Beatrice Philips enjoys a busy freelance life as a chamber musician, soloist, orchestral player, leader and teacher. While reading music at Kings College London Beatrice studied the violin with Howard Davis at the Royal Academy of Music. Following her graduation in 2007 she went on to the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki for her Masters, studying with Erkki Kantola and Paivyt Meller - during which she studied for one year on exchange in Paris with Olivier Charlier at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique.

During her time abroad Beatrice maintained her passion for playing chamber music by giving concerts with numerous groups in Helsinki, Paris, and in London. She has played at numerous festivals including Cheltenham, Kuhmo, Oxford Chamber Music Festival, Two Moors, Resonances Chamber Music Festival in Belgium and has broadcast on BBC Radio 3. She has attended the International Musicians’ Seminar masterclasses at Prussia Cove and is regularly invited to September's Open Chamber Music, directed by Steven Isserlis.

She plays regularly with many leading ensembles in London including the London Chamber Orchestra, the London Contemporary Orchestra, the 12Ensemble, Arcangelo and regularly leads the Multi-Story orchestra, Kantanti Ensemble and recently founded the Eusebius String Quartet. As a soloist she has given performances of concertos by Mendelssohn, Mozart, Sibelius, Bruch and Tchaikovsky with orchestras throughout UK. Beatrice founded the Lewes Chamber Music Festival in 2012 and under her successful artistic direction the festival looks set to become a significant annual musical event.

Beatrice plays a copy of a 1736 Bergonzi violin which was completed in 2012 by David Munro. She is very grateful for the support she had throughout her studies from The Headley Foundation, The Albert Cooper Memorial Fund and the Countess of Munster Musical Trust.

A member of the London Haydn Quartet, Dutch violinist Michael Gurevich performs regularly as a chamber musician and orchestral leader and is a passionate teacher. As a chamber musician he has performed at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Royal Concertgebouw, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music, the Aldeburgh, Aix-en-Provence and Verbier Festivals playing with the Nash Ensemble, Florestan Trio, Ensemble 360, the London Bridge Ensemble, and many others. Radio broadcasts include appearances on BBC Radio 3 as well as abroad and he has recorded on the Hyperion label and Champs Hill Records. As a guest leader and principal, Michael has appeared with ensembles such as the Philharmonia, Arcangelo, CBSO, English Chamber Orchestra and Glyndebourne Orchestra.

Michael is a tutor in violin and chamber music at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester and has given chamber music masterclasses at the Juilliard School, Yale University and Royal Academy of Music amongst others. Michael studied at the Royal Northern College of Music where he was awarded the Sir John Manduell Prize ‘for outstanding contribution to the college’ and ended his time there as the Leverhulme Junior Fellow in violin and viola.

He was a prizewinner in a number of solo and chamber music competitions, including the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition 2011. He greatly benefited from the guidance of the late Dr Christopher Rowland, Gaby Lester, Jan Repko, Maciej Rakowski, Ivry Gitlis and Pauline Nobes as well as masterclasses with Andras Keller, Ferenc Rados, James Boyd, Menahem Pressler, Mitsuko Uchida and members of the Florestan and Gould Trios and Endellion Quartet.

Iestyn Davies studied Archaeology & Anthropology at St John’s College, Cambridge and then joined the opera school at the Royal Academy of Music. Today he is one of the world’s leading countertenors. He has performed operas at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, Covent Garden, London and La Scala, Milan amongst many others.  Recitals and concerts see him regularly perform at the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and many of the great European concert halls. He has won numerous awards for his recordings and appearances alike including the 2010 Royal Philharmonic Young Artist of the Year Award, the 2012 Gramophone Recital Award, the 2013 Critics’ Circle Awards for Exceptional Young Talent (Singer) and the 2014 Gramophone Recital Award for his disc Arise, my muse on the Wigmore Live label. 

This season he appears at the Glyndebourne Festival in Handel’s Saul, in recital with the English Concert and as ‘Farinelli’ in ‘Farinelli and the King’ with Mark Rylance at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London. He will release a disc of Bach alto cantatas on Hyperion with Arcangelo and Jonathan Cohen in the New Year.

Bengt Forsberg is one of Sweden’s leading pianists and is particularly esteemed as a recital accompanist. He pursued courses at the Royal Academy of Music in Gothenburg (Göteborg), Sweden, training to become a church organist and cantor, but by the time of his graduation in 1978 had shifted to piano, in which he obtained his diploma. He then continued his training with Peter Feuchtwanger in London and Herman D. Koppel in Copenhagen.

