EUBO cellos and double bass

Ania Katynska was born in Bytom, Poland. While still at secondary school she played as soloist with the Polish Youth Symphony Orchestra. During her modern cello studies in Katowice she became interested in baroque music and co-founded the ensemble Parnassos, which now gives regular concerts and has just released its first CD. She studied baroque cello first with Mark Caudle, then in UdK Berlin with Phoebe Carrai and Markus Möllenbeck, and in September 2008 will start a masters degree in Den Haag with Jaap ter Linden. In 2007 she participated in the Académie Baroque Européenne d’Ambronay under Hervé Niquet, and this season was chosen to take part in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s experience scheme. She plays regularly with the Polish baroque orchestra Arte dei Suonatori, and with them has performed alongside Kati Debretzeni, Rodrigo del Pozo, Emmanuel Balssa, Martin Gester, Aline Zyberajch, Marek Rzepka, Alexis Kossenko, Maria Keohane and Andreas Arend. She has recently begun to play viola da gamba.

Poppy Walshaw studied with Alison McGillivray and Louise Hopkins at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, having previously read Music and Natural Sciences at Cambridge University, and studied with Alexander Baillie at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. Poppy currently plays with Arte dei Suonatori, Al Ayre Español and La Serenissima, with whom she performed as soloist at Snape Maltings and Spitalfields Festival. She has recorded with the Gabrieli Consort and Players, Early Opera Company and Le Chardon, and recently recorded Viotti’s Flute Quartets with Simon Standage, Hajo Wienroth and Huw Daniel. Poppy performed with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Simon Rattle and Frans Brüggen whilst a Jerwood Experience participant, and since then with Mackerras, Harry Christophers and Ivan Fischer. She studied Classical and Romantic Performance Practice at the Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes, where she was principal under Marc Minkowski and Bruno Weil, and participated in masterclasses with Anner Bylsma, Wieland Kuijken, Philippe Müller and Christina Pluhar.

Vega Montero was born in Salamanca, Spain, where she began her double bass studies. She moved to The Netherlands to specialise in violone and baroque double bass with Margaret Urquhart at the Koninklijk Conservatorium in Den Haag. In 2006 she obtained her diploma in Early Music, and in 2007 in modern double bass at the Conservatorium of Amsterdam with Peter Stotijn. She was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Spain from 2000 to 2003. In 2007 she took part in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s Experience for Young Players scheme. She has performed professionally with groups including the New Dutch Academy, L’Orfeo Barockorchester Linz, Al Ayre Español, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Harmony of Nations, Orquesta Barroca de Granada, La Principessa Filosofa and Los Músicos de Su Alteza, touring Europe and playing in the festivals of Utrecht, Ansbach and Brussels, among others.