John Akeroyd is a botanist, conservationist and writer who has travelled and led tours in Romania, Europe and the Mediterranean region. Since 2000 he has been a regular visitor to Transylvania, working with Fundatia ADEPT alongside Romanian, British and other European colleagues to promote sustainable rural development, non-intensive farming and biodiversity conservation in the cultural and ecological landscape of the Saxon Villages and wider Carpathian region. He has published both scientific papers and popular articles on Transylvania, including The Historic Countryside of the Saxon Villages of Southern Transylvania / Peisajul Istoric al Satelor Sasesti din Sudul Transilvaniei (2006) and the text that accompanies the colour plates of the Transylvania Florilegium (2018, 2019).

Christopher Bartholomew is an ultrarunner, international tour leader, and translator from Mill Valley, California was first introduced to the writings of Mircea Eliade the summer of 2004 after discovering a tattered copy of his debut novel Romanul Adolescentului Miop in a Bucharest metro station. Ever since, Eliade has become his unlikely travel companion, inspiring journeys to the HQ of the defunct Legion of Archangel Mihail, Rome, India and beyond.

Richard Bassett has been an expert on central and eastern Europe for more than forty years, having worked in the region first as a professional musician and then as the correspondent of The Times during the Cold War. His books include a best-selling biography of Admiral Canaris, a widely acclaimed memoir of the last decade of the Cold War and the definitive history of the Habsburg army. His most recent book has been a biography of Maria Theresa. A Bye-Fellow of Christ’s College Cambridge and a former visiting professor of the CEU in Budapest, he has most recently been commissioned to write the official history of the Habsburg family’s “Florentine” Diamond which recently was rediscovered in a Canadian bank vault.

Vera Maria Bitter is a German mezzo-soprano active in opera, concert and song repertoire. In the 2025/26 season she appears as Cherubino and Marcellina (Le nozze di Figaro), a Flower Maiden (Parsifal) and makes her debut at the Tyrolean Festival Erl as the Conversa in Suor Angelica. She has sung roles such as Sesto (La clemenza di Tito), Second Lady, Flower Maiden, Second Squire and Garcias (Don Quichotte) at houses including the Staatstheater Augsburg, Landestheater Linz, Oper Wuppertal, Pfalztheater Kaiserslautern and the Bregenz Festival. Her recital work focuses especially on the German Romantic song repertoire. A scholarship holder of the Richard Wagner Association Bayreuth and the German Music Council, she studied in Weimar and at the Mozarteum Salzburg and continues her vocal studies with Prof. Fenna Kügel-Seifried.

Aris Alexander Blettenberg (*1994) is a German-Greek pianist, conductor and composer, trained in Munich, Salzburg and Hanover. He is a first prize winner of both the International Beethoven Piano Competition Vienna and the International Hans von Bülow Competition Meiningen.

He performs in major halls including the Berlin Philharmonie, Vienna Musikverein and Wigmore Hall London, and at festivals such as Lucerne Festival and Klavier-Festival Ruhr. Blettenberg is an official Bösendorfer Artist, recipient of the Bavarian Arts Promotion Prize, and since 2024 Chief Conductor of the Munich Chamber Opera.

Natalie Gutgesell (born 1972) is a German art historian, video artist, and filmmaker. She serves as president of the Kunstverein Coburg and lectures at the University of Passau. Her research focuses on 18th- to 20th-century art, with emphasis on overlooked female painters and cultural networks.

Shona Kallestrup is Lecturer in the School of Art History at the University of St Andrews. From 2018-21, she was Senior Research Fellow at New Europe College in Bucharest. She has published widely on the role of art in national identity construction and has a particular interest in the projects of the Romanian royal family. She is currently preparing an exhibition on the artistic collaboration of Carmen Sylva and the Franconian artist Dora Hitz.

Lorand Kiss is a Certified Expert Wall Painting Conservator-Restorer accredited by the Ministry of Culture and Cults (M.C.C.). He has been uncovering and restoring frescoes in churches, mostly in Transylvania, for more than 20 years. Nowadays he has a small workshop where he teaches young people how to restore historic murals using centuries-old techniques and traditional tools.

Melinda Janka Kiss is a Conservator-Restorer working in painting restoration, mural painting conservation and sculpture restoration.

Alexandra Mihailciuc is an architect, writer, and a federative spirit who brings together multiple disciplines from the creative industries within her projects. She believes in building through education and the sharing of knowledge and practice, giving concrete form to these convictions by developing cultural projects, initiating architecture and crafts workshops, and through her work as an informal ambassador for Romanian Culture. She is the author of five books on architectural education, three of which have received the Golden Cubes Awards.

Dakian is an independent researcher, writer, photographer, and educator with more than fifteen years of experience working at the intersection of history, education, and cultural preservation. Born in Transylvania and currently based in Cantabria, Spain, his work focuses on recovering overlooked histories, safeguarding intangible heritage, and translating complex research into accessible narratives for both academic and general audiences. He is best known for his long-term research on Baron Franz Nopcsa—pioneer of palaeobiology, explorer, and one of Central Europe’s most enigmatic figures.
Alongside nonfiction research, he writes historical fiction under the pen name Dakian, publishing books on the legends and cultural landscapes of Transylvania and Cantabria. Also the founder of LegendaRoom, the first museum of legends in Central and Eastern Europe, and the creator of the internationally recognised ALE – Attractive Living Education method; he also has a professional background including leadership roles in social education, youth care, nonprofit programme management, and environmental activism, including a successful campaign to protect the last virgin mountain river of the Carpathians.

