Outstanding ZHdK students
Benedikt Böhlen (violoncello with Roel Dieltiens), Marena Whitcher (vocals jazz with Rahel Hadorn) and Milena Umiglia (violoncello with Thomas Grossenbacher) receive the Werner and Berti Alter Prize 2021.
Benedikt Böhlen studied violoncello at the Basel Music Academy, graduating with a Master's degree in Performance. In 2021, he obtained a Master's degree in Pedagogy from the Zurich University of the Arts. He plays regularly in the Ensemble Phönix Basel and is a member of the Swiss chamber orchestra Arte Frizzante. He is also a cello teacher at the music school in Dornach.
Born in 1990, Marena Whitcher is half Swiss and half American. She is currently establishing herself at home and abroad as a complete artist on various stages - from avant-garde pop and jazz to contemporary classical music and cabaret. She has set and orchestrated several radio plays for SRF2 radio.
Milena Umiglia was born into a family of musicians in 1998 and received her
first cello lessons with her mother at the age of four. In 2008 she became a
Private student of Rafael Rosenfeld at the Basel Music Academy. Since September 2019
she studies with Thomas Grossenbacher at the Zurich University of the Arts.
The Werner and Berti Alter Foundation, founded in Zurich in 1980, awards prizes to the best graduation projects in the Master of Music Pedagogy program at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK).
