Hambleden Village photo with text overlay '2024 Festival'
I’m delighted to be welcoming you once again to the West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival.  It has become a key musical event in our locality and has now earned a much wider following.
The 2024 Festival, running over three days 19th – 21 September, is returning to the Church of St Mary the Virgin in the exquisite village of Hambleden, Buckinghamshire. 
I’m very excited to bring you a programme with the theme ‘Enchanted‘ which gives us some wonderful music to enjoy.  Many of the artists have joined us in previous festivals but there are one or two new faces and we are delighted that Anna Madeley (from All Creatures Great and Small) is narrating for the Friday lunchtime concert.
 
There is a huge level of enthusiasm and anticipation as we approach the run-up to the Festival and we look forward to sharing this with our audiences and supporters.

See previous guest artists biographies below.

Internationally-acclaimed viola player Lawrence Power is widely heralded for his richness of sound, technical mastery and his passionate advocacy for new music. Lawrence has advanced the cause of the viola both through the excellence of his performances, both in recitals, chamber music or concertos and in the creation of the Viola Commissioning Circle (VCC), which has led to a substantial body of fresh repertoire for the instrument by today’s finest composers. Lawrence has premiered concertos by leading composers such as James MacMillan, Mark-Anthony Turnage, Julian Anderson, Alexander Goer, and through the VCC has commissioned works by Anders Hillborg, Thomas Adès, Gerald Barry, Cassandra Miller and Magnus Lindberg.

Lawrence devised his critically acclaimed Lockdown Commissions project as an artistic response to the coronavirus crisis, filmed in and around empty performing venues with specially commissioned works by Huw Watkins, Garth Knox, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Cassandra Miller, Martyn Brabbins, William Marsey and Thomas Larcher. Following on from the success of these short films, Lawrence founded the production company Âme with film maker Jessie Rodger, to produce films that explore the boundaries between music and other art forms. Lawrence and Jessie presented Fathom, a boundary-pushing concert experience at the Southbank Centre in December 2022 performing a unique selection of old and new music fusing live performance, cinematic projection and intricate, 360-degree sound design.  Lawrence has a Southbank residency starting later in 2024 during which he will be joined by composer Thomas Adès, soprano Heloise Werner and lutenist Sergio Bucheli.  The residency will also feature Lawrence as the soloist in the UK premire of Marcus Lindberg’s viola concerto with the Philharmonia Orchestra.

Over the past decade, Lawrence has become a regular guest performer with orchestras of the highest calibre, from Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Royal Concertgebouw, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Stockholm, Bergen and Warsaw Philharmonic orchestras to the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, BBC Symphony, Philharmonia, BBC Scottish Symphony and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic orchestras, with conductors such as such as Osmo Vänska, Lahav Shani, Parvo Järvi, Vladimir Jurowski, Andrew Manze, Edward Gardner, Nick Collon, Ilan Volkov and Esa-Pekka Salonen. He is familiar to audiences around the UK and has made 12 BBC Proms appearances, with the James MacMillan Viola Concerto, Walton Viola Concerto and Mark-Anthony Turnage On Opened Ground among other works.

Lawrence enjoys play-directing orchestras from both violin and viola, most recently at the Edinburgh International Festival with Scottish Ensemble, Australian National Academy of Music and with Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and leads his own orchestra, Collegium, made up of fine young musicians from across Europe. He is on the faculty at Zurich’s Hochschule der Kunst and gives masterclasses around the world, including at the Verbier Festival. With his intelligent approach to programming, Lawrence is often invited to work with venues and festivals as curator. He has enjoyed residencies at Turner Sims Southampton and with Aalborg Symphony Orchestra, served as Artist in Residence with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and curated a concert series at Kings Place. He is founder and Artistic Director of West Wycombe Chamber Music Festival; this year’s festival, the thirteenth, runs from 19th – 21st September and takes place in Hambleden, near Henley.

