Biographies - www.finchleychamber.org


	Finchley Chamber Orchestra Soloists engaged to appear in 2009-2010 Jonathan Wilson Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No.1 21st November 2009 Jonathan Wilson was born in Canberra in 1985. He is currently a postgraduate student at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. He commenced piano studies at the age of 6, studying piano and viola at Canberra Grammar School as well as the Canberra School of Music between 2000 and 2002. He also obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Sydney. Jonathan’s past teachers include Margaret Hair, Susanne Powell and Carolyn Morrison. He currently studies with Professor Joan Havill. Jonathan has won prizes in numerous competitions including first prize in the Hastings International Piano Concerto Competition (and the Sir Phillip Ledger special prize), second prize in the Australian National Piano Award (and a special prize for contemporary music), third prize and highest placed pianist in the Bromsgrove Young Artists Platform, the Romantic Piano Prize at the Guildhall School, first prize at the Oxford Music Festival professional piano recital, the Marion MacAulay Bequest Scholarship and various prizes at the Werner Baer memorial and the Canberra piano awards. Jonathan has performed throughout Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia and Spain. Highlights have included the Sydney Opera House, Llewellyn Hall in Canberra, St James Piccadilly in London, Birmingham Town Hall and the National Library of Estonia. His performances have been broadcast several times on ABC Classic FM. Future engagements include concerts with the European Union and Finchley Chamber Orchestras and the Sussex Concert Orchestra. Jonathan is a Concordia Foundation Artist in 2009. Jonathan has also attended Internationale Klaviersommer 2004, in Bad Betrich, Internationale Klavierakademie in Murrhardt, Germany and Pan Pacific Piano Performance School. He has also recieved masterclasses and lessons from Paul Lewis, John Lill, John Perry, Dominique Merlet, Yonty Solomon and Aquiles Delle Vigne. Jonathan is supported by the Sergei Rachmaninov Award, the Phyllis Simmons Award and the Dennis & Sylvia Forbes Award for his studies at the Guildhall. He is also supported by the Tait Memorial Trust. Aleksei Kiseliov Elgar: Cello Concerto 13th March 2010 Aleksei Kiseliov was born in Belarus in 1985 and began his music studies five years later at the Republican Music College. At the age of 11 he represented his country at a Young Belarus event in Moscow and won the international Music of Hope competition. This was followed by engagements in Germany, Holland, France and Britain. He then became a soloist with the Belarus State Chamber Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra, and received a special award from the republic’s president. In 1997, still only 12, he won the Tchaikovsky International Youth Competition in St Petersburg, was named Belarus Pupil of the Year and gained the support of the Vladimir Spivakov Fund. The following year he made acclaimed appearances at the Franco-Belarussian Spring Music Festival and performed in Paris. After a period of study in Germany, Aleksei gained entry to the Royal College of Music in London with a four-year Associated Board scholarship, where he currently studies with Raphael Wallfisch as part of a Master’s degree course, with the support of awards from Richard Carne and the Leverhulme Trust. He uses a bow loaned by the Felicity Belfield Music Trust. In 2003 he won a prize for the best interpretation of a British composer at the Haverhill Sinfonia Soloist Competition and took part in several concerts at an international cello festival in the Netherlands. His debut at St John’s, Smith Square was followed by an appearance at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, more concerts in Britain and performances at the Aix-en-Provence festival. He has subsequently played in many international festivals and toured in the United States as a member of the Conjuncto Iberico cello octet. In March 2009 Aleksei oversaw the opening of a new international music festival in London called Melodrama. He also appears regularly as a soloist with the Orpheus Sinfonia, an ensemble of young professional players which provides the series of Midweek Music in Mayfair concerts and recitals at ‘Handel’s church’ — St George’s, Hanover Square. In November 2008 he reeived the Orpheus Sinfonia’s annual Lilian Sutton award, and recently he was appointed its Associate Director. Dame Judi Dench, the Patron of the Orpheus Sinfonia Trust, has described his playing as “absolutely sublime!” You may have heard Aleksei playing Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations with us last season. If you did, you will certainly want to put 13th March 2010 into your diary now. Anna Hashimoto Weber : Clarinet Concerto No. 2 22nd May 2010 Anna Hashimoto was born in Japan in 1989 and moved to