Annelis Berger (Switzerland)

Annelis Berger is a broadcaster and music journalist on SRF2 Kultur (national public radio, Switzerland) since 2000. She is a member of the Jury of the Schweizer Musikpreis, she writes for the magazin for contemporary music «Dissonance» and she presents, beside the radio, concerts and events in public.

Annemarie Peeters (Belgium)

Annemarie Peeters is a writer, a musician and a journalist. In daily life she reports for De Standaard about musical life in Flanders. When the world goes silent, she whistles her songs or writes her stories. Her first novel Ook bomen slapen has recently been published by Uitgeverij Vrijdag.

Anu Ahola (Finland)

Anu Ahola studied at the University of Helsinki and the Universitá Ca' Foscari in Venice, graduating with a Master's degree in music. Currently the editor in chief of the Finnish Music Quarterly (FMQ) magazine, she has long and varied experience in the field of classical and contemporary music. Alongside her work as a music journalist, she has managed the communications (including the editing of festival brochures) for many music festivals, acted as classical music product manager for EMI Finland, designed compilation albums, and worked at the Finnish Music Information Centre (Fimic). She is also well-versed in children's music and music education, and co-edited the first chronicle of children's music in Finland and a book on composing and composers in schools of the future.

Bastian Zimmermann/Katja Heldt (Germany)

Bastian Zimmermann, born in 1985, is a freelance writer, dramaturge, filmmaker and curator of new composed and improvised music, theatre and performance. He is the artistic director of the series MUSIC FOR HOTEL BARS. From 2019 on he will be the new co-editor and publisher of the german music magazine POSITIONEN.

Katja Heldt studied musicology at Humboldt University Berlin and specialized on transculturality in new music. She works as an author and as a coordinator of projects for artistic research at the Donaueschinger Musiktage and Darmstadt Summer Courses and organizes music theatre and concert series in Berlin.

David Kettle (Scotland)

David Kettle is a journalist and writer on music based in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a particular interest in contemporary music. He is a music critic for the Scotsman, the Daily Telegraph and The Arts Desk, and writes widely across numerous other publications.

Deano Maduramuthu (South Africa)

Deano Maduramuthu is a broadcaster on Classic FM 102.7. He has a degree in music as well as a Management Advancement Programme qualification from the University of Witwaterstrand Business School. Based in Johannesburg, Deano presents the Classic Breakfast on Classic FM 102.7 and does the pre-concert talks for the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra.

Dionyssis Mallouhos (Greece)

Dionyssis Mallouhos plays the piano, holds a masters degree from Athens University in Music Culture and Communication (Departments of Music Studies / Communication and Media Studies), teaches and writes about music. He works with authentic musicians and artists, as well as on the Third Program of Greek Radio, sees the potential of the internet and global coordination and seeks co-operation with people who have good intentions and care for culture

Guillaume Decalf (France)

Guillaume Decalf studied History and digital creation and editing in Paris. Currently head of editorial of francemusique.fr, the Radio France classical music website, he participates in many projects that link classical music and technological innovation.

Harriet Cunningham (Australia)

Harriet Cunningham is a freelance writer based in Sydney, Australia. In print she is best known as one of the Sydney Morning Herald's classical music critics. She is addicted to listening and thinking about live music – any kind of live performance, in fact. She has been known to play the violin.

Ho Joung Kim (South Korea)

Ho Joung Kim has worked for JoongangIlbo, the newspaper of Korea, since 2005. She is a journalist covering classical music. She studied piano and communications in Seoul National University. As a host of a classical talk show, she has emceed 40 volumes of ‘A Classic Day’ of JTBC. She was also an MC of the 61th Busoni International Piano Competition’s live streaming, JTBC Gala concert 2017 and monthly concert of Palace Deoksugung in Seoul.

