Om & FrIENDS play BRAHMS'  DOUBLE CONCERTO and BRAHMS' STRING SEXTET 

Miti Wisuthumporn has forged a career as one of the leading violists of his generation in Thailand, performing on international concert stages, commissioning and recording new works, and nurturing young musicians. Currently a principal violist of the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, Miti received reviews such as “Miti played the central section’s exposed solo with admirable nerve and control.”(Bangkok Post). His appearances as concert soloist have included the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, the Pro Musica and the Chulalongkorn University String Orchestra. As a chamber musician, he has collaborated with the members of the Pro Musica, Bangkok String Quartet, as well as Andres Cardenes, Thomas Hampson, Clive Greensmith, Roeland Hendrikx and many others.

Dedicated to introducing classical music to a broader audience in Thailand, Miti worked with five fellow musicians to form the JEEB Ensemble. The ensemble sought to present core classical music repertoire in funky ways that reached a wider audience. It proved to be popular – the JEEB Ensemble held sold-out music festivals in 2013 and 2017, had a China tour in 2018, launched Thailand’s first digitally-streamed classical music album distributed by Universal Music amidst COVID-19, and will soon launch its third festival.

Miti began violin studies at age 14 and switched to the viola at the age of 15 while studying with Ajarn Chaiwat Buranamanas and the National Artist Asst Prof Col Choochart Pitaksakorn. From 2014 to 2008, he received a full-scholarship to study at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, National University of Singapore under the tutelage of Jiri Heger, and between 2008 and 2010, received a full-scholarship to complete master degree at the Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where he studied with distinguished American violists –Toby Appel, Joen Vasquez and Maureen Gallargher. Later he moved to Europe for further studies with Matthias Maurar, former viola soloist of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra at the University of Music and Performing Art Graz, Austria.

Miti is currently a viola lecturer at the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts and Faculty of Music Education – Chulalongkorn University, Faculty of Humanities – Kasetsart University and Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music.

Graeme Norris is the Principal 1st Violin of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. Previously, he held leadership roles with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra. He has also performed as a guest principal with orchestras in Singapore and Tasmania.

A native of Melbourne, Graeme holds a Bachelor of Music Performance and attended the Australian National Academy of Music on a full scholarship. As a soloist and chamber musician, he has performed extensively across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. He has also appeared as a soloist with orchestras in Melbourne, Adelaide, and Malaysia.

In addition to his performance career, Graeme lectures at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and has taught at several other universities and youth orchestras. Outside of music, he enjoys travel, photography, and finding a good cup of coffee.

Born in 2001, began her cello journey at the age of seven and quickly became a rising figure in the classical music scene. In 2015, she earned a prestigious scholarship to study in the Virtuoso Program with the Orchestra da Camera in the United States of America. This opportunity launched her onto an inspiring path that later led to a scholarship for her Bachelor’s degree at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where she studied under the world-renowned French cellist and pedagogue Jean-Michel Fonteneau.

Kesara’s artistry has been shaped through masterclasses and collaborations with musicians such as Midori Goto, Yo-Yo Ma, Michael Tilson Thomas, Zuill Bailey, Gustav Rivinius, Daniel Rowland, and Richard Lester. In 2025, she graduated from the Royal College of Music with a master’s degree, studying with acclaimed cellist Alexander Boyarsky. Most recently, she won first prize in the San Francisco International Young Artist Competition in November 2025. Beyond her solo career, Kesara is a founding member of the Asterios Trio, who has been invited to perform at prestigious venues at the Royal Albert Hall, St James’s Piccadilly, and the Banstead

Arts Festival. She is also passionate about historical performance, studying Baroque Cello and Viola da Gamba with Elisabeth Reed and having worked with Jérôme Hantaï. In addition to her performance career, Kesara is actively involved in performance science research through her master’s research at the Centre for Performance Science, a collaboration between the Royal College of Music and Imperial College London. Her recent research explores the effects of virtual reality simulators in performing classical musicia