London six months later. She studied at the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music with Charles Hine, where she was awarded the Else and Leonard Cross Memorial Scholarship and the Esther Coleman Prize. She has also been a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. In 2003, Anna won the Japan Clarinet Society’s ‘Young Clarinettists Competition’ where she was also awarded all three special prizes. She was the winner of the Parthenon Tama Prize at the Japan Clarinet Competition in the following year, and made her Barbican debut in December 2004 at the age of fifteen, playing Weber’s Concertino with the English Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared at London’s Wigmore Hall on numerous occasions playing solo and chamber music. She has also played in the Cadogan Hall, South Bank Centre and Buckingham Palace. In 2006 Anna played Mozart’s Clarinet Quintet in a Gala concert at the British Embassy in Paris. At the International ClarinetFest 2005, Anna had the honour of giving the Japan premiere and a live broadcasting of Michael Daugherty’s new clarinet concerto, Brooklyn Bridge. There she also performed Tartini/Jacob’s Concertino with the British Clarinet Ensemble, with whom she has also recorded a CD of the work. Anna has given many recitals and concerto performances. In 2006 she performed Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto four times, including a performance with the Japan Chamber Orchestra, and another with the English Chamber Orchestra with whom she made her fourth appearance in February 2008 at St George’s, Bristol. As the winner of the Purcell School’s Senior Concerto Prize, she gave a highly acclaimed performance of Jean Francaix’s Concerto at LSO St Luke’s in March 2007. Other performances include Weber, Finzi and Spohr concertos with orchestras such as the London Pro Arte Orchestra and Kyushu Symphony Orchestra. She gave sold-out recitals at Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan and Kioi Hall in 2008. As a chamber musician she has collaborated with the Alberni Quartet at the Grove Park Music Festival, and in August 2008 will work with the pianist Tom Poster and a member of the Skapma Quartet. Forthcoming engagements include concertos with orchestras such as the English Chamber Orchestra (under the baton of Ashkenazy) and Japan Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as a duo recital with Leon McCawley. Anna was a student at the Purcell School for four years and is now at the Royal Academy of Music under a full Associated Board Scholarship, where she continues to study with world-renowned soloist Michael Collins. She plays on Peter Eaton ‘International’ clarinets and basset clarinet. Anna last performed with Finchley Chamber Orchestra in 2005, soon after her Barbican debut, when she performed Weber’s Clarinet Concerto No. 1. We welcome her return to complete the set! Finchley Chamber Orchestra Soloists who have performed with us in previous seasons Valeriy Sokolov Prokofiev: Violin Concerto No. 2 28th February 2009 ‘Handsome and youthful, Sokolov is a formidable talent. Move over, Joshua Bell!’ (Entertainment News, USA) ‘Vengerov has more maturity and finesse, but the serene, smiling and seriously cool young Sokolov matched him in just about every other department of string playing’ (The Glasgow Herald, Scotland) ‘Without doubt, we are listening to a coming great violinist’ (La Presse de Montréal, Canada) ‘Word will certainly spread about this young virtuoso’ (Le Monde de la Musique, France) Born in 1986, violinist Valeriy Sokolov was nine when he was admitted into the class of Prof. Sergueï Evdokimov at the Kharkov Secondary Special Music School in his native Ukraine. He was just 11 when he appeared as soloist with an orchestra for the first time. Two years later, following successes at home and in international competitions in Eastern Europe, he was awarded the Study Grant Prize at the International Pablo Sarasate Competition in Pamplona, Spain. Funded by Vladimir Spivakov, the prize provided a scholarship for Valeriy to pursue his studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England, where he was a pupil of Natalia Borarskaya, and where he featured in numerous concerts given by the school. He is currently a student at the Royal College of Music in London, where he studies with Dr Felix Andrievsky. He has also taken part in masterclasses given by the late Mstislav Rostropovitch, Zvi Zeitlin, Dora Schwarzberg, Zakhar Bron, Ruggiero Ricci and Igor Ozim. In the field of chamber music, Valeriy has joined violist Alexander Zemtsov, principal viola of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, and cellist Leonid Gorokhov, as the violinist in the Hermitage String Trio. During August 2007 the trio participated in the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, where they joined forces with Piers Lane and Kathryn Stott. Major engagements in 2007-8 included appearances as soloist with