„Music is maybe one of society's most unexplained necessity.
As we all develop special abilities and talents, some people are
on this world to make music. Helping musicians
to reach their highest level of expression and to live doing
what they are meant to be doing is taking part in preserving
our own cultural heritage.“
Foundations, or non-profit organizations for supporting the artists are nothing new. A substantial financial investment is required to study and give someone a chance to achieve something in art. This financial issue too often inhibits the optimal growth of young musicians striving towards a concert career. The times are over when being talented was sufficient to be recognized and supported. Talent, high-level performance and hard work aren't enough anymore. Without considerable financial assets, the opportunity to study music and to be given a chance to prove one’s worth in public are reduced to almost zero.
There are already several prestigious foundations that support artists. In order to access these institutions, one must already be a part of an inner circle. Formated "products" are then brought by the media dictatorship to the public, promoting an indiscriminate music consumption from which individuality is frowned upon (and occasionally even talent or actual abilities). The media world is simply focused on guaranteeing large-scale profits. The combination of money struggles and strong artistic individuality (which are not easily accepted by the mainstream media) causes many great artists-to-be to find themselves isolated, with their future career jeopardized.
The aim of the Esperus Art Fund is to focus exactly on some of these unknown talents. Mainly aimed at musicians, the Esperus Art Fund strives to be a support for the "first expenses" (such as those for education, living, administration, promotion) necessary for a young artist to survive and thrive, and to help promote those ready to go on stage as well as record their first albums. Because the fund aims to make daily life and growth easier for these artists, this project is of great importance for a better future.
The cost of living is continually rising, and earning one’s living (especially as an artist) is continually getting more difficult. Countries around the world, though they couldn’t exist without art, often mistreat the young artist. One often forgets that the concept of the tortured, brilliant, and penniless artist has evolved, and that today it is only synonym of oblivion.
The Esperus Art Fund also stands out because its approach takes into consideration the social and cultural aspects of the artists with particular attention paid to their history, their background, their personality, their journey in life as individuals, in order to give them better chances and opportunities, thanks to a better knowledge and a more personalized support.
An utopian spirit, combined with a taste for adventure and challenge were the motivating factors in carrying out this project. Founded by Louise Chisson and Tamara Atschba in 2016 and supported by the ABC Musique Association, the Esperus Art Fund aims to give high-potential musical talents a chance to show their abilities and share with us the beautiful things they, each in their own way, have to tell through their talent.
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Louise Chisson and Tamara Atschba have been playing together since 2008. Their collaboration is aimed at continuing the long-held tradition of violin-piano duos, and to encourage the audiences of today to rediscover seldom played repertoire for the formation. They have distinguished themselves in performances of works by composers including Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Lutosławski, Szymanowski, Shostakovich, Poulenc and Debussy. They have participated at numerous festivals and are invited to perform in France, Austria, Belgium, Germany, the USA, Mexico, Italy..
Their first CD release (in 2013) on the Gramola label was dedicated to Janáček, Prokofiev and Poulenc; highly acclaimed by the critics, it won 4 Diapason awards and was, according to artistxite.com, one of the ten best classical albums of 2013. This was followed in 2014 by a second album, “1914”, featuring works by Louis Vierne and Charles Koechlin, which was rated ***** by BBC Music Magazine. In 2015 the duo collaborated on the Scriabin Project, a concert of music and light performed to great acclaim at the 27th L’Eté Musical en Bergerac Festival. This project took place more recentely in Vienna, in June 2023.
In addition to their artistic collaboration, Louise Chisson and Tamara Atschba work together in teaching and supporting young artists. In 2016 they founded the Esperus Art Fund and the Esperus Music Academy,
in partnership with the festival L'été Musical en Bergerac, where they get to collaborate with renowned musicians, such as cellist Gary Hoffman and pianists Jean-Bernard Pommier, Nelson Freire, Dimitri Naïditch, violinist Gilles Apap, ...
