Christian Dierstein

Christian Dierstein, (Prof. MH Basel, soloist, ensemble recherche, trio accanto) completed his music studies in Freiburg, Paris, and Mannheim. He has won numerous competitions and received scholarships from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and the Akademie Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. Since 1988, he has been the percussionist  of Ensemble Recherche and since 1994, a member of Trio accanto with Stefan Wirth and Marcus Weiss. During the 2010–11 season, he was one of the “Rising Stars” of the European Concert Hall Organization. His solo performances with various orchestras have taken him all over the world. Numerous radio and CD recordings, both as a soloist and in chamber music ensembles, attest to his skill. He collaborates closely with numerous composers, including Hans Abrahamsen, Mark Andre, Georges Aperghis, Carola Bauckholt, Pierluigi Billone, Eivind Buene, Beat Furrer, Hugues Dufourt, Helmut Lachenmann, Rebecca Saunders, Elnaz Seyedi, Salvatore Sciarrino, and many others. He is also deeply engaged with non-European music and free improvisation. Since 2001, he has been a professor of percussion and new chamber music at the Basel University of Music. From 2008 to 2022, he was a percussion instructor at the International Summer Courses for New Music in Darmstadt, and since 2011, he has been an instructor at the Impuls Courses in Graz.

Håkon Stene

Håkon Stene (Prof. MH Freiburg, soloist, asamisimasa) is active internationally as a soloist and chamber musician across multiple genres, initiator and commissioner of new works, recording artist, producer, educator, and researcher. His solo and chamber recordings have been awarded the Norwegian Grammy (Spellemann) in the category of contemporary music and “open genre” five times.He studied in Oslo, Freiburg, and San Diego. From 2005–2008 he was selected for the launch programme “INTRO” for young soloists by Concerts Norway. As a soloist he performed with Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta, Oslo Sinfonietta, 2e2m, Avanti!, Nadar and several others. Furthermore he plays with ensembles such as asamisimasa (contemporary), Pantha Du Prince (techno), and Nils Økland and Benedicte Maurseth (Folk Impro), including venues and festivals throughout Europe, the U.S. , Asia and Australia. Håkon Stene collaborates with numerous composers across generations and styles. A special interest of his has been the expanded role of the instrumentalist in experimental music. This topic was explored in the research projects “’This is Not a Drum’ – Towards a Post-Instrumental Practice” and the post-doctoral project “Music with the Real” undertaken at the Norwegian Academy of Music from 2010 to 2017. He is a professor of percussion studies at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg, and has been co-teaching at IMD's percussion studio since 2016. 

Aiyun Huang

Aiyun Huang enjoys a musical life as soloist, chamber musician, researcher, teacher and producer. Globally recognized since winning the 2002 First Prize and Audience Prize of the Geneva International Music Competition. She is a champion of the existing repertoire and a prominent voice in the collaborative creation of new works. Huang has commissioned and premiered over two hundred works in her three decades as a soloist, chamber musician, and producer. The Globe and Mail critic Robert Everett-Green describes Huang’s playing as “engrossing to hear and to watch” and her choice of repertoire as capable of “renovating our habits of listening.”

Born in Taiwan, she currently holds the position of Professor of Music at the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto where she heads the percussion area and directs the University of Toronto Percussion Ensemble. She is the director of the Technology and Performance Integration Research (TaPIR) Lab at the University of Toronto.

Aiyun was named a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 2024.

Rebecca Lloyd-Jones

Rebecca Lloyd-Jones is a Lecturer at Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, a Marimba One Education Artist, and the Artistic Director of Synergy Percussion. Praised as “captivating” (San Diego Union-Tribune), she has performed at major events such as the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, IMPULS (Graz), soundSCAPE (Italy) and held residencies at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, Canada. Rebecca has performed with the PARTCH ensemble, Red Fish Blue Fish and was an adjudicator for the IPEA International Percussion Competition in Hong Kong (2024).

 With an extensive research portfolio, Rebecca has received funding from the American Australian Arts Fund, the Creative Arts Research Institute (CARI), and was awarded the 2025 Elizabeth Wood Musicology Research Fellowship from the University of Adelaide. She presented her research at the Transplanted Roots Percussion Research Symposium 2017-2019 and served as the artistic producer for the 2022 symposium in San Diego, USA. As a composer, Rebecca’s works are released on labels including Populist (Los Angeles), New Focus Recordings, and MADE NOW MUSIC, and her pedagogical compositions have been published in the AMEB percussion syllabus.

Rebecca graduated from the Victorian College of Arts with the Desma Woolcock award for academic excellence, received a Master of Music Research from the Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith University, and holds a Doctorate from the University of California San Diego with Distinguished Professor Steven Schick.

Amiel Ang

Amiel Ang (*b. 2003, Los Baños, Philippines) is a versatile performer, multi-instrumentalist, and interdisciplinary artist from Toronto, Canada. He has been successful in numerous Canadian music competitions that have resulted in concerto performances with the Hannaford Street Silver Band, Burlington Symphony Orchestra, University of Toronto’s Symphony Orchestra and Wind Symphony, HMCS York Naval Reserve Band, and Rouge River Winds. Other solo engagements include performances with the Kairos Percussion Quartet, Deleuze New Music Collective (Chicago), VIVA Singers Toronto, Ministry of Phonic Services, Nexilis String Quartet, University of Toronto Percussion Ensemble, and the Hannaford Youth Band.

Amiel has worked closely with composers such as Donnacha Dennehy, Vivian Fung, Bob Becker, Russell Hartenberger, Reza Vali, Luke Blackmore, Orson Abram, Samuel Kerr, and Hirad Moradi. He has commissioned and made world premieres of solo percussion works by Daniel Sheibani (2025 SOCAN Foundation Award), Thomas Shorthouse, Alexander La, and Wen-Chia Lauren Lien.

Internationally, Amiel has performed at the IMPULS Academy (Graz), soundSCAPE Festival (Switzerland), Blossom Music Centre (Ohio), and OpernFest Berlin. He can be heard on recordings for Bjorn Kriel, Thomas Shorthouse, find some time…, French Onion Soup, Saf Gaber, and the Original Cast Recording of A Perfect Bowl of Pho.

@amielangonline