As a chamber musician he is in much demand and regularly performs at Verbier, Salzburg, Aspen, Oslo and other festivals with artists such as Steven Isserlis, Nicholas Alstaedt, Simon Crawford-Phillips, Vilde Frang, Maxim Vengerov and Joshua Bell. Lawrence was announced in 2021 as an Associate Artist at the Wigmore Hall, a position lasting for five years, with artists performing at least once each season.

Lawrence plays a viola made in Bologna in 1590 by Antonio Brenzi and also a Brothers Amati viola from 1580 on loan from the Karolina Blaberg Stifftung.

 

Scottish pianist Alasdair Beatson works prolifically as soloist and chamber musician, adept on modern and historical instruments, and renowned as both performer and pedagogue. Notable performances in 2024 include multiple appearances at Wigmore Hall, in concert with Steven Isserlis, Viktoria Mullova and Alexi Kenney, as member of the Nash Ensemble, and in festivals including Bath Mozartfest, Ernen, Lewes, Megaron Spring Festival, Peasmarsh, Resonances, West Cork and Yellowbarn. 

Alasdair is acclaimed as a sincere musician and intrepid programmer. Alongside a particular affinity with the classical repertoire and the music of Schumann and Fauré, he often explores the more exotic: Catoire, Pierné, Thuille; Debussy’s Jeux (in the composer’s arrangement for solo piano); Ligeti Horn Trio, Harrison Birtwistle’s Harrison’s Clocks; and Thomas Adès Piano Quintet. His concerto repertoire includes works of Bach, Bartok, Fauré, Hans Abrahamsen, Hindemith, Mozart, Sally Beamish, Stravinsky, and Messiaen. In recent years he has appeared with Britten Sinfonia, Moscow Virtuosi, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Ensemble, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Sønderjyllands Symphony Orchestra and Vaasa City Orchestra. 

Recent recordings include Schubert works for violin and fortepiano with Viktoria Mullova on Signum, and a solo piano recital Aus Wien on Pentatone. These join an acclaimed discography of numerous solo and chamber recordings, on modern and historical pianos, on BIS, Chandos, Claves, Champs Hill, Evil Penguin, Onyx, Pentatone and SOMM labels.

A regular participant at the open chamber music at IMS Prussia Cove, Alasdair took part in their tours of 2007, 2011, and 2021, and collected the 2008 RPS Award for Chamber Music on their behalf. He has enjoyed working closely with composers George Benjamin, Harrison Birtwistle, Tom Coult, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Thomas Larcher, and Heinz Holliger.

Alasdair was a student of John Blakely at the Royal College of Music, London, and Menahem Pressler at Indiana University. He teaches solo piano at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, and regularly mentors for the London-based Chamber Studio. From 2012 to 2018 Alasdair was founder and artistic director of Musique à Marsac, and since 2018 is the artistic director of the chamber music festival at Musikdorf Ernen in Switzerland. 

Simon is a multi-festival director, conductor, renowned pianist, creative programmer with a passion for championing contemporary repertoire, and a chamber musician who regularly collaborates with artists such as Daniel Hope, Lawrence Power, Roderick Williams and Anne Sofie von Otter in repertoire from Haydn and Schumann to Adès, Byström, Dean and Reich. His own ensembles include The Kungsbacka Piano Trio and Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble (resident artists at Stockholm Konzerthus). Simon is the Artistic Director of the Change Music Festival in Norra Halland, Västerås Music Festival and Co-Artistic Director of the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival as well as Chief Conductor & Artistic Advisor of Västerås Sinfonietta, alongside multiple guesting roles.

As a pianist The Guardian says Simon has “profound sensitivity and technical brilliance, achieving an expressive intensity that made for compelling listening.” He performs in premiere festivals and concert halls across Europe including Verbier, Schleswig-Holstein, Edinburgh, and at Wigmore Hall where he appears as the regular pianist with Chamber Ensemble in Residence, the acclaimed Nash Ensemble, and in recital with Daniel Hope, Lawrence Power, and Phillip Moore. Notable concerto debuts include the NHK Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Alan Gilbert, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Ilan Volkov and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra directing from the keyboard. Passionate about contemporary music Simon has recently given world premieres of music by Thomas Adès, Britta Byström, Steve Reich and Mark-Anthony Turnage as well as working alongside composers Sofia Gubaidulina, Simon Holt, Colin Matthews and Huw Watkins.