Jessica Duchen (UK)

Jessica Duchen is an acclaimed author and music journalist, based in London. Her work has appeared in The Sunday Times, The Guardian and The Independent, as well as numerous magazines. She has written two biographies, six novels, stage plays and libretti, including Roxanna Panufnik’s acclaimed People’s Opera Silver Birch. She serves on several boards in advisory capacity, including The Ambache Charitable Trust and The Orchestra of the Swan.

João Luiz Sampaio (Brazil)

Journalist and music critic Joao Luiz Sampaio writes for the Brazilian newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo and is executive-editor of the magazine Concerto. As a journalist he has visited Brazil, the United States, Europe, Asia and the Middle East and is a professor of music history and author of books on the subject.

Joep Stapel (Netherlands)

Joep Stapel is a classical music critic for the Dutch national daily NRC Handelsblad and a freelance music writer, focusing on new music. He studied musicology and philosophy in Amsterdam. He also writes about literature and his debut novel will be published spring 2019.

Johanna Mängel (Estonia)

Johanna Mängel is an editor, producer and broadcaster on Klassikaraadio (Estonian Public Broadcasting). Since 2015 she has represented Estonia at the International Rostrum of Composers. She has produced successful radio projects with a focus on young musicians and contemporary music and organized contemporary music showcases. In addition, she works as a journalist and writes articles and reviews for the main culture magazines and newspapers in Estonia. She is also a cellist.

Ken Smith (Hong Kong)

Ken Smith has covered music on five continents for a wide array of media. He divides his time between New York and Hong Kong, where he is the Asian performing arts critic for the Financial Times. An ASCAP/Deems Taylor award winner, he is the author of Fate! Luck! Chance! and two collections of critical writings translated and published by Beijing Normal University Press. A regular commentator for RTHK Radio 4, he is co-music director of a recording series of minority music for China’s MediaFusion group.

Lina Navickaité-Martinelli (Lithuania)

Lina Navickaitė-Martinelli, PhD, is musicologist and music critic, Chair of the Musicologists’ section at the Lithuanian Composers’ Union, Associate Professor and Senior Researcher at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Former editor of the musical monthly “Muzikos barai”, she is currently editor-in-chief of the magazine “Lithuanian Music Link”. Navickaitė-Martinelli is the author of two books, A Suite of Conversations: 32 Interviews and Essays on the Art of Music Performance (2010) and Piano Performance in a Semiotic Key: Society, Musical Canon and Novel Discourses (2014). She has prepared and presented TV and radio programmes on music and culture.

Lorena Jiménez (Spain)

Lorena Jiménez is a musicologist, classical critic and PR Manager. Her reviews and interviews have appeared in magazines such as Ritmo, Audioclásica, Pro Ópera and La Scena Musicale. She has a Degree in Musicology from the University of Oviedo and a Master's in Arts Administration from the University of Dresden.

Maren Ørstavik (Norway)

Maren Ørstavik is a Norwegian critic in the field of classical and contemporary music, opera and dance. She writes reviews and commentary for Aftenposten, Norway’s larges newspaper, as well as for cultural magazines such as Ballade, Jazznytt and Bokvennen Litterære Avis. She is also editor-in-chief at Periskop, a magazine dedicated to critique of art for young people.

Mauricio Peña Cediel (Colombia)

Mauricio Pena is the director of the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango's recital hall in Bogotá, Colombia. Before dedicating himself fully to directing the hall, he blogged at Bogomusic, a blog dedicated to the classical music scene in Bogota which was positively reviewed by Revista Semana, Colombia's main weekly magazine. He now writes for the blog sporadically.

Michael Dervan (Ireland)

Michael Dervan, music critic of The Irish Times, won the first AT Cross Critic of the Year Award. His 100-programme, year-by-year survey of the music of the 20th century, Countdown, Sampling the Century, was broadcast on RTÉ lyric fm in 1999. In 2016 he edited The Invisible Art, A Century of Music in Ireland, 1916-2016, which was nominated in the Best Irish-Published Book section of that year's Irish Book Awards.

