Professor John Thwaites is Head of the Department of Keyboard Studies at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire where he has directed major Festivals of Ireland, Delius, Bax, Skryabin and Brahms as well as directing a celebrity-studded All Night Gala at Birmingham Town Hall. He is best known for his collaborative work with strings, as a founder member of the Primrose Piano Quartet and in duo with Alexander Baillie.  He has recorded twenty CDs for Meridian, SOMM and Dutton. TV and Radio work includes BBC Radio Three Lunchtime broadcasts and appearances for "In Tune". His research work focuses on Historically Informed Performance Practice in the chamber music of Johannes Brahms. John has devoted much of his life to teaching, including posts at Christ's Hospital, the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Purcell School.

Carole Presland has performed worldwide, appearing in the UK at the Wigmore Hall, South Bank and at international festivals such as Aldeburgh and Bath. She has broadcast regularly for BBC Radio 3 and frequently abroad for Bayerischer Rundfunk, Radio France, Belgian National Radio, RAI TV and WFMT in the USA. She has recorded CDs for labels such as Pavane, Meridian and EMI Classics, to wide critical acclaim. Passionate about Chamber Music, Carole has collaborated with distinguished artists including Colin Carr, Robert Cohen, Frans Helmerson, Ralph Kirshbaum, Nobuko Imai, Anthony Marwood, Sylvia Rosenberg and the Endellion, Chilingirian, Heath and Belcea String Quartets. Following work on the faculties of Yehudi Menuhin School, The Purcell School, and the RNCM, Manchester, Carole was appointed Senior Tutor in Keyboard Chamber Music at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, a role which she currently combines with piano professorships there and at the Royal Academy of Music. She was elected an HonARAM in 2013.

Julian Jacobson studied with Lamar Crowson, John Barstow and Louis Kentner and has established a reputation as a pianist of extraordinary breadth and versatility. His repertoire is firmly centred on the great classics of the repertoire - in recent years he has become particularly known for his Beethoven cycles and marathons - but he is also an acclaimed exponent of contemporary music including jazz, and as a much sought-after duo and ensemble pianist he has partnered many leading British and international soloists. His concert tours have taken him to over 40 countries worldwide and he has recorded more than 20 CDs. Julian was Head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama from 1992-96 and Artistic Director of the Paxos International Music Festival, Greece, for 17 years. He currently teaches at the Royal College of Music and Royal Brimingham Conservatoire. He is President of the Beethoven Piano Society of Europe.

​One of Britain’s most respected pianists, Danny Driver is recognised internationally for his sophistication, insight and musical depth. His studies at Cambridge University and the Royal College of Music inspired his holistic approach to performance and enabled him to cultivate a broad repertoire from J S Bach and Handel to the present day. Solo engagements have included orchestras such as the Hallé, Royal Philharmonic, Philharmonia, London Philharmonic, BBC Scottish Symphony, Bournemouth Symphony, American Symphony, and Minnesota Orchestras, as well as two appearances at the BBC Proms. Recital highlights have included frequent visits to London’s Wigmore Hall, among them a three concert series focussed on György Ligeti in 2021-2022, and where a five-concert ‘Variations’ series is planned for the 2025-26 and 2026-27 seasons. Driver’s international work has included engagements in the USA, Canada, Sweden, Finland, Italy, Germany, Australia, China and Hong-Kong. 2024-25 season highlights have included performances with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the European première of Lyell Creswell’s Piano Concerto no. 3 with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and a debut recital at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Equally at home in chamber music as in solo performance, Driver’s musical partnerships include artists such as Chloë Hanslip, Jack Liebeck, and Bomsori (violin), Christian Immler (baritone), Oliver Coates and Natalie Clein (cello). Recent projects have included a complete traversal of Beethoven’s Sonatas for Violin and Piano with Chloë Hanslip at Turner Sims Concert Hall (recorded live for Rubicon Classics), and song recitals at the Salle Bourgie (Montreal), Deutschlandfunk Raderbergkonzerte (Köln), and Maison de la Radio (Paris). Driver also performs with esteemed string quartets including the JACK, Parker, Carducci, and Brodsky Quartets. He is often heard on classical radio stations around the world, including BBC Radio 3. Since 2008 Driver has released an extensive series of acclaimed recital and concerto recordings on the Hyperion label including repertoire by György Ligeti, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, G F Handel, and Amy Beach, and has been twice nominated for a Gramophone Award. Future releases are to include J S Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Ligeti’s Musica Ricercata, and a recital disc of Schumann and Fauré.

