Instructors
Instructors 2026
Meet this year’s instructors! More to be added.
Gitte Marcusson
Flute
Louise Pollock
Trombone
Lars Karlin
Trombon
Ava Bahari
Violin
Torleif Thedéen
Cello
Jonas Olsson
Piano
Lorenzo Soulès
Piano
Andreas van Tol
Conductor
Gitte Marcusson
Gitte taught at Chetham’s School of Music for 16 years and is since 2016 Professor at the Royal College of Music in London. She is founder and director of Nordic Flute International Summer School as well as being a member of the faculty at Wildacres Flute Retreat, North Carolina USA. Many of her students are holding principal and second positions in orchestras worldwide such as London Symphony, Royal Scottish, Liverpool, Birmingham, Sidney Symphony, Oslo, Norrköping and BBC Philharmonic. Besides frequently giving Masterclasses throughout Europe, Gitte is a tutor at Tuscany Flutes and Voksenåsen Summer Academy, Oslo.
Frøydis Ree Wekre
Frøydis Ree Wekre has been a solo horn player with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra for decades. From 1991 to 2011 she was professor of French horn and chamber music at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Many of her students play in leading orchestras. She is in constant demand for masterclasses all over the world, is an honorary member of the International Horn Society and has had a large number of compositions dedicated to her by a variety of composers.
Louise Pollock
Louise Pollock is Principal trombone with the Gothenburg Opera in Sweden and faculty member at the Gothenburg University Academy of Music and Drama. A winner of the 1st Prize and Audience Prize at the International Aeolus Competition for Wind Instruments 2016 and the prestigious ”Stipendiat des Deutschen Musikrates” at the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb 2014. She has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Düsseldorfer Symphoniker, Zürcher Kammerorchester, Opera Orchestra Gothenburg or the Duisburger Philharmoniker. Prior to Gothenburg she played with the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker 3 years. She has apperared at the Tourbon Brass Festival, Bjergsted Brass Festival Stavanger and the International Trombone Festival. Louise studied at the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg i.Br., Germany, with Branimir Slokar, where she received her BM with distinction. She then went on to study with Henning Wiegräbe at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart, Germany (MM).
Ava Bahari
Ava Bahari är en skicklig svensk violinist med en uppfriskande aptit för unik repertoar. Hon har fått
många utmärkelser, bland annat toppriser vid Paganini tävlingen i Genua (2021), Concours
International Tibor Varga i Sion (2021) och Aurora Music Competition i Stockholm (2019). Under säsongerna 2024/25 och 2025/26 är Bahari Artist-in-Residence hos Göteborgs Symfoniker. Under 24/25 samarbetar Bahari för första gången med Helsingfors Stadsorkestern, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Iceland Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales och Helsingborgs Symfoniorkester. Under tidigare säsonger har hon bland annat framträtt med Kungliga Filharmonikerna, Philharmonia Orchestra, Malmö Symfoniorkester, Gävle och Odense symfoniorkestrar, Teatro Carlo Felice Genova och Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
Torleif Thedéen
Swedish cellist Torleif Thedéen is one of the most distinguished instrumentalists in the Nordic countries and enjoys an international profile as a recitalist, concerto soloist, recording artist and pedagogue. He is a first prize winner of international cello competitions, including the Casals Competition. He is Visiting Professor of cello at the Royal College of Music in London and Professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. In a career spanning four decades, Torleif has performed with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, among them the Czech Philharmonic, Netherlands Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, DSO Berlin and Vienna Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with conductors including Esa-Pekka Salonen, Paavo Berglund, Petrenko, Neeme Järvi and Leif Segerstam. As a chamber musician, Torleif is familiar with the prestigious stages of the Wigmore Hall in London, Carnegie Hall in New York, Philharmonie in Berlin and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.
Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist
Prof. Julia Mustonen-Dahlkvist is professor and head of the Piano Department at the Ingesund College of Music at Karlstad University. She is the Artistic Director of Glafsfjordens Music Festival, President of Ingesund Piano Foundation, Artistic Director of the Nordic Piano Competition and founder and director of Nordic Junior Piano Competition. In the past few academic years Prof. Jula Mustonen-Dahlkvist has given masterclasses in top institutions of Hong Kong, Latvia, Germany and South Korea among other countries. Julia is a concert pianist from a diverse background. Born in a Finnish-Russian family, she started to play the piano at the age of three under the guidance of her mother, Lidia Mustonen. She studied in Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Staatliche Hochschule für Musik in Freiburg, Hochschule der Kunste in Berlin, Royal Academy in Dublin as well as Stockholm College of Music and Marshall Academy in Barcelona. Her most important teachers include Vitali Berzon, Erik T. Tawaststjerna, John O’Conor, Dominique Merlet and Alicia de Larrocha.
Jonas Olsson
Jonas Olsson has accompanied the Polstjärnepriset competitors since 2010 and works as a repetiteur at Norrlandsoperan in Umeå. He belongs to a new generation of versatile pianists and is much appreciated for his work as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist. Jonas, who has studied with Hans Pålsson and Pierre-Laurent Aimard, is one of Scandinavia’s recognized experts on contemporary music and has collaborated with a long list of the world’s leading composers.
Lorenzo Soulès
The French pianist Lorenzo Soulès’ international career began in 2012, when he, aged 20, won 1st prize in the prestigious Concours International de Genève. Since then he has been a regular guest at venues like the Royal Festival Hall in London, Tonhalle Zürich, National Concert Hall in Taipei, the Festival Messiaen au Pays de la Meije, the Aldeburgh Festival and the Klavierfestival Ruhr, where he has been involved in the festival’s Education Project since 2011. Born in Lyon, Lorenzo studied with Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Tamara Stefanovich in Cologne, and between 2006 and 2009 also took lessons with Alicia de Larrocha, working on the complete Iberia cycle by Albeniz.
Andreas van Tol
Winner of the 2021 Neeme Järvi Prize, Swedish conductor Andreas van Tol held the position of assistant conductor with the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester in Switzerland during 2023. As a symphonic conductor Andreas is working extensively across Europe and has over the past few years debuted with orchestras such as the Luzerner Sinfonieorchester, Residentie Orkest and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Andreas completed his master studies in the Netherlands at the Dutch National Master of Orchestral Conducting and his bachelor in conducting at the Norwegian Academy of Music. During his time in Norway, he also won the prestige filled Opptakt, Norway’s top initiative for young conductors. Andreas has participated in a large range of masterclasses for such esteemed teachers as Riccardo Muti, Jaap van Zweden, and Neeme and Paavo Järvi.
