ABOUT
Tal Botvinik from Jerusalem and Ségolène de Beaufond from Versailles crossed paths during their studies at the prestigious Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. Their common curiosity, trust and passion for chamber music led them to form a violin and guitar duo and establish a strong friendship.
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Alongside original works, they also focused on expanding the existing repertoire for violin and guitar by arranging new transcriptions of orchestral and chamber music works. Their repertoire includes classical music, tango, klezmer, film music, gipsy as well as contemporary music.
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Duo Segotal have recently released their debut cd, including masterpieces for guitar and violin from composers such as Manuel de Falla, Jules Massenet and Astor Piazzolla.
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The duo is also developing new projects and corporations. In 2020 a new program will involve the guest composer-performer Dariya Maminova and will include new works written for the duo as well as the use of live electronics.
Ségolène de Beaufond
Ségolène de Beaufond is a french violinist, based in COlogne, Germany. She joined Boris Garlitsky's class at the conservatoire national Supérieur de Paris in 2008. She received a scholarship from Bloomington University allowing her to be a student there for a semester in 2012, under Noah Bendix-Balgley, and obtained her Bachelor's degree in musicology from the Sorbonne the same year. An Erasmus exchange scholarship led de Beaufond to the Cologne Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, where she decided to continue her studies and graduated in chamber music in 2016, and in solo Violin, under Susanna Yoko Henkel, in 2017. As a student she also took part in several master classes, with renowned artists such as Lewis Kaplan, Philippe Graffin and the quartets Ebène, Casals, and Auryn.
Ségolène de Beaufond was a member of the Luzern Festival Academy Orchestra, under Pierre Boulez, as well as several other young orchestras. She is especially dedicated to the performance of chamber music: with her piano trio, Kantilene, she received the Gartow Foundation scholarship, and, as part of the exchange programme xith the Juilliard School, under Ariadne Daskalakis, the Montepulciano Academy scholarship.
She is active in several orchestras as well: the Folkwang Chamber Orchestra in Essen, as the principal of the Cologne Chamber Opera, as concert master of the Bonn Theater and in the Lower Rhine Symphony Orchestra. De Beaufond has recentrly turned to jazz violin and improvisation as well and has formed a klezmer ensemble.She is a member of the EOS chamber orchestra of Cologne with whom she, along the Trio led by the saxophone player Niels Klein, recorded a CD for Deutschlandfunk this year
Sie ist zurzeit Mitglied beim EOS-Kammerorchester Köln, mit dem sie 2019-20 mehrere CD-Produktionen aufgenommen hat, u. A bei Deutschlandfunk.
Tal Botvinik
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Tal Botvinik is a guitarist based in Cologne, Germany. He graduated his masters in classical guitar, contemporary music and chamber music at the renowned Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln. He is an active soloist and chamber musician. Tal is a member of the Cologne Guitar Quartet and duo Segotal, ensembles based in Cologne, Germany.
Tal began his guitar studies at the age of 11. He graduated from the Jerusalem Academy High School for Music and Dance studying with Irit Even-Tov. He completed his Bachelor music studies at the Jerusalem music academy, studying in the class of Ruben Seroussi. He graduated his Master of Music degree, studying with world famous guitarist Roberto Aussel in Cologne, Germany. He graduated his second Master studies in contemporary music, in the class of Prof. David Smeyers, followed by a chamber music masters together with the Cologne Guitar Quartet.
The Cologne Guitar Quartet is an ensemble founded by Tal in 2014. Along the years the quartet had won several chamber music competitions, recorded two cds (the 2nd to be released in 2020) and recently launched its latest project diGIT - new music for guitars, e-guitars, electronics and voice.
Over the years, Tal has won several national and international guitar competitions. He has played with several orchestras and ensembles, including the Jerusalem Symphonic orchestra, Musikfabrik Ensemble, Ensemble 20/21 and Israeli contemporary players. He has been awarded with several scholarships such as “American-Israel Culture Foundation” and Alfred Toepfer “Concerto-Music Stipendium”. In 2016 he participated in the renowned Darmstadt contemporary music course in the class of Yaron Deutsch.
Tal has taken part in master classes with well-known musicians such as David Russell, Pavel Steidl, Zoran Dukic, Alvaro Pierri, Quartetto Casals, Anthony Spiri, Kelemen Quartett, etc.
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