Madeleine Mitchell is one of the UK’s foremost violinists and one of Britain’s liveliest musical forces (The Times). She has performed in over 40 countries as a soloist in a wide repertoire in major venues and frequently broadcasts for television and radio including the BBC Proms and ABC (Australia). She was described by the Chief Music Critic of the Herald after a recital in Glasgow as a violinist in a million… staggering virtuosity and unparalleled musicianship… her amazing big toned, sweetly lyrical, vibrantly intense playing is unmistakable.

Madeleine Mitchell has performed a wide repertoire of concertos with major orchestras including the Czech and Polish Radio Symphony, Wurttemberg and Munich Chamber, the Royal Philharmonic and other London orchestras; Welsh Chamber, Orchestra de Bahia Brazil, Malaga Symphony of Spain and for the BBC. She premiered works for solo violin and choir by Roxanna Panufnik, Jonathan Harvey and Thierry Pecou at Bath and Spitalfields festivals. She recently performed Elgar, Brahms, Bruch and Barber violin concertos and performed Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending with the St Petersburg Philharmonic in November.

Following Mitchell’s performance in Symphony Hall International Series of Lou Harrison’s Violin Concerto with Percussion Orchestra, her recording of this and new works (FiddleSticks with Ensemble Bash on the Signum label) was nominated for several awards last year. Violin Songs (Divine Art), popular pieces and rarities with Andrew Ball (piano) and Elizabeth Watts (soprano), was Classic FM’s CD of the Week and her recording of Alwyn chamber music for Naxos was CD of the Month. Her other recent highly praised recordings include In Sunlight: Pieces for Madeleine Mitchell (NMC), attractive works with piano and for solo violin written for her by many of Britain’s best known composers including MacMillan and Nyman: wonderfully accomplished performances (Gramophone); British Treasures, early 20th century romantic violin sonatas for Somm; Hummel violin sonatas and Bridge chamber music for Meridian, and Messiaen’s Quartet for the End of Time, the widely recommended version, re-released by Warner in May 2010.

Madeleine Mitchell is well known for her recitals in a wide repertoire and for her imaginative programming. She represented Britain in both the festival UKinNY with a recital at Lincoln Center and for the centenary of Entente Cordiale with France, has given recitals at Sydney Opera House, Seoul Center for the Arts and Hong Kong, part of a 3 month world tour, played at many international and most of the major British festivals and frequently performs in London. Artists with whom she has collaborated include Joanna MacGregor, Paul Watkins, Imogen Cooper, Norbert Brainin, Craig Ogden and at the start of her career she was the violinist in Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ seminal group The Fires of London. This year sees her new collaboration with Japanese pianist Noriko Ogawa at several festivals.

A highly creative personality, she devised the Red Violin Festival under Lord Menuhin’s patronage, the first international eclectic celebration of the fiddle across the arts, in Cardiff for which she was shortlisted for both the Creative Briton and European Women of Achievement Awards.

Madeleine Mitchell was awarded the Tagore Gold Medal as Foundation Scholar at the Royal College of Music where she has been a Professor since 1994. As Fulbright/ITT Fellow she gained a master’s degree in New York studying with Dorothy DeLay, Donald Weilerstein and Sylvia Rosenberg at the Eastman and Juilliard schools. She gives master classes, workshops and lecture recitals worldwide, with regular tours of the USA. She is also Director of the London Chamber Ensemble and on the faculty of the Schlern International Summer Festival in the Italian Alps.

Nigel Clayton studied with Stephen Savage and Angus Morrison at the Royal College of Music, London, where he won prizes in every category of piano performance and was awarded the College’s yearly prize for his Bachelor of Music Degree. Whilst there, a particular interest in chamber music and accompanying developed and was further encouraged by international prizes from competitions in London, New York (Concert Artists Guild) and from the English Speaking Union. Since then his worldwide travel has included four major tours of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan with the Indian cellist Anup Kumar Biswas, tours of the Middle East and America with Wissam Boustany, of Scandinavia with Gerard LeFeuvre and throughout every European country. He performs more than eighty concerts every season and has also played at most of the music clubs and festivals in his native Great Britain, appearing regularly on the BBC’s radio network, at the Wigmore Hall and at the South Bank Centre, where he has already performed over fifty recitals. His most recent concerts have been in Taiwan and Japan, his first time to tour in the Far East.

Nigel also continues to perform as a soloist and has given more than one hundred solo recitals on board the British cruise liners SS Canberra, Oriana, Victoria and Arcadia. He has performed concertos by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Mozart and Liszt and was a soloist in Poulenc’s two piano concerto in the Royal Albert Hall whilst still a junior student at the Royal College of Music.

Apart from several long standing partnerships, Nigel has appeared alongside such artists as Michael Collins, Madeleine Mitchell, Sylvia Marcovici, Ofra Harnoy, Tasmin Little and Bryan Rayner Cook, the Chilingirian, Sorrel and Bingham Quartets and with instrumentalists from Japan, Korea, Canada, Spain, America, Poland and Iceland. He is engaged as official accompanist each year for the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition in Switzerland, and has recorded six commercial compact discs. He teaches at a specialist school for young pianists in Surrey, is visiting professor of piano at the North East of Scotland Music School and was appointed Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music, London.

Friday 29 October 2010
8pm
Kemnay Church Centre