Taavi Kerikmäe, piano
Levi-Danel Mägila, violoncello
Tarmo Johannes, flute
Merje Roomere, violin
Helena Tuuling, clarinet
Vambola Krigul, percussion
Taavi Kerikmäe, klaver
Levi-Danel Mägila, tšello
Tarmo Johannes, flööt
Merje Roomere, viiul
Helena Tuuling, klarnet
Vambola Krigul, löökpillid
Photo: Raul Keller
Taavi Kerikmäe (born 1976) is a musician, curator, and lecturer whose main fields of activity include contemporary music, experimental music, electronic music, and improvisation. He also performs early music on the clavichord.
Kerikmäe studied at Heino Eller Music School, the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, and the Lyon National Higher Conservatory of Music and Dance. He is a founding member of the contemporary music ensemble U: and the Estonian Electronic Music Society’s ensemble EMA. He has composed music for numerous dance and theater performances as well as films. Kerikmäe has collaborated with renowned composers such as Pierre Boulez, Kaija Saariaho, Tristan Murail, Louis Andriessen, Ivan Fedele, and others. As a musician, he has performed in almost all European countries, as well as in Russia, the USA, Brazil, Mexico, Canada, Iceland, Greenland, South Korea, and Thailand.
Kerikmäe is a senior lecturer in contemporary music at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and the head of the CoPeCo master’s program. He also serves as the director of the Estonian Contemporary Music Centre.
Levi-Danel Mägila began his cello studies at Tallinn Music High School under Teet Järvi and continued at the Georg Ots Tallinn Music School as a student of Lembi Mets. He later studied at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music under Hillel Zori. He graduated from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre under the guidance of Professor Peeter Paemurru. He has participated in masterclasses with Bernard Greenhouse, Uzi Wiesel, Yosif Feigelsohn, Stefan Popov, Johannes Goritzki, Dmitri Fershtman, and others.
Levi-Danel Mägila won first prize at the Estonian Young String Players' Competition in 1997 and 1999 and was awarded a Holland Music Sessions scholarship in 2003.
Since 2002, he has been a member of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO), serving as assistant principal cellist from 2004 to 2019. He is also a member of the Tallinn String Quartet, Ensemble U:, and the cello quartet C-Jam.
Tarmo Johannes is an Estonian flutist dedicated primarily to performing contemporary music. He is founder and leader of ensembles U: and Resonabilis and has played a number of concerts of solo flute repertoire with great success. Since 2019 he is member of the Estonian Electronic Music Ensemble.
In recent years Tarmo Johannes has been actively engaged also with sound synthesis and programming. His main interest is creating algorithmically controlled pieces for live performance, often with audience’s participation. Since 2015 Tarmo Johannes is the main devloper of CsoundQt and the author of visaul wirefree ensemble metronome system vClick.
Tarmo Johannes teaches flute at Tallinn College of Music and Ballet and different subjects related to new music at the Esonian Academy of Music and Theatre.
Merje Roomere has been a member of Ensemble U: since 2003, with earlier experience in contemporary music dating back to 1994–2001 as part of the NYYD Ensemble.
She has played in many orchestras, most notably with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra (ERSO) from 1994 to 2024.
Merje Roomere works as a violin and Alexander Technique teacher at the Tallinn College of Music and Ballet.
Helena Tuuling started her music education at the Põlva Music School and continued it at Heino Eller Tartu Music School, the Tallinn Music High School and the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Her teachers have been Margus Vahemets, Vahur Vurm, Toomas Vavilov and Hannes Altrov. Helena has studied at the Conservatorio Superior de Victoria Eugenia de Granada (Spain, prof Francisco Gil Valencia), and at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (Sweden, prof Kjell-Inge Stevensson) as an exchange student. She benefited from several masterclasses with Yehuda Gilad, Francois Benda, Michael Collins, Michel Lethiec, José Luis Estellés, Henri Bok, Marek Schiller, Andreas Sundén, Fabio Di Casola, David Krakauer and Jacques Di Donato. Helena graduated with a Master’s Degree from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre and currently is finishing her studies at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm (prof Hermann Stefansson and Martin Fröst).
Vambola Krigul’s musical journey began like many others in early childhood when he started studying flute, clarinet, and saxophone at Nõmme Music School. Initially self-taught in percussion, he later specialized solely in percussion, graduating from Tallinn Music High School in 1999. This naturally led to further studies, earning a bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degree from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.
During his studies at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre, he began working as a freelance percussionist. Since then, he has been involved in the premieres of more than 200 works by composers from Estonia and abroad. Krigul enjoys being part of the creative process alongside composers, often suggesting his own solutions and sounds, sometimes derived from unconventional sources. He has established close collaborations with a significant number of Estonian composers (including Helena Tulve, Tõnu Kõrvits, Märt-Matis Lill, Erkki-Sven Tüür, Toivo Tulev, and others), frequently premiering their works and also acting as a consultant in their daily composing process.
Vambola Krigul is a founding member of Ensemble U:, which is now the most well-known and longest-running contemporary music ensemble in Estonia.
Since 2000, he has been a member of the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, and since 2011 a lecturer in percussion and chamber music at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre.