Gould Piano Trio, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Gould Piano Trio

The Gould Piano Trio has been compared in the Washington Post to the great Beaux Arts Trio for their “musical fire” and “dedication to the genre” and has remained at the forefront of the international chamber music scene for over a quarter of a century.

Launched by winning first prize at the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition, they were European Concert Halls Organisation “Rising Stars”, making a highly successful debut at New York’s Weill Recital Hall, described by Strad Magazine as “Pure Gould”. Their many appearances at London’s Wigmore Hall have included the complete piano trios of Dvořák, Mendelssohn and Schubert, and they returned to this iconic venue to present a Beethoven Cycle in the 2022-2023 season.

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    The trio’s passionate belief in the importance of developing new repertoire has resulted in commissioning works from many contemporary composers. Commissions from Sir James MacMillan and Mark Simpson saw premieres at the Bath International Festival and the PRS New Music Biennale in Hull, City of Culture, 2017. Their most recent commission, John Casken’s Lust of Roots, was premiered at the 2022 Buxton Festival, and at their Cheltenham Festival appearance the same year they performed the RPS commission, ilk, by Andrew Chen.

    They also maintain a lively relationship with promising young chamber players by giving masterclasses worldwide, particularly in association with the Guildhall School in London and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in Cardiff.

    Together with clarinettist Robert Plane, the trio are artistic directors of the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival in Northumberland which celebrated its 21st anniversary with a much-acclaimed new commission from Huw Watkins for clarinet and piano trio entitled Four Fables. The most recent edition of the festival promoted the music of Piers Hellawell and Pamela Harrison, alongside more familiar masterpieces.

    Tours of N. America, the Far East, Europe and New Zealand have been interspersed by adventurous recording projects, including releases on Naxos, Chandos, Somm, Resonus, NMC and Champs Hill. In addition to their highly praised recordings of the standard works, the trio have thrown light on long neglected gems from late romantic British repertoire, such as trios by C.V. Stanford and John Ireland, plus fascinating works by Bax, Milford, York Bowen and Cyril Scott. More recent additions include John Casken’s piano trio and a disc of works by Charles Ives, Rebecca Clarke and Amy Beach.

    The first volume of their Schubert Piano Trio cycle, in which these sublime masterpieces are juxtaposed with skilful arrangements (by Carl Zellner and Brian Newbould) of the composer’s dances, was released on the Resonus Classics label in 2021. The Goulds’ performance of Leokadiya Kashperova’s Piano Trio, recorded live at the Edinburgh International Festival the same year, was selected for the festival’s chamber music highlights disc on the Linn label, and featured on Radio 3’s Composer of the Week.

    The album of chamber music by Pamela Harrison from the Gould Piano and Robert Plane, curated by Robert Plane, was released by Resonus Classics in early 2023, and was featured as one of Gramophone Magazine’s “best new classical albums this week”. The Goulds recently embarked on their next major recording project: the seven Heinrich Marschner Piano Trios and his two Piano Quartets.

Robert Plane, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Robert Plane

Clarinet

Robert Plane’s career as a solo and chamber clarinettist is rich and varied. Concerto appearances in Europe, Asia and North America have included performances of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in Madrid with the City of London Sinfonia, Beijing with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and in the USA with the Virginia Symphony. A champion of new music as well as the classics, Rob is equally at home performing Christian Jost’s concerto ‘Heart of Darkness’ with the Dortmunder Philharmoniker and Simon Holt’s ‘Centauromachy’ at the 2011 BBC Proms as playing Finzi with the Zurich Chamber Orchestra, Stanford with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra and Copland with the London Mozart Players. He has given the world premieres of concertos by Judith Bingham, Diana Burrell, Piers Hellawell and Mark Boden.