​Levon Chilingirian was born in Cyprus to Armenian parents and was introduced to music from a very early age through his pianist mother and violinist great uncle. His long-standing partnership with Clifford Benson was launched by winning First Prize in both the 1969 BBC Beethoven Competition and the 1971 Munich Duo International Competition. From his student days, Levon Chilingirian was drawn to the wonderfully rich chamber music repertoire and in 1971 formed the Chilingirian Quartet with three other ex-RCM students. The Chilingirian Quartet has played in all major centres in North America as well as regular visits to all the European capital cities and main festivals. In addition, Levon has always enjoyed recital and concerto appearances. He was invited to perform the Sinfonia Concertante on the Amadeus soundtrack by Sir Neville Marriner and performed the Brahms Double Concerto with Steven Isserlis in Yerevan. He led a performance of the Schubert Quintet at the Wigmore Hall. He has played the Tippett Triple concerto with six different orchestras and his recording of the piece for Chandos with Richard Hickox had the enthusiastic endorsement of the composer. Other distinguished partners include Sir Andrew Davis, Tadaki Otaka, Sir Charles Groves, Jeremy Menuhin and Steven De Groote and organist William McVicker. Levon is also Artistic Director of the Mendlessohn on Mull Festival, encouraging the artistic development of young professionals through performances with more experienced mentors.

 

British violinist Laura Rickard enjoys a multifaceted international career as a highly sought-after chamber musician and soloist, festival director, and passionate teacher. Praised for her “sonorous, flexible and expressive” performances (Seen and Heard International), Laura is in demand as a concerto soloist, she regularly appears with orchestras across the UK and abroad, with recent performances at Royal Festival Hall and the Purcell Room. Her performances have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, and NBC, and she was recently elected as an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of her remarkable contributions to the field. As a founding member of the Mila Piano Trio, Laura has performed on many of the world’s renowned stages. Recent successes include winning first prize at Verao Classico, debuts at St Martin-in-the-Fields and St. John's Smith Square, and appearing at many of the UK's leading festivals. As a chamber musician and orchestral principal, Laura is regularly invited to play at festivals including Winchester, Montesinho (Portugal), San Miguel de Allende (Mexico), Atlantic (USA) and Presteigne. In 2020 Laura was appointed as Meaker Fellow in Violin at the Royal Academy of Music where she now teaches violin and chamber music. 

Susanne Stanzeleit has performed worldwide as a soloist and chamber musician. Her repertoire includes many premieres and commissions of works by composers including Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Anthony Payne, György Kurtág, John Adams, Rebecca Saunders, Philip Cashian, John Woolwich and John Casken. She was leader of the Maggini Quartet and is frequent guest-leader of many orchestras, ensembles and contemporary music groups. With the Primrose Piano Quartet she enjoys a busy touring schedule with regular performances in London's major concert halls and its own festival. Susanne has recorded more than 30 critically acclaimed CDs for Meridian, Naxos, Cala/United and BMS Records. She was Head of Strings at the London College of Music and Media until 2006 and now teaches violin and chamber music at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Simon Smith is a violinist of wide ranging interests. He has been active as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher worldwide for 30 years. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras such as the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, the Philharmonia, and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. Recitals have included the Wigmore Hall and the Purcell Room. He has performed extensively across Russia with recitals and concerto performances from Moscow to Vladivostock, and played concertos in Hong Kong and Beijing. His repertoire ranges from baroque to contemporary and has a number of ongoing projects to expand the violin repertoire through commission and rediscovery of lost works. A committed chamber musician, Simon was a member of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Octet, performing in concert halls and broadcasts worldwide. Other projects have included the release of a CD of duos and trios by Kodaly and Dohnanyi. In addition to teaching at RCM Junior Department Simon has taught at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire since 2004. He also teaches specialist violinists and viola players at Wells Cathedral School.

Louise Lansdown was appointed Head of Strings at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in 2012, after holding the position of Senior Lecturer in the School of Strings at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester from 2001-2012. Louise is the founder of the Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition and Festival launched at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire in October 2014 as well as the founder and President of the British Viola Society. She is on the council of the European String Teachers Association, Quartet of Peace Trust, Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, the Albion Quartet and directs the Conservatoire based viola course at Pro Corda, Suffolk. Louise plays mostly chamber music and solo concerts, collaborating with violists and other musicians across the world. She commissions new music for the viola and concocts hair brained schemes to perform music by Paul Hindemith and much unknown viola music, bringing the viola to many unsuspecting and innocent people. She is a member of the South African “Ubuntu Ensemble”. Louise hails from Cape Town where she studied with Prof Jack De Wet and Eric Rycroft at the University of Stellenbosch. She was awarded an ABRSM Overseas Scholarship for postgraduate study at the Royal Northern College of Music in 1998. Louise was awarded a PhD from the University of Manchester in 2008.

