Merton Abbey Music

~ SUNDAY EVENING MUSIC AMONG FRIENDS ~

Home  Programme  Tickets  Artists  Repertoire  Venue

Forthcoming Performers
THE ARCADIAN STRING QUINTET (August 22nd)

-  Rebecca Totterdell (violin)
Becky graduated at the Guildhall School of Music where she was awarded the Principal's Prize, then spent seven years studying in Madrid with the celebrated Russian Professor Sergei Fatkouline.  She now plays with orchestras such as the Bournemouth Symphony, and as soloist has performed the concerts of Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Tchaikovsky and Saint-Saens.  With Toby Hawks she founded the Arcadian Quartet , who have given us two fine concerts including Mendelssohn's E minor Quartet and most recently Mozart's Clarinet Quintet.

-  Anya Birchall (violin)  

Anya was born in Cambridge, and began to play the violin aged five. She has subsequently studied at the Junior Guildhall, in Madrid, and most recently was awarded a scholarship for the Royal Academy of Music, where she passed a postgraduate diploma with distinction. Anya now lives and works in London and enjoys a varied musical career involving chamber music, orchestral playing and educational performances for the Live Music Now! scheme.

-  Toby Hawks (viola)
An equally accomplished violinist and violist, Toby studied with Lynn Cook and Nicholas Woodall.  He is a graduate of Jesus College Cambridge, where in his farewell concert he indulged his passion for English music as soloist in Lionel Tertis's arrangement of the Elgar Cello Concerto, a version which had the composer's enthusiastic blessing.  He is a member of the Ashe and Arcadian Quartets, and principal viola of Opera East and other groups.  He played in the very first concert in this Colour House series in September 1996, and his many appearances since then have included Bach's Double Violin Concerto with Lynn Cook, Mendelssohn's Octet with his own group from Cambridge, recitals with prominent harpist Tanya Houghton, and a memorable performance of the Schubert C major String Quintet. 

-  Alexandra Urquhart (viola) Bimbi, as she is usually known, graduated at Trinity College of Music, wBimbi, as she is usually known, graduated at Trinity College of Music, where she was awarded the Band/Kurtz Viola Prize and the Guivier String Prize, then studied at the Royal College with Simon Rowland-Jones, Rivka Golani and others.  She was Principal Viola of Southbank Sinfonia in 2005, and has since played with the Philharmonia, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic.  As a regular chamber musician, she has played the Mendelssohn Octet with the Chilingirian Quartet, and in Aldeburgh with the Kerem String Quartet as the Britten-Pears Young Artists Quartet in Residence for 2005.  Since spending 2008 in Santiago, Chile, she has also branched out into jazz and tango, touring as part of the Sigamos Quartet with the saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, and most recently toured with Tango Siempre, one of the UK’s leading tango bands.

-  Ros Acton (cello)  
Ros read music at Emmanuel College Cambridge before studying at the Royal Academy under Mats Lindstrom and in Bremen with Alexander Baillie.  She is a superlative cellist, whose only fault is that she's far too modest to give us any more detail of her career, but we happen to know she has also toured India with a West-East fusion group!
NEIL CROSSLAND  (July 25th)
"Music rages in him and his breed is rare" was the Evening Standard's  description of Neil Crossland, who studied at the Royal College of Music, winning major prizes in piano and composition. As well as concerts all over Europe he has performed on many occasions at the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, Barbican, St John's Smith Square, and St James's Piccadilly where his recitals of all 32 Beethoven Sonatas were a special event.

He has made numerous broadcasts, too, including a guest appearance on Radio 3's "In Tune", and recorded a number of outstanding CD's  -  including a delightfully offbeat compilation of the compositions of astronomer Sir Patrick Moore!  As a pianist his range is remarkable  - on several memorable occasions in the Colour House he has stunned us with colossal virtuosity in Liszt and Rachmaninov, yet he is completely at home in the classical repertoire, with freshly imaginative things to say about Beethoven and his beloved Schubert.  Recently he has increasingly turned to composition, notably including highy convincing and idiomatic completions of all seven of Schubert's unfinished piano sonatas.      


THE COLOUR HOUSE ENSEMBLE  (September 26th)

-  Lynn Cook (violin)
Lynn studied at the Guildhall School of Music, in New York, and at the world-famous Aspen Summer School in Colorado. She then played in orchestras in the Americas and Scandinavia before returning to London to set up her extensive teaching practice.  She has made a speciality of children's group teaching, and for eleven years ran the successful "Fiddlesticks" course at Merton Abbey Mills.  As well as leading the Hayes Symphony Orchestra she plays in numerous other groups, and as artistic director of this series founded the Colour House Ensemble in 1996.  She had the misfortune to break her arm immediately before our concert last December, but  we are delighted now to welcome her back again in full working order!
-  Gill Tarlton (viola) 
Gill is a remarkable versatile musician, equally at home on both violin and viola, and in both early and classical repertoires. Her distinguished career has included the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, BBC Welsh Orchestra and Orchestra of La Fenice in Venice.  She has played at the Colour House many times, memorably in an extraordinary duet for viola and double bass by Dittersdorf with her husband Neil (Principal Bass of the Philharmonia), and most recently as part of the distinguished Johannes Piano Quartet who have given us three outstanding concerts.  
-  John Kirby (cello)
Without John as one of its mainstays this series would not have been possible.  Another Guildhall graduate and long-term
colleague of Lynn, he is a freelance with extensive experience of all the major London orchestras, and with Gill a founder member of the Johannes Piano Quartet.  A recent highlight was his contribution to the Chopin bicentenary, a gorgeous performance of the Introduction and Polonaise Brillant which will long be remembered. 

-  Justin Hyer (guitar)

Justin has established himself as one of England’s most promising classical guitarists. He studied in South America with Eduardo Isaac and Alfredo Escande, and has become a specialist in the South American repertoire. He has toured extensively across Latin America and the UK, and represented England at the 2007 Annual Guitar Festival “Homage to Augustin Barrios” with a series of concerts across Paraguay.

He has performed in a major Uruguayan television programme “La guitarra y sus interpretes” (The Guitar and its Interpreters), and has since performed in television and radio concerts in Paraguay and Argentina, where he conducted a programme tracing the development of classical guitar traditions in England. He was interviewed for the national paper “El Norte” in Argentina which featured him as the main article in the culture section.

In 2006 his former teacher, the composer Richard Storry, upon hearing him perform with Argentine guitarist Mario Yaniquini, wrote and dedicated a work to the duo entitled “A day in Valencia”.