“Last true heir of Léopold Auer’s, Dmitri Makhtin uses virtuosity to enhance emotion.”

Born in St Petersburg in 1975, Dmitri Makhtin started his musical education at the age of four with his parents, both professional violinists, and joined the Music School for gifted children in 1981. In 1989, he won the first prize at the Russian violinists competition. In 1990, he obtained a scholarship from the Young Musicians Foundation and of the IdyllwildArts Academy (California), and then studied with P. Hirshhornand H. Krebbers.

He is also the laureate of international competitions such as the Kloster Schontal, Niccolò Paganini, Louis Spohr, TiborVarga, Montréal, Sibelius and Praetoria Competitions.

Dmitri Makhtin made his debut in 1997 in Paris with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation, under the baton of Yevgeny Svetlanov, and in 1998 in the United States with the Cleveland Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Slatkin.

Since then, he has performed with the philharmonic orchestras of Ural, Monte-Carlo, Marseille, Hong-Kong, City of Prague, Radio France and Saint Petersburg; with the symphonic orchestras of Swedish Radio, Euskadi, Singapore and Dallas;as well as the Orchestre National de Montpellier, OrchestreNational de Lille or The European Soloists of Luxembourg. He performed with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin, James DePreist, Sakari Oramo, Alexander Dmitriyev, JiříBělohlávek, Jerzy Semkow, Yuri Temirkanov, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Alexander Vedernikov, Yevgeny Svetlanov, Alexander Sladkovsky, Robert Trevino and Paolo Arrivabeni…

Dmitri Makhtin is regularly invited to festivals of Saint Petersburg, Lisbon, PietraSanta, La Folle Journée in Nantesand Tokyo, La Roque d’Anthéron, Menton, Salzburg, Radio France Montpellier, Saint-Denis Music Festival, Automne en Normandie and Leiden (of which he is artistic director). He also performs recitals and chamber music in the most prestigious venues in the world: the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, Lincoln Center in New York, Saint Petersburg Philharmonia, Tivoli Vredenburg in Utrecht, Pushkin Museum in Moscow, Salle Pleyel in Paris, Amsterdam Concertgebouw…

He plays chamber music with Plamena Mangova, Andrei Korobeinikov, Boris Berezovsky, Alexander Kniazev, Alexei Ogrintchouk, Miguel Da Silva and Renaud Capuçon.

Dmitri Makhtin recorded at Warner Classics, with Boris Berezovsky and Alexander Kniazev, a CD dedicated to Shostakovich’s Trio n°2 and Rachmaninoff’s Trio Elégiaquen°2 – which won Choc de la Musique, Gramophone and Echo Classic Awards – as well as an album dedicated to Mendelssohn trios (awarded with an Echo Classic Awards).
Besides, with these two same partners, he recorded a CD of Tchaikovsky’s works, which was released on ARTE and NHK, and awarded with a Diapason d’Or. His last record, first of Bach’s complete Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, was released at Lontano records.

Dmitri Makhtin plays on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume violin from 1863.

Award-winning concert pianist, Julia Siciliano has been heralded as a musician with “fabulous creative power” by the Bonn General-Anzeiger. Ms. Siciliano has become a well-respected and anticipated rising talent on the world stage, being invited as a solo artist by many prestigious orchestras, and festivals, most recently with the Orquestra Sinfónica de la Region de Murcia for the MurciArt Music Festival. A winner of many local and international piano competitions, Julia has won top prizes at the Sicily International Piano Competition, Heida Hermanns International Competition, Iowa Piano Competition, and MTNA National Competition.  Active as a chamber musician, Julia has been invited to perform on concert series and festivals with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players, Basque National Orchestra’s chamber music series “Miramon Matinees”, and the MurciArt Festival in Murcia, Spain.  She has given recitals with Metropolitan Opera stars Amanda Pabyan, Eric Owens, and Marina Domashenko, and internationally acclaimed violinists Dmitri Makhtin, Simone Lamsma, and Birgit Kolar.  

 Julia has an active performing career in both solo and chamber music capacities across stages in North America, Central America, Europe and Asia. She has performed multiple times live on Chicago radio station WFMT, Detroit’s historic Scarab Club, Cincinnati Music Hall, the Bulgarian Consulate in New York City, Teatro Nacional of Gautemala, Palazzo Biscari in Catania, Italy, Parvis de l’église Notre-Dame d’Espérance in Cannes, Deutsche Telekom Headquarters in Bonn, Rachmaninov Hall in Moscow, and Kioi Hall in Tokyo. In the year 2020, she embarks on a journey of performing the complete Beethoven “accompanied” Sonatas multiple times in the USA, Spain, France, and Sweden in tribute to the great composer’s 250th birthday.

 Her debut solo album “Dream Catchers”, a two disc album featuring small scale works by Beethoven, Schumann, Schubert, Ravel and Debussy, released in 2016 to great acclaim.  Fanfare Magazine declared “this release has merit as a career milestone” and leaves “no doubt about the devotion and seriousness of Siciliano’s approach to music.”  Gramophone Magazine praised her “fine technique and natural musicality” pinpointing her “masterful delicacy, harmonic motion, and timing” in Debussy’s Images II.  

 Siciliano holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music, where she studied with Nelita True, and the University of Michigan, where she studied with Logan Skelton.