Charlotte Scott
Charlotte began playing the violin at the age of seven. At the age of 10 she appeared as soloist in the Beethoven Romance with the National Children’s Orchestra in Ripon Cathedral. Charlotte studied at the Junior Royal Northern College of music with When Zoi Lee and afterwards, after receiving a DFEE scholarship, she went to study at Wells Cathedral School. Here she performed as a Soloist and with the Johan Piano Trio throughout the UK. In 2001 she went on to the Royal Academy of Music with a scholarship where she studied under Mateja Marinkovic and Marianne Thorsen.
In 2003, she won a full scholarship to spend 6 months studying in Boston at the New England Conservatory, where she was invited back to take part in the IMI Festival in Maine. Charlotte graduated from the Royal Academy with First Class Honours and received a Dip Ram plus the Franstein Prize for outstanding Final Recital.
Charlotte is in great demand as a chamber musician and soloist. With her duo partner James Baillieu, she has recently performed in venues such as the Purcell Room, St Martin’s in the Fields, St James Piccadilly, Fairfield Hall, Senate House, Kettles Yard and in various Music Festivals throughout the UK. She performed at the Zermatt Festival in 07 and 08 where she collaborated with members of the Berlin Philharmonic. During 2008 she also collaborated with the Sacconi Quartet and Acoustic Triangle in the innovative “Three Dimensions” concert tour around the UK.
Charlotte has performed a number of concertos around the UK, and next season is due to play Brahms and Barber concertos. In 2009 she became a member of the Abbracci Piano Quartet. Charlotte is a regular guest leader for the European Chamber Players Octet with whom she recently toured Austria and Lichtenstein.
Charlotte was awarded a scholarship to attended IMS Prussia Cove for three years where she performed in concerts and masterclasses with Ida Haendle and Ferenc Rados. Other masterclasses include Mauricio Fuks, Thomas Brandis, Sylvia Rosenberg, Zvi Zitlen, Tibor Varga Alexander Pablovic and Matej Rawkoski.
Charlotte holds a range of awards and prizes including the Croyden Concerto Competition 1st prize, Rosalie Inskip Trust Award, Jerwood foundation Award, MBF Education Award, Martin Musical Scholarship, Making Music Award, Marylebone Education Award, An Albert Cooper Trust Award, and a Derek Hill Award.
Charlotte is grateful for the support and generosity of Linn Rothstein.
Michael Trainor
Michael Trainor was born in Belfast in 1987 and began learning the violin at the age of 8. He has extensively performed as soloist with orchestra around Northeast America and Europe with concerto and solo appearances including the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts (USA), LSO St. Lukes in London (UK), the Ulster Hall, the National Concert Hall (Ireland) and Ljubljana Cathedral (Slovenia).
He has also broadcast many times as a live soloist on RTE and BBC Radio, the most recent of which was with the Ulster Orchestra performing Phillip Hammond’s new arrangement of his ‘Concertino’ in the Ulster Hall in Belfast.
At 22, Michael spent nearly a season standing in as leader of the RTE Concert Orchestra in Dublin with notable solo performances throughout. The highlights of these were undoubtedly the solos in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake at the historic opening of the Grand Canal Theatre in Dublin with the Russian State Ballet.
Michael has had several teachers between the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music including Yuri Zhislin, Natalia Lomeiko, David Juritz, Tomatada Soh and Dona Lee Croft. He is currently studying privately with Anthony Marwood and plans to study with Gerhard Schulz in Vienna thanks to the Young Musicians Platform Scheme from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland (ACNI). He is one of the few violinists to have had a masterclass with Sarah Chang and has also had masterclasses with Tasmin Little, Michael D’Arcy and Peter Cropper.
Father Aelred Magee, formerly head of music at St. Malachy’s College in Belfast played a particularly inspirational role for Michael during his teenage years, supplying him with many Heifetz CD’s and the loan of a fine violin. His studies have been supported by the Countess of Munster, Royal Academy of Music, and the Bank of Ireland Millennium Scholars Trust.
He currently plays a loaned 1782 Joseph Gagliano Violin after winning the Milton Violin Award through ACNI.
David Wigram
David studied viola and saxophone at the Royal College of music supported by a Jane Melber Scholarship. Having studied viola with Jonathon Barritt, Jon Thorne and Ivo-Jan van der Werff, David graduated in 2009 with a first class honours degree.
As a founder member of the Piatti Quartet, David has played in concert halls and music societies throughout the UK including prestigious venues such as the Wigmore Hall and the Purcell room. The Quartet have won numerous awards and competitions including the St Martins Chamber Music Competition and the Park Lane Group young artists award and have also been featured on BBC Radio 3’s ‘In Tune’ programme several times. They are currently Leverhulme Chamber Music Fellows at the Royal Academy of music and in July 2011 are one of only eight quartets to be selected to attend the Melbourne International String Quartet Competition.
David started his musical training and career singing as a boy treble in his local church choir and in 1999 attained the award of BBC Radio 2 Choirboy of the year. He found a regular job as one of the principal boy soloists with the English National Opera, appearing in such operas as The Turn of the Screw, Pelleas et Mellisande and Boris Gudonov.
More recently, David’s focus on his two instruments has led to numerous concerto opportunities with various orchestras including the St Albans Symphony Orchestra, Amadeus Chamber Orchestra and the de Havilland Philharmonic. During his time at the Royal College, David led the viola sections of both the RCM Sinfonietta and the RCM Symphony Orchestra and in October 2008 was asked to play the solo viola part in Stockhausen’s ‘Trans’ in the Queen Elizebeth Hall during Stockhausen’s 80th birthday Festival. As a saxophonist, David has been a regular member of the swing band ‘Five Star Swing’ for 5 years now as they tour around the theatres and jazz clubs of the British Isles with their show ‘Swing and Sinatra’.
Jessie Ann Richardson
Jessie Ann Richardson was born in 1987. She joined the Purcell School in 2000 where she studied with Alexander Boyarsky. While there she performed in the Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room, in Malta at the invitation of the Maltese government and on the east coast of the USA.
She then studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London, with David Strange and Moray Welsh where she won the Herbert Walenn Prize for cello. At his invitation, Jessie studied with the late Bernard Greenhouse in the winter of 2007.
She is the recipient of an MBF Education Award 2007 and a Martin Musical Scholarship Fund Award 2005. Jessie is a founding member of the Piatti String Quartet, recent winners of the St Martins in the Fields chamber music competition 2010, Martin Fund/Philarmonia Award 2010, chosen by the Park Lane Group for their 09/10 Young Artists Series and currently Chamber Music Fellows at the Royal Academy of Music.
Jessie continued her studies with Lluis Claret (Barcelona, Spain) and is grateful for awards from the Martin Musical Scholarship Fund and the Countess of Munster Fund to have enabled her to do this.
Jessie was also a Park Lane Group Young Artist in the 2011 series, which led to her Purcell Room debut last January. Jessie now performs regularly with duo pianist Lynn Carter and amateur orchestras around the UK.