Orchestra Academy
An experience for life
To be a professional musician in an orchestra – this is the dream of many students. While personal playing skills and solistic interpretation are part of their studies, students usually lack practice in playing with large ensembles or orchestras. At the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin (RSB), the Orchestra Academy for Strings was established in 2002 by the orchestra’s friends and supporters.
Since then, every two years, 13 scholarships have been awarded to young musicians under the age of 26. The students apply from all over the world for these scholarships. Once they have arrived in the orchestra, they enrich the diversity of the RSB.
How does the Academy work?
Academy members get assigned to orchestral duties and play side by side with their colleagues in rehearsals, concerts and tours, as well as on CD recordings. They each have a permanent mentor in their section. These mentors
support the academists with advice and constructive criticism, they give lessons and pass on their personal experience.
The academy members are thus strengthened as artistic individuals, but above all they experience how it is to work as part of an artistic community. Regular workshops outside the actual musical repertoire complete this training. For example, they learn about preparing rehearsals, the dramaturgy of concert programs, communicating music to children and adults, and musician’s health. Once a year, the members of the Orchestra Academy give a chamber recital. The time with the RSB can be a real kcikstart for the career of many members of the academy. They earn positions in renowned national and international ensembles – in some cases during their time at the academy – and can start their professional lives in a strengthened position, in some cases even at the RSB itself.
Members season 2023/24
Mentors of Orchestra Academy
Anna Morgunowa
1st Violin
Oleh Kurochkin
Principal 2nd Violin
Oleh Kurochkin - Principal 2nd Violin
Violinist Oleh Kurochkin was born in 1994 in Yevpatoriya on the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea into a family of musicians. He received his first violin lessons at the age of five. At the age of eleven, he was admitted to the M.Lysenko Kyiv Central Music School, in the class of Prof. Jaroslava Rivnjak. From 2012 to 2016, he studied at the National Academy of Music of Ukraine, where he graduated with a Bachelor’s degree. This was followed by studies at the Robert Schumann Musikhochschule in Düsseldorf with Prof. Ida Bieler. In 2020, he will graduate from the Folkwang University of the Arts with a Master’s degree in Solo Professional Performance under Prof. Boris Garlitsky. He is currently completing his concert exam at the Folkwang UdK.
Oleh Kurochkin has won prizes at numerous national and international competitions. In 2010 he won the 1st prize at the International Chamber Music Competition “Ignacy Jan Paderewski” with his piano trio as well as the 1st prize at the violin competition “The Art of the XXI Century” as a soloist. In 2012 he won the 1st prize at the Euhen-Stankovich International Violin Competition.
His solo activities have taken him to numerous concert halls in Germany, France, Belgium, Italy, Ukraine, the Czech Republic, Moldavia, Russia, Bulgaria and Hungary.
and Hungary. He has also appeared as a soloist with the symphony and chamber orchestras of chamber orchestras of Düsseldorf, Bonn, Berlin, Kyiv, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Krim, Zaporizhzhya and Odesa.
Since January 2023, Oleh has been first principal with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. As first guest concertmaster, he performs with, among others.
Copenhagen Philharmonic, Sofia Philharmonic, Basler Kammerorchester ITEMPI, Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, Zermatt Festival, Aurora Festival Stockholm, Schleswig-Holstein Festival, Rheingau Festival, Philharmonie der Nations. Between 2019-2020 Oleh was academist in 1st violins of the Staatskapelle Berlin and from 2021-2022 member of the Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
He received further important musical impulses from encounters with with the greatest conductors of our time: Daniel Barenboim, Simon Rattle, Kirill Petrenko, Zubin Petrenko, Zubin Mehta, Andris Nelsons, Herbert Blomstedt, Christian Thielemann,
John Williams, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Gustavo Dudamel.