Omporn Kowintha began her violin lessons with Prof. Choochart Pitaksakorn at the age of thirteen. She participated in the Thai Youth Orchestra and became its concertmaster from 1994 to 1996. In 1997, she earned her Bachelor’s Degree with Honors in Music Education from Chulalongkorn University. From 1998 to 1999, she received a scholarship from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, which enabled her to study with Michael Ma. In 2000, Omporn went to the United States, where she studied violin with Kathryn Lucktenberg and Fritz Gearhart at the University of Oregon. During this time, she also studied Suzuki Violin Pedagogy with Shelley Rich and worked as a violin instructor in the Suzuki Program at the Community Music Institute of the University of Oregon. She received her Master’s Degree in Violin Performance and Pedagogy in 2003.

Performing on both violin and viola, Omporn has participated in many chamber music ensembles and orchestras in Thailand, including the Glom Piano Quartet, Bangkok String Quartet, the Artist Ensemble of Bangkok, and Pro Musica Orchestra. She also founded her own chamber music series, “Om and Friends,” which has presented regular chamber music concerts since 2018. In addition, she is one of the most sought-after violin instructors in Thailand. Omporn founded the first Suzuki Studio in Thailand, called “Omri Music Studio,” and is a founding board member of the Thailand Association for Talent Education.

Japanese violinist Mikela Asano started taking violin lessons at the age of four. After graduating from Tohoku International School, she moved to the United States to pursue studies at Indiana University Bloomington Jacobs School of Music. Mikela received Bachelor and Master of Music degrees and Performer Diploma under the tutelage of Federico Agostini, Kathleen Winkler, and Sibbi Bernhardsson, with generous help of numerous scholarships and fellowships, such as Artistic Excellence Fellowship, Jascha Heifetz Scholarship, Music Deans Scholarship, Leonard Bernstein Scholarship and International Recognition Scholarship.

After receiving intensive orchestral training at Jacobs School of Music, Mikela started performing with professional orchestras. She was a member of the Evansville Philharmonic Orchestra and Owensboro Symphony Orchestra. She was also a core-member of Hyogo Performing Arts Center Orchestra for three years. She has been invited to many professional orchestras in the US, Japan and Vietnam as a guest musician. Recently, she joined the Japan tour of the special orchestra celebrating the 50th anniversary of friendly diplomatic relations between Vietnam and Japan. Mikela has been a member of the Sun Symphony Orchestra in Hanoi, Vietnam since 2019.

Dirk Van de Velde’s versatile career started off, at the age of 14, at the conservatory of Ghent, the Musikhochschule of Basel, Musikhochschule Stuttgart (with the Melos Quartett) and “the Alexander Centre” (London) where he increasingly perfected himself in violin and chamber music and the various disciplines he deemed necessary to develop his talents.

Already at a young age, he was a member of various orchestras in Belgium; the Opera Orchestra Ghent, the Antwerp Philharmonie, the Monnaie Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Flemish radio and the Philharmonie Liege. In the Netherlands, he was a member of the Netherlands Ballet Orchestra in Amsterdam and the musical director and concertmaster of the Chamber Orchestra of Zeeland.

He was also a member of several chamber music groups in Belgium. His international career began as a soloist with the Heidelberger Kammerorchester with concerts all over the world. In 1991 he then became first violinist of the Rubio Quartet (The Flemish String Quartet) with concerts at the most prominent concert venues such as Carnegie Hall (New York), Wigmore Hall (London), Dai Ichi Hall (Tokyo), Library of Congress (Washington), Sydney Opera and others.

His discography includes dozens of CDs of mainly string quartets from different style periods, which he recorded with the Rubio Quartet. Most notably, their recording of the complete String Quartets of D. Shostakovich received a lot of international attention and, according to the Strad, “…must take its place among the most riveting Shostakovich performances on disc.”. Besides working as a performing musician, Dirk has always had a keen interest in training young musicians. In his 45 years as a violin teacher, one of his focal points in this was especially solving neuro-motor problems in young players. Hence, the 3-year training as a teacher of the Alexander Technique.

He is also one of the first teachers of Alexander Technique in Belgium with more than 40 years of experience.

