Biographies

Details correct as of 2008

The Fitzwilliam String Quartet (Lucy Russell – violin, Jonathan Sparey – violin, Alan George – viola, Heather Tuach – cello). Founded in 1969 by four Cambridge undergraduates, and continuing studies under Sidney Griller at the Royal Academy of Music, the FSQ originally became well known through their close personal association with Dmitri Shostakovich. He entrusted them with the Western premières of his last three quartets, and they were the first ever group to perform and record all fifteen. This secured them a long-term contract with Decca, for whom they recorded Franck, Delius, Borodin, Sibelius, and Beethoven cycles. Their recordings have gained many international awards, including the accolade of the very first Gramophone Award for chamber music, in 1977. Their Shostakovich set (still available) was named by the same publication in its ‘Hundred Greatest-ever Recordings’ in November 2005. A new collaboration with Linn Records began in May 2000 with Haydn's Seven Last Words. Recordings continued with the Brahms Clarinet Quintet (released last January) and a disc of 20th cent English songs with James Gilchrist and Anna Tilbrook (including Vaughan Williams' On Wenlock Edge).

Their commitment to contemporary music has led to numerous additions to the new century's repertoire during the past eight years - notably a cycle of four annual commissions from the Swaledale Festival. At the other end of the musical spectrum, they use historical instruments for classical and early romantic music. They were Quartet-in-Residence at the University of York for twelve years and at the University of Warwick for three, as well as Affiliate Artists at Bucknell University, USA, since 1978. Ten years ago they began a new Residency at Fitzwilliam College, with similar associations at Bangor and London Royal Holloway. A world-wide concert schedule has taken them across the world. They are frequent visitors to the USA; and future engagements include performances in Canada, Denmark, Switzerland, Greece, Turkey, South Africa, Germany, China and India.

Philip Collin was Organ Scholar at Fitzwilliam College in 1995-98. He then took a postgraduate diploma in piano accompaniment at the Guildhall where he studied with John York. Since then he has worked extensively as a vocal coach, repetiteur, adjudicator, organist and conductor, and performed as a song accompanist throughout the UK and Europe. He currently holds the posts of Musical Director of the Manchester Bach Choir and Director of Music at St Peter’s Church, Streatham. In 2001 he recorded a CD with soprano Sally Bradshaw entitled The Soul of Orpheus, a collection of songs about or inspired by Greek mythology. In 2006 he twice performed the complete works for voice and piano by Gerald Finzi with tenor Peter Wilman and baritone Howard Wong to commemorate the composer’s 50th anniversary. He is currently working on a beginners’ piano tutor book provisionally titled ‘The Philip Collin Piano Method’ which will hopefully be completed and available later this year.

Christopher (Kiffer) Finzi was educated at Bedales School before going on to the Royal Academy of Music in 1952 where he studied cello with Douglas Cameron. His studies were interrupted by four month’s imprisonment as a conscientious objector. He is the son of the great English composer, Gerald Finzi. After his father’s death in 1956 he took over the conducting of the Newbury String Players, conducting a total 256 concerts with them. Having had considerable experience of orchestral playing he ‘basically learnt the craft on the job’ as a conductor, famed for interpretations of both his father's music and that of other English composers. Apart from his recording of his father's Dies Natalis with Wilfred Brown, which many consider the definitive recording of the piece, he has conducted several orchestras and taught cello for a number of years. Kiffer is married to Hilary du Pre and they have four children and eight grandchildren. They still live in the Ashmansworth house that his parents built in 1939.   

Christopher Langdown appears regularly as a soloist giving concerts and recitals throughout the UK and Europe. Born in Birmingham, he graduated with Distinction from the Royal College of Music in London, where he was nominated at the RCM to perform the music of Shostakovich to legendary exponent Tatiana Nikolaeva and was further selected by The Wall Trust as a piano scholar of ‘outstanding talent’. Christopher has acquired numerous awards and was finalist and prize-winner in the 1997 Brant Pianoforte Competition which attracted artists from around the world. He subsequently represented the UK in the Limassol European Festival in Cyprus and gave his highly successful debut at London's South Bank Centre. TV and radio appearances have included televised concerts overseas (solo and chamber), interviews for arts programmes and a recital on The Resurgence of English Music broadcast live from Madrid on Radio Clásica.

Rupert Luck studied the violin with James Coles before reading music at Cambridge University, where he was an Instrumental Exhibitioner. He was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to continue his violin studies with Simon Fischer and thereafter won a Distinction.  He made his concerto debut at the age of eleven and since then has appeared as soloist and recitalist throughout Britain and Europe. Recent performances have included venues in Birmingham, Canterbury, Durham, London, Oxford and Winchester as well as appearances in France, Germany, Switzerland and the USA. As a chamber musician, his performances include radio recordings for the BBC as well as concert appearances with the likes of Jessye Norman.  He recently gave the world première of a Violin Sonata written specially for him by Stephen Matthews. Hochschule für Musik in Cologne, and has recently collaborated with the highly-regarded violinist and composer Simos Papanas, of whose ‘Suite for George Demertzis’ he gave the UK première in London in December 2006.  He has recently given the world première of a Violin Sonata written specially for him by the Stephen Matthews.