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    Rob has tirelessly pursued a particular passion for British clarinet music in concert and on disc, his Gramophone Award-winning account of Finzi’s Concerto and Gramophone Award-shortlisted Bax Sonatas being just two of a large collection of recordings of works by the great English Romantics. He has performed and recorded with the Gould Piano Trio for thirty years, and their recording of Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time to mark the composer’s centenary was hailed by BBC Music Magazine as the ‘finest modern recording’ of this epic masterpiece. He also appears on the Goulds’ recorded cycles of Beethoven and Brahms Trios. They commissioned Huw Watkins to compose ‘Four Fables’ in 2018, in celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival which they direct together in Northumberland.

    Rob has explored the clarinet quintet repertoire with a number of the finest string quartets, opening BBC Radio 3’s ‘Brahms Experience’ with a live broadcast from St. George’s Bristol of the Brahms Quintet with the Skampa Quartet. He enjoys a close relationship with the Elias String Quartet, making his debut at the 2023 Schubertiade Schwarzenberg with them in Brahms, joining them at the Wigmore Hall for Brahms and Bliss and at the East Neuk Festival for Schubert’s Octet. He has given concerts in Germany and the USA with the Mandelring Quartet and at home in the UK with, amongst others, the Marmen, Castalian, Maggini, Brodsky, Heath, Solem, Carducci, Sacconi and Callino Quartets.

    Rob is clarinettist of Ensemble 360 and enjoys exploring chamber music of all kinds with them at their home in the Crucible, Sheffield and country-wide. He recently recorded Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire with his 360 colleagues and acclaimed Pierrot interpreter, soprano Claire Booth.

    Rob has enjoyed a thirty-year long relationship with the Royal Over-Seas League since winning the competition’s Gold Medal in 1992, highlights of which have included a recital tour of New Zealand and a gala performance of Bruch’s Double Concerto with the Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka in Colombo as part of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

    Always keen to take on a challenge, Rob gave his first performance of Boulez’s epic ‘Dialogue de l’ombre double’ at the Belfast Sonorities Festival in 2018, a work he subsequently revived in Manchester’s Stoller Hall in 2019 and at Cardiff’s WhirlWinds Festival in 2022. His delving into unjustly neglected works has unearthed concertos by Iain Hamilton, Ruth Gipps and Richard Walthew, which he subsequently recorded at Glasgow City Halls with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and Martyn Brabbins. The resulting disc, ‘Reawakened’, was released by Champs Hill Records in July 2020. 2023 saw two new releases for Resonus Classics: a disc of chamber music by Pamela Harrison (the subject of a current research project), followed by an album featuring four of Rob’s commissions from the past twenty-five years, including the clarinet concertos of Diana Burrell and Mark David Boden which he recorded with the BBC Philharmonic.

    Rob was principal clarinet of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for over twenty years and has held the same position with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Royal Northern Sinfonia. In a distinguished orchestral career, he has performed as guest principal clarinet with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, London Symphony Orchestra and in Aurora Orchestra’s performances of Brahms 1 from memory. He was invited by composer James Newton Howard to be solo clarinettist for the score to the Disney film Maleficent. A respected teacher and educator, he holds the post of Head of Woodwind at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Lucy Gould, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Lucy Gould

Violin

Lucy is best known as the violinist and founder member of the Gould Piano Trio, one of the UK’s most respected ensembles. Several international awards, a busy schedule and an impressive discography of core repertoire, lesser known works and commissions are testament to Lucy’s dedication to this genre since embarking on her career.

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    Lucy studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London and Indiana University, Bloomington with Gyorgy Pauk and Josef Gingold. In addition, masterclasses with Andras Schiff, Menahem Pressler and members of the Amadeus String Quartet at Prussia Cove and the Banff Centre for the Arts were a source of great inspiration in the early days. She enjoys all aspects of the repertoire, having performed sonatas with Benjamin Frith and Leon McCawley, clarinet trios with Robert Plane, horn trios with David Pyatt, Richard Watkins and Alec Frank-Gemmill and chamber music of all shapes and sizes with many of the leading artists in this field at festivals in the UK and abroad. Her experience has led to invitations to appear on international juries.