Leslie Tan has performed to critical acclaim in major venues and festivals worldwide. These include the Tanglewood and Aspen Festivals in the USA; the Melbourne and Port Fairy Festivals in Australia; the New Zealand Festival; the Hong Kong Arts Festival; and the Prague-Vienna-Budapest Sommerakademie and the Edinburgh Festival in Europe.

In a career that has spanned 35 years, ranging from orchestral to chamber and solo concerts; from contemporary and cross-disciplinary works to historically informed performances, Leslie is sought after both as a pedagogue and concert artiste. He is also the artistic director and co-founder of the Bach-in-Bali Festival.

Leslie is a champion of outreach activities, and musical and transformative education in the ASEAN region, teaching in different festivals and projects.

Through his latest initiative, ProjectArtitude, and as a Citizen Ambassador of the Singapore International Foundation, he hopes to enrich the lives of the underprivileged and the disenfranchised across Asia

Anna Takeda is a violinist who has performed with various orchestras and chamber groups. She studied at Senzoku College of Music in Japan, where she earned a Bachelor of Music, and at the Manhattan School of Music in New York for her Master of Music.

She has been a soloist with orchestras such as the National Cuban Symphony Orchestra, the Vietnam National Opera & Ballet Orchestra, the ASEAN Symphony orchestra, the Bangkok Charity Orchestra, and the Thai Youth Orchestra. Her other collaborations include work with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, the Lincoln Center Stage Quartet, and the Apple Hill Quartet.

Takeda has a history of winning competitions, including a national contest in Thailand for three consecutive years and the top prize at the Osaka International Music Competition in Japan. She began playing the violin at age five and won a violin competition organized by the Australian Music Examination Board in Thailand at the age of 10.

Jonathan Weigle is a German cellist born in Berlin in 1984. He began playing the cello at age five and studied at the Hochschule für Musik “Hanns Eisler” in Berlin and the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid.

As a soloist, he has performed with orchestras like the Junge Philharmonie Brandenburg. He is a regular guest and principal cellist with several orchestras, including the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra London, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. He has also played with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra.

A dedicated chamber musician, Weigle is a member of the SOTA Piano Trio and the Aperto Piano Quartet. He has won several awards, including a prize at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy University Competition and the Hanns Eisler Prize. He performs internationally and is also committed to music education for young people.

Keiko Urushihara won the first prize as well as six other prizes at the 8th Wieniawski International Competition at her age 18 as the youngest ever and the first Japanese winner while she was still a student of the high school attached to the Tokyo University of Arts. She started her career as a violinist next year at the same as she entered the Tokyo University of Arts. In 1986, as a member of the Halley String Quartet she won the first prize in the chamber music division and Hideo Saito Prize at the Min’on Music Competition.

Keiko Urushihara has toured in Japan and abroad, appeared on TV, performed in major international music festivals and many master classes. Among the conductors and orchestras she has performed with are Vladimir Spivakov, Ervin Lukacs, Jiri Belohlavek, Hungarian National Symphony Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, and Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. She also appeared in many recitals and chamber music concerts winning high acclaim.

Kunut pursued advanced musical studies internationally, graduating with a master’s degree in Cello performance from Brussels, Belgium. His education also includes studies at the Royal College of Music (RSCM) and RCB.

A highly skilled classical cellist, Kunut performs in various concerts and ensembles, often featuring classical repertoire such as Bach’s Cello Suites. He has participated in international programs and collaborated with other notable musicians. In addition to his performance career, he works as a music educator and teacher.

Kunut is also known for his crossover work, arranging and performing pop hits in a cello style. He has collaborated on tracks like “นับหนึ่ง (From now on)” with artist Billkin, which has garnered significant attention. He regularly participates in music festivals and concerts, including Cello Soundscape events and other ensemble performances across Thailand.

Pisoot is a passionate and dedicated musician and teacher. A highly admired violinist and violist, he has served as Concertmaster for the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, of which has been a member from 2000 to 2018. He obtained his Master of Music Degree at the renowned CODARTS University for the Arts (Rotterdam Conservatory, Netherlands), and has performed there with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, and Ensemble International. Other valuable experience in Europe has been with Beziers Musike (France) Castilla, La Mancha Symphony Orchestra (Spain), Tilburg Chamber Orchestra (as Concertmaster), and Camerata Tera Reno. He was a finalist in a String Quartet competition in Bologna, Italy.

