Clarinet clique

Richard Polle was born into a family of musicians. At the age of six, he began his first violin lessons with his mother. At 12, Richard started his studies as a junior student at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar with Jost Witter and continued his education two years later at the Musikgymnasium Schloss Belvedere Weimar. He completed his bachelor’s degree with honors under Josef Rissin at the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe and earned his master’s degree with Antje Weithaas at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin.

He won numerous national and international competitions, including first prizes and special prizes in solo and duo categories at the “Jugend musiziert” national competition, the international violin competition “Postacchini” in Fermo (Italy), the “Villa de Llanes” competition in Llanes (Spain), as well as awards at the international violin competition “Kocian” in Ústí nad Orlicí (Czech Republic), the international Lake Constance Violin Competition, and the competition of the Kulturfonds Baden e.V.

He has performed with the Kammerorchester der Rheinischen Philharmonie Koblenz, the Thüringen Philharmonie Gotha-Suhl, the Philharmonisches Orchester Erfurt, the Philharmonie der Stadt Kirow (Russia), the Junge Sinfonieorchester Berlin, the Südwestdeutsches Kammerorchester Pforzheim, and the Kurpfälzisches Kammerorchester Mannheim. He has also participated in several masterclasses, including those with Thomas Christian, Olga Parkhomenko, Roman Nodel, Ana Chumachenko, Boris Garlitsky, and Jörg Widmann.

Richard Polle has been a scholarship recipient from the Thüringen Ministry of Culture, the Sparkassenstiftung Erfurt, the Friends of the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, the Musikinstrumentenfonds of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben, and received the Gerd Bucerius Scholarship from the ZEIT Foundation in the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben.

From 2014 to 2016, he was a scholarship holder at the Orchestral Academy of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, and since 2016, he has been a permanent member of the first violins.

Violinist Ania Bara-Rast began her violin studies as a junior student in Conrad von der Goltz’s early development class in Regensburg and continued her studies after graduating from high school in Krzysztof Wegrzyn’s class at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. She completed her bachelor’s degree with top marks, as well as her master’s degree at the University of Music and Theatre Hamburg with Tanja Becker-Bender.
She received special musical impulses in numerous masterclasses with professors such as Maxim Vengerov, Mauricio Fuks, Ulf Wallin and Nora Chastain.
She has won several national prizes in the “Jugend musiziert” competition, both as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles.
She was concertmaster of the Bavarian State Youth Orchestra and a member of renowned youth orchestras such as the German National Youth Orchestra, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra.
Ania has been a trainee at the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover since 2012, was accepted into the Academy of the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester Hamburg for the 2013/2014 season and was also a scholarship holder of the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss.
She has played in the 2nd violin section of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since 2016.
She has also been 2nd violinist in the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra since 2021.

Lydia Rinecker has been the principal violist of the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2016. From 2014 to 2015, she held the same position with the Staatskapelle Weimar. Born in Meiningen in 1989, she attended the Music High School Schloss Belvedere in Weimar and then studied at the music universities in Weimar and Berlin, specializing in viola under Erich Krüger and Ditte Leser.

She is a prizewinner of various national and international competitions. Among her accolades, she received multiple 1st prizes at the national “Jugend musiziert” competition, the 1st prize at the 17th International Johannes Brahms Competition, a 3rd prize at the Walter Witte Viola Competition in 2011, and a special prize for “outstanding talent” at the 62nd International Music Competition of the ARD, awarded by the Henning Tögel Talent Promotion Foundation. In 2011, she was a scholarship recipient of the “Hans and Eugenia Jütting” Foundation in Stendal.

During her studies, she gained orchestral experience as a substitute in the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig and the Staatskapelle Weimar. As a soloist, Lydia Rinecker has performed with orchestras such as the Staatskapelle Schwerin, the Orchestra of the Theater Vorpommern, the Central German Chamber Philharmonic, the Czech orchestra “Virtuosi Brunensis,” and the Young Symphony Orchestra Berlin.

She plays a viola made around 1860 by the violin maker Karl Brandl from Pest.