Sophie Rosa & Ian Buckle

Wednesday 20th April 2016, 7:30pm

.

.

Sophie Rosa

violin

.

.

Ian Buckle

piano

One of the UK’s most exciting violinists, Sophie Rosa was awarded the Second Prize and Audience Prize at the 2nd Manchester International Violin Competition 2011. She has performed across the UK as a recitalist in venues including the Royal Festival Hall, the Purcell Room and Bridgewater Hall as well as performing live on air for BBC Radio 3. Sophie has recorded at Champs Hill Records and appeared with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata.

Sophie has performed at the MBNA Chester Music Festival, The Manchester Midday Concert Society, The Aurora Festival, Sweden, Musique Cordiale Festival, France, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and the International Musicians Seminar, Prussia Cove. As a chamber musician Sophie has collaborated with notable musicians including Martin Roscoe, Nobuko Imai, Hannah Roberts, Giovanni Guzzo, Craig Ogden and James Gilchrist.

Sophie has performed regularly throughout the UK and internationally from a very young age. An early highlight was a solo concerto for HRH Princess Margaret when she was just seven years old. In 2006 she was a finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition and was the First Prize winner of the Lions European Music Competition, Cannes. Sophie studied at Chetham’s School of Music and the Royal Northern College of Music. She was a recipient of the RNCM Gold Medal and was also awarded the Worshipful Company of Musicians Silver Medal in recognition of her musical achievements. Sophie was also a recipient of the prestigious MBF Ian Fleming Charitable Trust Award. After completing her Masters Degree with Distinction, Sophie completed the RNCM International Artist Diploma in Solo Performance and furthered her studies in America where she has been mentored by Midori Goto, Miriam Fried and Donald Weilerstein.

Sophie was kindly supported by several award foundations including, the Philharmonia Orchestra Martin Music Scholarship, The Solti Foundation, The Hattori Foundation, The Manchester Graucob Award, the Leverhulme Scholarship, The High Sheriff of Cheshire Prize for Music, The Stephen Bell Charitable Trust, The Lauriston School Trust, The Stanley Picker Trust and Help Musicians UK.

Sophie is grateful to the Stradivari Trust for their assistance with acquiring a fine Gagliano violin for her career through a syndicate trust.

To visit Sophie’s website click here and to see and hear her play click on ‘Audio/Video on her home page

Ian Buckle enjoys a varied freelance career working as soloist, accompanist, chamber musician, orchestral pianist, teacher and ABRSM examiner. As concerto soloist, Ian has appeared alongside conductors Carl Davis, Elgar Howarth, Gerard Schwarz, Yan Pascal Tortelier and John Wilson; with orchestras including the Royal Philharmonic, Opera North, Sinfonia Viva, the Manchester Concert Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.  His London debut came in 1996 with a recital at Wigmore Hall.

Committed to contemporary music, he has been the pianist in Ensemble 10:10 since the group’s inception, and his piano duo with Richard Casey specialises in music from the last and current centuries. He frequently collaborates with former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion performing recitals of piano music and poetry, and he is a member of the piano-and-wind group Zephyr, Cerberus (trio with clarinet and cello); and the Elysnan Horn Trio, formed when students at the Royal Northern College of Music.

Committed to contemporary music, he has been the pianist in Ensemble 10:10 since the group’s inception in 1997 and his piano duo with Richard Casey specialises in repertoire from the last and current centuries.  As an accompanist he is in frequent demand, performing and recording with singers and instrumentalists throughout the U.K. and in Europe, appearing in the Beethoven festival in Bonn and the Festspiele Mecklenberg with the former BBC Young Musician winner, clarinettist Mark Simpson. Ian regularly plays piano in the RLPO and the John Wilson Orchestra, and teaches at the Universities of Leeds and Liverpool.

Programme

Beethoven ~ Violin Sonata No.1 in D major, Op.12
Elgar ~ Violin Sonata
Brahms ~ Violin Sonata in G, Op.78
Gershwin arr. Heifitz ~ Songs from Porgy and Bess
Wieniawski ~ Polonaise de Concert in D, Op.4