London Soloists Ensemble - Biography
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The London Soloists Ensemble brings together some of the most admired soloists and chamber-music players of today. Formed to play a broad range of chamber music both familiar repertoire and masterworks by less well-known composers, in particular the rich heritage of British music of the twentieth century, London Soloists is a flexible ensemble with a core membership of clarinet (Anthony Pike), violin (Lorraine McAslan), viola (Sarah-Jane Bradley), cello (Karine Georgian) and piano (John Lenehan). As can be seen from the accompanying sample programmes, the opportunities offered by these resources to build varied and musically satisfying programmes are exceptionally rich. For 2012 they feature works by John Ireland, who died in 1962 and whose highly individual, consummately crafted and attractive music is at last receiving the attention it deserves.
Anthony Pike
Anthony Pike was born in Seoul, Korea, and studied the clarinet in London with Julian Farrell, in Chicago with Robert Marcellus and at the Royal College of Music with Dame Thea King. Anthony is the principal clarinet of the English Chamber Orchestra and has performed concertos with them throughout the world. He also appears as guest principal with many other orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has performed as obbligato soloist with the Munich State Opera and in the Musikverein Hall in Vienna. Chamber music collaborators have included Christian Zacharias, Ralph Gothoni, the Medici Quartet, the Joachim Trio, the Bekova Trio and the E.C.O. Ensemble. He is regularly invited to participate in festivals as far afield as Edinburgh, South Africa, Norway, Hong Kong and Bermuda.
Despite reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, the clarinet began to take up more of his time. As an N.F.M.S./Esso 'Young Artist' in 1990 Anthony gave recitals throughout Britain. He made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1994 and has since appeared as concerto soloist in the Barbican and Royal Festival Halls in London as well as others worldwide. He is frequently to be heard on B.B.C. Radio Three and his discography includes the Mozart Basset Clarinet concerto and Sinfonia Concertante with the E.C.O., the complete works for clarinet and piano by Max Reger (with Martin Jones) and the Copland Sextet. His recording of the entire clarinet syllabus for the Associated Board is specially sanctioned by them.
Anthony is also a busy studio player and has played on soundtracks for James Bond films, Harry Potter, Romeo and Juliet and most recently Atonement amongst many others. He can also be heard on albums by artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell, Björk, Robbie Williams and John Barry, and has recently toured with the legendary Lou Reed.
www.anthony-pike.co.uk
Lorraine McAslan
Identified in The Strad magazine as ‘one of the most distinguished British violinists of her generation’, Lorraine McAslan was at the age of seventeen talent-spotted by Isaac Stern, and on his recommendation went to study at the Juilliard School in New York with the legendary Dorothy DeLay. Since then she has produced a large discography and appeared as soloist with many of Britain and Europe's leading orchestras, including the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Royal Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool, London Mozart Players, Bern Symphony, Scottish Chamber and English Chamber Orchestras, and with conductors including Andrew Davis, Raymond Leppard, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Libor Pesek, Eliahu Inbal, Alexander Gibson and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.
In addition to an extensive mainstream repertoire she has performed and recorded the concertos of Howard Blake, Lionel Sainsbury, William Alwyn and York Bowen. Internationally she has toured Japan with the London Chamber Orchestra and appeared with the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra. A committed and experienced chamber musician, during her time as first violin of the Maggini String Quartet she led the premiere of the tenth Naxos Quartet by Peter Maxwell Davies at the Wigmore Hall in October 2007.
Lorraine's many recordings (twenty-three and still counting) for Sanctuary Classics/ASV, Collins, Nimbus, Dutton Epoch and Naxos exemplify her special sympathy for and intuitive understanding of the music of British composers. Alongside those by Mozart and Hoffman they include the violin concertos of Britten, William Alwyn, Coleridge-Taylor, Richard Arnell, York Bowen, Guirne Creith, Thomas Pitfield, Haydn Wood (‘shading her ecstatic cantabile with portamentos reminiscent of Heifetz’ – BBC Music Direct), as well as chamber works by Elgar, Walton, Frank Bridge, Britten, Kenneth Leighton, Arthur Benjamin, Granville Bantock, Dorothy Howell and two discs of duets and sonatas by Rebecca Clarke. Among other chamber music she has recorded are works by Beethoven, Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Martinů and Janáček. Her critically acclaimed reading of Britten’s Violin concerto recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra in 1990 (‘among the very best recordings I have heard’ commented Gramophone) was re-released by Naxos in September 2005, as was her earlier ASV disc of the Elgar and Walton sonatas in 2006. (‘This is a beautiful record’ - Gramophone)
Lorraine teaches at the Junior Royal Academy of Music where she was awarded an Honorary Asssociateship in 2007.