Described by The Strad as a ‘virtuoso with a truly Romantic temperament’, Yuri Zhislin enjoys an active and illustrious career as soloist and chamber musician. In 1991, Yuri entered the Royal College of Music in London, where he studied with his father and later Dr Andrievsky, winning the title of the BBC Radio 2 Young Musician of the Year in 1993. The orchestras that Yuri performed with include the Oxford Philharmonic, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the London Mozart Players, the Lithuanian State Symphony and the Santiago de Chile Symphony, to name a few. Zhislin made his recital debut at the New York Carnegie Weill Hall in 2014 and appeared at the major concert venues throughout Europe, the USA, South America, Australia and Japan.

His discography includes a recital CD released in 2005 on the SOMM label, a violin/viola Duos CD for the Naxos label in 2009, and a string trio CD for the Nymbus Alliance label with Dmitry Sitkovetsky on violin and Luigi Piovano on cello. A keen chamber musician, Yuri has worked with such artists as Maria-Joao Pires, Maxim Vengerov, Barry Douglas and Natalie Clein among many others. Formed in 2004 by Yuri, the Russian Virtuosi of Europe is an ensemble comprising outstanding string players based in Europe. They have recently completed tours to both South America and Russia and released a debut CD on Orchid Classics, which received great reviews and was chosen CD of the month in April 2016 by the BBC Music Magazine. Yuri is a professor of violin and viola at the Royal College of Music in London and is in high demand as a visiting professor at the European Summer Academies.

Cellist Marcin Szawelski, a native of Gdansk, Poland, started his musical education at the age of 7 with Andrzej Filar. He continued in Liceum Muzyczne im. F. Nowowiejskiego in Gdansk where in 1999 he earned Diploma in Cello performance. Then he graduated with Master of Arts diploma (2005) from Stanislaw Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdansk where he studied cello performance, chamber music and music pedagogy under professors: Krzysztof Sperski, Anna Prabucka-Firlej and Tadeusz Samerek.

During his musical studies (1988-2005) Marcin participated in several masterclasses with renowned cellists like Stefan Popov, Maria Tchaikovska, Peter Leisegang, Roman Jablonski and earned numerous awards at cello and chamber music competitions.

Since 2006 Marcin enjoys his career as a cellist in Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, currently as a cello group co-principal and as a cello and chamber music instructor at the College of Music, Mahidol University in Thailand.

Marcin Szawelski performs extensively as orchestra, chamber and solo musician. With Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra he gave over 450 concerts up to date. Since 2007 he has been a cello instructor for SAYOWE (Southeast Asian Youth Orchestra and Wind Ensemble) and SEAYCO (Southeast Asian Youth Chamber Orchestra). He collaborates in various chamber ensembles like The Lermontov string Quartet and Contemporary Enclave.

Prawwanitsita Neesanant, born in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand, began studying double bass at age 16 with Mr. Patsakorn Intarasombat and later with Mr. Pongsathorn Surapab. She holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Western Music Performance from Chulalongkorn University. A versatile performer, she has appeared with leading ensembles including the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, Thai Symphony Orchestra, and international groups such as the Sun Symphony Orchestra (Vietnam) and Symphoniker Hamburg (Martha Argerich Festival 2024). She currently serves as Principal Double Bass of Siam Sinfonietta and SoleOrchestra.

Prawwanitsita has toured across Asia, Europe, and the U.S., and has performed with a wide range of artists—from orchestras to pop/rock bands like Bodyslam and Zweed n’ Roll. Her awards include First Prize at the Summa Cum Laude Festival 2016 and Second Prize at PGVIEC 2019. As a soloist, she has performed in several featured concerts and actively teaches at St. Andrew International School and the Bangkok Metropolitan Youth Orchestra Camp. She is currently a member of the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, an on-call musician with the Thailand Philharmonic Orchestra, and a sought-after freelance artist.