the Musik-kollegium Winterthur, the Bremen Philharmonic and the Basel Symphony Orchestra as well as a return visit to the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich. Valeriy has also given recitals at the Gstaad and St Denis festivals, and continues to appear at the Chatelet, Paris and the Auditorium de Lyon. He made his début at the Wigmore Hall London, in May 2008, with a programme that included works by Beethoven, Schumann, Enescu, Prokofiev and Bach. He can also be seen on film in Natural Born Fiddler, Bruno Monsaingeon’s audio-visual record of a recital that Valeriy gave in Toulouse in 2004, on the EMI/Virgin label. This season, Valeriy has performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto with Vladimir Ashkenazy conducting, both in Bologna and in Paris. He was a performer at the Classical BRIT Awards 2008, televised from the Royal Albert Hall, and he also appeared in a concert for UNESCO at the Royal Festival Hall. He has also been to the USA, Belgium, Ukraine and Germany to perform. At this concert, Valeriy will be making his fifth appearance with Finchley Chamber Orchestra, having performed Beethoven's Violin Concerto with us on 30th April 2005, Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto on 11th March 2006, Brahms's Violin Concerto on 3rd March 2007, and Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto on 1st March 2008, in every case to great acclaim. Valeriy is generously supported by the Accenture Foundation for a period of three years as part of their young musician scheme. Otis Beasley Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 3 22nd November 2008 Otis Beasley was born in Devon in 1986. He began piano lessons at the age of six with Christopher Fletcher, director of music at Plymouth Cathedral and active conductor in the South West. Otis gained a scholarship to Wells Cathedral school at the age of eleven and was then taught by Michael Young. He continued his studies with John Byrne from the age of fourteen, gaining his dipABRSM with distinction at sixteen, and in his final year at Wells reached the piano final of the BBC Young Musician of the Year 2004 competition and gained scholarships to the UK's four major music colleges. In September 2004 Otis joined the Royal College of Music as a Foundation Scholar and in January 2005 he toured the United Emirate States as one of five BBC Young Musicians. He studied with Ruth Nye in his second and third years at the RCM and with Gordon Fergus-Thompson in his third and fourth years, graduating from the RCM in July with first-class honours. Otis has received masterclasses from Yonty Solomon, Sergei Dorensky and Menahem Pressler, and has received lessons from Nelly Akopian-Tamarina. Previous concerto appearances include Liszt's First Piano Concerto, Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy, with orchestras in the South West, the London area and Arad, Romania. Otis’ performance with the Finchley Chamber Orchestra is as a result of his winning the 2008 Hastings Musical Festival International Piano Concerto Competition in March, where he was presented the Blüthner Trophy and also the Sir Philip Ledger Prize for being the youngest pianist to play in the finals. Sarah Blood Mahler: Symphony No. 4 1st March 2008 Sarah Blood (soprano) completed her postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music with distinction. She read Natural Sciences at New Hall, Cambridge, and was a member of Clare College Chapel Choir. Sarah has extensive experience as a soloist including performances at the Barbican, St John’s Smith Square, and Birmingham’s Symphony Hall with the CBSO. Opera roles have included Susanna in Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro, Rosalinda in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Lucia in Britten’s Rape of Lucretia, Amore in Gluck’s Orfeo and most recently Donna Elvira in Hampstead Garden Opera’s Don Giovanni. She has performed frequently with the Carl Rosa Opera Company and is a member of the Opera Holland Park chorus. She is currently studying with Barbara Pearson and Christopher Gould. Sarah is also a keen amateur viola player and plays with some of the leading amateur orchestras in London. Natalia Loresch Schumann: Piano Concerto 17th November 2007 (Trinity Church, Finchley N12) and 25th November 2007 (St. John's, Smith Square, SW1) Natalia Loresch was born into a family of musicians in Russia and received her first piano lessons from her mother. At the age of eight she began playing on stage, and she gave a solo performance in the Glinka Chapel in St. Petersburg three years later. In 1995 the family emigrated to Germany and Natalia became a pupil of Conrad Hansen in Hamburg. In 2000 she entered the University of Arts in Berlin to study with Pascal Devoyon and graduated with a BMus in piano. Natalia has lived in London since 2006, where she continues her studies in piano and harpsichord with Piers Lane, Kathryn Stott and Virginia Black on