He has become known for his wide repertory and his constant interest in finding neglected music. In 1999, he performed Nikolai Medtner’s Second Piano Concerto with the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra, played as part of the multi-piano recitals in performances of Stravinsky’s The Wedding and George Antheil’s Ballet mécanique in Copenhagen, and the solo part in Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety Symphony with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra. His repertory includes piano solo works of Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Charles Alkan, Emmanuel Chabrier, and Kaikhosru Sorabji, and his recordings include compositions by Godard, Boëllmann, Koechlin, Pierné, and Alfvén.

Forsberg may be the most esteemed and in-demand accompanists. Among the artists he regularly accompanies are cellist Mats Lidström and violinist Nils-Erik Sparf. With the well-known mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter he has maintained a long-standing partnership resulting in many recordings on the Deutsche Grammophon label, including a Gramophone “Record of the Year” Award for 1995 for their program of songs of Edvard Grieg. He and von Otter also collaborated in the BIS label’s ongoing complete Sibelius project. Forsberg also records for Hyperion when partnering with Lidström, and has several releases on the Caprice Records label. He has a strong interest in French music of the 1800s, and in 1999 began a Saint-Saëns series for Hyperion. He continues to keep a relationship with church music as the director of the chamber music series of the All Saints Church in Stockholm.

Tom Poster is internationally recognised as a pianist of outstanding artistry and versatility, equally in demand as soloist and chamber musician across an unusually extensive repertoire. He has been described as “a marvel, [who] can play anything in any style” (The Herald), “an unparalleled sound-magician” (General-Anzeiger), a “young lion” (The Guardian), and as possessing “great authority and astounding virtuosity” (Est Républicain). He won First Prize at the Scottish International Piano Competition 2007, the Ensemble Prize at the Honens International Piano Competition 2009, and the keyboard sections of the Royal Over-Seas League and BBC Young Musician of the Year Competitions in 2000.

Tom features regularly on BBC Radio 3 as soloist and chamber musician, and appeared in both capacities at the BBC Proms in 2008, 2009 and 2011. He has given solo recitals at the Barbican Hall, the Brighton, City of London, Edinburgh, Presteigne and Spoleto Festivals, and in Canada, the Channel Islands, France, Germany and Switzerland. Tom enjoys duo partnerships with Alison Balsom, Guy Johnston and Jennifer Pike, has recently collaborated with Ian Bostridge at the Aldeburgh Festival and Steven Isserlis at the Wigmore Hall, and has performed piano quintets with the Brodsky, Elias, Endellion, Medici, Sacconi and Skampa Quartets. As pianist of the Aronowitz Ensemble (BBC New Generation Artists 2006-2008), he has appeared at the Concertgebouw Amsterdam, Laeiszhalle Hamburg, the Aldeburgh, Bath and Cheltenham Festivals, and on several occasions at the Wigmore Hall.

Since his London concerto debut at the age of 13, Tom has appeared in a wide-ranging concerto repertoire of over 30 major works ranging from Bach to Ligeti, with orchestras and conductors including the Aurora Orchestra/Nicholas Collon, BBC Philharmonic/Yan Pascal Tortelier, BBC Scottish Symphony/James Loughran, European Union Chamber Orchestra, Southbank Sinfonia/Vladimir Ashkenazy, China National Symphony/En Shao in Beijing, Atlantic Classical Orchestra/Stewart Robertson in Florida, and the State Capella Philharmonic in St Petersburg.

Passionately fond of chamber music, Pierre Doumenge was a member of the Dante Quartet and regularly explores the repertoire with artists such as Pascal Rogé, Lars Vogt, Daniel Hope, Pekka Kuusisto, Lawrence Power, Belcea, Allegri, Sacconi, London Haydn quartets and the Nash Ensemble. He has appeared at many international festivals (Aldeburgh, Kuhmo, Bucharest, La Hague, Nuremberg, Bergstaden, Hindsgalv, IMS Prussia Cove, Stellenbosch, Singapore, Hong-Kong, Vancouver, Boston) and recorded for the Dutton, Meridian and Hyperion labels to great critical acclaim. In 2008 he was chosen to be the official cellist of the Menuhin International Violin Competition, performing the Ravel Duo Sonata with the nine semi-finalists. Pierre works regularly as guest principal cellist of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, l’Orchestre du Monde, London Sinfonietta, Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Bournemouth Symphony, BBC Welsh and English National Opera. Pierre taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School from 2003-2009 and is a cello professor at GSMD. He gives annual masterclasses at the Oxford Cello School, International Cello Courses UK, Violoncello Society of London, Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris, West Helsinki Music Institute, Conservatoire Royal de Mons and the Szymon Goldberg Seminars in Toyama, Japan.

