Crotchets and Cream Teas with Chamber Competition Winners

The ever popular Afternoon Tea Concerts series returns to St Martin’s this summer. Making the most of the season, the series invites audiences to indulge in a traditional afternoon tea of freshly baked scone, jam and clotted cream with tea, Fairtrade filter coffee or orange juice from the Café in the Crypt and to enjoy an hour of music with performances by outstanding chamber musicians discovered during the course of the year in St Martin’s prestigious Lunchtime Concert Series. On Monday 2 August, 3.30pm experience the saxophone as you’ve never heard it before. Park Lane Group and Concordia Foundation artist the Sirocco Saxophone Quartet presents a programme both light and lyrical, comic and exciting featuring Gershwin Song transcriptions alongside works by Argentinean ‘Father of the Tango’ Piazzolla and Baroque master J S Bach. Winners of St Martin’s Chamber Music Competition 2010, finalists in the 2009 Royal Overseas League competition and winners of the Tunnell Trust Award 2010/2011, the Piatti String Quartet perform on Monday 9 August, 3.30pm. Enjoy the best of seasonal strings with their programme of Mozart’s ‘Dissonance’ Quartet and Haydn’s String Quartet op 76 No 1. Flute, Harp and Piano form the delicious Lilium Trio which will perform on Monday 16 August, 3.30pm. For something a little different, lose yourself to the musical imagination of Debussy in his Trio Sonata and the mystery of Mathias’s famous ‘Zodiac Trio’. The series finale is a performance by two top young instrumentalists. Cellist Rowena Calvert and pianist Warren Mailley-Smith have each established themselves at home and abroad. They surprise and delight with a programme on Monday 23 August, 3.30pm at once moving and light-hearted including Beethoven and Franck Cello Sonatas and De Falla’s ‘Suite Populaire’. Tickets priced at £10 for concert and afternoon tea or £7 for the concert only are available from St Martin’s box office 020 7766 1100 www.smitf.org NOTES: The Sirocco Saxophone Quartet was formed at the Royal College of Music in 2006 where its members studied saxophone with Kyle Horch and chamber music with Martin Robertson. On completing their studies at RCM they went on to study with world renowned professors in Paris, Cologne, The Hague and Chicago. The quartet is a passionate advocate of repertoire specifically written for saxophone and performs a wide variety of original works in addition to transcriptions. The quartet particularly enjoys working directly with composers and has collaborated with Paul Patterson and Israeli composer Tzvi Avni. It has also commissioned and premiered new works from Tansy Davies and Charlotte Bray. The quartet gives regular recitals in London and elsewhere in the UK and Germany. Recent concerts include appearances at St Martin-in-the-Fields, the Barbican Centre, St James’s Piccadilly, and the City Showcase Festival. The quartet gave a critically acclaimed recital at the Purcell Room during the 2009 Park Lane Group New Year Series, and were described as “A hugely talented foursome” (The Observer), and as possessing “finesse and flair” (The Times). Sirocco gave their Wigmore Hall debut in the Monday Platform in February 2010. Piatti String Quartet is fast emerging as the UK's leading young string quartet. Having been chosen for the Park Lane Group young artist series, the Piatti Quartet gave their Purcell room debut in October 2009 as part of the Peter Maxwell Davis 'Naxos' quartet series and returned to the Purcell room in January 2010. Highlights for the forthcoming season include launching the Belfast Music Society's next International Chamber Music Festival, a collaboration project with renowned cellist Raphael Wallfisch and a return to Farnham Castle for the Tilford Bach Society concert series. In 2010, the Piatti String Quartet is launching the 'Piatti Chamber Music Festival at Kingsand' Cornwall, following an extremely enthusiastic response at the 2009 pre-festival concert, and they will also be attending a two week residency in Aldeburgh with Hugh Maguire. The Quartet has previously played throughout the UK at venues and festivals including the Royal Festival Hall, St Martin-in –the-Fields, St James’s Piccadilly and the National Gallery. The Quartet members are all past and current award-winning students from the Royal College of Music and Royal Academy of Music and have studied with members of the Amadeus Quartet, Chilingirian Quartet, Alban Berg Quartet, Keller Quartet, Maggini Quartet, Vellinger Quartet, Brodsky Quartet, Artis Quartet and with Jon Thorne. In 2009 they received the MBF Ensemble Award to attend the International Sommerakademie Prague/Vienna/Budapest where they performed extensively throughout Austria in venues including Brahms House and the Schloss Rothschild castle. The Quartet has a growing empathy for English Music which has led to the world premier recording of the Hurlstone "Fantasie" for string quartet in 2006 and they are continuously looking to expand their English repertoire. The Piatti Quartet is extremely grateful for the generosity and support of the Nicolas Boas Charitable Trust, the Musicians Benevolent Fund, the Concordia Foundation and Ian Ellis. The Lilium Trio Uri Nahir graduated from the Rubin Music Academy in Jerusalem, Israel under the tuition of Avner Biron. In 2006, he moved to London from Paris, where he had worked as a stage manager for the Orchestra of the National Conservatoire. He is currently studying as a postgraduate with Susan Milan and Stewart McIlwham at the Royal College of Music. Uri holds a RCM scholarship, generously supported by Lucy Ann Jones and Alice Templeton Awards. He was commended at the London Philharmonic Orchestra apprenticeship auditions and at the Royal College of Music Woodwind competition. Uri has recently performed with Chelsea Opera Group and Midsummer