Frequent Guest Musicians
Sarah-Jane Bradley
Viola
“Sarah-Jane Bradley is that rare kind of viola player who can make you blush with shame for ever having told a viola joke. In her hands the instrument is passionate, eloquent and wide-ranging in its colours and moods. I would happily put this at the top of any list of recommended recording.”
- BBC Music Magazine, June 2007 on “British Viola Music” (5* for performance and sound)
Since her debut with the Philharmonia in 1992 and at the Wigmore Hall in 1997, Sarah-Jane has established a distinguished international reputation as a soloist and chamber musician. Sarah-Jane has performed and recorded as a soloist with major orchestras such as the Philharmonia, Hallé, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, English Chamber Orchestra and City of London Sinfonia, including live broadcasts on radio 3.
Sarah-Jane is in high demand as a recitalist and chamber musician; she regularly plays in recital with pianists John Lenehan and Martin Roscoe. She is a founder member of Karolos and the Rossetti Ensemble and a frequent guest with other chamber groups including I Musicanti. A founder member of the Leopold String Trio, Sarah-Jane has also been a member of the Sorrel Quartet, Fidelio Piano Quartet, London Soloists Ensemble and Artistic Director of Sound Collective. She has toured widely as well as making frequent broadcasts on radio 3 as both soloist and chamber musician. Her work as a chamber musician has taken her around the world to festivals such as Kuhmo and Marlboro where she performed with pianist Richard Goode and violinist Robert Chen.
Following studies at the Royal Academy of Music with John White, and the Mozarteum Salzburg with Thomas Riebl, Sarah-Jane won an array of awards, and in 1995 was first prizewinner at Capellades and St. Joan de Vilatorrada. A prizewinner at the 1994 Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, Sarah-Jane was on the jury in 2013 and is on the executive committee of the Competition. She is Professor of Viola and Chamber Music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and also teaches viola at the Royal College of Music Junior Department and The Purcell School. She plays on a G.A Chanot viola of Manchester, 1896.
Bobby Chen
Piano
Described by International Piano Magazine as: “...an armour-clad player of complete technique, a thinking musician, a natural Romantic.”, Bobby Chen was a pupil of Ruth Nye and Hamish Milne at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal Academy of Music, and burst on the scene in 1996 playing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto in a British tour with Lord Yehudi Menuhin and the Warsaw Sinfonia, and a recital at the Royal Festival Hall as part of the South Bank Prokofiev Festival.
Since then, he has performed as concerto soloist with several orchestras including the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Sinfonietta, under the baton of conductors Matthias Bamert, Maximiano Valdés, Michał Nesterowicz, Sir Neville Marriner, Pierre-André Valade, Lan Shui, Jonathan Bloxham and Giancarlo Guerrero.
Recent highlights included a solo recital and performances of Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto at the Dewan Filharmonik Petronas in Kuala Lumpur on his 4th visit there as soloist with the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, a 2-piano recital with regular duo partner Douglas Finch on the opening day of the inaugural ‘Chetham’s International Piano Series’ at the Stoller Hall in Manchester, and solo recitals at the inaugural recital series at Bowerman Hall near Bath and at London’s St. Mary’s Perivale, Farm Street Church and Ognisko Polskie.