The new cciMB 2024 composition has been commissioned to Swiss composer and violinist Helena Winkelman, one of the most appraised and distinct musical voices of her country. Her music is performed around the world and is a fascinatingly clever fusion of contemporary sounds with swiss folk music, Jazz and Asian traditions. Today she has written for almost every musical formation from choir works to orchestra and chamber music. Her music was performed by the Arditti and Schumann Quartets, the Basle Chamber Orchestra, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Asian Art Ensemble, Ensemble Phoenix, Ensemble Musikfabrik and soloists like Nicolas Altstaedt, Thomas and Patrick Demenga, Hansheinz Schneeberger, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Simon Höfele, Steamboat Switzerland and others.

She was composer in residence at the Lockenhaus and Ernen festivals. In 2016 she received the Georg Fisher prize of her native town Schaffhausen and in 2017 the Swiss music award. As a charismatic violinist, Helena Winkelman establishes a very direct connection to her audience. Being a true aficionado of intimate chamber music settings, she and her group, the Camerata Variabile Basel have created their own concert series that often seeks to create bridges between music with social or philosophical themes. After winning the Pro Musicis Award in 2001 she gave her debut as a violinist at the Weill Recital Hall, New York, and the Salle Cortot, Paris.  She also performed at the Music Festivals of Lucerne, Gstaad and Davos (Switzerland). For 30 years she has been a participant in the legendary International Musicians Seminar (IMS) open chamber music festival in Prussia Cove (UK).

Besides her teachers Roland Moser and Georg Friedrich Haas, her major musical influences were composers György Kurtag and George Benjamin, percussionist Pierre Favre, violinist Gidon Kremer and conductor Claudio Abbado with whom she worked in the Lucerne Festival Orchestra for 5 years.