Franziska Andrea Heinzen
The Briger soprano Franziska Andrea Heinzen studied at the conservatories of Zurich and Düsseldorf. She completed her training in spring 2016 with the Soloist Diploma/Concert Examination with distinction. Master classes with Hedwig Fassbender, Krisztina Laki, Renée Morloc and Christiane Iven as well as lied master classes with Wolfram Rieger, Ulrich Eisenlohr and Hartmut Höll, among others, complete her training. Heinzen's extremely varied concert and opera repertoire ranges from baroque and classical works to modern and contemporary music.

Franziska Andrea Heinzen is a Britten-Pears Young Artist, a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Association Dortmund, the Young Musicians Foundation Bayreuth, the Madeleine Dubuis Foundation and is supported by MusikPro. In 2017 she received the Culture Promotion Prize of the Canton of Valais and, as a song duo, the Culture Promotion Prize for Music of the state capital Düsseldorf.

In addition to numerous independent opera productions, she made her debut at the Trier Theatre in 2015 as an "outstanding Mozart voice" in the role of Annio (La clemenza di Tito). The soprano has worked with the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, the Beethoven Akademie Orchester, Capriccio Basel, Ensemble Recherche, Zürcher Kammerorchester and the Ensemble für Neue Musik Zürich, among others.

Franziska Andrea Heinzen has a special affinity for the art of song, in which music and poetry are condensed to the highest degree: With her Lied duo partner Benjamin Malcolm Mead, she has performed at the Schubert cycle of the Schubertiade of Barcelona, at the Düsseldorf Festival, and in the future at the Schubertiade of Sion as well as at the concert series Im Zentrum Lied in Cologne. Her love for her native mountains and the need to present the art of song in a special setting motivated her to initiate the Rhone Festival for Song Art in Brig/Wallis.

Benjamin Mead
The British-Polish-German pianist Benjamin Mead has quickly established himself internationally as an expressive and sensitive accompanist. In his Lied programmes as well as at the co-founded Rhone Festival for Lied Art in Switzerland, he is constantly searching for ways to revitalise the classical repertoire, combining unknown treasures with the great masters of Lied art.

Milestones in recent seasons include recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Tonhalle Düsseldorf and L'Auditori Barcelona, as well as the Aldeburgh Festival, Leeds Lieder Festival, Schubertiada a Vilabertran and Schumannfest Düsseldorf. In addition to performing with Dame Felicity Lott as well as Manuel Walser, he regularly collaborates with Valerie Eickhoff, Franziska Heinzen and Liam Bonthrone.

The debut album with Franziska Heinzen on the SoloMusica label for the 100th anniversary of the Les Six joint piano cycle was praised internationally by experts. The second album of the song duo followed in autumn 2021, dedicated to the song oeuvre of female composers from the Romantic period to contemporary music. Recently, this recording was nominated for the German Record Critics' Best List. In addition, her performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and SRF 2 Kultur.

Raised in a British-Polish musical family in Germany, Benjamin Mead obtained an Advanced Diploma in Piano Accompaniment with Malcolm Martineau and Michael Dussek, among others, at the Royal Academy of Music in 2021 after studying piano at the Robert Schumann Hochschule. He is currently a lecturer at the Royal Academy of Music.

Benjamin Mead was a Britten-Pears Young Artist as well as a scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Association Düsseldorf, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation Live Music Now and was supported by the Norbert Janssen Foundation, C. Bechstein Foundation, Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) and the Leverhulme Foundation.