Tim is currently a student of Alexander Janiczek, and attends the Guildhall School of Music on a scholarship for the duration of his studies. Previously, he studied privately with Simon Fischer while attending the Junior Royal Academy. 

Tim was recently awarded first prize in the Under 18 North London Festival Recital class, joint-second in the D'Addario String Prize 2014, Brent Young Musician of the Year 2014, and won all available prizes at the Junior Academy of Music. He has participated in masterclasses with violinists Mi-Kyung Lee, Daniel Hope, Andras Keller and Ulf Wallin on courses across Europe. Over the past few years he has been fortunate to work closely with inspirational artists, many of whom he has met here at Lewes Chamber Music Festival. 

Although still studying for his undergraduate degree, Tim has been invited to the International Musicians Seminars Open Chamber Music Sessions in Cornwall in 2014, playing Berg’s own arrangement of the Adagio from his Kammer Konzert for Piano, Violin and Clarinet with fellow Lewes artist Matt Hunt and Ieva Jokubaviciute. Having recently performed Mozart’s 2nd Violin Concerto in D major at Wembley Arena and Chausson’s “Poème” with the Ernst Read Symphony Orchestra he looks forward to a performance of Glazunov’s Violin Concerto with Camden Symphony Orchestra in March 2016. 

From 2011 Tim has been a member of the Celan Quartet. Quartet in Residence at the 2014 Musikdorf Ernen Festival in Switzerland, the Celan Quartet was formed in 2011 with the support and inspiration of MusicWorks Chamber Courses. With the generous help from violist James Boyd, they were able to film and record Berg’s Quartet Op.3 at the Menuhin Hall, now released on CD. Since then they have appeared at many major festivals in Britain including Peasmarsh Festival, Cheltenham Festival, and two consecutive years of residency at the Wye Valley Festival in Wales. 

Tim is also very fortunate to have the opportunity to regularly play with Arcangelo, a leading ensemble comprised of players who excel on both historical and modern instruments, under the direction of founder and artistic director & conductor Jonathan Cohen. 

In 2015 Tim will be appearing at various chamber festivals, including Brighton Festival with fellow Lewes artist Timothy Ridout, Joroisten Musiikkipaivat in Finland and Musikdorf Ernen in Switzerland. Tim plays a Ferdinand Gagliano, c.1770.

Aged just 19 and a passionate chamber musician, Timothy Ridout has played at many festivals around Europe including Open Chamber music at IMS Prussia Cove UK, Musique a Marsac in France, Accademia dei Cameristi in Italy and ‘Next Generation’ Classic Festival Bad Ragaz in Switzerland. He looks forward to playing at Schubertiade in Austria and The Brighton Festival.

Timothy was a member of the Celan Quartet between 2011 and 2014. During his time with the group they had residencies at the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival and Musikdorf Ernen, and appeared at the Cheltenham, Peasmarsh, Lewes and Frinton Festivals, as well as collaborating with members of The London Haydn Quartet, and the Barbican and Kungsbacka Trios. They also recorded a disc of Berg’s op.3 Quartet which was released on the Music Works Label.

Timothy began playing the viola aged 8 and he now studies at the Royal Academy of Music with Martin Outram and previously studied at the Junior department of the Academy with Jonathan Barritt. He has attended the International Musicians Seminars at Prussia Cove, the Carl Flesch Academy in Baden Baden and the International Music Academy in the Principality of  Liechtenstein. He has participated in master classes with Lawrence Power, Maxim Rysanov, Hartmut Rohde and Thomas Riebl.

In October 2014 Timothy won the Cecil Aronowitz International Viola Competition. There he was also awarded the Britten-Pears Prize for his performance of Britten’s Lachrymae and the Bishop Instruments Prize for his performance of Hindemith Sonata Op 11. No. 4. In 2013 he was awarded 1st Place in the Theodore Holland Viola Prize at RAM, and in 2014 at the 21st International Johannes Brahms Competition he was awarded the prize of the European String Teachers Association. Timothy is supported by Ian Stoutzker and the Albert and Eugine Frost Music Trust.

He plays a 1677 viola by Giovanni Grancino, kindly on loan from the Royal Academy of Music, with generous support from the Amarylis Fleming Foundation.

