Czech Chamber Music Society • Jeremias Pestalozzi

Jeremias Pestalozzi was born in 2005 and has been playing the violin since he was five years old. He was in the string academy of Simone and Peter Michielsen in Puchheim until March 2022 and played as concertmaster in the Puchheim Youth Chamber Orchestra. He is the first violinist in the quartet called Quartessenz (formed in 2016) and could be heard among others at the “Ickinger Frühling” in 2022. He won the 1st prize (duo and solo) at the national competition of “Jugend musiziert” in 2018 and 2019. 

Since 2019, he has been “Jungstudent” at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich – first with Simone and Peter Michielsen and Christoph Poppen and since March 2022 in the class of Julia Fischer where he also began his bachelor in October 2023. In addition he has attended master classes with Ana Chumachenco, Ingolf Turban, Nora Chastain and others. 

In 2019, he made his debut with the Bad Reichenhall Philharmonic Orchestra with the 2nd Violin Concerto by Henryk Wieniawski and played there again as a soloist under Daniel Spaw with the Mozart Violin Concerto No. 4 in July 2021. In 2022, he performed the Violin Concerto in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, in April with the Bad Reichenhall Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Andrej Vesel and in June with the Wendland Symphony Orchestra under the conducting of Johannes Köhler. 

In February 2020, he won a violin by Antonio Gragnani, Livorno 1779, on loan at the 28th competition of the German Musical Instrument Fund of the German Foundation for Musical Life in Hamburg, which he can continue to play after the 29th competition in February 2022.

Matouš Zukal (*1998) studied at the Prague Musical Grammar School under Jitka Němcová and at
the Prague Conservatoire in the studio of Ivo Kahánek, then he furthered his studies under Kahánek
and Jan Bartoš at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where he is continuing his studies in the
doctoral programme while also working towards a master’s degree at the Universität für Musik und
darstellende Kunst in Graz in the studio of Markus Schirmer. In 2021, he became a laureate of the
Prague Spring International Competition, earning Second Prize, the Gideon Klein Foundation Prize,
and the Czech Centres Award. In 2019 he won the Bohuslava Martinů Foundation Competition,
where he also received the prize for the best interpretation of a composition by Bohuslav Martinů
and the Zorka and Jaroslav Zich Prize. In 2023, he won First Prize at the festival Verão Clássico in
Lisbon, and in 2025 he became the winner of the Concours international de piano d’Île-de-France and
of the Martha Debelli Stiftung competition. Since his childhood, he has been consulting at
masterclasses with such important figures as Sir András Schiff, Lukáš Vondráček, Boris Giltburg, Jiří
Hlinka, and Leif Ove Andsnes.