Lyuta Kobayashi
born in Detmold in 2003, received his first clarinet lessons when he was seven years old. At the age of eleven, he became a junior student at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin with Martin Spangenberg, and from 2018 to 2021 was a junior student at the Institute for the Early Advancement of the Musically Highly Gifted at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media with Johannes Peitz. Since 2021 he has been studying with Norbert Kaiser at the State University of Music and the Performing Arts in Stuttgart. He has received further inspiration from Sabine Meyer, Reiner Wehle, Karl-Heinz Steffens, Wenzel Fuchs, and Johann Hindler.

Lyuta Kobayashi was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Germany and has already performed as a soloist with various orchestras. In numerous competitions such as the national “Jugend musiziert” competition, Carl Schröder Competition Sondershausen, Wetzlar Clarinet Competition, Tiroler Klassik Instrumentalist Award, and Lions European Music Competition, he emerged as the winner or an award recipient. In 2022, he received the GMC Prize, the Audience Prize, and the Special Prize of the Friends of Young Musicians Düsseldorf at the German Music Competition (GMC) in Bonn and was included in the promotion program of the German Music Council.

The clarinetist is a scholarship holder of the German Foundation for Musical Life, PE Support for Students in Mannheim, the Jürgen Ponto Foundation, EVA LIND Music Academy, Thuringian Ministry of Culture and Science for musically gifted people. In 2022 he was accepted into the German Academic Scholarship Foundation.

Starting with the upcoming season, Lyuta Kobayashi will also hold the position of principal clarinetist of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern.

Julian Emanuel Becker
was born in Hanover in 2005. He performs as a pianist, chamber musician, and organist at many international festivals such as the International Organ Week Nuremberg (ION), the Festival International d'Orgue de Dudelange, and the Hitzacker Music Week and also as a soloist with youth and student orchestras.

As a composer he has written commissioned works which have been premiered by renowned soloists and ensembles such as Jeroen Berwaerts, Salaputia Brass, and the Hanover Girls’ Choir.

At the age of seven, he was accepted into the preparatory class of the Institute for the Early Advancement of the Musically Highly Gifted at the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. From 2018 to 2021 he studied organ and piano at the Institute with Ulfert Smidt and Elena Levit. He is a junior student in organ with Martin Schmeding and Thomas Lennartz and in piano with Jacques Ammon and Elena Levit at the University of Music and Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy” Leipzig and the Hanover University of Music, Drama and Media. He has received further inspiration in master classes with Igor Levit, Daniel Roth, and Henry Fairs.

At the national “Jugend musiziert” competition, Julian Emanuel Becker received numerous first prizes for organ and piano in addition to special prizes, within the framework of WESPE, for contemporary music, organ improvisation, and ostracized music both as a soloist and in duo with Lyuta Kobayashi.

In 2019 he won the Northern Ireland International Organ Competition (NIIOC) and in 2020 the first prize at the Grotrian-Steinweg Piano Competition. In 2023 he was awarded Second Prize and Audience Prize as the youngest competitor in the St Albans International Organ Conpetition (UK). He is also a multiple prizewinner in the national “Jugend komponiert” competition.

Julian Emanuel Becker is a scholarship holder of the German Foundation for Musical Life, the Jürgen Ponto Foundation, and the “Jugend musiziert” Foundation Lower Saxony.