Virtuoso

(from Harmonia Mundi):
http://harmoniamundi.com/espana/artistes_fiche.php?artist_id=666 Isabelle Faust studied the violin with Christoph Poppen and Dènes Zsigmondy. In 1987 she won First Prize in the International Leopold Mozart Competition, and in 1993 the Premio Paganini in Genoa. The renowned magazine Gramophone gave her its Young Artist of the Year Award for her first recording of sonatas by Béla Bartók, in 1997.

Read more about Isabelle Faust on Last.fm.

Arcadi Volodos (Russian: Аркадий Володось, Arcadij Volodos) (born February 24, 1972) is a Russian pianist. His first name is sometimes transliterated Arcady or Arkady. Volodos is renowned for his technical mastery of the instrument's virtuosic repertoire; particularly that of Rachmaninoff, Liszt and his recordings of transcriptions by Vladimir Horowitz.
Born in Leningrad in 1972, he began his musical training studying voice, following the example of his parents, who were singers, and later shifted his emphasis to conducting while a student at the Capilla M.

Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet (May 12, 1842 – August 13, 1912) was a French composer from Montaud, France, who was best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas fell into almost total oblivion. Apart from Manon and Werther, his works were rarely performed. However, since the mid-1970s, many operas of his such as Thaïs and Esclarmonde have undergone periodic revivals.

Read more about Jules Massenet on Last.fm.

Born in Beijing China, Cheng Yu is well-known pipa soloist. At 13, she won the Chinese National Youth Competition of Traditional Music Instrument Performances and, in 1981, was admitted the Xian Conservatory of Music to continue her pipa studies and also to study the guqin. She moved to the UK in 1988 where she has performed with many organizations and co-founded the UK Chinese Ensemble. In 2004, she completed her PhD on the ancient music of Xi'an at the University of London.