Johan Dalene
20 year old violinist, Johan Dalene, is already making an impact on the international scene, performing with leading orchestras and in important recital halls both at home in Sweden and abroad. His refreshingly honest musicality, combined with an ability to engage with musicians and audiences alike, has won him many admirers, most recently as the winner of the Norwegian Soloist Prize, and of First Prize at the prestigious 2019 Carl Nielsen Competition, which was broadcast to audiences worldwide on medici.tv.

Johan’s schedule for the coming seasons includes performances with all the major Scandinavian orchestras and debuts with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra with Sakari Oramo, Czech Philharmonic with Franz Welser-Möst, and Konzerthausorchester Berlin with Christoph Eschenbach, as well as solo recitals at in London’s Wigmore Hall and Carnegie Hall, New York. During the lockdown in Sweden in April 2020, he performed Bach’s Concerto for 2 Violins with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, alongside Janine Jansen. During the 2020/21 season, Johan is Artist in Residence with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, performing concertos, recitals and chamber music together with members of the orchestra.

Johan was recently selected as a European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) Rising Star, and during the 2021-22 season, will perform solo recitals in some of Europe’s most prestigious concert halls, while also engaging in Education, Learning and Participation work with diverse communities in cities across the ECHO network. Johan is also a BBC New Generation Artist from 2019-21 and during which time he performs recitals, chamber music and concerti with the BBC orchestras, all broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Johan began playing the violin at the age of four and made his professional concerto debut three years later. In Summer 2016, he was a student-inresidence at Switzerland’s Verbier Festival and in 2018 was accepted on to the Norwegian Crescendo programme, where he has worked closely with mentors Janine Jansen, Leif Ove Andsnes and Gidon Kremer. Andsnes subsequently invited Johan to play at the Rosendal Chamber Music Festival and they performed together again in May 2019 at the Bergen International Festival. In 2019 he joined Janine Jansen and other members of the Crescendo Programme for a performance at the Wigmore Hall in London, and at the International Chamber Music Festival in Utrecht.

Recording exclusively for BIS, Johan released his first recording album on the label in December 2019, featuring the Tchaikovsky and Barber Violin Concerti with the Norrköping Symphony Orchestra – with whom he was Artist in Residence in 2018/19. The album was praised by BBC Music Magazine as “one of the finest violin debuts of the last decade”, with Johan being hailed as a “musician of special sensibilities” (Gramophone) and a “highly gifted soloist” (RBB Kultur). Johan’s second disc of Nordic recital music will be released in Spring 2021.

Christian Ihle Hadland
In the last decade Christian Ihle Hadland has established himself as a true craftsman of the piano, a musician whose delicate, refined playing and individual touch have led him to the most prestigious stages in the world.

Christian came to international attention in 2011 when he began a two-year stint as a BBC New Generation Artist. As an NGA he performed with all five of the BBC’s symphony orchestras from London to Manchester and broadcast solo and chamber recitals for the corporation in London. As a finale to his tenure, Christian was the soloist in Beethoven’s Second Piano Concerto at the BBC Proms with the Oslo Philharmonic under Vasily Petrenko; the concert was broadcast live and Christian was praised by London critics for his ‘pearly’ and ‘otherwordly’ sound.

Christian made his professional concerto debut with KORK, the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, aged 15. He has since performed with all the major orchestras in Scandinavia including the Swedish Radio and Danish National Symphony Orchestras, and the Royal Stockholm, Helsinki and Oslo Philharmonics and also the Swedish Chamber Orchestra. In the UK he has appeared as a concerto soloist with the Hallé Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Manchester Camerata, in addition to his work with the BBC orchestras. He embarked upon a successful concert tour of the UK with the Bergen Philharmonic under Andrew Litton in 2013. Christian made his US debut with Seattle Symphony Orchestra in 2013 and he has also performed with NDR Hannover Orchestra.

Christian is highly sought after as a chamber musician and has been Artistic Director of the International Chamber Music Festival in Stavanger, his hometown, since 2010. He appears regularly at The Wigmore Hall, where he gave his debut solo recital in 2013, and is a regular guest at the Risør Chamber Music Festival and at the Bergen International Festival in Norway. He has also performed at the BBC Proms Chamber Music Series, where he collaborated with the Signum Quartet. In 2015 he gave a three-week chamber music tour of Australia with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and American mezzo Susan Graham. In 2006, Christian performed with soprano Renée Fleming at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony in Oslo.

Christian is a respected recording artist whose disc of Mozart Piano Concertos with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra was nominated for the Spellemann Prize in 2014, the highest honour for recorded music in Norway. Christian’s Holberg Variations CD, recorded with Ensemble 1B1, won the Spellemann Prize in 2015. Most recently, his recording of works for cello and piano by Grieg and Granger, made with the Danish cellist Andreas Brantelid, was released on BIS in 2015 and immediately named a Gramophone Editor’s Choice.

Christian Ihle Hadland has played with renowned conductors at the highest level, including Sir Andrew Davis, Herbert Blomstedt and Thomas Dausgaard.

Christian was born in Stavanger in 1983 and received his first piano lessons at the age of eight. At the age of eleven he entered the Rogaland Music Conservatory, and in 1999 began lessons with Professor Jiri Hlinka, both privately and at the Barratt Due Institute of Music in Oslo.