Dorothea Vogel was born in Switzerland and studied with Rudolf Weber in Winterthur. After winning first prize in the Swiss Youth Competition, Dorothea won scholarships to study with Paul Coletti at the Peabody Institute, USA, and with David Takeno and Micaela Comberti at the Guildhall School in London, where she graduated with the coveted Concert Recital Diploma. She was a founder member of the Amar Quartet. Dorothea has played the baroque viola in the Kings Consort and Florilegium and has been both principal viola in the Gustav Mahler Orchestra and the World Youth Orchestra in Israel. She has appeared as a soloist with the Zurich Kammerorchester and at London’s Wigmore Hall. In 2001 she joined the Allegri String Quartet, one of the UK’s longest-standing chamber groups, with whom she enjoys a busy performing, touring and recording schedule. She is a professor at Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and James Allen's Girls' School, and teaches Chamber Music at Pro Corda as well as festivals throughout the UK. Her viola is by Ludovico Rastelli, Genoa, circa 1800.

Born in London, Jacky studied the violin and viola with Sheila Nelson and then the viola at the RNCM with Atar Arad and Mischa Geller. As a young professional, Jacky combined a busy chamber career with the Ceruti string trio and the Adderbury ensemble with working in the English Chamber Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Royal Opera House and Glyndebourne Touring Opera amongst others. Following a shoulder injury, her love for teaching gradually took over, and she now combines teaching at Junior and Primary Academy with a private teaching practice. Jacky founded Parkview chamber music 12 years ago where she coached up to 14 string groups weekly preparing them for regular concerts, competitions and festivals. 13 years ago, Jacky founded and became musical director of the Arpeggione viola courses in Suffolk. She founded Beares chamber music in 2021, is on the council for ESTA and also teaches at the Purcell school. Other courses include Pro Corda, Cadenza, the National Childrens Orchestra, Summer Strings, National Symphony Orchestra and Stringwise.

​British cellist Laura van der Heijden has emerged as one of the leading cellists of her generation, captivating audiences and critics alike with her deeply perceptive interpretations and engaging and creative programming. Forthcoming concerto appearances include with the Brno Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Other highlights of Laura’s 2024/25 season include recitals at the Cello Biënnale Amsterdam and Wigmore Hall with pianist Jâms Coleman, collaborative projects at the Serios Fesitval in Helsinki and with Her Ensemble at London’s Milton Court, and a chamber project alongside Alina Ibragimova and Ben Goldscheider at the Pierre Boulez Saal in Berlin. Having given the World Premiere of Frances-Hoad’s ‘Earth, Sea, Air’ in 2023 with BBC Scottish Symphony, Laura took to the stage of the Royal Albert Hall with the orchestra and conductor Ryan Wigglesworth to perform the work at the 2024 BBC Proms. A Chandos artist, Laura’s latest release on the label in 2024 includes the premiere recording of Cheryl Frances-Hoad’s new work alongside Bridge Oration and Walton’s Cello Concerto. An increasingly prominent voice on the classical music scene, Laura recently appeared on Jess Gillam’s podcast ‘This Classical Life’ and Tom Service’s ‘Saturday Morning’ show on BBC Radio 3, and was featured as a cover article for The Strad publication. Highlights of recent seasons include as ‘Artist in Focus’ at King’s Place, and concerto appearances with the London Philharmonic, Aurora and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, CBSO, and play/direct with the Britten Sinfonia. She also appeared at the Barbican with the BBC Symphony Orchestra as part of their George Walker ‘Total Immersion’ project. Laura’s 2023/24 season included solo and chamber recitals at the BBC Proms, Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall, Cheltenham Music Festival, St George’s Bristol and Lammermuir and Bad Kissingen Summer Festivals. Laura has worked with distinguished conductors the late Sir Andrew Davis, Alpesh Chauhan, Nick Collon, Richard Egarr, Gemma New, and Karl-Heinz Steffens amongst them. Now with a growing discography, Laura’s first album on Chandos Records, ‘Pohádka’, features works by Janáček and Dvořák and was released to critical acclaim in 2022, followed in 2023 by Mozart Piano Quartets with chamber partners Francesca Dego, Timothy Ridout, and Federico Colli, and ‘Transfigured’ with Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. In 2024 Chandos released Laura’s album with pianist Jâms Coleman featuring works inspired by William T. Horton’s captivating image ‘Path to the Moon’ and Kaleidoscope’s first volume of ‘Brahms and contemporaries’, featuring piano quartets of Brahms and Le Beau. Having won the BBC Young Musician competition in 2012 aged 15, Laura’s 2018 debut album ‘1948’ won the 2018 Edison Klassiek Award and the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Newcomer of the Year Award. The disc, featuring Russian music for cello and piano with pianist Petr Limonov, has been hailed as a “a thought-provoking debut disc from an impressive and intelligent young cellist.” (Gramophone) A passionate chamber musician and collaborative artist, Laura plays with the critically-acclaimed Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, who perform a wide variety of captivating repertoire across the UK and beyond. She has performed chamber recitals collaborating with many acclaimed musicians including Timothy Ridout, Antje Weithaas, Max Baillie, Misha Mullov-Abbado, Hélène Clément, the Doric Quartet, the Redon Quartet, and the Brodsky Quartet. Laura is a graduate of Cambridge University and currently studies with Antje Weithaas in Berlin. She plays a late seventeenth century cello by Francesco Ruggieri of Cremona, on generous loan from a private collection.