Sarah-Jane Bradley
Following studies as a scholar with John White at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and with Thomas Riebl at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Sarah-Jane received numerous awards and prizes.
At home with works from all eras, she's also known as a pioneer of new music for the viola and has premiered many new works written especially for her. Sarah-Jane has recorded a number of CDs for Dutton including her acclaimed recording of British Viola Music, Arthur Butterworth Viola Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the composer conducting and Delius double concerto in the version for violin and viola with Philippe Graffin and the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by David Lloyd-Jones (Classic FM Editor's Choice).
Her other recordings for Dutton, Chandos and Hyperion include the complete Beethoven String Trios which was runner-up for the 1999 Gramophone Award, the recording of John Pickard's String Quartets with the Sorrel Quartet which was Gramophone Editor's Choice in 2002, and the Elgar Quartet and Quintet which received a top nomination on BBC Radio 3.
As a distinguished chamber musician Sarah-Jane has toured throughout the world and has been invited to participate in many festivals. She was a founder member of the Leopold String Trio (1991-9), a member of the Sorrel Quartet (1999-2005) and has more recently been working with the Fidelio Piano Quartet and 'Organism', an exciting chamber ensemble revolving around works with organ.
Sarah-Jane is currently working with pianist Anthony Hewitt, director of the Ulverston Festival, in a partnership that toured Britain successfully as a selected duo for Making Music for 2008/2009. Their Naxos recording of East European Romantic Works for Viola and Piano was released on digital download in June 2010, when it was also featured in an article in The Strad, 'Echoes of the East'; it is scheduled for physical release in September 2011. Sarah-Jane has also recorded the Sonatina by William Alwyn with Sophia Rahman for the William Alwyn Foundation for Naxos, released in July 2010.
Sarah-Jane plays on a viola by G.A.Chanot of Manchester, 1896
Karine Georgian
Karine Georgian, characterised by the Boston Globe as ‘a musical mind that is passionate, inventive, spontaneous, yet carefully reasoned and serenely assured,’ is today one of the outstanding exponents of the golden generation of Russian string playing. She began her cello studies at the age of five under her father Armen Georgian, a renowned Armenian cellist and teacher who taught for over fifty years at Moscow’s Gnessin Institute, where Rostropovich came one day to listen to his young daughter performing in a school concert. The result was an invitation to join Rostropovich’s celebrated Class 19 in the Moscow Conservatoire, where Karine remained for the next seven years. Soon after taking First Prize and Gold Medal at the Third Tchaikovsky International Competition she was launching her international career in Carnegie Hall with the Chicago Symphony and her compatriot Aram Khachaturian on the podium for his Cello Concerto, followed by the US premiere of his Cello Rhapsody, with the same forces.Today Karine’s repertoire encompasses more than forty concertos and a huge range of instrumental and chamber music, her sympathies extending from the eighteenth century to the present day. In 2010, more than forty years after she first began serious study of Bach’s suites for solo cello, she committed them to CD, while throughout her performing career she has been associated with leading composers of our day, several of whom have written works for her. Notable premieres have included the first US performance, in Carnegie Hall, of Schnittke’s First Cello Concerto, the Australian premiere of Britten’s Cello Symphony with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the world premieres of Smirnov’s Cello Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic at the 1996 Manchester International Cello Festival and Firsova’s Chamber Concerto No. 5 at the Kronberg Festival, as well as works by Mansurian (Cello Concerto No. 2), Goehr and Skempton.
In 1982 Karine Georgian succeeded André Navarra as Professor of Cello at the Detmold Musikhochschule, a position she held for twenty years. Currently she teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music and gives masterclasses throughout Europe. One of the longest-serving contributors to the Dartington International Summer School of Music, she was invited to play and teach there every year between 1989 and 2010.
