Kunst im Bau

Ina Kancheva was born in Sofia.

She has been dedicated to the arts since the age of six, and has already toured the world as a soloist with the famous children’s choir of the Bulgarian National Radio. She graduated from the High School for Theatre and Fine Arts. From the age of 19 she studied opera singing at the State Academy of Music in Sofia.
Ina Kancheva was a member of the ensemble of the Stuttgart State Opera.
She has also been invited to perform at opera houses such as Covent Garden (London), La Scala (Milan), The Royal Danish Opera (Copenhagen) and Palau de les Arts Reina Sofia (Valencia). She is a regular guest at international music festivals such as the Festival de musique Baroque d’Ambronay (France), Rossini Opera Festival (Italy) and the Prague Spring International Music Festival (Czech Republic).
Ina Kancheva works with renowned orchestras and conductors such as Sir Neville Marriner, Vasily Petrenko, Cornelius Meister, Enrique Mazzola, Manfred Honeck, Alberto Zedda, Gianluigi Gelmetti, Jiri Belohlavek, Julia Jones and René Jacobs.
In 2016 she released her CD “Pauline Viardot” on Toccata Classics with pianist Ludmil Angelov. As part of Deutschlandfunk Kultur’s programme “Die besondere Aufnahme” (The Special Recording), Ina Kancheva took on the role of Madame Landru in the unknown chamber opera “Madame Landru” by Roberto Hazon and started a collaboration with the Rundfunk-Sinfonie Orchester Berlin and Deutschlandfunk Kultur.

Anne Mentzen was born in Braunschweig in 1981, where she received her first piano lessons at the age of five. At the age of nine she began horn lessons and from 1998 was trained by Theodor Wiemes, principal horn of the Radiophilharmonie Hannover. After graduating from high school, she began studying horn in the fall of 2000 in the class of Marie-Luise Neunecker at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main. From 2003 she studied with Thomas Hauschild at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Leipzig, where she graduated with honors. Anne Mentzen won several federal prizes at “Jugend musiziert” as well as prizes at other competitions, both with the horn and on the piano. In 1999, in addition to the first national prize, she was awarded a special prize by the Hanover Artists’ Association and in 2000 she was also awarded the Lower Saxony Prize for “outstanding achievements in the cultural field”. She has also received scholarships from the Volkswagen Bank (1999), the Richard Wagner Association (2000), and the Gustav Mahler Academy (2002, 2005). The hornist gained orchestral experience in the state and national youth orchestras, the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra, and was invited several times to the International Orchestra Academy of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. After an internship with the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and a temporary position with the Staatsorchester Kassel, she went to the Deutsche Oper Berlin as an intern in 2005. Since 2006 Anne Mentzen has been a horn player with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. Here she plays in various chamber music formations, such as the ensemble “Samtblech”.