    Lucy is a regular guest leader of many UK orchestras and holds the position of principal 2nd violin with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. As part of the COE Academy she often gives lessons and advice to up and coming violinists and has directed student performances of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms Symphonies. She lives in Cardiff and teaches at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

Richard Lester, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Richard Lester

Cello

Leading chamber-musician, solo-cellist, orchestral principal and renowned teacher, Richard Lester appears regularly at the world’s foremost concert venues and festivals. He is the cellist of the internationally renowned Gould Piano Trio as well as principal with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

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    He studied in London at the RCM with Amaryllis Fleming and in Germany with Johannes Goritzki. He was a member of the award-winning Florestan Trio, a founder-member of the ensemble Domus, a member of Hausmusik and the London Haydn Quartet. Equally at home on both period instruments and ‘modern’, he was for many years principal with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and has been principal cello with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe since 1989. In addition he is frequently called upon to be guest-leader of the cello sections of the major London orchestras, appearing with many of the world’s finest conductors and soloists.

    He has performed as concerto soloist with, among others, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Camerata Salzburg, BBC Scottish SO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Camerata and the Ulster Orchestra, under conductors including Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Paavo Berglund, Sandor Vegh, Myung Whun Chung and Sir Roger Norrington. He has also appeared as director and soloist with COE, OAE, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, London Mozart Players, Britten Sinfonia, Aurora, Irish Chamber Orchestra, and in Montreal and Quebec with Les Violons du Roy.

    The Florestan Trio was one of the world’s leading piano trios and for almost seventeen years the group maintained the same personnel, winning the Gramophone award in 1999 and the Royal Philharmonic Society award in 2000. Many of its records are benchmark recordings, nominated in collectors’ guides. The trio disbanded in 2012, finishing their career with a sold-out Beethoven series in London’s Wigmore Hall. Richard Lester is regularly invited to take part in chamber-music festivals around the world. He is artistic co-director, together with violinist Anthony Marwood, of the highly successful annual Peasmarsh Chamber Music Festival in East Sussex.

    He has made over 40 highly acclaimed recordings, twice winning the Gramophone award for best chamber-music. His recordings of the complete works of Mendelssohn for cello and piano and a disc of Boccherini sonatas on period instruments are available on the Hyperion label. Richard Lester teaches at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School in London. He gives masterclasses worldwide, and is a frequent guest teacher in Canada at the Banff Center and at Domaine Forget.

    He plays on a cello made in Brescia, c.1700, by G.B. Rogeri

Benjamin Frith, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Benjamin Frith

Piano

Prolific recitalist and recording artist, Benjamin Frith is one of the most versatile, respected and engaging pianists in the UK.

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    With over 60 recordings - from Scarlatti to MacMillan - and many acclaimed reviews, Frith is at the forefront of the craft of music making. Gold Medal winner of the Artur Rubinstein Piano Masters International Competition, Tel Aviv, and Top Prize Winner in the Busoni International Piano Competition, Frith has performed with many of the worlds finest orchestras and conductors. Zubin Mehta with the IPO and Mosche Atzmon with the Warsaw Philharmonic amongst some of Frith’s many memorable musical experiences. Renowned for his critically acclaimed recordings, Frith made Gramophone ‘Disc of the Year’ with his C.V.Stanford 2nd Piano Concerto and his Schumann Davidsbundler Op. 6 won top recommendation in the Radio 3 ‘CD Review’. In high demand as both soloist and chamber musician, Frith enjoys a busy and versatile career. As pianist in the Gould Piano Trio he has toured extensively throughout North America; and as guest pianist in the illustrious Nash Ensemble he has performed and recorded to critical acclaim. Solo tours have taken him to America, Europe, the middle and far East with upcoming solo tours to Japan. Benjamin Frith lives in Yorkshire with his wife and piano duo partner, Heidi Rolfe.