Dr Macrina Oproiu is historian and curator at Peles National Museum since 2000. She specialized in history of the monarchy, fine arts (Romanian painting and sculpture) and decorative arts (ceramics and lighting fixtures). In a 25 year career she curated many exhibitions, published articles in Romania and abroad (Germany, UK), two books (one of them, on Pelisor Castle, her PhD theses) and many catalogues (the most significant are 'The Arts of the Fire', 2017, 'Royal Portraiture', 2020, 'Treasures of Peleș', 2023). In September 2023, she received a grant at Royal Collection Trust, London. In September 2024, along with Dr Shona Kallestrup, St. Andrew University Scotland and Dr Natalie Gutgesell, president of Kunstverein Coburg, Macrina Oproiu organized the international colloquium on German Painter Dora Hitz. In 2024, the first volume on Castle Pelișor was released by Corint Publishing House.

Mária Pakucs is a historian and a senior researcher with the Nicolae Iorga Institute of History in Bucharest. Her major interests focus on the history of Transylvanian towns and trade in the early modern period, and more recently edited volumes on urban governance and the concepts of order in urban communities after the Reformation.

Martyn Rady is Masaryk Professor Emeritus of Central European History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, where he taught for more than thirty years. Before that he was for a decade a teacher at Mill Hill School in London. He has over his career taught most periods of European history, from Pericles to Putin, but specializes in Habsburg, Hungarian, and Romanian history. His most recent books are The Habsburgs: The Rise and Fall of a World Power (Penguin, 2020), and The Middle Kingdoms: A New History of Central Europe (Penguin, 2023). A book very roughly on Eastern Europe is written, with the publishers, and due out in 2027. He lives in Stroud, in Gloucestershire.

Nicolae al României is currently focused on developing and promoting his non-profit organization, Asociația Principele Nicolae, founded together with his wife, Alina-Maria.
The association supports education and civic engagement, encouraging young people and communities to take an active role in shaping Romania’s future.
It also works to promote cultural and national heritage, helping raise awareness of Romania’s history and values.
Another key objective is the protection of Romania’s natural landscape and heritage through responsible, long-term initiatives.

Gerhild Ingrid Rudolf was born in Brașov. Former editor of the church newspaper, since 2012 director of the “Friedrich Teutsch” Cultural Centre of the Evangelical Church A.C. in Romania in Sibiu. She obtained her doctorate at Lucian Blaga University in Sibiu with a thesis entitled: ‘Roots and Routes: A Sociolinguistic Study of the Church Language Choice of the Transylvanian Saxons’.
Rudolf has been studying the work of architect Fritz Balthes as a contribution to Transylvanian cultural heritage since 2004 and is promoting it through exhibitions (2014, 2024), lectures and, as a joint project, a book publication (2021).

Tony Scotland was an announcer on Radio Three for twenty years, then a founder presenter on Classic FM. He has written travel articles for The Spectator and the Daily Telegraph, and published eleven books – including The Empty Throne, a quest to find the Last Emperor’s heir in the People’s Republic; Joyride, about three Bright Old Things driving across Europe for a reunion with the Leigh Fermors at Kardamyli; and Shadows, an account of a month behind the Iron Curtain in the year before Communism collapsed. Later he spent twenty years running a one-man charity supporting abandoned children in Bulgaria.

Born in 1947 in Shropshire after part time tuition at the Hammersmith College of Art under Ruskin Spear and latterly at the Heatherley school of art, he has become established as a landscape painter of travel themes and undertakes commissions of landscapes and conversation pieces specialising in country houses, rivers, etc.
He has written Two books—‘A Brush with Brown' on Capability Brown and a sequel ‘A Brush with Rivers’.
He accompanied HM King Charles on three Royal Tours to Europe and North Africa and is featured in the recent book on Royal Tour artists.
He is associated with Romania through being a trustee of the conservation charity Fundatia ADEPT.
He lives on an organic farm in Wiltshire where he and his wife Trish founded The Summerleaze Gallery.

Nick Thorpe is a writer, film-maker and award-winning BBC journalist, specialising in eastern Europe and the Balkans, born in England in 1960.
He studied Modern Languages at the Universities of Reading (UK), Dakar (Senegal) and Freiburg (Germany), and has lived in Budapest since 1986. He reported on the fall of Communism throughout eastern Europe and the collapse of Yugoslavia for the BBC, Independent, Observer, and Guardian, including wars in Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia. He has been BBC Central Europe Correspondent since 1996 and from 2001 to 2006 he reported from the Middle East for the BBC.

Andreea Zahn is a Romanian textile artist specializing in hand-painted silk and traditional batik techniques. She lives and works in a village in Transylvania, where her practice explores the reinterpretation of local, national and universal history through contemporary, wearable textile pieces.She holds a Master’s degree in Textile Arts and Design from the National University of Arts in Bucharest and studied the Art of Islamic Pattern in London. In 2018, she received an Honorable Mention for her silk scarf Pomegranate at A Silk Painters’ Salon, organized by the Silk Painters Guild of Montana, USA.