The EBU is once again delighted to be offering the Rising Stars concerts via its Euroradio network. Rising Stars is an annual concert series by the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) to support outstanding new talent.

Each year, 6 exceptional musicians are carefully selected to to take part in the series, which includes a new chamber work commissioned by ECHO from leading European composers in conjunction with prestigious partner concert halls.

All the musicians benefit from holistic professional training, mentoring and a wide range of educational programmes across Europe. For the past several years, the Rising Stars concerts have been recorded by EBU Members. This content offer will be available via MUS for sharing on the Euroradio network.

The young artists are offered the opportunity to present an engaging musical programme of their own choosing in venues across the ECHO network. Teresa Schwamm of the Armida Quartet says of "tiefenrausch", a new piece written for them by the Serbian composer Marko Nikodijevic: "It is opening new doors of music-making for our quartet since it connects the traditional instrumental style of playing with a hint of electronic music. We are looking forward especially to the new Elbphilharmonie, where we will perform one of the first concerts in the history of this gigantic venue. We can tell that the team from ECHO cares about us and our musical future, and that makes a big difference."

The British composer Oliver Knussen says of "Reflection", his first new piece in some years and written for the violinist Tamsin Waley-Cohen and pianist Huw Watkins: "The main melody originated in a response to Gauguin's painting of a Breton woman swimming, and there is also perhaps an echo of the lonely underwater world of an ondine, surfacing at the end of the piece."

See here for more news about this year’s Rising Stars artists and their tour dates, as well as the composers' descriptions of the works written for them.