Catherine Manson enjoys a versatile performing career as a soloist and chamber musician. As first violinist of the classical London Haydn Quartet she has performed in venues such as Carnegie Hall, the Library of Congress, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and London’s Wigmore Hall. The quartet’s series of recordings of the Haydn quartets on the Hyperion label has met with high critical acclaim internationally.

She was appointed as leader of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 2006. Together with the orchestra's director, Ton Koopman she has recorded the six obbligato sonatas by Bach, Haydn's concerto for violin and organ and the complete chamber music by Buxtehude. They have given many concerts together throughout Europe. Highlights in recent months have included appearing as a soloist and director with Tafelmusik in Canada and performing all the Bach concerti at London's South Bank. In a duo partnership with pianist Alasdair Beatson she will next week complete a cycle of Beethoven sonata recitals with a concert recorded by the BBC.

Teaching has always been an important part of her musical life; in 2001 she co­founded and now directs MusicWorks, presenting chamber music courses for young musicians.

Born in Paris in 1988, Thomas Dunford discovered the lute at the age of nine, thanks to his first teacher Claire Antonini. He completed his studies in 2006 at the Conservatoire Supérieur de Paris (CNR), when he obtained a unanimous 1st Prize with honors in the class of CharlesEdouard Fantin. Thomas continued his studies at the Schola Cantorum in Basel with Hopkinson Smith, and participated in several master classes with artists the caliber of Rolf Lislevand and Julian Bream, and in workshops with Eugène Ferré, Paul O’Dette, Pascale Boquet, Benjamin Perrot and Eduardo Eguez. He was awarded his Bachelor’s degree in 2009.

From September 2003 through to January 2005, Thomas gave his first performances playing the role of the lutenist in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night on stage at the Comédie Française. Since then, Thomas has played recitals in New York’s Carnegie Hall, London’s Wigmore Hall, the Washington Kennedy Center, the Vancouver recital society, Cal performances at Berkeley, the Banff center, the festivals of Saintes, Utrecht, and Maguelone. He made numerous solo or ensemble appearances in the most prestigious European festivals including Ambronay, Arc La Bataille, Bozar, La Chaise-Dieu, Nantes, Saintes, Utrecht and many others. He has also performed further afield in England, Scotland, Ireland, Spain, Germany, Austria, Norway, Belgium, Netherlands, Switzerland, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Estonia, Czech Republic, United States, Israel, China, Japan and India.

Thomas’ first solo CD Lachrimae recorded for the French label Alpha in 2012, was unanimously acclaimed by critics and was awarded the Caecilia prize of 2013, BBC magazine calling him the “Eric Clapton of the lute”. His extensive discography includes John Dowland’s music with Jeni Melia and Christopher Goodwin; Four CDs with La Capella Mediterranea of music by Barbara Strozzi, the works Il Diluvio Universale and Nabucco by Falvetti and another work by Zamponi; two CDs of works by Farina and Romero with Clématis Ensemble; violin sonatas with Monica Hugget; two CDs of Forqueray and Dowland with Julien Léonard; Vivaldi with Nicola Benedetti; three recordings of Vivaldi with La Serenissima; Bacilly and Ferrabosco with A 2 Violes Esgales; Praetorius with Cappricio Stravagante; three CDs of Zelenka, Fasch and bassoon arias with Marsyas; Six CDs with Arcangelo including Guadani arias for countertenor Iestyn Davies, Handel arias for Chris Perves, arias for Anna Prohaska, Monteverdi Madrigals, Couperin’s Lecons de ténèbres, and Charpentier’s Lecons de Ténèbres and many more.

Cellist, Hannah Sloane, performs regularly in the UK and USA as a chamber musician and soloist. Hannah has appeared with the Blackheath, Haydon, Lambeth and Juilliard Orchestras and has played recitals in Boston, New York, San Francisco and throughout the UK. As a chamber musician, Hannah has attended the Domaine Forget, Kneisel, Lewes, Taos and Wye Valley chamber music festivals. Hannah studied at The Juilliard School in New York with Darrett Adkins and Joel Krosnick.

In addition to her formal studies, Hannah has worked intensively with Ralph Kirshbaum at the International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove, and at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris as a recipient of a Carla Bruni Sarkozy French-American Exchange Grant with Philippe Muller. She is very grateful to play an Antonio Piattilini cello dating 1750, which is kindly on loan to her from the Stark family.

Philip Higham has been described as ‘possessing that rare combination of refined technique with subtle and expressive musicianship... all the qualities of a world-class artist’ (The Strad). Already in high demand, in recent months Philip has appeared as soloist with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Hallé Orchestra, the Royal Northern Sinfonia and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra.

