Tonangeber
Violine
Hibiki Oshima
Section Leader 2nd Violin
Hibiki Oshima was born in Yokohama. At the early age of eleven, she had made up her mind to get to know Europe and its culture, and a year later she had the chance to implement this plan on a lengthy journey. These impressions led her to enrol at the Vienna University of Music and Performing Arts after completing her secondary education. There, her teachers included Rainer Küchl, Johannes Meissl and Avedis Kouyoumdjian. She has performed at numerous music festivals, including Wien Modern, the Pacific Music Festival, the Bienal Musica Hoje and ECMA in Switzerland. She completed her education by taking courses with Gerhard Schulz, Anner Bylsma, Hatto Beyerle and Heime Müller. In 2006/07 Hibiki Oshima was a fellow of the Herbert von Karajan Centre. She won the First Prize at the Chamber Music Competition Pietro Argento as well as the Second Prize and special prize at the Premio Internazionale di Musica “G. Zinetti”. In addition, she received the Eduard Söring Prize of the Foundation for the Support of the Hamburg State Opera in 2011. Her passion for chamber music and contemporary music led her to join ensembles such as the Hibiki Quartet and the Ensemble Platypus, with which she has presented numerous world premieres by young composers. After an engagement as First Concertmaster with the Württembergische Philharmonie Reutlingen, she has been section leader of the second violins of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since 2010. When she is not playing the violin, she likes to cook and dedicates herself to her secret passion, paragliding.
photo: Claudia Höhne
Violine
Martin Blomenkamp
2nd Violin
Martin Blomenkamp studied with Helga Thoene and Rainer Kussmaul in Düsseldorf and Freiburg. Chamber music courses with teachers such as William Pleeth completed his training. He gathered orchestral experience as a member of the German National Youth Orchestra and the Junge Deutsche Philharmonie before joining the second violin section of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in 1985.
More about Martin Blomenkamp
photo: Claudia Höhne
Viola
Tomohiro Arita
Viola
Tomohiro Arita is from Osaka, Japan. He learned to play the violin as a young child and discovered the viola for himself when he was 15 years old. He completed his bachelor studies with Toshihiko Ichitsubo at University of the Arts Tokio, followed by his master studies with Simone von Rahden at Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler Berlin. Already during his studies, he gained orchestral experience with the NHK Symphony Orchestra, the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra as a member of the Orchestra Academy, as well as international festivals, such as the Verbier Festival and the Lucerne Festival. As violist with the Japan National Orchestra, he performs in Japan regularly. Tomohiro Arita has been playing with the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra since August 2021.
Violoncello
Clara Grünwald
Associate Principal Cello
Clara Grünwald was born in Munich in 1990, receiving her first cello lessons at the age of six. From 2009 to 2015 she studied with Martin Ostertag at the Karlsruhe Music Academy and attended master courses with Wolfgang Emanuel Schmidt, Wolfgang Boettcher, Guido Schiefen, Thomas Demenga and Morten Zeuthen. Clara Grünwald held scholarships from the Heinrich Hertz Society (2009) and from Yehudi Menuhin’s “Live Music Now” (2012). She gathered orchestral experience as a substitute of the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra and as a member of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra’s academy. Since 2015 she has been associate principal cellist of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra.
photo: Claudia Höhne
Violoncello
Merlin Schirmer
Violoncello
Merlin Schirmer was born in Stuttgart in 1988. His first cello teacher was Erik Borgir, who awakened an interest in contemporary music in his student early on. Merlin Schirmer studied in Stuttgart and Vienna, his teachers including Rudolf Gleißner, Claudio Bohórquez and Valentin Erben, cellist of the former Alban Berg Quartet. Early on, he developed the wish to join a major opera or symphony orchestra. First steps on his path toward this goal were his membership in the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester founded by Claudio Abbado and an internship with the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart. Towards the end of his studies, Merlin Schirmer was first appointed principal cellist of the Jena Philharmonic for a year and then joined the Dresden Philharmonic for another year as a cellist, before becoming a member of the Hamburg Philharmonic State Orchestra in August 2015.
photo: Claudia Höhne
Konzept / Moderation
Eva Binkle
Music theatre pedagogue
Birthplace:
Saarbrücken, Germany
Studies:
Studies of orchestral music with main subject oboe at the Musikhochschule Saarbrücken, master studies of music mediation and concert pedagogy at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold, advanced training in musical-scenic interpretation with Rainer O. Brinkmann at the Staatsoper in Berlin
Relation to the Hamburg State Opera:
Musical Theatre and Concert Pedagogue at the Hamburg State Opera since 2015
Career stages:
Oboist, music theater pedagogue at the Saarland State Theater (2013 to 2015).
Lecturer at the Hamburg University of Music and Theatre, jury member project funding for independent performing arts area children's and youth theater (KiJu)
