Lumbye Akademiet

María Emilía Garðarsdóttir, also known as Emma, started playing the violin using the Suzuki tradition from the age of three in Reykjavík in Tónskóli Sigursveins. She moved to Denmark in 2018 to study at the Royal Danish Academy of Music. She finished her Bachelors with Elisabeth Zeuthen Schneider, and she is currently enrolled in the Masters program with both Elisabeth, and Frederik Øland. Her professional and competitive experience include being a member of the Icelandic Opera Orchestra, winning a senior award in Nótan competition, and 3rd place in DKDM Azizian competition.

She plays in an Icelandic trio named Tríó Sól that focuses on expanding the horizons of chamber music lovers by playing music that is unknown or contemporary, with fresh creative twists in the performance. She is excited about playing with Copenhagen Phil and being a team player in the synchronized mountain of sound that constitutes an orchestra. The Lumbye Academy is a fantastic opportunity and she can hardly wait to see what she will experience and learn in the next years.

Maria Ismini Anastasiadou is a 24-year-old Greek violinist. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the Royal Academy of Music (2020) where she studied with Alexander Sitkovetsky and Remus Azoitei, and a Master’s degree from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (2022), having studied with Levon Chilingirian. She has been the recipient of the Ismini Karter, Athena Award, Stephen Bell Trust, Derek Butler Award, and the Attica Tradition Foundation Scholarship. Maria is a member of the Gustav Mahler Academy and since 2022 a member of the Lumbye Academy. In her free time, Maria enjoys cooking for friends, listening to music and going for long walks.

Born in 2000 in the middle of the Austrian Alps in Tirol I got in touch with music quite early, it started with listening and dancing to typical folk music from my hometown and ended up in an education in violin at the age of 7 followed by a pre-College at University Mozarteum Salzburg with Klara Flieder in 2011. I am currently doing my Bachelor at Mozarteum Salzburg with Prof. Lukas Hagen. Beside that I am a section leader of Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester where I already had the chance to work with Teodor Currentzis, Daniele Gatti, Jukka-Pekka Saraste and Herbert Blomstedt .

Winning the Academist position at Copenhagen Phil was an incredibly happy situation for me. Being a huge fan of Scandinavia, I look forward to Denmark as my first country to live abroad in! I love cooking (especially for others!), reading history books and visiting museums. I look forward to learning new repertoire with Copenhagen Phil, new inputs and the mock-auditions and to making new friends.

Dasha Auer is an Australian violist studying with Henrik Frendin at Malmö Musikhögskolan; prior to that she completed the 3-year scholarship-based Professional Performance Program at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) with Caroline Henbest. Though she has performed solo at the Melbourne Recital Centre, Dasha’s real passion lies in chamber and orchestral music, appreciating the unique inner voice of the viola and its ability to blend with and complement other parts. Dasha is a substitute player with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and has participated in side-by-side projects with the Tasmanian, Melbourne and West Australian Symphony Orchestras and Australian Chamber Orchestra, the latter two under the direction of Simone Young and Richard Tognetti respectively. Last year while the ANAM orchestra was on tour with Sophie Rowell and Konstantin Shamray, she performed in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Adelaide. Outside of music, Dasha is a closet poet and night owl who likes travelling, nature and languages and always carries a pack of cards.

Elena Gómez Calvo started her studies in Málaga, Spain. She was later graduated in Musikene, País Vasco. Currently she’s studying her master’s degree at the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus under the tutelage of Evdokia Ershova.

She has received lessons by Joaquín Riquelme, Michael Kugel, Paul Silverthorne and Jonathan Brown.

She’s extremely excited about this opportunity with Copenhagen Philharmonic Orchestra to keep learning and growing as a musician.

Olga Chwaszczewska was born in Poland in 1996. She left home at the age of 17 to study in Warsaw and Gdańsk. She won several prizes at both solo and chamber music competitions. Since 2018 she lives in Denmark and performs both as orchestra and chamber musician. During the COVID pandemic she formed Absalon Quartet in which she finds herself most at home. Her orchestral experience started with The European Union Youth Orchestra four years ago and since then she has developed a strong interest in the symphonic repertoire.

Aneta Stefańska is a Polish cellist born in Warsaw in 1996. She completed her first master’s degree in 2020 at the Frederick Chopin Music University in Warsaw, studying with Piotr Hausenplas and Mateusz Szmyt. Since 2021, Aneta has been studying with Alexander Gebert at the University of Music in Detmold, Germany. She formed the Ixora String Quartet, with which she gained a lot of new experience and accomplishments in the field of chamber music, including winning first prize at the Auryn Competition. In 2023, she began postgraduate studies (Konzertexamen) at the same university in Detmold with her friends from the Ixora String Quartet. Aneta has been a laureate of many solo and chamber music competitions. Her most recent achievements include winning the third prize at the Danczowski Cello Competition in Poland (2023) and the prestigious DAAD Preis scholarship in 2022.

Aneta also has significant orchestral experience. Her first major experience was joining the Sinfonia Varsovia Academy in 2019/20. In the same year, she joined the European Union Youth Orchestra. She was also a member of the National Forum of Music Academy (2020/21), the Mahler Chamber Orchestra Academy (2023), and interned at Landestheater Detmold (2021/22). She is excited to begin a new and thrilling adventure with the Lumbye Orchestra Academy in Copenhagen Philharmonic starting in September 2023.

In her free time, Aneta enjoys visiting art museums and engaging in outdoor sports. She loves making friends from around the world and learning about different cultures, foods, and approaches to art. Aneta also has a keen interest in social involvement and psychology. She completed her master’s degree in clinical psychology in 2022 in Warsaw, where she had the opportunity to participate in voluntary social care work.