Claire Booth, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Claire Booth

Soprano

British soprano Claire Booth has become internationally renowned both for her commitment to an extraordinary breadth of repertoire, and for the vitality and musicianship that she brings to the operatic stage and concert platform. In the 2019-20 season alone her diverse schedule has included Benjamin’s A Mind of Winter with The Hong Kong Philharmonic, a streamed 5 star performance of Poulenc’s La Voix Humaine for Grange Park Opera, The title role in Handel’s Berenice for ROH, the critically acclaimed recording of Grieg songs, performances of Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are with the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Tippett’s Child of Our Time with the CBSO.

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    Other operatic highlights include the title role in Handel’s Berenice for the Royal Opera, Nitocris in Handel’s Belshazzar for the Grange Festival, Rossini heroines Rosina in Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Elcia in Mose in Egitto and Pakati in Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream all for Welsh National Opera, the title role in Janacek’s Cunning Little Vixen for Garsington Opera which met with widespread critical acclaim, Romilda in Handel’s Xerse for the Early Opera Company, Rosina and Dorinda in Handel’s Orlando both for Scottish Opera and Nora in Vaughan Williams’ Riders to the Sea for English National Opera.

    Her numerous concert appearances have resulted in close associations with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the BBC Proms, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble Intecontemporain, the Aldeburgh and Holland Festivals and other recent debut appearances with both the Berlin Deutsche Symphonie, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Philharmonic, Norrköping Philharmonic and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

    For more than a decade she has collaborated with video director Netia Jones to produce a series of critically acclaimed productions. These include her performances of Kurtag’s Kafka Fragments and Haas’ Atthis, both for The Royal Opera, and also Max in Knussen’s Where the Wild Things Are and Rhoda in Higglety, Piggelty, Pop! which toured from the Aldeburgh Festival via The Los Angeles Philharmonic and a further debut under Gustavo Dudamel, to the Barbican’s own 60th birthday celebrations for the composer. Other notable collaborations include her reimagining of Schumann’s Frauenliebe und Leben with pianist Alistair Hogarth and Jazz legend Jason Rebello.

    Her most recent CD release for Avie Records of music by Edvard Grieg with longstanding accompanist Christopher Glynn was hailed as BBC’s Disc of the Month in January 2020, and her recording of French songs with Andrew Matthew’s Owen was listed as CD of the year 2019 for Classical Source. Other recordings include diverse works by Ryan Wigglesworth and the Hallé Orchestra, including his ‘Augenlieder’ of which she sang the world première, An expose of the songs and piano works of Percy Grainger, a live recording of her role as Lucia in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia with Angelika Kirkschlager and Ian Bostridge for EMI, Jonathan Harvey’s Wagner Dream, John Eccles’ The Judgement of Paris and diverse works by Oliver Knussen, Jonathan Dove and Charlotte Bray.

    <>The season ahead sees Claire return to Paris to perform works by Oliver Knussen with the Ensemble Intercontemporain, performances of Benjamin and Stravinsky with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and Vivier with the London Sinfonietta. Also two world premieres at the Aldeburgh Festival, A reprise of her performance of La Voix Humaine for the Bath Festival and a return to London’s Wigmore Hall with the Nash Ensemble. She will also give the world premiere of Alex Woolf’s A Feast in the Time of Plague for Grange Park Opera, as it seeks to launch it’s post lockdown program. Future CD releases include Mussorgsky songs and the music of the second Viennese school. Claire also enjoys a burgeoning career as a radio presenter and can be heard on Radio 3’s Inside Music and CD Review programmes.