the MMus performance and research programme at the Royal Academy of Music. She has also taken part in masterclasses with Dang Thai Son, Rainer Becker, Christopher Elton, Felix Gottlieb, Stanislav Pochekin, Oxana Yablonskaya and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and has had lessons with Hartmut Rohde, Patrick Dinslage, Annette von Stackelberg, Michael Dussek and Michael Roll. Natalia has gained prizes at several competitions including the Steinway International Piano Competition, Jugend musiziert, Bergedorfer Musikwettbewerb and the Hastings Centenary Festival International Piano Concerto Competition where she won first prize and the Sir Philip Ledger Prize in 2007. She has also been the recipient of the Oscar and Vera Ritter Scholarship, the Paul Hindemith Scholarship, the Myra Hess Award and the Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust Award. Natalia has given solo and chamber music performances in the Musikhalle in Hamburg, at the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Summer Festival, in the Philharmonie Berlin, at the Warehouse in London (playing with the Manson Ensemble) and at many other venues. She is constantly expanding her repertoire, working in different chamber music groups, and is also researching Bach's Well-tempered Clavier in the context of historical and religious correlations as her MMus project. Samantha Ward Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 5 (Emperor) 18th November 2006 British pianist Samantha Ward began playing the piano at the age of eight before gaining a full scholarship to Chetham’s School of Music five years later. She is now studying for her Masters in piano performance at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where she won scholarships for both her undergraduate and postgraduate studies to study with the Senior Professor, Joan Havill. Since making her concerto debut in 2000 as a result of winning the Chetham’s concerto auditions, Samantha has been offered concerto appearances with many orchestras around the UK. She has given recitals, both solo and of chamber music, around the UK and Europe in such venues as Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, St James’s Piccadilly and St Martin’s in the Fields, London, St David’s Hall, Cardiff, and in the Leeds International Concert Season, and she has taken part in international master classes with leading professors such as Jacques Rouvier, Piotr Paleczny, Dominique Merlet and Boris Berman. Samantha has appeared on HTV Wales, S4C and Granada Television, as well as on Classic FM Radio and in the Classical Music Magazine. Competition successes have included first prize in the Guildhall John Ireland and Beethoven Piano Competitions, and the Making Music Philip and Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists, which resulted in concerto and recital appearances around the UK as well as concerts in St Martin’s in the Fields and the Wigmore Hall. This year, in the Hastings Music Festival Piano Concerto Competition, she won both the first prize and the Sir Philip Ledger Prize for the best performance of a Beethoven or Mozart concerto, resulting in a concerto performance at St John’s, Smith Square, and an appearance on BBC2’s Friday Night is Music Night. She also recently won a major award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund as well as scholarships from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, The City of Mitchell Trust, The Worshipful Company of Tobacco Pipemakers, The Worshipful Company of Leathersellers, John Lyon’s Charity, The South Square Trust and the Leverhulme Trust, to further her studies at postgraduate level. Most recently, Samantha was one of two young musicians to be invited to perform a concerto with the Mozart Festival Orchestra in June, to celebrate Mozart’s 250th anniversary, as well as being one of four pianists who were selected to perform all of the Mozart Piano Sonatas in the Cambridge Summer Music Festival. Finchley Chamber Orchestra, under its conductor David Lardi, was privileged to accompany Samantha in her winning performance of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto at the Hastings Music Festival last March, and we look forward to performing with her again in the last and greatest of all Beethoven’s works for piano and orchestra. . Natalie Clein Schumann : ’Cello Concerto 20th May 2006 Born in 1977, Natalie Clein studied at the Royal College of Music, where she was awarded the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Scholarship. After winning the 1994 BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition, she became the first British winner of the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians in Warsaw. She made her concerto début at the BBC Proms in August 1997, performing Haydn’s Concerto in C major with Sir Roger Norrington and the National Youth Orchestra, and went on to study in Vienna with Heinrich Schiff between 1997 and 2001. Since