From 2019 to 2020 they invited the Austrian actress Katharina Stemberger for a serie of concerts-readings around Brahms, Robert and Clara Schumann. This project was the opening concert for their new Viennese cycle, “Esperus Concerts”, at the Ehrbar Hall, where they also perform with cellist Ophélie Gaillard.
In 2020, they signed a contract with label Hänssler Classic and record their third album, 20th Century Feminine, released in the spring 2021. The album was a great success and received numerous awards such as the Diapason d'Or in January 2022, the Star of the month from Fono Forum Magazine in June 2021, a nomination for the "long list" of the Grammy Awards 2022, the "bests' list" of the Preis der deutsche Schallplattenkritik 2021, as well as the OPUS KLASSIK 2022.
"Radiantly inspired and beguilingly engineered performances. Notably sensitive piano playing from
Tamara Atschba" - ***** BBC Music Magazine
BBC Music Magazine praises the Georgian pianist Tamara Atschba as an “inimitable, unbelievably inspired pianist”. Her strong musical personality, the high quality of her playing and the exceptional timbre of her sound have been highly commended by internationally renowned musicians such as Zubin Mehta, Vladimir Ashkenazy (“exquisite piano playing”), Martha Argerich, Wolfgang Marschner (“homogeneity and well honed technique are her natural attributes and merely the framework for her full-blooded musicianship that is sensitized to the highest degree”), Ivry Gitlis, Yehudi Menuhin, Claudio Abbado.
For many years she was chamber music partner to the renowned violinist Dora Schwarzberg. Numerous CD recordings and concert performances at venues including Vienna’s Konzerthaus and Musikverein, Austrian Radio (ORF) and the Bösendorfer Hall, the Flagey in Brussels, the Liszt Conservatoire Budapest, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli Hall, Jacques Thibaud Conservatoire in Paris, Kaufman Hall New York, Royal Academy London, Oriental Art Center Shanghai, Rose Theater Hall in Fuji, Japan and the Daejeon Art Center Korea attest to her wide-ranging artistic career. She takes part in numerous international festivals.
Tamara Atschba, member of the International Academy of Performing Arts and Sciences, is frequently invited to hold master classes in Europe and Asia and to be a jury member at international music competitions. Since 1995 she has been teaching at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna and from 2012 to 2020 she taught at the Prayner Conservatoire in Vienna. She has been teaching at the Franz Schubert Conservatoire since the autumn of 2020. Many of her students have excelled at international competitions and festivals.
Violinist Louise Chisson is "a rare talent", has "great technical mastery" and "above all has a deep and remarkable musical personality", says Dora Schwarzberg.
She was born in Bordeaux. She began learning to play the violin at the age of four with Professor Robert Papavrami, studying with him until 2005. She then continued her studies with the famous violinist Dora Schwarzberg at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna, where she attained her Master’s degree with distinction, awarded unanimously by the entire jury.
Louise has felt perfectly at home on stage from an early age. She has given concerts with many musicians, including the Solistes Moscou-Montpellier ensemble, the Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra, l’Orchestre d’Auvergne, l’Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse, Salzburger Kammerphilharmonie and the Prague Philharmonie. Furthermore, she has been invited to take part in numerous festivals and has worked with musicians such as Isaac Stern, Maya Glesarova, Tedi Papavrami, Augustin Dumay, Wolfgang Marschner and Ana Chumachenco.
She stands out from the crowd with her courageous choice of music and her skilled technical precision in her performance of all of Paganini’s 24 Caprices, the Sonatas by Ysaÿe, Bach and Prokofiev, as well as in her interpretations of the violin concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Prokofiev and Bartók. Louise Chisson has been first violin with the Ensemble LUX string quartet since 2013, an ensemble which concentrates exclusively on performing music of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. She has been teaching at the Prayner Conservatory from 2015 to 2020 and at the Franz Schubert Conservatory of Vienna since autumn 2020.