JP Jofre, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

JP Jofre

Bandoneon, Composer

Born in San Juan, Argentina, Juan Pablo Jofre Romarion, aka JP Jofre, is a Grammy and Latin Grammy-nominated composer and bandoneon player. Having written several concertos with chamber and symphony orchestras, and chamber music works, Mr. Jofre has been repeatedly highlighted by the New York Times and praised as one of today’s leading artists by Great Performers at Lincoln Center. His music has been recorded by the legendary London Symphony Orchestra, multi-Grammy award winner Paquito D’ Rivera, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra among others. He has performed and given lectures at Google Talks, TED Talks, The Juilliard School of Music, The New School among others. A recipient of the National Prize of the Arts grant in Argentina, Mr. Jofre has been part of many prestigious festivals, including the Celebrity Series of Boston, Umbria Jazz Festival, Great Performers at Lincoln Center, Seattle Town Hall, Hatfield and Sheffield Chamber Music Festival (U.K) Australian Music Festival for Chamber Music and Kasposfest (Hungary) to name a few.

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    For the world premiere of his Bandoneon Concerto, the California Mercury News wrote: '...he is an electrifying composer-bandoneon player.'' In 2012, Jofre was invited by the Free University of Bolzano and SudTirol Festival (Italy) to perform for the homage to Argentinean Nobel Peace Prize winner, Adolfo Perez Esquivel.

    For the release of his Double Concerto for Violin and Bandoneon with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and Michael Guttman, the BBC Magazine wrote: 'His concerto is arresting and -through the gorgeous Adagio-rather beguiling'. He currently leads the JP Jofre Quintet, the ensemble has been touring internationally since the release of their last album 'Manifiesto' among others. Mr. Jofre's music has been performed at the most prestigious concert halls around the world such as Carnegie Hall, The Kennedy Center, Los Angeles Music Center, Morlacchi Theater (Italy) Mariinsky Theater, Mikhailovsky Theater, Stanislavsky Theater (Russia), Beijing National Concert Hall, Seoul Art Center, and Taiwan National Theater to name a few.

    Mr. Jofre started making music at the early age of 5, and academically studying at age 15, double bass with Nestor Castillo, harmony with Horacio Lavaise, composition, and orchestration with Ezequiel Viñao and Adrian Rusovich. He took masterclasses given by Ingrid Zur and George Heyer (Germany) and studied bandoneon with Julio Pane, former bandoneonist of the legendary Astor Piazzolla Sextet. Mr. Jofre has received numerous commissions for composing music from producer Ted Viviani, violin virtuosos Francisco Fullana, Kyung Sun Lee, Rachel Lee, Eric Silberger, Lucia Lin, Michael Guttman, Yih Shuin Huang, MUPA Budapest, pianists David Fung, Min Kwon, clarinetist Seunghee Lee and cellist István Várdai, Metropolis Ensemble, Belares Symphony Orchestra, and San Antonio Music Institute.

Maja Horvat, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Maja Horvat

Violin

Maja Horvat communicates the spiritual power of music through her performances, offering joy and comfort which enable her audience members to develop their own unique and meaningful connection with the Arts. She explores the full range of magic and versatility of which the violin is capable through her work as a soloist, chamber musician and in collaboration with ensembles, orchestras and composers all over the world. While constantly exploring masterpieces of all eras, Maja’s true passion is giving contemporary works a good start in life and finding fresh resonance in lesser-known gems of 20th-century repertoire.

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    Maja gave her debut performance at Wigmore Hall in 2021 as first violinist of the Brompton Quartet, of which she is a founding member and with whom she gives frequent world premieres. They won the St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Music Competition and have collaborated with record producer Andrew Keener and many currently active composer. She has performed with some of the world’s most prominent chamber musicians including Sir Andras Schiff, Tabea Zimmerman, Christian Tetzlaff, Vladimir Mendelssohn and David Cohen.

    In 2019 Maja was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Emily Anderson Prize for an outstanding violinist. She is a Tillett Debut Scheme Artist. She has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra Mladi Solisti and the Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared at festivals including the Tartini Festival, Stift International Music Festival, ChamberJam Düsseldorf and Festival Ljubljana. Among other accolades, Maja has won the Temsig Slovenian National Competition and the International Tartini Competition; she was awarded the Special Szymanowski Prize at the inaugural Karol Szymanowski International Music Competition. Maja is also an active orchestral member. She has performed as concertmaster of the Royal College of Music’s Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestra, Fidelio Symphony Orchestra and the Echo Ensemble. She has played with Symphonisches Orchester der Jeunesse Leibnitz, Ljubljana International Orchestra the Symphony Orchestra at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana.