Simon’s numerous recordings include Fanny and Felix for dB Productions with Malin Broman and award-winning Swedish string orchestra, Musica Vitae, The Kungsbacka Trio have released two volumes of Complete Schumann Piano Trios on BIS, and the Stockholm Syndrome Ensemble released Voices of Angels (Dean, Gubaidulina, Rachmaninov). Simon also appears with the Nash Ensemble for Hyperion (Fanny Mendelssohn and Clara Schumann), and Västerås Sinfonietta’s recording, Nightingale. In addition to radio and television broadcasts in Europe, Australia and Japan Simon has also presented concerts for Sweden’s classical music radio station P2.

A renowned teacher, Simon was elected a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Music in 2010 and currently teaches at the Gothenburg Academy of Music and Drama. Recent guest teaching has included the Schymberg masterclasses in Sweden together with Anne Sofie von Otter and chamber music at Indiana University in Bloomington and the University of Colorado.

Charlotte Spruit was born in 2000 in the Netherlands. She is a keen chamber musician and soloist, having performed at prominent locations, such as the Concertgebouw, Wigmore Hall, and the Elbphilharmonie. She performed chamber works with acclaimed musicians including Janine Jansen, Rachel Podger, Gidon Kremer, Tabea Zimmermann, Lawrence Power, and Christian Tetzlaff. As a soloist, Charlotte has played with numerous orchestras, including the Residentie Orkest The Hague, The Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, the Pauliner Barockensemble, and Ensemble Esperanza. 

 

In 2022, Charlotte won the first prize as well as the audience prize and the Genuin Classics prize at the Leipzig International Johann Sebastian Bach Competition. In 2023, Charlotte was a prize-winner at the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions held at Wigmore Hall. Charlotte is also prize winner at many other national and international competitions, such as the Kloster Schöntal International Violin Competition, Concours International Arthur Grumiaux, and the Oskar Back Violin Competition. In 2020, Charlotte received the Anton Kersjes Violin Prize. 

 

Charlotte began her violin studies aged 4 with Coosje Wijzenbeek. She studied at the Guildhall School of Music with David Takeno, and with Ying Xue at the Royal Academy of Music. She is currently pursuing her Master’s degree at the Royal Academy of Music with Rachel Podger, Pavlo Beznosiuk, and Ying Xue.

She participated in masterclasses with a.o. Shunske Sato, Robert Levin, and Liza Ferschtman.

 

Charlotte is regularly invited to perform in festivals, such as the Chamber Music Connects the World festival at the Kronberg Academy, the International Chamber Music Festival Utrecht, and the Mendelssohn on Mull Festival where she performed with the Doric String Quartet. Charlotte also enjoys exploring different ways of bringing music to the audience, for example by bringing together different forms of art. She has collaborated with artist Jérémie Queyras, creating performances combining painting and music. Together they won the first prize at the Goodmesh Concours in 2022.

 

Charlotte plays an 18th-century anonymous Italian violin, kindly on loan from the Dutch Musical Instruments Foundation.

Annabelle Meare is Joint Principal 2nd Violin of the Philharmonia Orchestra and a member of of the ECO String Quartet, the stand-out chamber ensemble of the English Chamber Orchestra.

Other artists groups with whom she has worked include the Vertavo Quartet, the European Camerata, the Festival Strings of Canada, the London Conchord Ensemble, and the Melchior Ensemble.

John Myerscough leads a busy international career as the cellist of the Doric String Quartet. Regular visitors to London’s Wigmore Hall, since 2010 the Quartet has recorded exclusively for Chandos Records, with recent releases including the complete Britten quartets, works by Mendelssohn, Schubert and Brett Dean, as well as its continuing series of Haydn string quartets. Alongside his work with the Doric, John performs widely as a solo cellist and chamber musician. In 2006 he won the Gold Medal and First Prize at the Royal Overseas League Music Competition. He is also active as a baroque cellist and has appeared with groups including La Nuova Musica and La Serenissima. Away from the concert stage John is a dedicated teacher and mentor. He is Professor of cello and chamber music at the Royal Academy of Music, London and gives string quartet masterclasses as part of Chamber Studio at King’s Place in London. John performs on a 1587 Brothers Amati cello.

