Lorenza Borrani
When I was five, I had two wishes: to join the local girls’ football team and to play the trumpet. The football team was on the other side of Florence — not a very big city, but still, too far and too much traffic for my mum to drive me there. The Scuola di Musica di Fiesole on the other hand was only a few minutes away and welcomed children of all ages. When I arrived, I was told it was too early for the trumpet, that my lungs weren’t ready. I wasn’t sure what lungs were, but I somehow ended up with a violin in my hands.
The instant love I felt for my violin teacher Alina Company, the charisma of the school’s director Piero Farulli, and the thrill of having my own string quartet at the age of nine quickly convinced me that this was no misfortune at all. Chamber music became my true passion and the reason I make music. Later I studied with Zinaida Gilels and Pavel Vernikov, who tried to keep me more focused on violin technique, and then in Graz with Boris Kushnir.
I ended up in my first position as concertmaster at age 19, under the direction of Lorin Maazel, and joined the Orchestra Mozart under Claudio Abbado shortly after, where I had access to the most vital and inspiring international music making. I became leader of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in 2007, a position I still hold today, alongside my work directing and collaborating with many wonderful orchestras in Europe and beyond.
In 2007, together with a group of friends, I co-founded Spira mirabilis, a collective of musicians dedicated to studying and performing music without a conductor, searching for freedom, depth, and shared responsibility in every piece. It has been one of the most important and inspiring adventures of my musical life.
Teaching has always gone hand in hand with performing for me: I am on the faculty of the Scuola di Musica di Fiesole, Visiting Professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and I will also teach chamber music at the ZHdK in Zurich.
Thanks to Spira mirabilis, my collaboration with clarinetist Lorenzo Coppola, and the unforgettable experience of playing with Nikolaus Harnoncourt in COE, I developed a deep passion for historically informed performance and period instruments. That passion eventually sparked the idea behind Spunicunifait: to dive deeply into Mozart’s quintets on period instruments, exploring them in detail with colleagues and finally sharing the joy of this journey in our recording.
Maia Cabeza
I am a Canadian-American violinist with an enduring love for Mozart. His genius, wit, and endlessly inventive musical language have always spoken to me, and in Spunicunifait I get to indulge in exploring his string quintets on period instruments with wonderful friends and colleagues.
My passion for chamber music began at the ripe age of eight, as a member of the illustrious (if short-lived) string quartet The Giggles. It was there, while discovering the joys of Mozart and Haydn, that the spark was lit. Many things have changed since then, but chamber music has remained my constant companion. Today, I’m fortunate to explore the vast string quartet repertoire as first violin of the London-based Doric String Quartet. Upcoming adventures together include a complete Beethoven cycle at Wigmore Hall, recordings with Chandos, and tours across America, Japan, Australia, and beyond.
Some places leave an indelible mark, and for me one of those is Prussia Cove IMS in Cornwall. I first attended the masterclasses in 2010 and have returned most years since for Open Chamber Music, where I’ve met, played with, and learned from countless inspiring musicians.
When not immersed in chamber music, I enjoy a rich musical life as leader of Aurora Orchestra, Principal Second of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, and guest-leading ensembles such as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Balthasar Neumann Orchestra. I love all orchestral playing, but I particularly enjoy chamber orchestras, where the collective richness of a full ensemble combines with the transparency and shared responsibility of chamber music. And the fact that Mozart’s incredible symphonies sit at the very heart of the repertoire certainly doesn’t hurt!
Earlier in my career, I won first prize at the Leopold Mozart Competition and second at the J.S. Bach Competition, and I’ve since appeared as a soloist with orchestras including Kammerorchester Basel, the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie Rheinland-Pfalz, and the Munich Radio Orchestra, among others.
I was born in Japan to Argentinean parents, but we soon moved to Canada, the country that welcomed me with my first citizenship and where I first began the violin. I then studied in Philadelphia, Berlin, and Basel with inspiring mentors including Ida Kavafian, Joseph Silverstein, Antje Weithaas, and Rainer Schmidt. These days I’m based in Berlin and London, though my musical activities tend to keep me on the road.
