Since winning the Paolo Borciani competition in Italy in 2005, the Pavel Haas Quartet has established itself as one of the great chamber ensembles of today. Based in Prague, the Quartet studied with Milan Skampa, the legendary violist of the Smetana Quartet.

In 2007, the Cologne Philharmonic nominated the Quartet for the international concert series ›Rising Stars‹. The Quartet has appeared at concerts at the Zurich Tonhalle, London Wigmore Hall, the Louvre in Paris as well as in Rome, Rotterdam, Munich and the Prague Spring Festival.

The musicians’ multi-award-winning performances on disc focus on the string quartet works of fellow Czech composers Antonín Dvořák, Leoš Janáček as well as Pavel Haas, from whom the Quartet takes its name. They have also produced recordings of works by Sergei Prokofiev and Franz Schubert.

Born in Tashkent in 1988, Aziz Shokhamikov began attending the Uspensky Music College for musically gifted children aged only 6. He initially began learning the violin and viola, before later switching to conducting studies with Vladimir Neymer. Aged 13, he gave his conducting debut with the National Symphony Orchestra of Uzbekistan and the following year conducted a production of ›Carmen‹ in the Uzbekistan National Opera. In 2006 he was made Chief Conductor of the Uzbekistan National Symphony Orchestra – a position which he still holds today. Four years later, this up and coming musician became an overnight star when he won the second prize in the prestigious Gustav Mahler Conducting Competition, won by the Bamberger Symphoniker.

Since then, Shokhakimov has accepted invitations from numerous well-known orchestras such as the Saxon State Orchestra Dresden, The Orchestre Philharmonique de Strasbourg, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Oregon Symphony Orchestra and many others. In 2012 he debuted with the Deutsche Kammer­philharmonie Bremen. Alongside his symphonic activities, Shokhakimov also conducts operas and has been at the Deutsche Oper am Rhein since 2015, where he has conducted – among other great operas – ›Aida‹, ›Turandot‹ and ›The Flying Dutchman‹. In 2016 he won the Salzburg Festival’s prestigious ›Young Conductors’ Award‹ and last season, in addition to various other ensembles, Shokhakimov debuted with the RAI Torino, the Slovenian Philharmonie and the Yomiuri Nippon Symphony Orchestra Japan.