Sunday 24 January

4pm

LAWSON TRIO
Fenella Humphreys (violin)
Annabelle Lawson (piano)
Rebecca Knight (cello)

Lawson Trio

Mozart Sonata KV 542
Piers Hellawell - Trio 'Etruscan Games'
Rachmaninov - Trio élégiaque no.1
Schubert - Notturno

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.....in my opinion the Lawsons are one of the most exciting groups to emerge in this country over the last few years.   They possess that rare combination of individual instrumental virtuosity and polished collective synergy and I am certain that they have a brilliant career in front of them.....  remarkable not just for the excellent standard of playing, but also for the imagination and daring of their programmes.... to say that I find their performances to be consistently outstanding would be an understatement;  for in years to come one could well imagine that theirs will be the standard by which others will be measured.

Fenella Humphreys, in the past year alone, has given concerto and recital performances at prestigious venues including London's South Bank Centre, Cheltenham's Pump Room and the Teatro Coliseo in Buenos Aires.   She was a 2006 Park Lane Group Young Artist, received Making Music's 2005 Philip and Dorothy Green Award for Young Concert Artists, and gave a recital at the Wigmore Hall finalist in the YCAT competition.

Solo and chamber performances have included broadcasts for BBC Radio 3, Classic FM, DeutschlandRadio Berlin, West-Deutsche-Rundfunk and BBC and Canadian TV as well as appearances around Europe, North and South America and Israel.  Fenella recently performed the Walton concerto at the composer's home at the invitation of the Walton Trust, to open the newly built Greek Theatre, and celebrate the 80th birthday of Lady Walton.   Other recent highlights include a recital at the Purcell Room as part of the Park Lane Group's 50th Anniversary series and a tour of South America with the Deutsche Kammerakademie.  

A busy chamber musician both in Britain and Germany, Fenella has collaborated with artists including Alexander Baillie, Hariolf Schlichtig, Pekka Kuusisto and Martin Lovett, and is regularly invited to take part in the prestigious Open Chamber Music at IMS Prussia Cove.   She has participated in chamber music masterclasses with the Florestan Trio, Claus-Christian Schuster, Peter Frankl, Gordon Back, the Melos Quartet, members of Takács Quartet and Vellinger Quartet and the New Zealand String Quartet.   Fenella is also in demand as orchestral leader, working regularly with the Deutsche Kammerakademie in Germany both as leader and director.   

Fenella received her early training from Sidney Griller CBE and Itzhak Rashkovsky whilst a scholar at the Purcell School, where she was awarded the prestigious Gertrude Hopkins Prize and Guivier Award for an outstanding contribution to the string department. She then won a scholarship to study with David Takeno at Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Fenella completed her post-graduate studies as a scholar at the Robert Schumann Hochschule, Düsseldorf in Ida Bieler’s class, and was awarded the highest possible mark for both the 'Diplom' exam and the 'Konzertexamen' soloists’ diploma.   At the same time she studied in Andreas Reiner's chamber music class at the Folkwang Hochschule, Essen.   Masterclasses have taken Fenella as far afield as Keshet Eilon, Israel, the Schleswig Holstein Festival and the Rheinischen Streicherakademie in Germany, and IMS Prussia Cove, in Cornwall, studying among others with Pamela Frank, Lorand Fenyves, Thomas Brandis, Thomas Riebl, Steven Doane, Johannes Goritzki and Krzysztof Penderecki.

Annabelle Lawson is increasingly in demand as a soloist, chamber musician, accompanist and workshop leader.    Earlier this summer Annabelle was awarded a place as solo pianist on the Live Music Now! scheme, and she has recently given solo and chamber recitals in venues such as the Purcell Room, St. James' Piccadilly, Steinway Halls, King's College Chapel, Cambridge and St. Brides Fleet Street.   In addition to this she is employed by P&O Cruises as a solo recitalist, and appearances as soloist in Stravinsky's Les Noces and Grainger's The Warriors, as well as performances of Mozart's Piano Concerto K466 and Bartok's 3rd Piano Concerto, emphasise her enthusiasm to explore the whole gamut of piano repertoire.

Annabelle is also active as an accompanist, working with the BBC Singers and recently undertaking a recording for Signum Records of music for boys' voices and piano by Richard Rodney Bennett and Benjamin Britten.   She also appears as recitalist with violinist Fenella Humphreys, 'cellist Naomi Wright and as part of a two-piano team with Robert Hunter.

Having received a BA in Music and a further BMus from King's College, Cambridge in 2004, Annabelle's trio was awarded a junior Leverhulme Chamber Music Fellowship by the Royal Academy of Music, following postgraduate study at that institution.   She continues to study privately with Philip Fowke, and prior to this studied with her father Peter Lawson, and Ronan O'Hora at Chetham's School of Music.   Her concerto performances have included Falla's 'Nights in the Gardens of Spain', first conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier and released on CD, and subsequently with the Hallé Orchestra.   Venues have included Manchester's Bridgewater Hall, the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, and the Royal Northern College of Music.

Annabelle is actively involved in outreach and education work and has also written articles for publications including Rhinegold's Piano magazine.   From 2004-5 Annabelle was 'pianist in residence' at the Forest School, London, and from 2005-6 she was Apprentice Music Animateur for Spitalfields Festival, London.   She currently works as a pianist-animateur for the Operahouse project on youth opera projects.
Raised in Sussex, Rebecca Knight gained a scholarship to study 'cello and piano at the Junior department of the Royal Academy of Music aged 14, and won her first concerto opportunity with the Junior Academy Symphony Orchestra in 1997.   She is a graduate of the Guildhall School, where she studied with 'cellist Louise Hopkins.   As a chamber musician she has given recitals in the LSO Discovery Series, the IMAI Festival Maine, USA, the Paxos International Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival, and has attended masterclasses at Prussia Cove.   Always keen to approach new music, she has given the European premier of chamber works by Chen Yi in the BBC Proms, appeared at the Wigmore Hall with the Guildhall New Music Ensemble, and recently performed in an Endymion Ensemble concert of contemporary music for 8 'celli with soloist Rohan de Saram at the Purcell Room.

Rebecca has a particular interest in Russian music, language and culture, and has spent time in St. Petersburg learning Russian with professors from the Institute of Culture and Arts.   She also plays with a chamer ensemble she has established specialising in Russian 20th century repertoire for unusual instrument combinations, called the Leon Bakst Collective.