Monika Pasiecznik (Poland)

Monika Pasiecznik is a new music critic and curator from Poland. She writes for Polish and international new music magazines, cooperates with Polish Radio Program 2 and many cultural institutions. As a curator she has collaborated with festivals such as Warsaw Autumn, Sacrum Profanum Cracow, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Klangspuren Schwaz, Gothenburg Sound Art, Nuova Consonanza Rome, Exposition of New Music Brno a.o. She is author of two books about Karlheinz Stockhausen and new music theatre. In 2016, her translation of the Harry Lehmann’s book “Die Digitale Revolution der Musik. Eine Musikphilosophie” was published. In 2015, she was nominated for the international Classical:NEXT Innovation Award because of her unique projects. She lives in Warsaw.

Nancy Malitz (USA)

Nancy Malitz is the founding music critic at USA Today and a pioneer in journalism on the internet. She spearheaded the creation of Classical Voice North America, the web magazine for which more than 130 music critics from around the world have written. She did strategic planning for media change with Gannett publications and she about the arts and technology for the New York Times, the Washington Post and dozens of other publications.

Romina de la Sotta Donoso (Chile)

Romina de la Sotta Donoso (1973) is a Chilean journalist and has been covering cultural issues since 2001. After having her own 60-minute talk show on Radio Beethoven, she has been writing about classical music, culture heritage and cultural policies in the newspaper “El Mercurio” since 2008. Every week, she interviews between five and fifteen composers, performing musicians and musicologists.

Rudolph Tang (China)

A Musical America journalist, Rudolph Tang has been covering classical music and opera since 1999. He was the Editor of Gramophone magazine Chinese edition from 2005-08, jury member of MIDEM Classical Awards in 2008, Head of Communication of the China Symphony Development Foundation and the Alliance of Asia-Pacific Region Orchestras from 2008-2013. Based in Shanghai and Beijing, he is now pursuing a career in music criticism and journalism in China and globally. His second book, Many Faces of Musicians, was published by Beijing Normal University Press in 2014. He is a member of the Society for Music Criticism of China and a contributor to International Association of Theatre Critics (Hong Kong).

Santiago Rodrigo Hilara(Argentina/Spain)

Founder, editor and writer at Club de Ópera, an online magazine devoted to academic vocal music, he had previously collaborated with Opus Magazine in Israel. He studied Literature and Documentary Filmmaking, and worked for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, Canada), the LGBTIQ International Film Festival Asterisco (Buenos Aires, Argentina) and the LGBTQ International Film Festival Roze Filmdagen (Amsterdam, the Netherlands).

Serhan Bali (Turkey)

Serhan Bali is the founder and editor-in-chief of Andante magazine, the only nationwide music periodical in Turkey since 2002. Bali is also among the jury members of the International Classical Music Awards-ICMA. He's also the presenter and scriptwriter of a documentary series on the Turkish channel IZ TV on the topic of great composers and their birth cities.

Barbara Weber (Switzerland)

Barbara Balba Weber is a university lecturer, scientist, researcher and consultant. She is head of the 'Music in Context' group of the University of Arts Bern and presides over the Association of Music Communication Switzerland. An expert in the field of artistic music communication, she has as an extensive knowledge of target group specifics and practitioners of classical and new music. She is also a trained soloist and has years of experience in stage practice.

Judd Greenstein (USA)

Judd Greenstein is a composer and advocate for the independent new music community in the US and around the world. Recent commissions include those from the Minnesota Orchestra, the Lucerne Festival, and the Knights. He is co-director of New Amsterdam Records, curator of New York’s Ecstatic Music Festival, and co-curator of the Apples & Olives festival in Zurich.

Kathleen Tagg (South Africa)

South African pianist, composer, producer currently based in New York. Her work explores intersections between classical, world music, jazz, electronica, musical theater, and her own improvisations. She has performed on four continents, and labels include NAXOS, Tablepounding Records, Ossia and Gallo Africa. Her musical, Erika’s Wall (Sophie Jaff) was produced by The Music Theater Company, Chicago and she was a 2017 ConEd Exploring the Metropolis Composer-in-Residence.