Em Marshall is the Managing & Artistic Director of the The English Music Festival and has recently been elected Chairman of the Vaughan Williams Society. She read Greats at Oxford, and currently devotes all her energies to making the English Music Festival a successful enterprise. Her experience includes work for the Three Choirs Festival, the Aldeburgh Festival, Thames Publishing and Music at Oxford. Her attachment to English music continues through her involvement with a number of British composer societies, including the Peter Warlock Society and the Elgar Society. She is a regularly in print, writing mainly about music, but is also a freelance journalist covering travel, theatre and literature and fine food and wines. She is currently writing a book on ‘British Composers and the Landscape’.

Fergus Macleod is currently a third-year music student at Fitzwilliam, where he conducts one of the Cambridge University Music Society orchestras in major symphonic repertoire, in addition to his role as Principal Conductor of the contemporary Ensemble CB3, with whom he has given several world premieres at West Road Concert Hall and other venues around Cambridge. Fergus has also conducted the National Youth Orchestra Sinfonietta, the Pindar Ensemble and the Orchestra on the Hill, and, last season, conducted his first opera, Handel's Xerxes, for the newly-formed Fitzwilliam Chamber Opera.

Diana McVeagh is one of the country's most respected authorities on English music.  She is the author of Edward Elgar: His Life and Music, Edward Elgar: The Music Maker and Gerald Finzi: His Life and Music; she was also responsible for the entries on Elgar and Finzi in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. Diana studied with Frank Howes and Kathleen Long at the Royal College of Music and then went on to contribute to The Times (1947-69) and was an assistant editor of the Musical Times (1965-67). She was a member of the Royal Musical Association Council (1961-76), and of the executive committee of the New Grove (1970-76).  

Jeremy Dale Roberts is a distinguished composer. He studied with William Alwyn and Priaulx Rainier at the Royal Academy of Music, began deputizing for Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music in the 1970s and was Head of Composition there between 1992 to 1997. His works have been performed worldwide at the Edinburgh and Aldeburgh Festivals, the Venice Biennale, the Diorama de Geneve, and the festivals of Avignon and Paris. They include the cello concerto Deathwatch, written for Rohan de Saram; Tombeau for Stephen Kovacevich; Croquis for string trio, written for members of the Arditti Quartet (BBC commission); In the Same Space, nine poems of Constantin Cavafy, written for Stephen Varcoe; Lines of Life, lyric episodes for ensemble, written for Lontano (BBC commission); and Casidas y Sonetos — del amor oscuro, for solo guitar (Arts Council commission) for Charles Ramierez

Daniel Swain read Music at Oxford University before winning a Scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music. He graduated with the highest honours as well as a special ‘Award for Excellence’, and was subsequently awarded a Junior Fellowship. Daniel performs regularly as a duo pianist and chamber musician throughout the UK and abroad. He has performed in many of the major London venues including the Wigmore, Cadogan, Queen Elizabeth, and Royal Festival Halls; the Purcell Room; the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester; and the Millennium Centre, Cardiff. He performs regularly across the UK as a Live Music Now! Fellowship Artist and has also given recitals in Sweden, Norway, France and Italy.

Alex West, currently Senior Organ Scholar at Fitzwilliam College, has been learning the organ for seven and a half years, and already has much experience both of recital and accompaniment work, both at Cambridge and at home. In the Chapel, his duties include providing organ music at various services during the week, and conducting and accompanying the college choir. He has also conducted the intercollegiate ‘Orchestra on the Hill’ in performances of Sibelius' Valse Triste and Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 20. Composing forms another important part of his musical life; amongst other pieces, his Quartet in F was premiered by the Fitzwilliam String Quartet last April, and his piece Fugue, Toccata and Adagio will be performed by Ensemble CB3 this November.

Award-winning baritone Howard Wong began vocal studies under Benjamin Luxon and Sheila Amit whilst studying for his Bachelor and Master music degrees at university. He was then awarded a scholarship to the Guildhall, where he graduated with Distinction. He was the winner of the AESS Competition in 2002 which has helped establish him as a popular recitalist of English Art Song. Since then, his work in opera, oratorio and recitals has taken him to the Royal Albert Hall, the Royal Opera House, Snape Maltings, Cadogan Hall and the Wigmore Hall, and to Sweden, Italy, Belgium and the Far East.  In 2006, he made his first recording of Finzi songs for the Belgian company, De Rode Pomp. Howard has also worked as Chorusmaster for Chelsea Opera Group and is currently the Principal Conductor of the City of Canterbury Sinfonia.  

Peter Wilman was born in Gloucester where he sang as a treble in the cathedral. Later he gained a Masters degree in piano performance under the late Ronald Smith at Christchurch, Canterbury. Since embarking on a singing career, he has performed on the concert platform and on the stage for Welsh National Opera, English Touring Opera, English Chamber Opera, Opera East, Iford Arts, Nationale Reisopera, Co-Opera Ireland and Swansea City Opera. Roles include Tom Rakewell, Don Ottavio, Tamino, Ferrando, Count Almaviva plus many others. In the last couple of years Peter has begun to sing many recitals featuring mainly works of English song. He appeared at the Nottingham Finzi Festival in 2006, and at this year’s Malvern Songfest he gave the first performances of two unpublished Gurney songs. Together with pianist Philip Collin, he also performs the neglected and haunting songs of W.Dennis Browne.