Every year since 1995, the European Concert Hall Organisation (ECHO) has nominated a group of exceptional artists as its Rising Stars, who receive professional development support and present an engaging programme of their choice on concert tours in venues across the ECHO network. For the past few years, the Rising Stars concerts have been recorded and broadcast by EBU radio organizations.

This year’s selection is now available via MUSNew as SM/2019/03/15/01-06 and features the Amatis Piano Trio, harpist Anaïs Gaudemard, the Arod Quartet, baritone Josep-Ramon Olivé, cellist Kian Solltani and trombonist Peter Moore.

The offering organizations have supplied supporting material for the concerts, including audio interviews in English of performers and composers, also available for broadcast. Video interviews produced by ECHO are linked to each concert.

ECHO Secretary General Andrew Manning says exposure on radio is massively important for the Rising Stars: "These broadcasts are a hugely valued dimension in the experiences of our artists during their season with us. Having radio broadcasts raises the stakes and ambition of each concert even further. They help our artists, who are often making debuts in several countries during the tour, to reach a much wider audience, as well as to get on the radar of music sector industry contacts in each country."

New work is commissioned for each Rising Star artist. This year composers Andrea Tarrodi, Roxanna Panufnik, Camille Pépin, David Helbock and Raquel García-Tomás will all have their works premiered.

"We’re proud to achieve up to 12 national premieres in up to 21 venues with the ECHO network," said Andrew Manning. "Through the EBU partnership, exposure for these new works is guaranteed even further. This is of such value to our artists, audiences and to the contemporary music scene in general in Europe."

French composer Camille Pépin added: "It seems important to me that institutions like the Philharmonie de Paris integrate premieres and today's music as part of the ECHO Rising Stars tour. For composers, working with these incredible performers is a great chance... and we can even work with them all year long!"

The Austrian jazz pianist and composer David Helbock is also pleased to be involved: "I was very happy that Kian Soltani asked me to write a piece for him for his concerts on the ECHO Rising Star Tour."

"I´m a musician myself and have played at festivals and in clubs all over the world," he continued, "Now my music is heard in some of the really big concert venues in Europe even before I’ve played there myself. I´m very grateful for this opportunity. And even more compositions will come out of this, because some people heard Kian play my music and asked me to write also for them."

About ECHO

The European Concert Hall Organisation brings together the major concert halls of Europe to promote professional exchanges, share reflections and launch joint initiatives.