Max Mandel
I am a viola player from Toronto, Canada. I discovered my love of Mozart at an early age, I can’t remember a time before I was obsessed with the G major violin concerto and the Magic Flute. I have matured to the point that now the Sinfonia Concertante is my favourite concerto and Marriage of Figaro my favourite opera, but not much has changed! I lead a varied career in orchestra, chamber music, historical performance practice, solo, contemporary music, teaching, talking about music…anything and everything to do with music. I’m currently Principal Viola of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. For 23 years I was a member of the avant-garde string quartet the FLUX, based in New York. I’ve recorded Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante with my old friend and colleague Aisslinn Nosky and the Handel + Haydn Orchestra for Coro Records, which you can stream anywhere. One of my happiest moments recently was reading from some of Mozart’s most scandalous letters to a pub audience in London before a performance of the E flat Divertimento. Spunicunifait is my passion project, the six quintets of Mozart yielding endless challenges and pleasure. Chamber music is better with two violas!
Simone von Rahden
Originally from South-West Germany, I made my home by the Baltic Sea in 2020, where I'm leading a diverse and fulfilling career as a chamber musician, soloist, orchestral player, and educator: after nearly a decade of teaching viola at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin, I was appointed professor of string chamber music at the hmt Rostock in 2023.
Growing up in a musical family, it's hard to pinpoint when or how my musical education, or my love for the music of W. A. Mozart, began. I started piano lessons with my mother and took up violin at the local music school in Mannheim at a young age. I do remember deciding to switch to the viola just before my ninth birthday, and I've been captivated by exploring its intricate soundworld ever since. Choosing the viola also comes with the challenge to play an extremely versatile role in chamber music – an aspect that might not be obvious at first and certainly doesn’t correspond to the stereotype of viola players!
In my twenties, I had the privilege of experiencing the last decade of the era Claudio Abbado, whilst still studying viola in Freiburg with Wolfram Christ and later in Berlin with Tabea Zimmermann. At the same time, I became deeply involved with Spira mirabilis, a project that has crucially helped me shaping my musical identity and that remains close to my heart to the present day. After seven intense years with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, I joined the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment in 2016 and held the position of principal viola until 2021.
My musical path has allowed me to find inspiration of all sorts and gaining invaluable experiences in very different contexts and from very different personalities. Mozart's music has always played a significant part on this path, albeit not being the only music leading me to delve into period-instrument playing more and more deeply. What began as a curious pursuit has become the ground-stone of how I read, perceive, and teach music today.
I live with my husband and my son in Sanitz (17km from Rostock), where I direct weekly musical encounters for children age 2-5 and immensely enjoy singing in the local amateur choir.
Luise Buchberger
I was born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, into a family of musicians, and since my early days the sound of a string quartet has accompanied my life.
My musical path has led me to dividing my time between playing on a period instrument (Baroque cello, Classical, Romantic, whatever music I am currently with) and the ‘modern’ cello, although to me there are no clear boundaries between ‘historically informed performance’ and any other approach to playing music of the past or present. It’s all music, and it has a context and a history, whatever instruments we hold in our hands.
I feel incredibly fortunate for being just old enough to have worked with Nikolaus Harnoncourt during his very last years with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, a group I have been a member of since 2009. His influence has shaped how I think about music.
The relationship between words and music has always fascinated me, and I often think I would have been a singer in a parallel universe. The role of the cello in Classical and Baroque music is hard to beat though, and in fact in a lot of later repertoire too! I relish the subtle but fundamental influence I have on a whole ensemble by ‘carrying’ the music from the bass line, whether that is in a chamber group or a big orchestra. And accompanying fantastic singers is an endless source of inspiration to me. Few things in life give me more joy in life than playing continuo in Mozart operas!
In my role as principal cello of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, which I have held since 2013, I get lots of opportunities to do exactly that, as well as many other exciting things like playing music by Mahler, Brahms, Strauss, Bruckner and Stravinsky on period instruments.
Working with these two wonderful groups makes up the biggest part of my musical life, but occasionally I have the opportunity to play as guest principal cello in other orchestras such as the Bayerische Rundfunk Sinfonieorchester, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and others.
And I play chamber music whenever I can, most of all with my mad friends in Spunicunifait.
Having been very shy about teaching and coaching for most of my life, I am now starting to venture into working with fantastic young musicians, for example at Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont.
I live with my husband, my son and my sourdough starter in an old farmhouse on the outskirts of Frankfurt am Main.