Dr. Katalin Kiss, a worldwide experienced choral conductor and music educator graduated and obtained her doctoral degree in performing arts from the Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, Hungary. She had been lecturing between 1989 and 2019 at the Kodály Institute of Liszt Academy of Music, where she served as Deputy Director-General in 2002-04. She spent several years in the United States of America as a guest lecturer and conductor at the invitation of the Kodály Centre of America in Boston. Since 2015, she is a guest professor at the Beijing Central Conservatory of Music. In addition, she lectures, and holds workshops regularly at music symposia and seminars in Europe, Australia, in China and in the USA.

Dr. Katalin Kiss founded the Ars Nova Vocal Ensemble in 1990 and has given hundreds of concerts around the world, winning sixteen first prizes and special prizes and seven Grand Prix-s at international competitions, including the Champion of World Choir Games title in 2008 (in Graz, Austria) and in 2014 (in Riga, Latvia). With Ars Nova she has premièred, and recorded a great number of contemporary choral pieces, many of them dedicated to her and her ensemble. In addition to Ars Nova, she conducts foreign choirs and gives concerts in Europe, in the USA, Australia, and China as a guest conductor. She often serves on juries for international choir competitions. She is representative of Hungary in the World Choir Council, a founding member and continental ambassador of Europe of the International Choral Conductors’ Federation. In 1993, she founded the Ars Nova Editio Music Publishing House, which specializes in contemporary Hungarian choral music. She is the author of several music theory books for high education published in English and Chinese languages.

Mario Lanaro studied conducting, composition, vocalism, didactics and organ. He has taught in the conservatories of Rovigo, Trento and since 1993 he has been teaching at the Conservatory "E.F. Dall’Abaco" of Verona. Besides his forty-year experience as a teacher, he dedicated himself to conducting choirs and orchestras of vocal and instrumental ensembles obtaining numerous prizes in various competitions both for choir singing and compositions. He has held courses and seminars for conductors and teachers both in Italy and abroad (Gubbio Festival, Wroclaw Academy, Miskolc University, Feniarco Spring Festival, South Tyrol Choir Federation) and has been a jury member in many competitions. With his "Scrivi che ti canto" he has invented a poetic-musical competition with anthologies and video lessons on the web "Making a good choir, instructions for use". In 2011 at the Teatro Malibran in Venice his opera "The Chocolate Factory" (by R. Dahl) was staged and in 2017 he composed "The Annunciation", a Marian cantata for choir and ensemble based on a poem by Pier Paolo Pasolini. His compositions - sacred and secular - are part of the repertoires of many Italian and foreign choirs and are performed at concerts and international competitions. With the Editions Carrara of Bergamo he published in 2012 the method choir direction "Choral experiences", now adopted as a reference text by choir conductors and conservatoires.

André van der Merwe is a conductor and composer from Cape Town, South Africa. He is often invited to perform as guest conductor, adjudicator and clinician nationally and internationally. He has been invited to work with universities and companies in the USA, Sweden, Germany, China, and Portugal amongst others. André van der Merwe initially studied B.Mus at the University of Cape Town, but later changed course and studied B.Drama (Directing) at the University of Stellenbosch. He received national awards and prizes as actor and director. André van der Merwe was invited e.g. as adjudicator and clinician for the Llangollen International Eisteddfod, Wales (July 2013) and guest conductor and lecturer for the Taipei International Choral Festival and the Taipei Philharmonic (August 2013). His arrangements of African music are published by Earthsongs in the USA. Currently he conducts the Stellenbosch University Choir (number one choir on the INTERKULTUR World Rankings) and the the Stellenberg Girls Choir. From 2005 – 2012 he has established and conducted the South African Youth Choir. In 2012 André van der Merwe received a ministerial cultural award (Western Cape Government) for his work with choirs and the youth and a civic honorary award from the City of Cape Town. In 2012 André has been selected as the South African representative on the World Choir Council for INTERKULTUR.