Flutist

Born in Lausanne, Helena Macherel is a Swiss flautist. Winner of international competitions, she won the 1st Prize of the International Competition Anton Rubinstein Berlin, as well as the Paul Streit Prize of the Geneva Competition at the age of nineteen.

She had the opportunity to perform as a soloist with the Zürich Chamber Orchestra at the Tonhalle in Zürich, the Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, the Budapest Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Danube Symphony Orchestra of Budapest , the Belgrade Chamber Orchestra, and the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra. She has played alongside Cédric Pescia, Veronica Kuijken, François Benda, Nurit Stark, Caroline Melzer, Joel Sachs, the Sine Nomine quartet. She has been invited by the concert series of the Prairie Bellmund, the Kléber-Méleau Theater, the Sine Nomine Festival, the Combins Music Festival. From 2018, she performed on the baroque flute with the ensemble La Fontana Cantabile.

In 2017, Helena Macherel is engaged for two years as an academic in the Orchestra of the Musikkollegium Winterthur. She is also an extra at the Orchester de Chambre de Lausanne, and she plays regularly with the Camerata Venia, the Orchester Romand des Jeunes Professionnels, The Juilliard Orchestra, and The New Juilliard Ensemble in New York. She played under the baton of Carlos Miguel Prieto, David Robertson, Thomas Zehetmair, Douglas Boyd, Michael Sanderling. In 2019, she received the 3rd Prize of the Maxence Larrieu International Competition (France), and won the 1st Prize of the 47th Jeunesses Musicales International Competition Belgrade (Serbia) in 2017. She also won the EMONA International Competition (Slovenia) in 2013 .

Helena Macherel has been supported by the Leenaards Foundation, the Pour-Cent Culturel Migros scholarship, as well as the Friedl Wald Foundation, the Minkoff Foundation and the Lyra Foundation, the Irène Dénéréaz Foundation, and the Casino Barrière de Montreux Foundation.

Aged fourteen, she entered the Haute École de Musique de Lausanne in the class of José-Daniel Castellon, where she obtained, five years later, her Master's degree in specialized soloist interpretation. She was awarded the Fritz Bach Scholarship there. Helena Macherel continued her studies at the Hanns Eisler Musik Hochschule in Berlin with Silvia Careddu, then perfected her skills in the class of Claude Lefèbvre in Paris. In 2017, she began a Master's degree in orchestral interpretation at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne, then she entered the Juilliard School in New York in 2019, where she obtained a Graduate Diploma in the class of Robert Langevin, solo flute of the New York Philharmonic. She also took lessons with Emily Beynon, Matthieu Dufour and Emmanuel Pahud. 

In addition to her flautistic activities, Helena Macherel is passionate about composition. She writes concertos and works for orchestra. For two years, she took lessons with William Blank at the Haute École de Musique in Lausanne.