winner of the Ernst von Siemens ensemble prize – and plays regularly with the Camerata Salzburg. “I’m not the sort to think in extremely technical terms – that all goes over my head,” she says. “To me, the most important thing is how it should sound. From there, I explore the work on my instrument and figure out how to do it justice.”
