Sunday 20 Nov 2022
3:00 pm • £15
Madeleine Pickering
violin
John Paul Ekins
piano
Music by Brahms, Debussy, Poulenc & Saint Saëns
Kindly supported by Making Music’s
Philip & Dorothy Green Young Artists scheme.
Making Music is the UK’s leading organisation for leisure-time music, with over 3,200 music groups in membership. Its Philip and Dorothy Green Young Artists scheme (PDGYA) has helped to launch the careers of dozens of young musicians since its creation in 1961, including Steven Isserlis, Elizabeth Banks and Craig Ogden. It is made possible by the generosity of the Philip and Dorothy Green Music Trust, which promotes young artists and composers.
Programme:
J. Brahms
Violin Sonata No.1 in G major, Op.78
C. Debussy
Violin Sonata in G minor, L.148
— Interval —
F. Poulenc
Violin Sonata, FP 119
R. Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending
Downloads:
Admission:
£15 in advance, or pay on the door. Cards accepted.
Children 16 and under admitted free with accompanying adult. Students £3 (with ID card).
Amounts indicated are a suggested donation for payment at the door. If you are a tax payer a Gift Aid declaration would be appreciated.
All our concerts are held in the church at 83 Portsmouth Road.
The main entrance to the free parking is in Millmead Terrace which is accessed from Bury Fields at the end of Lawn Road.
Biographies:
MADELEINE PICKERING - VIOLIN
Madeleine Pickering is a British violinist and violist, driven by a desire to bless listeners and performers with music. In July 2021 she graduated with Distinction from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where she studied as a scholarship student under professors Maureen Smith, Tasmin Little and Michael Foyle (violin), Garfield Jackson and Martin Outram (viola).
Whilst at the Academy she won all the major prizes for her instruments: the Theodore Holland Viola Prize (2016), the Winifred Small Prize for Solo Violin (2020) and the Martin/Hooton Violin Concerto Prize (2021). As First Violinist of the Florizel String Quartet (2015-19) she toured the UK and Italy and won the Wolfe Wolfinsohn String Quartet Prize, and she was invited to perform with Joanna MacGregor and Adrian Brendel in the Academy Piano Festival in 2018.
Passionate about the collective musical experience of orchestral playing, Madeleine enjoys leading and directing from the violin. She regularly led the Academy Chamber, Opera and Symphony Orchestras, collaborating with many world renowned conductors including Trevor Pinnock, Edward Gardner, Semyon Bychkov and Sir Mark Elder in these projects. As winner of the Martin/Hooton Violin Concerto Prize in 2021 she directed and performed as soloist with the Academy String Orchestra in a recording of Mendelssohn’s Concerto in D minor for Violin and String Orchestra. In 2019, Madeleine was awarded a place on the LSO String Experience Scheme, and since then has enjoyed professional work with the orchestra.
Madeleine is grateful to have received generous support from Help Musicians UK, Rachel and Peter Martin, The Rosemary Bugden Charitable Trust and Talent Unlimited. She has been a member of the Musicians’ Company Young Artists’ Programme since 2019, when she received the Biddy Baxter and John Hosier Music Trust Special Award. She is a Philip and Dorothy Green Young Artist 2021-22 for Making Music UK.
She plays on a violin by Giovanni Pistucci c.1800, generously loaned to her by the Harrison-Frank Foundation in association with J&A Beare. Her viola was made by Alexandra Apenberg in 2016.
JOHN PAUL EKINS - PIANO
In demand as a recitalist, concerto soloist and chamber musician, John Paul Ekins has given performances throughout the UK and Northern Ireland, and overseas in the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Kuwait, Norway, Poland, Romania, Spain and Switzerland, and he has been broadcast on the BBC, on Romanian national television and radio, and on Polish television. In 2009 he graduated from the Royal College of Music with First Class Honours, and in the same year he was awarded the James Anthony Horne Scholarship by the Guildhall School of Music and Drama to study with Charles Owen, where he graduated with Master of Performance (Distinction) in 2011. He was the recipient of a Music Education Award from the Musicians Benevolent Fund, and receives generous support from Making Music, The Concordia Foundation, The Razumovsky Trust and The Keyboard Charitable Trust.
He has performed at a number of prestigious venues in the UK and abroad, including Bucharest's Athenaeum, Zurich's Tonhalle, Prague's Martinu Hall, Bergen's Troldhaugen, Krakow's Florianka Hall, London's Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Fairfield Hall and Steinway Hall, Birmingham's Symphony Hall, and Belfast's Ulster Hall.
International Competition successes have seen him awarded as many as 19 scholarships and prizes, and performance highlights have included Rhapsody in Blue and the Warsaw Concerto at The Royal Albert Hall.
Educational and outreach work is enormously important to John Paul, and he has given workshops and masterclass-recitals with great success in the UK. He was visiting piano teacher at St. Paul’s School, London from 2013-2020.
John Paul has been particularly honoured to be presented to Her Majesty The Queen and His Royal Highness The Prince Philip at a Reception for Young Performers at Buckingham Palace.
You can find out more information on John Paul at www.jpekinspianist.com