He has given recitals at the Wigmore Hall, St. John’s Smith Square, Brighton Festival, the City of London Festival and Lichfield Festival as well as debuts further afield in Germany and Istanbul. His USA debut at the Phillips Collection in Washington received high praise in the Washington Post. Already regularly broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Philip has also recorded an acclaimed disc of the Britten Solo Suites (Delphian Records), which won the title of ‘Instrumental disc of the month’ in Gramophone Magazine. 

The 2014/15 season sees Philip recording the complete Bach Suites, and performances including at the Musashino Cultural Foundation in Tokyo, and a return visit to the Wigmore Hall.

James Boyd is widely recognised as one of Britain’s finest chamber musicians. He has been a member of some of the country’s foremost ensembles and is in demand as a guest artist with many others.

After studying at the Yehudi Menuhin School he became a member of the Raphael Ensemble and was a founder member of the Vellinger String Quartet, winners of the 1994 London International string quartet competition.

In 2001 he formed the London Haydn Quartet which has been acclaimed for its highly individual stylistic approach, using gut strings and classical bows, making a particular speciality of the works of Haydn and Beethoven. Their recordings of Haydn’s op.9, op.17 and op.20 quartets have been released on Hyperion to much critical acclaim. The op.33 set will be released in June 2013. The quartet have played major venues in Europe and North America, including the Wigmore and Carnegie Halls and often collaborate with the classical clarinettist, Eric Hoeprich. James appears as a regular guest with many ensembles including the Nash Ensemble and Arcangelo and is invited to many international chamber music festivals including Lofoten, Kaposvar, Resonances, Korsholm and Kempten. He also plays in the Ludwig String Trio with Peter Cropper and Paul Watkins and will record the complete Beethoven trios in 2013. Gramophone Magazine described his CD of the viola music of York Bowen, with the pianist Bengt Forsberg, as “a gem of a disc!”

In 2001 he co-founded MusicWorks, a chamber music course for young string players and pianists, from which many young chamber ensembles have emerged. He also teaches chamber music at University of Cambridge (IAS), Chamber Studio (at King’s Place), The Banff centre, and Domaine Forget (Quebec). James also writes occasional articles for the Strad magazine, is a passionate amateur recording producer and engineer, and designs and constructs high-end audio equipment with horns and valves.

Cellist and viol player Jonathan Manson was born in Edinburgh and received his formative training at the International Cello Centre in Scotland under the direction of Jane Cowan, later going on to study with Steven Doane and Christel Thielmann at the Eastman School of Music in New York. A growing fascination for early music led him to Holland, where he studied viola da gamba with Wieland Kuijken. For ten years he was the principal cellist of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, with whom he performed and recorded more than 150 Bach cantatas and, together with Yo-Yo Ma, Vivaldi’s Concerto for two cellos. As a concerto soloist he has recently appeared at the Wigmore Hall, the Carnegie Hall and the South Bank Centre.

Jonathan is an active chamber musician, performing repertoire from the Renaissance to the Romantic, and a long-standing partnership with the harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock has led to critically acclaimed recordings of the Bach gamba sonatas and, together with Rachel Podger, Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concert. In recent years they have joined forces with the flautist Emmanuel Pahud and violinist Matthew Truscott, leading to two recordings of Bach and successful tours of Europe, the USA and the Far East. Jonathan is also co-principal of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a founder member of the renowned viol consort Phantasm. Jonathan lives in Oxfordshire and is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

Tom Hankey studied the violin with David Takeno, Krzyzstof Smietana, Levon Chilingirian and Yossi Zivoni. As violinist and violist, he is a member of the Aronowitz Ensemble. The group took part in the Radio 3 New Generation Artist Scheme which involved frequent performances for radio throughout  the UK, including Wigmore Hall, the Sage, Gateshead, and Bridgewater Hall, as well as from the Bath, Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Kings Place, Spoleto, City of London festivals and the proms. A Borletti-Buitoni Trust award enabled them to release two CDs on the Sonimage label. 

Tom also plays second violin in the Callino Quartet, with whom he has toured extensively and recorded works by Haydn, Schubert and Janáček. As soloist he has given many recitals and concerto performances including Beethoven’s triple concerto and Prokofiev’s first concerto, and has taken part in performances of Stravinsky’sSoldier’s Tale with the Kreisler Ensemble. His freelance orchestral work has included touring with the Aurora Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, Camerata Bern, English Chamber Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.