Karine has a critically acclaimed discography on the Chandos, Hyperion, Biddulph, Somm Recordings, Berlin Classics and Alto labels. Her latest recording, of cello music by Robert and Clara Schumann was released by Naxos in March 2011.
www.karinegeorgian.com
John Lenehan
Praised by the New York Times for his ‘great flair and virtuosity’ and by The Times (‘a masterly recital’), John Lenehan's performances and recordings have been acclaimed throughout the world. As a soloist he has regularly appeared with leading British orchestras and his innovative recital programmes often include film projection and jazz repertoire. In a performing career spanning more than 25 years, John Lenehan has collaborated with many of today’s leading instrumentalists and is recognised as one of the leading accompanists and chamber musicians of today. During the past few years he has appeared in major concert halls in Amsterdam, Vienna, London, Salzburg, New York, Washington, Toronto, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo.
John Lenehan has made more than sixty CDs – most recently three discs for Sony of minimalist piano works and the fourth and final volume of a complete edition of John Ireland’s piano music for Naxos. This disc (to be released in October 2011) includes the Piano Concerto and Legend with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Wilson as well as world premiere recordings of early piano works. Other notable recordings include a disc of Erik Satie (BMG) and a Gramophone award-winning CD for Naxos (with the Ulster Orchestra) of Michael Nyman’s Piano Concerto. Recordings released in 2009 include sonatas with Emma Johnson (Naxos) and Tasmin Little (BIS).
John is also active as a composer. His encyclopaedic knowledge not only of the core repertoire but the byways of the virtuoso piano literature of the past and its more eccentric interpreters, stands him in good stead for his much-prized arrangements for singers and instrumentalists such as Angelika Kirchschlager, Kennedy, Julian Lloyd Webber, Tasmin Little and Emma Johnson. Recent writing projects include ‘Keynotes’: four books of piano repertoire published by Faber Music each containing a new Lenehan work, and a collection of original pieces for flute and piano called ‘Little Gems’ published by Schotts.
Recent concerto appearances have included Mozart and Shostakovich concerti with the renowned Sinfonia Varsovia at the Evian Festival, Beethoven with the Symphony Orchestra of India in Mumbai, the world premiere of Tolga Kashif’s Genesis Suite for piano, choir and orchestra with the London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices at the Barbican, and John Ireland’s Piano Concerto and Legend with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under John Wilson.
www.johnlenehan.co.uk
The London Soloists Ensemble brings together some of the most admired soloists and chamber-music players of today. Formed to play a broad range of chamber music both familiar repertoire and masterworks by less well-known composers, in particular the rich heritage of British music of the twentieth century, London Soloists is a flexible ensemble with a core membership of clarinet (Anthony Pike), violin (Lorraine McAslan), viola (Sarah-Jane Bradley), cello (Karine Georgian) and piano (John Lenehan). As can be seen from the accompanying sample programmes, the opportunities offered by these resources to build varied and musically satisfying programmes are exceptionally rich. For 2012 they feature works by John Ireland, who died in 1962 and whose highly individual, consummately crafted and attractive music is at last receiving the attention it deserves.
Anthony Pike
Anthony Pike was born in Seoul, Korea, and studied the clarinet in London with Julian Farrell, in Chicago with Robert Marcellus and at the Royal College of Music with Dame Thea King. Anthony is the principal clarinet of the English Chamber Orchestra and has performed concertos with them throughout the world. He also appears as guest principal with many other orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, B.B.C. Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. He has performed as obbligato soloist with the Munich State Opera and in the Musikverein Hall in Vienna. Chamber music collaborators have included Christian Zacharias, Ralph Gothoni, the Medici Quartet, the Joachim Trio, the Bekova Trio and the E.C.O. Ensemble. He is regularly invited to participate in festivals as far afield as Edinburgh, South Africa, Norway, Hong Kong and Bermuda.
Despite reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Magdalen College, Oxford, the clarinet began to take up more of his time. As an N.F.M.S./Esso 'Young Artist' in 1990 Anthony gave recitals throughout Britain. He made his Wigmore Hall debut in 1994 and has since appeared as concerto soloist in the Barbican and Royal Festival Halls in London as well as others worldwide. He is frequently to be heard on B.B.C. Radio Three and his discography includes the Mozart Basset Clarinet concerto and Sinfonia Concertante with the E.C.O., the complete works for clarinet and piano by Max Reger (with Martin Jones) and the Copland Sextet. His recording of the entire clarinet syllabus for the Associated Board is specially sanctioned by them.