Described in The Times as ‘searching, searing and sublime,’ cellist Christoph Richter was a student of the legendary André Navarra and Pierre Fournier, and performs as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the world. He has played concertos with many leading orchestras, and in recitals he performed complete cycles of works by Bach, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms and Webern. His strong interest in contemporary music has led him to work with composers such as Penderecki, Kurtág, Henze, Lachenmann, Holliger, Reimann, Turnage, Beamish and Widmann. Amongst his recordings are works by Schumann and Holliger for ECM, Klengel concertos for cpo, Mozart Divertimento for Naxos and the Brahms Sextet op.36 for Harmonia Mundi, which received the Diapason D’Or. Richter was cellist of the Cherubini and Heine Quartets, with whom he performed in the world’s most prestigious halls. He is the principal cellist of Sir András Schiff’s Cappella Andrea Barca from the start in 1999 and recently founded the Pasqualati Quartet. He is professor of cello at the Folkwang University of the arts in Essen, Germany, and the Royal Academy of Music in London and has frequently been a guest professor at the Ravinia festival’s Steans Institute of Music, US

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Christoph Richter will return to Cadneza in 2026

Robert Max enjoys a career that weaves together solo performance, chamber music, conducting and teaching. He has given recitals throughout the UK, Europe, Russia and the USA and performed concertos with the BBC Concert Orchestra, London Mozart Players, English Sinfonia, Arad Philharmonic, Wren Orchestra, Kazakh State Symphony Orchestra, Covent Garden Chamber Orchestra and many others. As cellist of the Barbican Piano Trio for thirty years, he has performed on four continents and made recordings for ASV, Dutton, Black Box and Guildmusic. Robert is an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, where he has taught at the Junior Academy since 1992, and he has coached chamber music at MusicWorks since its inception in 2001. He is an Honorary Professor of the Rachmaninov Institute in Tambov (Russia), a member of the International Board of Governors of the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance and President of the North London Festival of Music, Drama and Dance. Robert is the principal cellist of the London Chamber Orchestra, conducts the Oxford and North London Symphony Orchestras and plays a Stradivarius cello dating from 1726 known as “The Comte de Saveuse”.  After performing Bach’s Six Cello Suites throughout the UK in 2019 Robert recorded them and they were released by Guildmusic to critical acclaim last year.

A recipient of numerous prizes and awards, Kirsten made her solo debut playing the Schumann Cello Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra while studying with renowned soloist and pedagogue Johannes Goritzki. After finishing her studies in Switzerland, she joined the Ragazze Quartet in Holland, with whom she released albums under the label Channel Classics and performed regularly on live TV, radio, and at major venues including the Royal Concertgebouw. Kirsten has taken part in international concert series and festivals throughout Europe, Indonesia, Japan and the US, including IMS Prussia Cove, The London Masterclasses, and the Piatigorsky International Cello Festival. She was awarded Best British Cellist at the 2016 International Music Competition Grand Prize Virtuoso, and now has a busy freelance career, combining session work and private teaching with her love of solo and chamber music. As a member of the Fontanelli Quartet, Kirsten was a Park Lane Young Concert Artist, and then with the Dulcinea Quartet held the Carne Fellowship at Trinity College in London, alongside multiple tours to Japan and a collaboration with Geidai Music University.