then, Natalie’s career has continuously gained momentum: appearing in venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Barbican, the Bridgewater Hall or Birmingham’s Symphony Hall, she has performed as a soloist with most of the UK’s major orchestras, including the London Philharmonic (Rozhdestvensky), the English Chamber Orchestra, the CBSO, the Bournemouth Symphony, the Philharmonia Orchestra (Sir Neville Marriner, Paul Daniel), the London Mozart Players, the BBC Symphony, the BBC Scottish Symphony, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the Royal Philharmonic, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (Peter Oundjian), and most recently the Hallé Orchestra with a performance of the Lutoslawski concerto (under Heinrich Schiff). In 1999/2000 she was chosen by the BBC to take part in their New Generation Artists scheme in which talented young artists are featured in recital, chamber and concerto performances and a number of studio recordings for broadcast on Radio 3. Natalie is in great demand as a recitalist and chamber music player, appearing at the Wigmore Hall, St George’s Bristol, Turner Sims Hall Southampton, the Cheltenham, City of London, Bath, Oxford and Prussia Cove Festivals, as well as in Australia (Perth International Chamber Music Festival), Canada (Vancouver Festival), France (Divonne Festival), Germany (Moritzburg, Heimbach ‘Spannungen’), Switzerland (Verbier), the Netherlands (Delft) and Ireland (West Cork Chamber Music Festival). Besides her regular recital partners - Julius Drake, Itamar Golan and Charles Owen - her chamber music collaborations include Martha Argerich, Melvyn Tan, Imogen Cooper, Stephen Kovacevich, Lars Vogt, Steven Isserlis, clarinetists Michael Collins, Sharon Kam and Emma Johnson, violinists Priya Mitchell and Isabelle Faust, as well as the Jerusalem and Takacs Quartets. Natalie’s debut recording, a recital disc with both Brahms ’Cello Sonatas and Schubert’s Arpeggione Sonata with Charles Owen, is available on EMI/Classics for Pleasure. This will be Natalie’s second appearance with Finchley Chamber Orchestra. Regular audience members will remember her magical performance of the Dvorák concerto with us last November (and perhaps also the intrusive sound of fireworks that failed to spoil it) and will welcome her back warmly. Natalie plays on a superlative 1777 instrument by Giovanni Battista Guadagnini which has been purchased on her behalf by the Natalie Clein ’Cello Trust. Maria Mazo Brahms : Piano Concerto No. 1 19th November 2005 Maria Mazo made her concerto début at the age of nine with Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 14 in A major, K. 414, and since then she has performed in Germany, Austria, Italy, Malta, Russia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France. Aged thirteen, she was the youngest competitor and prizewinner in the International Competition for Young Pianists in memoriam Arthur Rubinstein in Poland. Now aged 22, she has already established herself among the promising young artists of her generation, with a repertoire that includes an extensive range of solo and chamber works and more than a dozen piano concerti. In 2001 Maria was a prizewinner in the Premio Guiliano Pecar International Piano Competition in Gorizia, Italy, where she also received a special award; and her prizewinning performances in the 2003 and 2004 seasons of the Città di Cantù International Competition for Piano and Orchestra, also in Italy, led to a concerto appearance in the Sala Verdi of Milan Conservatoire. Most recently, she won First Prize in the Third Richard Laugs Beethoven Piano Competition in Mannheim, Germany, in 2004, and in the Hastings Music Festival Piano Concerto Competition, England, earlier this year. She was also a semifinalist, and received a Jury Discretionary Award, at the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition last May. Having worked with such noted musicians as Andrei Gavrilov, Abbey Simon and Ian Hobson, Maria is currently enrolled at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater, Hannover, as a student of Professor Arie Vardi. Since January 2005, she has been a member of the Live Music Now! Foundation, an organization founded by Yehudi Menuhin to promote the enjoyment and experience of live music amongst people who would not normally have access to it, for example in hospitals, special schools and prisons, and at the same time to assist gifted young professional musicians by providing them with performance opportunities at the outset of their careers. Christopher Evesham Rodrigo: Concierto de Aranjuez 19th May 2007 Christopher Evesham was born in Halton in 1982 and was given his first guitar at the age of four. At ten, he began to study with American guitarist John Dunn of the Mons conservatoire in Belgium. Later he studied with Andrew Barrett as an external student of Wells Cathedral school where, in 1998, he won a DfEE scholarship to study full-time and