Anthony is also a busy studio player and has played on soundtracks for James Bond films, Harry Potter, Romeo and Juliet and most recently Atonement amongst many others. He can also be heard on albums by artists as diverse as Joni Mitchell, Björk, Robbie Williams and John Barry, and has recently toured with the legendary Lou Reed.
www.anthony-pike.co.uk
Lorraine McAslan
Identified in The Strad magazine as ‘one of the most distinguished British violinists of her generation’, Lorraine McAslan was at the age of seventeen talent-spotted by Isaac Stern, and on his recommendation went to study at the Juilliard School in New York with the legendary Dorothy DeLay. Since then she has produced a large discography and appeared as soloist with many of Britain and Europe's leading orchestras, including the London Symphony, London Philharmonic, Royal Scottish National, Royal Philharmonic, Royal Liverpool, London Mozart Players, Bern Symphony, Scottish Chamber and English Chamber Orchestras, and with conductors including Andrew Davis, Raymond Leppard, Jerzy Maksymiuk, Libor Pesek, Eliahu Inbal, Alexander Gibson and Jukka-Pekka Saraste.
In addition to an extensive mainstream repertoire she has performed and recorded the concertos of Howard Blake, Lionel Sainsbury, William Alwyn and York Bowen. Internationally she has toured Japan with the London Chamber Orchestra and appeared with the Royal Oman Symphony Orchestra. A committed and experienced chamber musician, during her time as first violin of the Maggini String Quartet she led the premiere of the tenth Naxos Quartet by Peter Maxwell Davies at the Wigmore Hall in October 2007.
Lorraine's many recordings (twenty-three and still counting) for Sanctuary Classics/ASV, Collins, Nimbus, Dutton Epoch and Naxos exemplify her special sympathy for and intuitive understanding of the music of British composers. Alongside those by Mozart and Hoffman they include the violin concertos of Britten, William Alwyn, Coleridge-Taylor, Richard Arnell, York Bowen, Guirne Creith, Thomas Pitfield, Haydn Wood (‘shading her ecstatic cantabile with portamentos reminiscent of Heifetz’ – BBC Music Direct), as well as chamber works by Elgar, Walton, Frank Bridge, Britten, Kenneth Leighton, Arthur Benjamin, Granville Bantock, Dorothy Howell and two discs of duets and sonatas by Rebecca Clarke. Among other chamber music she has recorded are works by Beethoven, Debussy, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Martinů and Janáček. Her critically acclaimed reading of Britten’s Violin concerto recorded with the English Chamber Orchestra in 1990 (‘among the very best recordings I have heard’ commented Gramophone) was re-released by Naxos in September 2005, as was her earlier ASV disc of the Elgar and Walton sonatas in 2006. (‘This is a beautiful record’ - Gramophone)
Lorraine teaches at the Junior Royal Academy of Music where she was awarded an Honorary Asssociateship in 2007.
Sarah-Jane Bradley
Following studies as a scholar with John White at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and with Thomas Riebl at the Mozarteum, Salzburg, Sarah-Jane received numerous awards and prizes.
At home with works from all eras, she's also known as a pioneer of new music for the viola and has premiered many new works written especially for her. Sarah-Jane has recorded a number of CDs for Dutton including her acclaimed recording of British Viola Music, Arthur Butterworth Viola Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and the composer conducting and Delius double concerto in the version for violin and viola with Philippe Graffin and the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by David Lloyd-Jones (Classic FM Editor's Choice).
Her other recordings for Dutton, Chandos and Hyperion include the complete Beethoven String Trios which was runner-up for the 1999 Gramophone Award, the recording of John Pickard's String Quartets with the Sorrel Quartet which was Gramophone Editor's Choice in 2002, and the Elgar Quartet and Quintet which received a top nomination on BBC Radio 3.
As a distinguished chamber musician Sarah-Jane has toured throughout the world and has been invited to participate in many festivals. She was a founder member of the Leopold String Trio (1991-9), a member of the Sorrel Quartet (1999-2005) and has more recently been working with the Fidelio Piano Quartet and 'Organism', an exciting chamber ensemble revolving around works with organ.
Sarah-Jane is currently working with pianist Anthony Hewitt, director of the Ulverston Festival, in a partnership that toured Britain successfully as a selected duo for Making Music for 2008/2009. Their Naxos recording of East European Romantic Works for Viola and Piano was released on digital download in June 2010, when it was also featured in an article in The Strad, 'Echoes of the East'; it is scheduled for physical release in September 2011. Sarah-Jane has also recorded the Sonatina by William Alwyn with Sophia Rahman for the William Alwyn Foundation for Naxos, released in July 2010.