Anna Madeley is an English actress. She has been described by the British Theatre Guide’s Philip Fisher as one of the United Kingdom’s “brightest and most versatile young actresses”. She grew up in London and started her career as a child actress. She performed for three seasons with the Royal Shakespeare Company and has appeared in three off-West End productions. She has starred in BBC TV films and on Channel 4. Anna has also done work in radio and film.
Currently, Anna will be recognised from the Channel 5 hit series All Creatures Great and Small, where she plays the role of the housekeeper Audrey Hall.

Wallis has carved out a multifaceted performing career in both in her home city of London and abroad. Equally at home as a soloist, orchestral musician and chamber player, Wallis also enjoys teaching cellists of all ages. 
 
As an undergraduate, Wallis read music at Pembroke College Cambridge, where she was an Instrumental Award Holder, active soloist, chamber musician and principal cellist of The Cambridge University Chamber Orchestra. While at university, Wallis took lessons with Melissa Phelps. She graduated with a Masters in Performance with distinction from the Royal College of Music in July 2019, during which time she studied under Richard Lester. 
 
As a freelance orchestral cellist, Wallis regularly plays with ensembles including The Philharmonia, London Sinfonietta, The City of London Sinfonia, The London Philharmonic Orchestra and The Orchestra of The English National Opera.
 
Wallis is a founding member of the Brompton String Quartet, with whom she won the St Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Music Competition in 2019. They were Park Lane Artists from 2020-2021 and have performed for music societies around the UK and at venues including Conway Hall, Kings Place, St Martin-in-the-Fields, The Red House Aldeburgh and St James’s Piccadilly. They made their debut at London’s Wigmore Hall in June 2021.
 
In April 2022, Wallis made her Concerto debut at the Easter Endellion Festival with a performance of Errollyn Wallen’s Cello Concerto. She recently appeared as a soloist with Her Ensemble as part of the CrossCurrents Festival in Birmingham and looks forward to performing the Bach Cello Suites across venues in London. Upcoming Quartet highlights this year include an appearance as part of The Chiltern Arts Festival on 11th May and a tour to Slovenia in July.

Wallis plays a cello by William Forster Senior.

 
 
 

Born in South Wales, Paul started playing percussion aged 9 and was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Wales throughout his school years. After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with first class honours and the Eirwen Thomas scholarship prize, he entered the Royal Academy of Music for his postgraduate degree where he studied with Neil Percy and Simon Carrington. During his time at the Academy Stoneman won both the Zildjian and the James Blades percussion prizes and graduated with distinction in 2017.

After leaving the Academy, he freelanced as a percussionist and timpanist in London and around the UK, working with many of the country’s leading orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, John Wilson Orchestra, Orchestra of the Royal Opera House and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

In early 2019 Stoneman accepted the position of Section Principal Timpani with the Royal Northern Sinfonia before being asked to join the Philharmonia Orchestra as No.2 Percussion in the summer. He started his job with the Philharmonia in October 2019 and is a Zildjian and Vic Firth artist.

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Maya Broman Crawford-Phillips is a Swedish/British violinist currently studying with Akiko Ono at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Her previous teachers were Nina Balabina and Boris Brovstyn. 
 
She has been a prize-winner in several National and International competitions such as Polstjärnepriset, Øresunds solist, SIMC and the Nordic International Competition. 
 
In January 2024, as a finalist in the Polstjärnepriset, Maya performed as soloist with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. Previously she has also been concertmaster of the Polstjärnepriset orchestra, performing in both Sweden and Norway. Most recently, Maya competed in BBC’s Young Musician reaching the semi-final as one of only six instrumentalists.
 
In 2020 she received the Welin Scholarship for young string players and the Kerstin and Sigge Strand scholarship.
   