subsequently earned the highest grade for performance in the string department. In 2000, Christopher reached the semi-finals of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition and in the same year became a student of Carlos Bonell at the Royal College of Music. In 2004 he gained a first class for his final recital. He graduated in the Summer of this year and he continues to live in London. Since graduating, Christopher performs regularly as a soloist. He has also played in various ensembles including with flautist Laura Smith, singer Jo Risbero and 'cellist David Kadumakasa. He has performed solo recitals in many diverse venues around the UK, and he has also performed in Belgium, Germany and as a soloist with orchestra in Alba, Italy, performing a new work by composer Gabriele Roberto. Christopher has performed as a soloist with orchestras in London (including the Dulwich Symphony Orchestra and the Sutton Symphony Orchestra) and elsewhere in the UK, playing such works as Vivaldi's Concerto in D major and Rodrigo's Concierto de Aranjuez. Christopher plays a guitar made in 2002 by Australian guitar makers Greg Smallman and Sons. Meryn Nance Brahms : Alto Rhapsody 9th July 2005 Meryn was born and educated in North Wales and had already won competitions in the Liverpool Music Festival when she entered the Royal Academy of Music in London at the age of eighteen. She took part in afternoon recitals; was soloist in choral and orchestral concerts; sang and understudied roles in opera class productions; and won several competitions, including a scholarship for her final year. She also gained an LRAM and ARCM. On leaving college, she joined the chorus of Welsh National Opera, where she understudied several leading roles, including the Queen of the Night in Mozart's The Magic Flute and Alice in Verdi's Falstaff. Solo roles with the WNO included Gianetta in Donizetti's L'Elisir D'Amore and Barbarina in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Aside from WNO, she performed the roles of the Countess and Fiordiligi in Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro and Cosí fan Tutte respectively. Eight years later, Meryn left Welsh National Opera and went to Dublin to re-train at the College of Music. Among her competition successes was the Recital Gold Medal which she won with the highest number of marks ever awarded to a gold medallist. She gave recitals and took part in opera class productions, and also taught singing and piano at the College. Meryn has appeared as a soloist with Chester Symphony Orchestra, and given solo recitals. In 2001, she was a featured soloist for the Last Night of the Proms at St Jude's Proms, Hampstead Garden Suburb; and recent solo oratorio appearances include Bach's B Minor Mass, St John Passion and Christmas Oratorio, Handel's Messiah and Dixit Dominus, and Rossini's Petite Messe Solonnelle. Andrew Saunders Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 2 30th April 2005 Andrew Saunders, now aged 22, joined the Junior Department of the Royal College of Music at the age of 14 to study with Patricia Carroll. He gave his first concerto performance (Mozart’s A major, K. 388) in the same year, followed by the Grieg and first Tchaikovsky concertos whilst still at Christ’s Hospital School. He also performed solo and chamber music in the annual Christ’s Hospital concerts at the Purcell Room. Andrew received tuition (particularly for chamber music) from Tim Horton, John Thwaites and Adrian West whilst studying for his A-levels, and performed in master classes with Julian Jacobson, Steven Kovacevich, Caroline Presland, Yonty Solomon, and Martino Tirimo. In July 2002 he toured Germany and the Czech Republic playing the Tchaikovsky concerto, and in March 2003 he made his London concerto debut at the Barbican, playing Constant Lambert’s Rio Grande with another former Christ’s Hospital pupil, Charles Hazlewood, conducting. Andrew graduated from the Royal College of Music with a BMus (Hons) degree in 2004. He was awarded a four-year scholarship from the Associated Board to study piano with Niel Immelman. His latest concert was a shared recital at St Martin’s-in-the-Fields. He has also performed in Austria, Germany, Italy and Spain. As an accompanist, Andrew has worked with the ex-leader of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, BBC Young Musician of the Year finalists, members of the Philharmonia Orchestra and members of the London Chamber Orchestra. He also enjoys teaching. Andrew has been a finalist in the Malcolm Sargent Young Musician of the Year Competition, a prizewinner in the Sevenoaks Young Musician of the Year Competition, a finalist in the National Schools Chamber Music Competition held at St. John’s, Smith Square, a finalist in the Angela Bull Memorial Competition (Royal College), Second Prize winner in the Teresa Carreno Piano Competition (Royal College) resulting in a recital at the Venezuelan Embassy, and Second Prize winner in the Jaques