    It was around the age of three that Maja felt sure that she wanted to dedicate her life to playing the violin. She finally began learning aged seven. Her first teacher was Bojan Ristić at the Music School Jesenice in Slovenia, where she later studied with Blanka Piotrovska. While still in Jesenice, Maja performed as a soloist in venues across Slovenia as well as in Austria, Germany, Croatia, Italy and the Czech Republic. In 2015 she graduated the Conservatory for Music and Ballet Ljubljana, where she learned with Volodja Balžalorsky. As a Victor and Lillian Hochhauser Scholar at the RCM in London, Maja studied with Daniel Rowland and Leonid Kerbel while participating in masterclasses with internationally-acclaimed performers such as Maxim Vengerov, Nicola Benedetti, Ivry Gitlis, Saewon Suh, Anton Martynov, Vasilij Meljnikov, Igor Ozim and Wonji Kim Ozim. In June 2022 she finished her Artist Diploma studies at the RCM under the tutelage of Alina Ibragimova.

Simone van der Giessen, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Simone van der Giessen

Viola

Simone van der Giessen was born in Amsterdam and left in 2002 to study violin and viola in Manchester at the Royal Northern College of Music. It was there, that as a founding member of the Navarra String Quartet, chamber music became the centre of her musical life.

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    After graduating in June 2006 with First Class Honours she won the RNCM’s Cecil Aronowitz Prize for viola and performed Walton’s concerto for viola with the RNCM Symphony Orchestra.

    After 16 inspiring and fantastic years with the Navarra quartet Simone is now a member of the Elias quartet which also formed at the RNCM. They are ensemble in residence at the RNCM and regularly go back there to teach and perform. This season they are touring the US and performing the complete Beethoven cycle in Tokyo.

    Outside of the quartet, Simone is in much demand as a chamber musician and is frequently invited to perform with chamber orchestras and ensembles such as the Aronowitz Ensemble, Britten Sinfonia, and Chamber Orchestra of Europe.

    Simone’s biggest influences came from her professors Jan Repko, Predrag Katanic and Chris Rowland at the RNCM and David Takeno at the GSMD. Other very inspiring musical influences came from Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Thomas Riebl, Gyorgy Kurtag, Eberhard Feltz and Ferenc Rados. Simone was grateful for the generous support of both the Prince Bernard Cultural Foundation of Holland and the Martin Music Scholarship Fund throughout her studies.

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Edvard Pogossian, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Edvard Pogossian

Cello

Edvard Pogossian was the Overall Winner, Strings Winner and Audience Prize Winner at the Tunbridge Wells International Music Competition in 2022.

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    As the winner of the Juilliard Concerto Competition, Edvard performed the Tchaikovsky Rococo Variations at David Geffen Hall in New York and at the Harris Theater in Chicago with the Juilliard Orchestra under the direction of Itzhak Perlman. The Chicago Tribune praised Edvard’s performance for his ‘astonishing musical and technical maturity’, as well as his ‘winning lightness of touch to everything he played, combined with a velvety tone’. In the summer of 2016 he performed the Rococo Variations with the Boston Pops in Symphony Hall on the annual ‘Armenian Night at the Pops’ concert. He was also the winner of the inaugural Los Angeles Philharmonic Young Artists Competition, giving him the honour to play the Saint- Saens Cello Concerto with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra in Walt Disney Hall. He was most recently an Advanced Diploma student at the Royal Academy of Music with John Myerscough and spent four years studying as Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel with Gary Hoffman. He is a graduate of the Juilliard School studying with Natasha Brofsky, and of Royal College of Music with Richard Lester. Edvard has attended Yellow Barn, Perlman Music Program’s Chamber Music Workshop, Kneisel Hall, and most recently the Marlboro Festival, where he has been through 2022. Highly committed to chamber music, he is a member of Trio Isimsiz, who have performed throughout Europe, most notably at the Wigmore Hall. Edvard was a proud recipient of a Kovner Fellowship through his four years at the Juilliard School.