She also regularly performs with the O/Modernt Chamber Orchestra as part of their New-Generation program in venues such as the Elbphilharmonie and Konzerthaus in Berlin. Maya has performed for the King and Queen of Sweden, at Västerås Konserthus, Sveriges Riksdagshus, Penarth Chamber Music Festival, the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival and Oslo Chamber Music Festival.  
 
In 2019 she was selected for the Young Musicians’ Academy, (National Center for Music Talent), and participated in a series of masterclasses every year with many internationally acclaimed musicians – Philippe Graffin, Olivier Charlier, Denis Goldfelt, Alissa Margulis, Massimo Quarta, amongst others.
 
Maya is an avid chamber musician and has collaborated with Ashley Wass, Priya Mitchell, Hugo Ticcciati, Gareth Lubbe and Julian Arp.

Vilde Frang was unanimously awarded the Credit Suisse Young Artist Award in 2012 and made her debut with the Vienna Philharmonic under Bernard Haitink at the Lucerne Festival.

Highlights among her recent and forthcoming solo engagements include performances with Berlin Philharmonic, London Symphony, Concertgebouw Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Orchestre de Paris, Tonhalle-Orchester Zurich, Santa Cecilia Orchestra, New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Israel Philharmonic, Sydney Symphony and the NHK Symphony in Tokyo, with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Ivan Fischer, Manfred Honeck, Zubin Mehta, Renee Jacobs, Teodor Currentzis, Herbert Blomstedt, Daniel Harding, Vladimir Jurowski, David Zinman, Philippe Herreweghe, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Yuri Temirkanov and Sir Simon Rattle.

She regularly appears at festivals in Salzburg, Verbier, Lucerne, London Proms, Rheingau, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Lockenhaus, Mostly Mozart Festival, Prague Spring Music Festival and George Enescu Festival Bucharest. As soloist and in recital, Vilde has performed at venues such as the Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Tonhalle Zurich, Bozar Brussels, Rudolfinum, Tchaikovsky Hall, in Vancouver Recital Series, Boston Celebrity Series, San Francisco Performances, and at Carnegie Hall.

Vilde Frang is an exclusive Warner Classics artist and her recordings have received numerous awards, including the Grand Prix du Disque, Edison Klassiek Award, Deutsche Schallplattenpreis, Diapason d’Or and Gramophone Award.

Since 2020, she is artistic board member of Oslo Chamber Music Festival. 

Born in Norway in 1986, Vilde was engaged by Mariss Jansons at the age of twelve to debut with Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. 
She studied at Barratt Due Musikkinstitutt in Oslo, with Kolja Blacher at Musikhochschule Hamburg and Ana Chumachenco at the Kronberg Academy. She has also worked with Mitsuko Uchida as a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship winner 2007, and was a scholarship-holder 2003-2009 in the Anne-Sophie Mutter Foundation.

Vilde Frang plays the 1734 “Rode” Guarnerius, on generous loan by a European benefactor.

Benjamin Marquise Gilmore was born in 1987 and has studied violin with Natalia Boyarskaya at the Yehudi Menuhin School and with Pavel Vernikov and Julian Rachlin at the Vienna Conservatory, as well as chamber music with Avedis Kouyoumdjan, Peter Schuhmayer, and Johannes Meissl. He has performed in such venues as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall in London, and the Brahms Saal in Vienna, and he has collaborated with many renowned artists, including Rachlin, Natalia Gutman, Mischa Maisky, Vladimir Mendelssohn, Nobuko Imai, Janine Jansen, Elisabeth Leonskaya, Elisso Virsaladze, Kolja Blacher, and Gerhard Schulz, and with such ensembles as the Hugo Wolf Quartet and the Altenberg Trio. As a soloist he has performed with the Mikkeli Chamber Orchestra, Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Georgian National Symphony Orchestra, and Lodz Philharmonic, as well as with his grandfather, the conductor Lev Markiz. He has worked with such contemporary composers as Gavin Bryars, Bernhard Lang, Frank Denyer, and (on several occasions) with Giya Kancheli. Benjamin has been the recipient of several honors, including first prize at the Oskar Back Violin Competition in Amsterdam. In 2011 he became a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and has participated in chamber music concerts with members of the orchestra.