Samuel Intercollegiate Piano Competition (Royal College). He was selected to represent North London to compete in the Emanuel Piano Competition 2004 (at which he was highly commended) having won several classes at a previous North London Festival of Music and Drama, including the Premier Challenge Cup (for piano) and the President’s Prize (overall sections winner), donated by Sir Colin Davis. We welcome Andrew back to the North London Festival of Music and Drama for tonight’s performance. Jonathan Stone Tchaikovsky : Violin Concerto in D major 19th March 2005 Jonathan Stone was born in London in 1980 and began learning the violin at the age of four with Elisabeth Waterhouse. A grant from the UK Government’s Music and Ballet Scheme enabled him to enter the Purcell School in 1992, where he studied with David Angel. In 1998, he began to study with Grigory Zhislin at the Royal College of Music, where he won numerous prizes for his work in chamber ensembles. After obtaining his degree and leading the RCM’s orchestras and ensembles both on tour and live on Radio 3, he started working with some of the UK’s top orchestras, including the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the Halle, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Northern Ballet and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. He is also the violinist of the Prometheus Piano Trio. In 2003, Jonathan was awarded a scholarship to study with Howard Davis at the Royal Academy of Music where he has received the DM Lloyd Prize and is very grateful to the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund for help towards this final year. In the last year, he has also reached the Section Final of the Royal Over-Seas League competition and been a prize winner in the Haverhill Sinfonia Soloist Competition. He is one of two violinists chosen from the RAM to play with the London Symphony Orchestra on their String Experience Scheme. This will be Jonathan’s third appearance with Finchley Chamber Orchestra. He performed the first movement of this concerto with us in May 2003 as part of the Music in Muswell Hill festival, and joined us again for the Bruch G minor concerto in November of that year. We welcome him back warmly. Alon Goldstein Grieg : Piano Concerto 20th June 2004 Israeli pianist Alon Goldstein studied at the Rubin Academy of Music in Tel-Aviv under Victor Derevianko, and the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore under Leon Fleisher. In 1997 he became the first Performer Fellow at the Guildhall School of Music in London. In this unique post, he initiated concerts involving the collaboration of staff and students, as well as annual festivals devoted to the four-handed repertoire. In 2000, Alon joined the Piano Foundation in Lake Como, Italy, where he enjoyed private master-classes with world-renowned musicians. He has played with the Philadelphia, San Francisco, Houston and Saint Louis Symphony Orchestras as well as the Israel Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta, Raphael Frübeck de Burgos and Leon Fleisher. He has given solo recitals in New York, Washington, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, Geneva, Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem. He has performed on BBC Radio 3, and played at the festivals of Ravinia, Marlboro, Santa Fe, Tanglewood, Prussia Cove (UK) and Verbier. During 2003-4, Alon will have performed with the Baltimore, Vancouver and Saint Louis Symphony Orchestras and the Orchestre Nationale de l’Ile de France. Other highlights include re-engagements at the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concerts in Chicago, The Phillips Collection and Strathmore Hall in Washington, and Peoples Symphony Concerts in New York. Colin Lawson Mozart : Clarinet Concerto 3rd April 2004 Colin Lawson has an international profile as a period clarinettist and has played principal in most of Britain’s leading period orchestras, notably The Hanover Band, The English Concert and the London Classical Players, with whom he has recorded extensively and toured world-wide. Described recently as ‘a brilliant, absolutely world-class player’ (Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung) and ‘the doyen of period clarinettists’ (BBC Music Magazine), he has appeared as soloist in many international venues, including London’s major concert halls and New York’s Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall. His discography comprises concertos by Fasch, Hook, Mahon, Mozart, Spohr, Telemann, Vivaldi and Weber, as well as a considerable variety of chamber music. Among his most recent recordings is a highly-acclaimed disc of basset horn trios by Mozart and Stadler and a recital disc entitled ‘100 Years of the Simple-System Clarinet’. Colin has an especially close association with Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, which he plays regularly on both period and modern basset clarinets. In addition to directing performances