On Sunday, the 9th January 2011, the founder of the Mühldorfer Summer Academy Prof. Jürgen Geise has died after a long illness.

Jürgen Geise studied at the Vienna Academy with R. Odnoposoff and with Franz Samohyl, whose assistant he became later. He continued his studies with Max Rostal and Sandor Vegh. He was a founding member of the “Vienna Soloists”, the “Austrian string quartet” and the “String Quintet Mozarteum.” From 1973 to 2007 Jürgen Geise was a professor of violin, viola and chamber music at the University of Music and Dramatic Arts “Mozarteum” in Salzburg. About many years he led the chamber orchestra “Collegium Iuvenale Salisburgense” (CIS), which exercises regularly performs with its own chamber music series in Salzburg. Jürgen Geise promoted talented young artists; a large number of his former students occupied senior positions in international elite orchestras or is teaching at conservatories. Jürgen Geise worked as a jury member at numerous international competitions.

In 2003 he founded together with his former student, the Mühldorfer music headmaster Thomas Breitsameter the Mühldorfer Summer Academy, which has evolved as an internationally renowned master course for strings and chamber music, where every year 40 to 50 participants from all over Europe and Asia participate.

The Mühldorfer Summer Academy loses  with Prof. Jürgen Geise an outstanding artistic personality, whose tireless work has significantly contributed to the success of the overall project “master classes for music in Mühldorf”.

On Tuesday, 27.10.2009, cellist Martin Hornstein has died completely unexpectedly at the age of 54 years.

Martin Hornstein studied at the Vienna University of Music and the Juilliard School in New York. While still a student began Hornstein his concerts as a soloist and chamber musician, touring in Europe and Japan. From 1985 to 1993 he was a cellist in the Vienna Schubert Trio and Trio from 1994 to 2004 member of the Altenberg Trio Vienna. In these formations, he was far more than a thousand concerts in all the major music centers of the world, including Teatro alla Scala in Milan, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, at the Salzburg Festival, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Chamber Music Festival Lockenhaus, at the “styriarte” Graz and through regular subscription concerts of the Society of Friends of Music in Vienna.

From 2005, the musical partnership with pianist Janna Polyzoides took a lot of space. Among the many performances of the duo in 2006 was also a sonata recital in the Brahms Hall of the Vienna Musikverein. The collaboration with the lyricist Semier Insayif led to many appearances with the solo suites by Bach and poetry and prose of the author. Hornstein was a lecturer of the International Music Festival  Bad Leonfelden and the Mühldorfer Summer Academy and initiated a chamber music class at the Vienna Conservatory.

Martin Hornstein conducted from 2006 to 2009 the master class for cello and chamber music at the Mühldorfer Summer Academy. He was equally loved and appreciated among the students and faculty to share his immense knowledge and skills, without taking itself into the foreground. The Mühldorfer Summer Academy loses a good friend, a great musician and a brilliant music teacher.