Born in Shenzhen, China, Penghua Huang discovered his passion for music, especially symphonies, at a young age. He received his first violin lessons at the age of six. Under the guidance of his teachers Ling Jing and Xu Zhang from the Shenzhen Symphony Orchestra, he further developed his skills and gained much recognition as a winner of several prizes at various youth competitions during his childhood. In 2010, he became a member of the Shenzhen Youth String Orchestra, where he also became principal 2nd violin. From 2018, Penghua Huang studied with Wei Wei at the Xinghai Conservatory of Music. Due to his outstanding achievements, he was also awarded a scholarship from the Xinghai Conservatory of Music.

In 2020, this young violinist ventured to Germany to continue his studies at the University of the Arts in Bremen where he was taught by Stefan Latzko. He also expanded and deepened his knowledge of orchestral training under the guidance of Thomas Klug. Penghua Huang devotes himself with great dedication to both orchestral and chamber music activities, where he is able to further develop his talent.

Rebecca Falk, born in 1998, was initially a junior student at the Musikhochschule Freiburg for four years. She studied cello and piano with Beverley Ellis, Elena Cheah and Christoph Sischka. From 2017 to 2023, she studied with Troels Svane at the Musikhochschule Lübeck, later in Hanover with Alvin Wong. She is now continuing her Master’s degree in Leipzig with Prof Peter Bruns. This passionate young musician has already won several prizes with her cello playing, including numerous special prizes at WESPE and four first national prizes at Jugend musiziert. In 2015, she was also awarded the Eduard Söring Prize of the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben together with pianist Viktor Soos. In the same year, she completed a traineeship with the Sinfonieorchester Basel. She also won a place in the orchestra academy with Lübeck Philharmonie and has been a member of the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie for a number of years.

In addition to performances throughout Germany, this young cellist has already given concerts in France, Switzerland, Denmark, Hungary and Bolivia. In summer 2019, she performed with Janine Jansen, Amihai Grosz and Jens Peter Maintz at the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival. As a passionate chamber musician, she also performs regularly with the Luboš Ensemble and Trio Phi. As passing on the joy of music is also a matter close to her heart, until very recently she also taught at the Musik und Kunstschule Lübeck.

Sophie Stein has been playing the oboe since the age of nine and received her first lessons from Detlef Groß. She was enthusiastic about orchestral playing from an early age and was initially a member of the NRW State Youth Orchestra in 2014 and the National Youth Orchestra from 2015 to 2019. There, she also had the opportunity to take part in various projects including under the direction of Sir Simon Rattle, Alondra de la Parra, Kirill Petrenko, Elias Grandy and Paavo Järvi.

Sophie Stein is a multiple national prizewinner of Jugend musiziert and was awarded a special prize in the category ‚Best Interpretation of a Contemporary Work‘ in the WESPE competition in 2018. From 2016 to 2018, this young oboist was a junior student of Kai Frömbgen at the Robert Schumann Hochschule Düsseldorf and the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in 2023. In 2015 and 2017, she was given the opportunity to perform as a soloist with an orchestra: First as the winner of the Bühne frei competition with the Niederrheinische Sinfoniker and later with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen as part of a charity concert. From, 2018 she was a scholarship holder of the Dr Carl Dörken Foundation for two years, in 2022 solo oboist of the Moritzburg Festival Academy and in 2024 she participated in a project as solo oboist under the direction of Daniel Barenboim. Since the 2023 autumn term, Sophie Stein has been studying for her master’s degree with Viola Wilmsen at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin.

Horn player Markus Künzig studied at the univeristies of Würzburg and Stuttgart. He later took postgraduate studies in Early Music in the Natural Horn at the University of Music in Leipzig. During his student days he gathered orchestra experience in the Staatskapelle Weimar, at the Stadttheater Würzburg and the Orchestral Academy of the Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival. Since completing his studies he has also spent time playing chamber music in various ensembles, including the Homilius Horn Quartet and the Ensemble Dix from Gera.
Markus Künzig’s first position was with the Altenburg-Gera Philharmonic Orchestra. He has been a member of The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen since 2013.