of the work, he has played it in collaboration with conductors such as Roy Goodman, Christopher Hogwood, Roger Norrington and Joshua Rifkin. He is also the author of a Cambridge Handbook to Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, which investigates the work’s genesis, composition and construction, as well as the career of the dedicatee Anton Stadler and his newly invented basset clarinet. Colin’s other publications for Cambridge University Press include The Cambridge Companion to the Clarinet and a Cambridge Handbook to Brahms’s Clarinet Quintet. He is co-editor of a new series of Cambridge Handbooks to the Historical Performance of Music, for which he has co-authored an introductory volume (1999) and a written a book on the early clarinet (2000). He is also editor of the new Cambridge Companion to the Orchestra (2003). Combining an academic career with performing activities, he taught at the Universities of Aberdeen, Sheffield and London before his appointment in 2001 as Pro-Vice Chancellor at Thames Valley University, where he is Dean of the London College of Music & Media. We are particularly grateful to Colin for agreeing to perform this concerto with us at short notice. Sarah Williamson, who was to have performed it, recently injured her arm in a car accident and is unable to play. We wish Sarah and her father, who was also injured, a full and speedy recovery. Alice Neary Finzi : Cello Concerto 12th April 2003 Alice Neary has won several major awards, including the 1998 Pierre Fournier Award. She was educated at Chetham’s School of Music and studied with Ralph Kirshbaum at the Royal Northern College of Music, and with Timothy Eddy at Stony Brook as a Fulbright Scholar. Alice plays regularly with the pianist Gretel Dowdeswell. She is Principal Cellist of the Goldberg Ensemble and a member of Ovid and of the Britten Chamber Ensemble. In January 1999 she made her début at the Wigmore Hall to critical acclaim. Other recent performances include a BBC Radio 3 broadcast in the Young Artists’ Forum series, concertos with the English Chamber Orchestra and Israel Symphony Orchestra, recitals at the Bridgewater Hall, Wigmore Hall and Purcell Room, and appearances at the Manchester International Cello Festival and Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Her repertory ranges from Bach to John McCabe and John Tavener, in whose Innocence she played the solo part in a recording for Sony Classical. Alice has appeared three times with Finchley Chamber Orchestra, performing the First Cello Concerto of Shostakovich in November 1999, and Elgar’s Cello Concerto in June 2001 at St. Jude’s, Hampstead Garden Suburb and the following month in Trinity Church, Finchley, in each case to enthusiastic acclaim. Adrian Wilson Richard Strauss : Oboe Concerto 16th November 2002 Adrian Wilson was principal oboist of the National Youth Orchestra in 1996 and the National Youth Chamber Orchestra in 1997, performing under the baton of many of Europe’s eminent conductors. In 1996, and again in 1998, he reached the final of the BBC ‘Young Musician of the Year’ competition. He then studied at the University of Birmingham with George Caird and at the Birmingham Conservatoire with Jonathan Kelly and Celia Nicklin, receiving a first class degree for the Diploma in Professional Studies, gaining a placement with the CBSO as part of their professional training scheme, and also reaching the finals of the Yamaha Wind and Brass 2000 competition. Moving to the Royal Academy of Music, he continued his studies with Dougie Boyd, Tess Miller and Celia Nicklin, trained with the LSO on their orchestral scheme, and performed with the BBC Philharmonic, the Hallé, Sinfonia 21, Birmingham Royal Ballet and the Nash Ensemble. He was winner of the Vivian Dunn prize for orchestral playing, the Harold Craxton prize for chamber music and the Andrew Sykes award. He was invited to perform at the Victoria and Albert Museum in a Proms Composer Portrait concert 2001 featuring the music of Esa-Pekka Salonen, which was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. In 2002, he graduated with Distinction from the postgraduate performance course. Adrian is now Principal Oboe of the Newly formed South Bank Sinfonia, and also on trial with the English National Ballet, the London Chamber Players and as Principal oboe with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. He is a member of the prestigious European Union Youth Orchestra, and continues his studies with Alexei Ogrintchouk, solo oboe of the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. As a member of the Countess of Munster Recital Scheme, he regularly gives solo recitals and is a co-founder of the Regus Wind Quintet. Recent concerto performances include the Martinu, Mozart and Marcello concertos and Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante for wind quartet and orchestra, as well as the Richard Strauss concerto for which we warmly welcome him to Finchley.