viola

Mario Gheorghiu was born in Vienna in 1972. He studied violin from the age of six with Prof. Georg Mark, Prof. Michael Frischenschlager, Prof. Alfred Staar and Prof. Josef Hell with whom he later studied concert violin at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, graduating with distinction. He also studied jazz and composition in Linz and Vienna and completed at postgraduate degree course in concert viola with Prof. Hans Peter Ochsenhofer.

From 2003 to 2008 he was a permanent member of the Tonkünstler Orchestra in Lower Austria, playing the violin. He has also been engaged as a substitute in several orchestras including the Vienna Philharmonic. As a soloist he has performed with a number of orchestras, playing at the Carnegie Recital Hall on Fritz Kreisler’s Guarneri del Gesù. This was followed by a full US tour. Since 2000 he has been concertmaster of the Vienna Opera Ball orchestra.

Mario Gheorghiu is also at home in the field of jazz: in 2000 he was guest rock violinist with the band Extravaganza with Conrad Schrenk and Thomas Lang. He has founded several ensembles such as the jazz ensemble Table 6 (2003), Mario Gheorghiu’s JAZZ Corner (2011) and the crossover band Jetlag Allstars (2013). He has also performed with the Vienna Art Orchestra, Velvet Elevators, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin, Michael Brecker and many other musicians from the Austrian jazz scene. He has received invitations to numerous jazz festivals in Jakarta, Bali, Paris, Osaka, Boston and Bilbao and is a regular guest jazz violinist in the Porgy & Bess and Jazzland jazz clubs in Vienna.

He has won first prize in many music competitions and besides his many activities as a solo and chamber music violist in Austria and elsewhere he also teaches in various master classes.

He has been viola leader with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2008.

Andrea Stadler was born in Salzburg in 1993.

She started learning the violin and viola at the age of four with Erntraud Passin and Wolfram Tröndle. In 2007 she began a non-degree course of studies at the University Mozarteum Salzburg with Veronika Hagen and from 2008 with Peter Langgartner. She studied with Predrag Katanic at the Anton Bruckner Private University in Linz, graduation with distinction. Since 2016 she has been studying at the MDW with Prof. Sebastian Herberg.

Andrea Stadler is a member of the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and a substitute with the Mozarteumorchester Salzburg. In 2012 she took part in a project with the Bruckner Orchestra Linz and played in the concert "side by side" with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam. 2014 she won an audition for substitutes for Camerata Salzburg.

After three years in the Vienna RSO's orchestra academy she has won an audition 2018 for a tutti position in the Symphony Orchestra Innsbruck and also in the Vienna RSO.

Tomáš Bumbál was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia in 1973. He received his first violin lessons from his grandfather at the age of four. In 1987 he began training at the conservatory in his home city and, after graduating from school, enrolled at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. There he studied first with Prof. Franz Samohyl, continuing in 1995 with Prof. Hans Peter Ochsenhofer. In 2003 he passed his diploma examination with distinction.

While still a student he was a substitute in the Orchestra of the Vienna State Opera and the Vienna Philharmonic. Today he has a keen interest in chamber music and is a member of the Vienna Rasumovsky Quartett with whom he regularly performs in Europe and Japan.

Tomáš Bumbál has been assistant principal viola in the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2002.

Julia Puchegger was born in Linz in 1976.

In 1982 she began training as a violinist at the Anton Bruckner Private University Linz with Bohumil Semik. In 1994 she switched to viola, continuing her studies with Prof. Führlinger at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna.

Julia Puchegger is especially interested in traditional folk music and has been able to gain some experience of this in Ireland, Norway and Slovakia. In addition, she was a member of a Schrammel quartet for several years, paying light popular Viennese music.

In 2003, she began playing for the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra in the academy, and since 2008 has been assistant principal viola.

Raphael Handschuh was born in Vienna in 1983 and studied with Herbert Müller at the Music and Arts University of the City of Vienna. In 2011 he obtained his master’s degree, passing with distinction.

He has won prizes at the Fidelio Competition, “Gradus ad Parnassum” and in 2009 received the START scholarship of the Austrian Federal Chancellery.

From 2005 to 2007 he was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra. Since 2008 he has been a substitute in the Vienna Philharmonic and has played in concerts and on tours with Riccardo Muti, Christian Thielemann, Lorin Maazel, Valery Gergiev, Pierre Boulez, Simon Rattle and Nikolaus Harnoncourt. In 2009 he was a guest musician with the English Chamber Orchestra and in 2011 guest principal viola with the Tonkünstler Orchestra. He is a great student of early music and plays on historical instruments in the Wiener Akademie as well as with chamber music colleagues such as Sylvie Lacroix and Rudolf Leopold.

