Ana Topalovic
is establishing herself as a cellist without frontiers. Her repertory ranges from solo pieces and chamber music to New Music and crossover with electronic sounds. Inspired by the diversity of her instrument she continues to develop as a composer of original works, exploring undiscovered musical interfaces, alternative ways of thinking and new art forms. These new ideas are embodied in her own festival Treffpunkt: KUNST // Österreich und Serbien in Vienna’s BRICK 5.

In a short time Ana Topalovic has made a name for herself as an ‘all-rounder’ and is injecting new impulse into Vienna’s music scene. She performs with Erwin Schrott & Rojotango, Janoska Ensemble, Duo Zadory-Topalovic, Green Thing En- semble, ARCORD and Cello&Piano. She has also collaborated with renowned composers such as Friedrich Cerha, Johanna Doderer, René Clemencic und Georg Friedrich Haas, and has performed alongside Daniel Barenboim, Yakov Kreizberg, Julian Rachlin und Maxim Vengerov. Since 1999 Belgrade-born Topalovic has lived in Vienna, where she manages a cello studio. She is also the co-founder of the online music school VIOMUS. In 2012 she won the IBLA Grand Prize Competition, and was also awarded the special prize for her interpretation of Pe ̆teris Vasks Das Buch. Her first US tour and debut in Carnegie Hall followed shortly after. A New York magazine described her playing as '... exceptional and [...] beautiful“.

Nikola Djoric
is one of most interesting and versatile accordion players of a new generation. Born to a musical family in 1988 in Bor, Serbia, Nikola started playing accordion at the age of three. When he was six years old, he was admitted into the music school in Bor and two years later he was the youngest accordionist ever to win the first prize at the State Accordion Competition in Belgrade. In high school, Nikola traveled to the nearby town of Negotin in order to continue his studies with Svetlana Kravcanko. In 2003, after he moved with his family to Vienna, Austria, he studied with Jovica Djordjevic at the Gustav Mahler Konservatorium. In 2006 he started his college education with Grzegorz Stopa at Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversität. It was here that he obtained his Bachelor of Arts (in 2011) and Master of Arts (2013).

During his education, Nikola won a total of ten first prizes at national and international accordion competitions in Europe and was awarded scholarships (OeAD – Österreichischer Austauschdienst, Yehudi Menuhin-Live Music Now, HFP Steuerberater, City of Bor Foundation). He also won two main awards (in 2009 and 2011) at the Fidelio Competition, an internal multi-disciplinary competition at the Konservatorium Wien Privatuniversität.

He took master classes and collaborated not only with world’s finest accordion players, but also with many com- posers and musicians: Marino Formenti, Thomas Bruttger, Jean-Marie Londeix, Friedrich Lips, Mika Väyrynen, Christian Wolff, Dirk D’Ase, Claus-Christian Schuster from the Altenberg Trio, Nigel Osborne, Yuri Shishkin and members of Klang- forum Wien. He also collaborated with many com- posers in Europe and premiered pieces by Jo- hanna Doderer, Akos Banlaky, Ricardo Tovar, Elzbieta Wiedner-Zajac, Ina Petkova, Adrián Artacho, Wen Liu, Alexander Chernyshikov und Lukas Neudinger.