Talent Group 9
French musician and professor of music at Panissières, Mathieu Terrade, is probably the most celebrated player of the Harpejji, an electric stringed musical instrument developed in 2007 by Tim Meeks, founder of Marcodi Musical Products. The instrument aims to bridge the gap in sound and technique between the guitar, bass guitar, and piano. Stevie Wonder features the instrument in his stage performance. There are no formal rules on how to play the instrument and new techniques are emerging all the time.
Mathieu Terrade
Alexandra Whittingham
After studying classical guitar, piano, jazz guitar and composition at the world-renowned Chetham's School of Music for seven years, Alexandra Whittingham now studies at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Having picked up the guitar when she was just five years old, Alexandra's father taught her the basics of the instrument before she went on to begin private lessons. During her time at Chetham's, Alexandra had many opportunities to play with various ensembles, such as a string quartets, guitar duets and jazz groups, which resulted in her becoming a member of Wigan Youth Jazz Orchestra. With the orchestra came the opportunity to tour Germany and Czech Republic, where they sold out various venues within the two countries. In her final year at the school, she also gained her LRSM (Licentiate of the Royal Schools of Music) second diploma in guitar performance.
Viktoriya Viktorovna
Viktoriya Viktorovna is a 7 years old Russian pianist and singer. She is a rising star of the Internet and the winner of the online contest "Super children Generation M".
Courtney Hadwin
Courtney Hadwin is a British Singer who became an overnight sensation after her show-stopping performance in ‘America’s Got Talent’ where she received the Golden Buzzer from Howie Mandel. Hadwin was born in Hartlepool, England on July 6, 2005. She was first noticed in 2015 when she performed "Say Something" by Great Big World at The Academy at Shotton Hall's lunchtime open mic session, and competed on The Voice Kids UK in 2017, auditioning with Tina Turner's "Nutbush City Limits". She finished the competition as one of the Top 6. Courtney Hadwin's audition in Episode 1303 consisted of singing Otis Redding's "Hard to Handle" and dancing. Impressed with the performance. Courtney's audition video on AGT's YouTube channel was the most viewed video from Season 13 with over 50 million views.
Tereza Todorova
Tereza Todorova is a Bulgarian child singer and pianist born on January 11, 2005. She started performing at the age of four. At the age of five she took her first piano lesson. She has numerous awards at international and national competitions. In 2013 alone she was awarded 12 first prizes. In 2014, Tereza became laureate of the prize awarded in the field of arts for students in grade 1-4 by the Dimitar Berbatov Foundation. On March 21 2015, she performed at the Winners Gala Concert at the famous Carnegie Hall in New York. Tereza Todorova is also actively engaged in dance. She likes to create various choreographies and has formed her own dance group.
Alexandra Dovgan
Alexandra Dovgan was born in 2007. She began to study the piano at the age of 5. Dovgan currently studies at the Moscow Central Music School of the Moscow Conservatory (Mira Marchenko’s class). She is the winner of the Villahermosa Internet Contest (Mexico, 2014), the 9th International Ural Prokofiev Competition (Yekaterinburg, 2015), the 11th International Safonov Young Pianists Competition (Pyatigorsk, 2015), the I All-Russian Music Talents Internet Contest (Moscow, 2015), the 13th International Young Musicians Competition (Piano Category, Moscow, 2016), and the 18th International Nutcracker Television Contest (Moscow, 2017). Dovgan is also a prize-winner at the Vladimir Krainev Moscow International Piano Competition (2nd prize, Moscow, 2017) and the 4th International Astana Piano Passion Competition (2nd prize, 2017). She has received a special prize from the Yamaha company. The young pianist has taken part in various international festivals and has toured in Russia and abroad. Dovgan receives scholarships from the Vladimir Spivakov Foundation, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the New Names Foundation.
Elisha Mysin
Elisha Mysin (Елисей Мысин) is a very young and talented pianist from Stavropol Russia. He has played the piano from 3 and a half years old and studies at the music school in the preparatory department, and in his spare time he plays chess, soccer and collects Lego designs. Despite such a young age, Elisey Mysin is the Winner of many contests and festivals.
Otava Yo
Otava Yo is a group of professional folk musicians from St. Petersburg, Russia. They perform new interpretations of Russian folk music and revive old favorite Soviet tunes blending into them a "Russian beat". Some call them "modern buffoons", others describe the music as "communal flat groove", and both are true. Otava Yo serves up its music in a vigorous manner with a good dose of humour, mixing up overdriven traditional Russian instruments with a stereotypical Russian look, which simultaneously frightens and attracts the tourists. Witty song introductions emerged with the music, livening up already energetic performances. The band is very popular in its home city of St. Petersburg, playing some 80 concerts a year at various venues and events. The band members are: Alexey Belkin - vocals, Russian fife, gusli (Russian psaltery), bagpipe; Dmitry Shikhardin - vocals, fiddle; Alexey Skosyrev - vocals, acoustic guitar; Petr Sergeev - darbuca, bass drum; Yulia Usova - vocals, violin and Timur Sigidin - bass guitar
Sophia Tyurina
Sophia Tyurina is a 9-year-old saxophone player from the small town of Balakovo in the Saratov Region of Russia. As a child, she and her mother went to concerts, watched on TV, the Internet, and she wanted to play the saxophone. Sophia undertook 5 years study in music school – she also sings, plays the piano, violin and guitar and dances. Her performance at the Bluebird was a highlight and she won first place at the competition “the Nutcracker”.
Anastasia Tyurina
Anastasia is from Russia and plays the balalaika. She has performed on the stages of the Svetlanov Hall of the Moscow International House of Music and Verona Philharmonic Theater. She is currently a contestant on Competition "Blue Bird".
Yello
Yello is a Swiss electronic duo band formed by Boris Blank (keyboards, sampling, percussion, backing vocals) and Dieter Meier (vocals, lyrics), a millionaire industrialist and gambler. The new band name, Yello, was chosen as a neologism based on a comment made by Meier, "a yelled Hello". The band's fourth studio album Stella went No.1 in Switzerland in 1985 as the first album ever by a Swiss group to top the Swiss album chart. The song "Oh Yeah" from the album gained the band worldwide attention the following year after it was prominently featured in the 1986 film Ferris Bueller's Day Off. In 1988 single "The Race" from the album Flag reached No.7 in the UK as their only Top 10 hit there. Yello's sound is mainly characterised by unusual music samples, a heavy reliance on rhythm and Dieter Meier's dark voice. Yello makes heavy use of sampling in the construction of rhythm tracks, such as in The Race from 1988. Yello rarely uses samples from previously released music; nearly every instrument has been sampled and re-engineered by Boris Blank, who over the years has built up an original sample library of over 100,000 named and categorised sounds.
"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything.” ― Plato