Oleh is an internationally sought-after chamber musician and works regularly with, among others. with Renaud Capuçon, Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Valery Sokolov, Claudio Bohorquez, Martin Stadtfeld, Alexander Hülshoff, Pedro Halffter, Alexander Zemtsov, Tomáš
Jamník and “Scharoun Ensemble Berlin”.
Due to his successes, he was initially awarded a scholarship by the from 2009 to 2012, received a scholarship from the Ukrainian government, from 2015 to 2019 a “Germany Scholarship” from 2015 to 2019 and the DAAD Graduation Award in 2017.
Since 2018, he has been a scholarship holder of the Villa Musica Foundation, which gave him the historical violin “ex-Schubert” Pietro Guarneri (Mantua, 1702) for three years.
provided. Since 2019, Oleh has been supported by the Yehudi Menuhin Live Music Now and Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Neuss am Rhein, and since 2020 by the “Vere Music Fund.”
In March 2022, Oleh became the initiator and co-founder of the project UAmusic.DE, the platform for helping Ukrainian musicians who had to leave their homeland due toRussian war of aggression.
Since 2021, Oleh Kurochkin has been playing the Michele Decon Foundation, the Michele Deconet “ex Castelberg” (Venice, 1775).
Gernot Adrion
Assistant Principal Viola
Elizaveta Zolotova
Associate Principal Viola
Hans-Jakob Eschenburg
Principal Cello
Hans-Jakob Eschenburg - Principal Cello
Hans-Jakob Eschenburg received his first cello lessons at the Rostock Conservatory. After studying with Josef Schwab at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin, he was principal cellist of the Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra from 1984 to 1988.
With the renowned Petersen Quartet, of which he was a founding member until 2000, he won several international competitions (Prague, Evian, Florence, Munich) and appeared on the major concert stages and at numerous festivals in Europe, North and South America, Asia and Australia. Several of the Petersen Quartet’s numerous CD recordings have won international awards.
Since 1999 Hans-Jakob Eschenburg has been principal cellist of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin. He held the same position in the chamber orchestra “Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach”. He frequently appears as a soloist and chamber musician, including as a member of various chamber ensembles such as the Gideon Klein Trio. Hans-Jakob Eschenburg teaches as an honorary professor at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” Berlin. He is also involved as a mentor of the Orchestra Academy of the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin.
Ringela Riemke
Assistant Principal Cello
Hermann Wömmel-Stützer
Principal Double Bass
Marvin Wagner
Principal Double Bass
Marvin Wagner - Principal Double Bass
Marvin Wagner, born in Munich in 1993, received his first double bass lessons from Erich Hehenberger at the age of eight. After graduating from high school in 2012, he began his artistic studies in Prof. Dorin Marc’s class in the autumn of the same year. During his training, he became a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie and the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester. He was able to gain professional experience in various orchestras with the help of temporary contracts, for example as deputy principal double bass at the Nuremberg State Opera and as a tutti player with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2017, he continued his studies at the Hanns Eisler Academy of Music in Berlin with Prof Janne Saksala. He supplemented his training with masterclasses under Prof Paradzik and Prof Mctier.
Marvin Wagner is 1st prize winner of the 8th International Johann Matthias Sperger Competition for Double Bass 2014 and has performed as a soloist with the Bad Reichenhall Philharmonic Orchestra, the West Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Marienbad, the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra and the Rheinische Philharmonie State Orchestra, among others.
Marvin Wagner has repeatedly received a scholarship from the Peter Pirazzi Foundation and was a scholarship holder of the German National Academic Foundation.
He has been Deputy Principal Double Bass with the Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin since the beginning of 2019.
Contact and application
The Academy currently has 13 places for string players (maximum age: 26).
We publish vacancies here.
Orchestra Academy
Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin
Masurenallee 8-14
14057 Berlin
E-mail orchesterakademie@rsb-online.de
For general information
Christian Schwärsky | Orchestra Office
Dorothea Groß | Orchestra Office
Phone +49 (0) 30 202 987 520/521