Marc Bouchkov and Kim Kashkashian with students of the Festival dei Due Mondi Academy

With the concerts of the Festival dei Due Mondi Academy project, young musicians selected at an international level share the stage with leading figures of the concert world invited as faculty, combining the experience and charisma of acclaimed soloists with the boundless energy of the performers of tomorrow.

At 35, Bouchkov is one of the most charismatic voices in today’s violin world. A regular guest at major festivals such as Verbier, where he has often performed as a soloist with its orchestras, he is also widely engaged in orchestral and chamber music tours, collaborating with legends such as Misha Maisky and Evgenij Kissin, as well as rising stars like Klaus Mäkelä and Lahav Shani. A passionate teacher, he holds violin professorships at the Conservatory of Liège in Belgium and at the University of the Arts in Essen, Germany.

At his side, both in preparing the program and on stage, is the renowned American violist Kim Kashkashian, a leading figure for the viola repertoire from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to contemporary music. She is a regular presence at the world’s foremost chamber music festivals, from Marlboro to Salzburg, and as a soloist has collaborated with the greatest orchestras and conductors worldwide. Throughout her career, she has devoted particular attention to educating the next generation of musicians, through masterclasses at prestigious festivals and academies and through teaching positions at Indiana University, the Hochschule in Freiburg and Berlin, and today at the New England Conservatory in Boston. She is also the founder and artistic director of Music for Food, an initiative by musicians to combat hunger in their local communities.