Opera, and as a soloist in St Martin-in-the-Fields, All Saints’ Church in Hertford and in the Stockwell Festival in London. Alison Jones began her studies on viola at the age of eight at the Bexley Music Centre, where she played in several chamber groups and orchestras throughout her formative years. In 2004 she embarked on a degree course at Trinity College of Music London, studying viola with Elizabeth Turnbull and supported by a TCM scholarship. During this time she was awarded the Band Kurtz viola prize for achievement and chosen to play Schumann’s Märchenbilder as part of the TCM Schumann Festival. She was an active participant in several chamber ensembles and graduated in 2008 with First Class Honours. Alongside her studies, Alison performs regularly with choral and amateur operatic societies and has led chamber music courses at the Dartington Plus summer school for young musicians. She also teaches and has conducted young string players in several concerts. Alison is currently a postgraduate student at the Royal College of Music in London, studying with Jonathan Barritt, generously supported by a Leverhulme Orchestral Mentorship scholarship. Holly Lowe is currently in her second year of postgraduate study at the Royal College of Music supported by a scholarship. While still at school she attended the Royal Northern College of Music junior department where along with the harp she studied the piano and the organ gaining grade 8 in all three instruments, with a distinction on the harp. In 2001 she joined the Halle Youth Orchestra as first harp with which she performed extensively at such venues as the Bridgewater Hall. From 2003 to 2004 Holly was a part time student at the Franz Liszt Academie of Music in Budapest where she studied with Andrea Vigh. In 2004 she gained a place at The Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she studied with Charlotte Seale. During her time at Guildhall Holly performed regularly. Some of her more notable appearances were: The premiere of the opera ‘The Little Green Swallow,’ playing for the Queen on her Eightieth Birthday celebrations at Mansion House, performing Ravel's Introduction and Allegro in the Main Hall at Guildhall. Holly performs regularly at functions round London and is currently Harpist to the Royal Humane Society. Rowena Calvert began her musical education in Edinburgh with Ruth Beauchamp. After her Queens Hall debut when she was twelve years old, several concerto opportunities and masterclasses from and including Steven Isserlis and Steven Doane, Rowena transferred to the Yehudi Menuhin School when she was thirteen to study with Leonid Gorokhov. It was here that several partnerships were formed with pianists which led to performances in venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Manchester Cello Festival, Kronberg Cello Festival, Germany, and in the UNESCO Celebrations, Paris. When Rowena was eighteen she went to the Royal Academy of Music where she studied with Paul Watkins and was a string finalist of BBC Young Musicians 2002. Two years later Rowena moved to India where she helped run two music schools, performed a concerto on Indian Television, played a recital in The British Council and performed for the Sangat Western Classical Music Festival. On her return, Rowena resumed her studies at the Royal Northern College of Music with Hannah Roberts. Here she was the winner of the Busenhart Morgen Evans Award from the Worshipful Company of Musicians, the Tillett Trust Education Award, the Haworth Trust Award for Cellists, an Ian Fleming Award from the MBF, a Countess of Munster Star Award, The Jellineck Award, the Myra Hess Award, the Oglesby Education Award and a bow from the Scottish Arts Council. She has been fortunate to play concertos with London Mozart Players, Meadows Chamber Orchestra, Harlow Symphony Orchestra, Edinburgh Festival Orchestra, The Fairfield Halls Orchestra, Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra, Surrey Symphony Orchestra, RNCM Symphony Orchestra, Boyce Orchestra and Covent Garden Actors Orchestra. Since leaving the RNCM, Rowena was invited to be a part of the Countess of Munster Recital Scheme which offered her and her pianist duo partner, Alison Rhind, twenty seven engagements. They also made Rowena's debut solo CD together which includes works by Beethoven, Debussy and De Falla. Warren Mailley-Smith was featured as Classic FM’s Video of the Week and Hot Property of the Week when his playing was described as ’Sensational’, 'Stunning’ and 'Fantastic.. Warren’s reputation as one of the country's leading solo pianists of his generation continues to grow with performances all over the UK at festivals, music societies, universities and many of the country's leading concert venues such as the Southbank Centre, including ‘Fresh’ series and Park Lane Group recitals in the Purcell Room, Wigmore Hall, Symphony Hall, Birmingham and St John’s Smith Square. He has also been invited to perform for the Royal Family on more than thirty occasions. Warren has appeared with the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s Chamber Ensemble, Kensington Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the Swan, Bardi Orchestra, London Concertante, London Strings, London Kensington Sinfonia, Corinthian Orchestra and the London Charity Orchestra performing concertos such as Rachmaninov Nos 2 and 3, Chopin No 2, Beethoven No 1,3, 4 and 5 and Saint Saens No 2.. Until recently, Warren was a musician on the Live Music Now! Scheme and was recently selected as a Making Music Concert Promoters' Network Artist. He has performed in the USA, including Carnegie Hall in New York and in Russia, China (Beijing International Piano Festival), Australia and throughout Europe and has been featured in interviews and performance slots on Classic FM and BBC Radio.

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