Raphael Handschuh was a scholarship holder at the Zermatt Festival during which he was able to take part in concerts and workshops with soloists from the Berliner Philharmoniker (such as Albrecht Mayer and Emmanuel Pahud) and with the Scharoun Ensemble. In 2008 he founded the European Chamber Players. He regularly works as a conductor, plays a variety of plucked instruments such as the mandolin and the guitar in various orchestras and is viola instructor of the Wiener Jeunesse Orchester.

Raphael Handschuh has been a violist with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2008. He attended the orchestra’s academy from 2008 to 2011 and has been a permanent member since 2011.

Raphael Handschuh is dramatic advisor for chamber music at the Vienna RSO.

Wilhelm Klebel was born in Klosterneuburg in Lower Austria in 1961.

He studied viola with Prof. Siegfried Führlinger at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna and attended master classes given by Thomas Riebl and Endre Guran. Under the tutelage of the mezzo-soprano Caitlin Hulcup he also developed his singing voice and has contributed to arranging church services in St. Ruprecht for many years as a singer, conductor and viola player.

Wilhelm Klebel was a member of the Vienna Boys’ Choir and has played with ensembles such as the Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Concilium musicum and the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Philharmonie.

He has been a member of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1989.

Samuel Mittag, born in Switzerland in 1996, received his first violin lessons from Sandra Albrecht. At the age of 7, he switched to Prof. Herbert Scherz, where he was also taught the viola in addition to the violin.
From 2014 he received private lessons from Prof. Patrick Jüdt. One year later, at the age of 14, Samuel Mittag began his bachelor's degree at the Bern University of the Arts with Prof. Jüdt, majoring in viola. After completing his studies in Bern (Master of Music Education with distinction), he continued his studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna with Prof. Thomas Selditz in 2017, which he also completed with distinction.
He gained his first orchestral experience with the Sinfonietta Schaffhausen, the Camerata Schweiz and the Bern Symphony Orchestra. From 2019 to 2021, Samuel Mittag was a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Academy, during which time he received individual tuition from principal violist Prof. Tobias Lea. He also took part in many masterclasses, where he was influenced by Prof. Hatto Beyerle and Prof. Mikhail Mouller, among others.
Samuel Mittag was a scholarship holder of the "Friedl Wald Foundation" and the "Lyra Foundation". He has been a violist with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra since 2021.

Lara Sophie Schmitt was born and raised in Vienna and began her musical education at the Musik und Kunst Privatuniversität as a junior student with Prof. Herbert Müller. Her studies later took her to Lübeck, Paris, Frankfurt/Main and Munich. Her teachers include Jean Sulem and Hariolf Schlichtig. In the 2018/19 season she held the position of 1st solo viola at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich, followed by further engagements at the Bavarian State Opera. She gained further orchestral experience during her studies with the Frankfurt Opera and Museum Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra.
During her studies, she devoted herself intensively to chamber music and the performance of contemporary works. As a duo with pianist Toni Ming Geiger, she won the Kamar Percy and Ingeborg John Prize in 2018, which included a CD recording. In the same year, she won 2nd prize at the International Hindemith Viola Competition. In 2014 she participated in the CD production "noch:schon - Musik an der Schwelle", for which she recorded B.A. Zimmermann's Sonata for Viola solo as well as G. Mahler's Piano Quartet.

She was a scholarship holder of the Cusanuswerk as well as the PE-Förderkreis for students of music.

Catharina Stenström Langelaar was born in Stockholm, Sweden in 1961. In 1991 she married Geert Langelaar, also a member of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. The couple have two children.

She received her first piano lessons at the age of four and started learning the viola aged nine. From 1980 she studied concert viola at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm with Prof. Zahri Tchavdarov. A chamber music festival in Umeå attended by professors from Vienna gave her the opportunity to spend a year studying at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in Prof. Siegfried Führlinger’s class. After completing her master’s degree in Stockholm in 1984 she began a diploma programme in Vienna, graduating in 1987 with distinction.

Catharina Stenström Langelaar’s first experience of orchestral playing came with the Stockholm symphony and opera orchestras. Her close connections with the Swedish community and embassy in Vienna give her many opportunities to play as a soloist and a chamber musician.

She has played viola with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1986.