Enno Senft, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Enno Senft

Double Bass

Enno Senft is principal double-bass and a founder member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He has performed and recorded with many of the greatest conductors and soloists such as the late Bernard Haitink, Yanniek Nezet-Seguin, Andras Schiff, Heinz Holliger, Sir Roger Norrington and with the late Claudio Abbado and Nikolaus Harnoncourt.

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    He has performed in various chamber music and contemporary music festivals, notably the Berliner Festwochen, Wien Modern, the Huddersfield, Cheltenham and Aldeburgh Festivals, Venice Biennale, Oxford May Music, the Wigmore Hall Series in London and the Sydney Festival.

    Enno has played with the Berliner Philharmoniker and appears as guest principal with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Scottish Sympony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, the London Sympony Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. As well as teaching at the RCM, he has also been a tutor for the Gustav Mahler Jugendorchester and European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO).

    Contemporary music plays a significant role in Enno’s musical life, particularly as principal double-bass of the London Sinfonietta. Projects have included working closely with George Benjamin, Sir Harrison Birtwistle, Steve Reich, Thomas Ades, Georg Friedrich Haas, Peter Eötvös, György Kurtag and the late Oliver Knussen.

    The exploration of extended double bass techniques and the use of scordatura are important aspects in Enno Senft’s playing. He worked at IRCAM in Paris for the realisation of Michael Jarrel’s Bass Concerto which he premiered with the Ensemble Modern in Basel, followed by performances in Frankfurt, Berlin and Paris, as well as in London with the London Sinfonietta and with the Ensemble Contrechamps under George Benjamin in Geneva and Strasbourg. He also collaborated with Dai Fujikura on his Double Bass Concerto and Solo piece “ES” and premiered both in London, as well as the Concerto “Fury” for 5 string Bass by Rebecca Saunders with the Hebrides Ensemble in Scotland.

Juliette Bausor, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

Juliette Bausor

Flute

Widely recognised as one of Britain’s leading flute players, Juliette Bausor currently plays Principal Flute with London Philharmonic Orchestra. She is a member of the celebrated chamber group Ensemble 360, Ensemble in Residence for Music in the Round at the Crucible, Sheffield. Juliette is regularly invited to give recitals at major venues and festivals throughout the UK, including frequent Wigmore Hall and South Bank appearances, and performances at the Edinburgh, Cheltenham and Aldeburgh International Festivals and BBC Proms. In 2014 Juliette was selected by the European Concert Hall Organisation as an ECHO ‘Rising Star’. She has since been invited to perform as a solo recitalist in some of Europe’s most prestigious concert venues.

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    Following early recognition in competitions, including reaching the televised Concerto Final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year and winning the Gold Medal in both the Shell LSO Competition and the Royal Over-Seas League Competition, Juliette has performed as a concerto soloist with, amongst others, the London Symphony Orchestra, Ulster Orchestra, Academy of St Martins in the Fields, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia and London Mozart Players, with conductors including Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Thomas Zehetmair, Mario Venzago and Sir Neville Marriner. Success on an international scale is reflected in tours around Europe and beyond, to Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, the United Arab Emirates, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Australia and New Zealand.

James Lea, Corbridge Chamber Music Festival

James Lea

Musicologist

James Lea is a Senior Lecturer in Music and Research at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

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    He received a doctoral degree in piano performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and a masters in musicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research for both degrees was centred on aesthetics. He co-edited with the ethnomusicologist Thomas Turino a book entitled Identity and the Arts in Diaspora Communities, which explores the crucial roles played by artists in society. He has performed solo recitals and lectured throughout the US and the UK. At RWCMD he lectures on music history, analysis, and aesthetics, and works with colleagues across the College to drive forward its commitment to research. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

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