New Zealand born Bryony Gibson-Cornish is a keen biker, yogi and violist. Various accolades include being awarded the Tagore Gold Medal upon graduating from the Royal College of Music and studying at The Juilliard School as a Fulbright Scholar. She is the violist of the Marmen Quartet, winners of the Banff and Bordeaux International String Quartet Competitions. They regularly tour throughout Europe and are the Peak Fellowship Ensemble in Residence at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. Bryony has been teaching chamber music and assisting her former professor, Andriy Viytovych, at the Royal College of Music since 2017 and is delighted to be joining the distinguished String Faculty from 2022 as a Viola Professor. She is grateful for numerous grants and scholarships, including the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, the Pettman Foundation and the Kathleen Trust. She plays a 1932 Vincenzo Sannino Viola, Rome, Italy, and is grateful to the Loan Fund for Musical Instruments for their supportAs a teenager, Bryony pursued studies both in viola and opera, completing studies at the Pettman National Junior Academy of Music and the University of Canterbury with Stephen Larsen and Dame Malvina Major. She was accepted into the Master of Music degree programme at The Juilliard School at 19 years old as a Fulbright Scholar, where she studied viola with Heidi Castleman and Misha Amory. During this time, she also studied historical performance and composition alongside viola. Many scholarships made her studies possible, a full list can be found here. In 2015, Bryony moved to London to pursue an Artist Diploma in viola at the Royal College of Music, studying with Andriy Viytovych. Upon graduating, she was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal, awarded by HRH the Prince of Wales to graduating students judged to have made outstanding contributions musically and in other important ways to the life of the Royal College of Music. Bryony stayed on at the RCM, completing another Artist Diploma in chamber music with the Marmen Quartet, as well as assisting her former professor, Andriy Viytovych, with teaching his viola class and teaching chamber music from 2017 onwards. She is thrilled to be joining the distinguished international String Faculty as a Viola Professor from 2022 at the Royal College of Music. 

 

 

Tom Poster is a musician whose skills and passions extend well beyond the conventional role of the concert pianist. He has been described as “a marvel, [who] can play anything in any style” (The Herald), “mercurially brilliant” (The Strad), and as having “a beautiful tone that you can sink into like a pile of cushions” (BBC Music).

During the 2020 lockdown, his #UriPosteJukebox series with Elena Urioste – featuring Tom as pianist, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, writer, backing dancer and snowman – brought a staggeringly diverse selection of music to audiences across the world through 88 daily online performances, for which the duo won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Inspiration Award. Their subsequent recording, The Jukebox Album, received glowing reviews and a BBC Music Magazine Award nomination.

Tom is co-founder and artistic director of Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, appointed Associate Ensemble at Wigmore Hall in 2020. With a flexible line-up featuring many of today’s most inspirational musicians, and an ardent commitment to diversity through its creative programming, Kaleidoscope broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3 and has recently enjoyed residencies at the Aldeburgh, Cheltenham and Ischia festivals. Its debut album for Chandos Records, American Quintets, was awarded Editor’s Choice in Gramophone, and immediately led to an invitation to record a series of albums for the label.

 
 

Tom has performed over forty concertos from Mozart to Ligeti with Aurora Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, China National Symphony, Hallé, Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, collaborating with conductors such as Vladimir Ashkenazy, Nicholas Collon, Robin Ticciati and Yan Pascal Tortelier, or sometimes directing from the piano. He has premiered solo, chamber and concertante works by many leading composers, made multiple appearances at the BBC Proms, and his exceptional versatility has put him in great demand at festivals internationally.

Tom has recorded albums for BIS, Champs Hill, Chandos, Decca, Orchid and Warner Classics, appearing as soloist and in collaboration with Elena Urioste, Alison Balsom, Guy Johnston, the Aronowitz Ensemble, Aurora Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia and London Symphony Orchestra. He regularly features as soloist on film soundtracks, including the Oscar-nominated score for The Theory of Everything. He studied with Joan Havill at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and at King’s College, Cambridge. He won First Prize at the Scottish International Piano Competition 2007 and the keyboard section of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 2000.