Sarah-Jane plays on a viola by G.A.Chanot of Manchester, 1896
Karine Georgian
Karine Georgian, characterised by the Boston Globe as ‘a musical mind that is passionate, inventive, spontaneous, yet carefully reasoned and serenely assured,’ is today one of the outstanding exponents of the golden generation of Russian string playing. She began her cello studies at the age of five under her father Armen Georgian, a renowned Armenian cellist and teacher who taught for over fifty years at Moscow’s Gnessin Institute, where Rostropovich came one day to listen to his young daughter performing in a school concert. The result was an invitation to join Rostropovich’s celebrated Class 19 in the Moscow Conservatoire, where Karine remained for the next seven years. Soon after taking First Prize and Gold Medal at the Third Tchaikovsky International Competition she was launching her international career in Carnegie Hall with the Chicago Symphony and her compatriot Aram Khachaturian on the podium for his Cello Concerto, followed by the US premiere of his Cello Rhapsody, with the same forces.Today Karine’s repertoire encompasses more than forty concertos and a huge range of instrumental and chamber music, her sympathies extending from the eighteenth century to the present day. In 2010, more than forty years after she first began serious study of Bach’s suites for solo cello, she committed them to CD, while throughout her performing career she has been associated with leading composers of our day, several of whom have written works for her. Notable premieres have included the first US performance, in Carnegie Hall, of Schnittke’s First Cello Concerto, the Australian premiere of Britten’s Cello Symphony with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the world premieres of Smirnov’s Cello Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic at the 1996 Manchester International Cello Festival and Firsova’s Chamber Concerto No. 5 at the Kronberg Festival, as well as works by Mansurian (Cello Concerto No. 2), Goehr and Skempton.
In 1982 Karine Georgian succeeded André Navarra as Professor of Cello at the Detmold Musikhochschule, a position she held for twenty years. Currently she teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music and gives masterclasses throughout Europe. One of the longest-serving contributors to the Dartington International Summer School of Music, she was invited to play and teach there every year between 1989 and 2010.
Karine has a critically acclaimed discography on the Chandos, Hyperion, Biddulph, Somm Recordings, Berlin Classics and Alto labels. Her latest recording, of cello music by Robert and Clara Schumann was released by Naxos in March 2011.
www.karinegeorgian.com
John Lenehan
Praised by the New York Times for his ‘great flair and virtuosity’ and by The Times (‘a masterly recital’), John Lenehan's performances and recordings have been acclaimed throughout the world. As a soloist he has regularly appeared with leading British orchestras and his innovative recital programmes often include film projection and jazz repertoire. In a performing career spanning more than 25 years, John Lenehan has collaborated with many of today’s leading instrumentalists and is recognised as one of the leading accompanists and chamber musicians of today. During the past few years he has appeared in major concert halls in Amsterdam, Vienna, London, Salzburg, New York, Washington, Toronto, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo.
John Lenehan has made more than sixty CDs – most recently three discs for Sony of minimalist piano works and the fourth and final volume of a complete edition of John Ireland’s piano music for Naxos. This disc (to be released in October 2011) includes the Piano Concerto and Legend with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by John Wilson as well as world premiere recordings of early piano works. Other notable recordings include a disc of Erik Satie (BMG) and a Gramophone award-winning CD for Naxos (with the Ulster Orchestra) of Michael Nyman’s Piano Concerto. Recordings released in 2009 include sonatas with Emma Johnson (Naxos) and Tasmin Little (BIS).
John is also active as a composer. His encyclopaedic knowledge not only of the core repertoire but the byways of the virtuoso piano literature of the past and its more eccentric interpreters, stands him in good stead for his much-prized arrangements for singers and instrumentalists such as Angelika Kirchschlager, Kennedy, Julian Lloyd Webber, Tasmin Little and Emma Johnson. Recent writing projects include ‘Keynotes’: four books of piano repertoire published by Faber Music each containing a new Lenehan work, and a collection of original pieces for flute and piano called ‘Little Gems’ published by Schotts.
Recent concerto appearances have included Mozart and Shostakovich concerti with the renowned Sinfonia Varsovia at the Evian Festival, Beethoven with the Symphony Orchestra of India in Mumbai, the world premiere of Tolga Kashif’s Genesis Suite for piano, choir and orchestra with the London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices at the Barbican, and John Ireland’s Piano Concerto and Legend with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under John Wilson.
www.johnlenehan.co.uk
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