“These long-underestimated works in Vivaldi’s oeuvre have finally found a master.”

With these words, the French magazine Diapason praised the CD Vivaldi per Pisendel, awarding it the distinction “5 du Diapason.”

 

Founded in 2011, the G.A.P. Ensemble is one of the most distinguished ensembles in the field of historically informed performance practice. Its three founding members, all musicians with renowned European Baroque orchestras, share a commitment to stylistically nuanced interpretations ranging from the Baroque to the modern era. The ensemble takes its name from the Italian violin virtuoso Giovanni Antonio Piani; at the same time, the word “gap” reflects the ensemble’s artistic aim of transcending perceived boundaries between periods, sound worlds and instrumental traditions.

 

The members of the ensemble have regularly worked with renowned artists such as Viktoria Mullova, Daniel Hope, Cecilia Bartoli, Christophe Rousset and Julia Lezhneva. The ensemble has also performed with Maurice Steger, Dorothee Mields, Valer Sabadus, Hille Perl and Raffaella Milanesi. Concert engagements have taken the ensemble’s members to major venues and prestigious festivals throughout Europe and around the world, including the Berliner Philharmonie, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall and Palau de la Música Catalana. The ensemble has appeared, among others, at the Bachfest Leipzig, Festival de Saintes, Concertgebouw Brugge, Mercatorhalle Duisburg, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic and Mosel Musikfestival. For performances of large-scale works, the ensemble expands into a chamber orchestra on a project basis.

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The recordings Affettuoso (Onyx Classics), I musicisti dell'imperatore and Vivaldi per Pisendel (Pan Classics) were highly acclaimed by the international specialist press, including Diapason, The Strad, Gramophone and Fanfare. Together with soprano Raffaella Milanesi, the ensemble produced the world-premiere recording of cantatas by Giovanni Antonio Piani, Antonio Caldara and Alessandro Scarlatti. In collaboration with WDR, this was followed by the production 250 Jahre Johann Wilhelm Wilms. Since 2020, the G.A.P. Ensemble has increasingly developed programmes combining historical and modern instruments. The project Salvation – Bach/Shostakovich was performed at the Bachfest Leipzig, released by Brilliant Classics and named “CD of the Year” by Il Giornale della Musica.

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Recent projects include the orchestral programme Tempesta d'amore with Raffaella Milanesi at the Händel-Festspiele Halle, as well as guest appearances at the Brühler Schlosskonzerte and the International Händel-Festspiele Göttingen in May 2026. Through its programmes, the G.A.P. Ensemble combines rigorous, research-based work with historical sources with interpretive openness and a flexible approach to sound that embraces both historically informed performance practice and the musical present.

 

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Emilio Percan is one of the leading violinists of his generation. He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout Europe as well as in South America, Japan, Russia, China, Kyrgyzstan, Israel and the United States, and regularly appears at festivals and on prestigious concert stages such as the Berliner Philharmonie and Kölner Philharmonie, the Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Festspielhaus Baden-Baden, Tonhalle Düsseldorf, Schwetzinger Festspiele and Händel-Festspiele Halle, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Tchaikovsky Hall in Moscow, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, Bishkek Philharmonie in Kyrgyzstan, Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, the Israel Festival and Savannah Music Festival. He has worked with musicians including Viktoria Mullova, Daniel Hope, Julia Lezhneva, Maurice Steger, Dorothee Mields, Edita Gruberova and Chen Reiss, among others. He also performs as concertmaster and soloist with various European orchestras, including Concerto Köln, Württembergisches Kammerorchester Heilbronn and l’arte del mondo. In addition, he records for labels such as Deutsche Grammophon, Sony, DECCA, Onyx, Harmonia Mundi and Pan Classics, as well as for radio and television broadcasters worldwide.

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With the G.A.P. Ensemble, he has recorded three CDs featuring virtuosic violin music and, in a dual role as conductor and soloist, recorded Johannes Brahms’s Violin Concerto and Third Symphony. All of these recordings have been praised for their clarity, expressive power and distinctive approach to sound, and received the highest ratings from Diapason, MusicWeb International and AllMusic. Emilio Percan is also a passionate educator and, alongside his concert career, teaches violin and chamber music at the Kalaidos University of Music in Zurich and the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz. He regularly gives masterclasses in Austria, Russia, Brazil and Germany.

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Emilio Percan received his first violin lessons at the age of seven in Skopje, Macedonia. He was so impressed by a masterclass given by former Kogan student Isabela Golovina that he began studying with her in Moscow in 1999. In 2001, he entered the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen, where he studied violin with Pieter Daniel, a pupil of Henryk Szeryng and Dorothy DeLay, chamber music with Dirk Mommertz (Fauré Piano Quartet), and Baroque violin with Stephan Schardt (Musica Antiqua Köln).

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Born in Catalonia, Oriol Aymat Fusté has been a cellist with the Baroque ensemble Vespres d’Arnadí, conducted by Dani Espasa, since 2012. From 2010 to 2015, he was principal cellist of l’arte del mondo and has also performed with the Elbipolis Barockorchester and the Ensemble Le Tendre Amour. Oriol Aymat Fusté maintains close collaborations with violinists Lina Tur Bonet and Farran Sylvan James, harpsichordist Dani Espasa, and vocal soloists Maria Hinojosa, Jordi Domènech and Xavier Sabata, with whom he recorded the album L’Alessandro Amante in 2018.

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As a modern cellist, Fusté is a member of the Camerata XXI and Camerata 432 orchestras and performs with the Ensemble Montsant, pianists Albert Guinovart and Carles Marigó, and violinist Marta Cardona. As a performer of contemporary music, he has been invited by festivals including Nous Sons, Trenkart and Contemporànica. He also collaborates with leading Catalan pop musicians such as Sílvia Pérez Cruz and performs in concert halls and at major festivals throughout Catalonia as a member of the band Blaumut.

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Oriol Aymat Fusté studied with Leonid Gorokhov at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England and at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen with Young-Chang Cho. He received scholarships from the Pau Casals Foundation and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and was a prizewinner at numerous national and international competitions, including the Germans Claret and European Youth Cello Competitions. Oriol Aymat teaches at the Conservatori del Liceu in Barcelona and at the Cervera Conservatory.