Tom’s compositions and arrangements have been commissioned, performed and recorded by Alison Balsom, Matthew Rose, Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott. His chamber opera for puppets, The Depraved Appetite of Tarrare the Freak, received an acclaimed three-week run at Wilton’s Music Hall in 2017. He is a lifelong fan of animals with unusual noses.

Born in Mexico City, Sergio Bucheli started playing the classical guitar before moving to the UK to study at the Yehudi Menuhin School thanks to a bursary funded by the Rolling Stones. In September 2016, Sergio was awarded the ABRSM and Christopher Hogwood Scholarships to pursue his undergraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) with Elizabeth Kenny where he studied the lute, theorbo and baroque guitar.

A sought after continuo player, Sergio is a member of Harry Bicket’s The English Concert and is also a “New Ensemblist” with Jonathan Cohen’s Arcangelo. Recent highlights include Wigmore Hall concerts with Arcangelo, Peter Whelan’s Ensemble Marsyas and The English Concert featuring soloists such as Alina Ibragimova, Iestyn Davies, Carolyn Sampson and Louise Alder. Sergio also plays with The English Baroque Soloists, Early Opera Company, Irish Baroque Orchestra and recently recorded a Matthew Locke CD with Fretwork.

Sergio is a keen chamber musician and has recently taken part in the 2020 West Wycombe Festival which was held online where Sergio played with Lawrence Power, Timothy Ridout and John Myerscough among others. He also recently performed a programme of English music alongside countertenor Tim Mead for the 2021 Shipwright/Queille Festival.

Sergio is passionate about outreach performance and was the 2020-2021 Wigmore Hall Learning/ Open Academy Fellow alongside his chamber music ensemble “Nobody’s Jig”.

In 2012 pianist Pavel Kolesnikov became a sensation at the Honens International Piano Competition when he took home the world’s largest piano prize. The London-based pianist was born in Siberia into a family of scientists. He studied both the piano and violin for ten years, before concentrating solely on the piano. Following his Wigmore Hall debut in 2014, The Telegraph gave his recital a rare five-star review and called it “one of the most memorable of such occasions London has witnessed for a while”.

Celebrated for his imaginative, thought-provoking programming which offers the listener a fresh, often unexpected perspective on familiar pieces, Pavel has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall, London, as part of the international Piano Series, Carnegie Hall and Berlin’s Konzerthaus, Louvre and Salle Gaveau in Paris, Suntory Hall in Tokyo and Muziekgebouw in Amsterdam. In recent years he also performed at La Roque d’Antheron festival, the Musiq3 Festival in Brussels, Piano aux Jacobins in Toulouse, and the Aldeburgh Festival, among others. In 2020/21 he is Artist in Residence at Wigmore Hall performing three recitals throughout the season.

An avid ensemble player, Kolesnikov regularly performs in piano duo with Samson Tsoy and collaborates with other musicians such as cellist Narek Akhnazarian, Hermes String Quartet and Calidore String Quartet. In 2019 he performed the complete cycle of Brahms violin and viola sonatas with Lawrence Power. He formed Trio Aventure
with Elina Buksha and Aurelien Pascal.

Kolesnikov records for Hyperion, with repertoire ranging from rarely heard harpsichord pieces by Louis Couperin to Tchaikovsky’s The Seasons. His Chopin Mazurkas album won Diapason d’Or de l’annee, one of world’s most prestigious awards in the area of recording. His 6th album, Bach’s Goldberg Variations, was released in Autumn 2020. He collaborated with legendary Belgian dancer Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker on a new choreographic work based on the Goldberg Variations which was premiered in August 2020 at the Wiener Festwochen and is currently touring the world.

In 2019, together with Samson Tsoy, Kolesnikov started Ragged Music Festival at the Ragged School Museum, former “ragged school” of Dr Barnardo in London’s East End. In the same year Kolesnikov was honoured with the Critics’ Circle Young Talent Award 2019 for piano, praised for his “intensely personal interpretations, often daring in their originality” and his “crusading vision”.