Stefan Latzko’s career path took him from the Bavarian State Youth Orchestra via the University of Music in Munich, Würzburg and Hanover, to a scholarship at the Juilliard School of Music in New York. He graduated with distinction and gave his concert recital at the Robert Schumann University in Düsseldorf under Prof. Rosa Fain.

Orchestra playing remains his great passion to this day. This was decisively shaped by his membership in the Young German Philharmonic. Subsequently, he was also a member of the ›Chamber Orchestra of the Young German Philharmonic‹. From here, in 1989, he came to The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie, which at that time still resided in Frankfurt.

In addition to playing in the orchestra, Stefan Latzko is a keen chamber musician, having founded his first string quartet during his student days. Today he also regularly performs as a soloist and passes on his experience teaching the violin at the University of the Arts Bremen and coaching the Bremen Youth Orchestra.

Stefan Latzko spends much of his spare time cycling and has already cycled across Europe. His next ambition is to explore New Zealand on two wheels.

Furthermore he is concertmaster of the Sinfonietta Oldenburg and the orchestra ›Sinfonia Concertante‹ in Bremen.

During her school days Friederike Latzko was a junior student at the University of Music in Cologne, where she received intensive chamber music lessons from the Amadeus Quartet. After earning her university entrance qualification, she changed to the University of the Arts in Berlin, where she gained further ensemble experience in all of the major West Berlin orchestras. She was a DAAD and Herbert von Karajan Foundation scholarship holder, associate teacher and lecturer with the German National Youth Orchestra and the Young German Philharmonic, as well as chamber music partner to renowned soloists.

In 1980, Friederike founded The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen together with like-minded fellow students – at first under the name ›Chamber Orchestra of the Young German Philharmonic‹, then later from 1987 in Frankfurt ›Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie‹. In the meantime, she has been a solo violist and dedicated music teacher here for over 30 years.

With Mark Scheibe, she created the ›Melody for Life‹ and with Rodrigo Blumenstock, Stefan Latzko and Gunther Schwiddessen the orchestra project ›Sinfonia Concertante‹, in which members of The Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen play alongside dedicated amateurs.

Friederike Latzko has two grown-up children and spends any spare time in her studio painting and working on her next exhibition.

Ema Bajc began her musical journey in her native city of Ljubljana. She gave her first public performance at the age of 13 with a solo concert and the chamber orchestra of the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra. Since then, she has devoted herself entirely to music. After graduating from specialist secondary music school in Ljubljana with Nataša Paklar, Ema Bajc first studied in Mainz with Dejan Gavrić and then went on to study for a master’s degree with Kersten McCall at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.

In recent years, Ema Bajc has performed in many youth and professional orchestras, including in Germany with the Junge Norddeutsche Philharmonie, the Philharmonisches Staatsorchester Mainz, the Gürzenich Orchestra Köln and in the Netherlands with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and the Noord Nederlands Orkest. Ema Bajc also played in the European Union Youth Orchestra under Vasily Petrenko and was a member of the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra until 2022. From July 2022 to February 2024, she was a fixed-term member of the Bremen Philharmoniker under the direction of Marko Letonja.

After a successful audition, Ema Bajc was accepted in January 2024 as an academy member of the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen.

Peter McNeill was born in Scotland in 1998 Between 2016 and 2020 he studied at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland with David Flack, Christopher Gough, Beccy Goldberg and Hugh Potts, and later, as part of the Erasmus programme, with Jörg Brückner at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt in Weimar. Since 2023, this young horn player has been studying for a master’s degree with Markus Maskuniitty at the Hoschschule für Musik Theater und Medien in Hanover. He has also completed masterclasses with Frøydis Ree Wekre, Saar Berger, Erja Joukamo-Ampuja and Felix Klieser.

Peter McNeill has been a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and has also gained experience in many other orchestras, including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of Scottish Opera, the Scottish Ballet and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. In 2019, McNeill won the 1st prize of the prestigious Governors‘ Brass Prize and in 2020 the Head of Brass Prize of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. McNeill received his most recent award in 2023 at the Yamaha Dublin Brass Week Concerto Competition, where he won 1st prize. In addition to his main instrument, this enthusiastic chamber musician also plays the natural horn, the Wagner tuba and the bagpipes.