Bloomsbury Quartet
The Bloomsbury Quartet was formed in September 2017, when Eva and Felicity met while chamber music speed dating. Rather than the usual first date awkwardness, they whiled away 20 minutes with frantic sight-reading. Two was great, but four is so much better; Janell and Rachel joined in and they have not looked back since!
In addition to winning the 2018 Stroud Green Festival’s Ensemble Scheme, other highlights of the 2017/18 season for the Bloomsbury Quartet included performances commemorating the centenary anniversary of the First World War at China Exchange in London’s Chinatown, East Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and the Petworth Festival. The Bloomsbury Quartet is the Wigmore Hall/Open Academy Fellowship Ensemble for the 2018/19 season, creating a series of musical experiences in educational and community outreach contexts, alongside their schedule of more conventional performances.
As soloists, the members of the Bloomsbury Quartet won competition prizes in the Netherlands, Singapore and the UK. Individually, they are also recipients of the Marylebone Student Award, Howard Davis Scholarship, the HSBC Youth Excellence Award, and the Diana Award; all in recognition of their talent, dedication to music making and ability to communicate and share music with others. As orchestral musicians, they have played with the Britten Sinfonia, Rotterdam Philharmonic, and Metropole Orchestra, and taken part in the CBSO String Training, Oxford Philharmonic Apprenticeship Scheme and Birmingham Royal Ballet Apprenticeship Scheme.
Eva, Janell, Rachel and Felicity are all passionate about inspiring and developing current and future generations of musicians and music-lovers. They believe that by using outreach projects, alternative concert formats, and social media they can successfully engage new and returning audiences alike. The Bloomsbury Quartet are receiving regular coaching from Levon Chilingirian (Chilingirian Quartet) and Jon Thorne (Badke Quartet), and have also been coached by Hartmut Rohde, the Doric Quartet, Jim Sleigh and Leandro Silvera.
Eva plays a Giovanni Rota (Cremona 1808) violin, and Felicity a Tibor Semmelweis (London 2016) cello, kindly on loan from the Royal Academy of Music. Janell plays with a Jean-Thibouville-Lamy “Sarasate Virtuose” bow, sponsored by the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Sir John Barbirolli Memorial Foundation.
