About
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Del Mar Piano Trio
Formed in 2005 at the Royal Academy of Music, the Del Mar Piano Trio quickly gained recognition, winning the RAM’s Harry Isaacs and John Ireland Prizes. After a break to facilitate individual further study in the UK and abroad, it re-formed in September 2009 with violinist Francesca Barritt. The Trio has performed in venues and festivals throughout London and the UK, including St James’s, Piccadilly, St Olave’s Church in the City of London, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the Aylesbury Festival. Its repertoire is wide-ranging, spanning classical to contemporary, including works by Sally Beamish, Beethoven, Brahms, Bruch, Debussy, Ireland, Mozart, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Rachmaninov and Shostakovich.
The Trio members are all prize-winners from the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music, and between them have studied with members of the Dussek Piano Trio, Pizarro Piano Trio, Chilingirian Quartet, Kuss Quartet, Fitzwilliam Quartet and Endellion Quartet. The Trio regularly receives coaching as part of ChamberStudio at King's Place - set up by Richard Ireland to offer coaching and support to up-and-coming chamber groups - and is grateful for the financial support they received from the ChamberStudio Scholarship Fund.
In addition to their work as the Trio, the members work together regularly in a number of other combinations - Susie and Morwenna have been successful duo partners since 2005, Susie and Francesca recently formed a duo, and Francesca and Morwenna regularly perform together as principals in the Orchestra of St Paul's and the Syred Sinfonia, including chamber concerts in the Purcell Room and Norfolk and Norwich Chamber Music series.
Highlights for the Trio in 2011 included performances of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra in St Alban's and London, the Stamford Chamber Orchestra in Lincolnshire, the Brandon Hill Chamber Orchestra in Bristol, and the Aylesbury Symphony Orchestra.
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Biographies
Francesca Barritt — Violin
Francesca graduated in 2009 with First Class Honours from the Royal College of Music, where she studied with Professor Yossi Zivoni. She has been awarded a scholarship and full AHRC funding to continue her studies at the Royal Academy of Music in September 2010.
Since graduating from the RCM, Francesca has appeared with the European Union Chamber Orchestra, English Touring Opera and, most recently, in the BBC Proms with the hand-picked John Wilson Orchestra in a performance of MGM film music. She has been the permanent leader of the Amadeus Orchestra since 2006, and has also performed as leader of The Orion Symphony Orchestra, Syred Sinfonia, City Side Sinfonia, Orchestra of St Paul's and Hertfordshire Chamber Orchestra.
Francesca is a very keen chamber musician. She has regularly taken part in the renowned chamber music master classes at Prussia Cove, Cornwall, and more recently she has appeared in festivals in the Lake District and Wales and been lucky enough to receive tuition from such eminent performers as the Chilingirian and Kuss Quartets and Natalie Clein. Francesca is often invited to perform as part of established ensembles and recently appeared as the leader of a large chamber ensemble at the Purcell Room.
As a soloist, Francesca's numerous performances have included concertos by Bruch, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, Mozart and Bach. Last year Francesca gave recitals in St. James' Piccadilly, The National Gallery and for various music societies in Hertfordshire and Herefordshire. She recently performed Bruch's Scottish Fantasy with Aylesbury Symphony Orchestra and is looking forward to performing the Lark Ascending in Wells and Exeter Cathedrals and Tring Parish Church.
Francesca is very grateful for the loan of a Sanctus Seraphin violin made in 1737.
Morwenna Del Mar — Cello
Morwenna graduated in 2009 with a Masters in Music and an Orchestral Studies Diploma from the Eastman School of Music, New York, where she studied for two years with professor Steven Doane. She gained a postgraduate performance diploma (with distinction and a DipRAM, the Academy's highest accolade, for outstanding final recital) from the Royal Academy of Music in 2007, having graduated from Cambridge University with an Honours Degree in Music in 2005.
Past performances with orchestra include concertos by Schumann, Saint-Saëns and Elgar, and Tchaikovksy's Variations on a Rococo Theme, and most recently she has performed the Elgar and Schumann cello concertos with the Orchestra of St Paul's and the Oxford Sinfonia, as well as solo recitals in St James, Piccadilly, and the Budleigh Salterton Festival, and a performance of James Macmillan's Kiss on Wood as part of the King's College Easter Festival in the presence of the composer.
Morwenna works regularly with the Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra and the City of London Sinfonia, has worked with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Aurora Orchestra and the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra, and was a member of the European Union Youth Orchestra. She is currently on trial with the London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and as No.2 cello with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Northern Sinfonia.
Whilst at the Royal Academy of Music she was awarded a Leverhulme Orchestral Fellowship and, following her involvement in the London Symphony Orchestra’s ‘String Experience Scheme’ she was awarded their PROMIS Award for the most outstanding string experience student. Whilst at Eastman she was a member of the Rochester Philharmonic's Orchestral Studies Diploma, which provided her with further professional orchestral and orchestral management experience. Morwenna has received awards for solo and chamber performances, including the Royal Academy's Rhoda Butt Award, Harry Isaacs and John Ireland Prizes (as a member of the Del Mar Piano Trio), a Cambridge Instrumental Award, and one of the English Chamber Orchestra's inaugural Duchess of Cornwall Awards.
She is grateful for the very generous support of the Richard Syred Music Bursary at Churchill College, Cambridge, who enabled her studies in America.
Visit Morwenna's website
Susie Summers — Piano
Susie Summers graduated with distinction from the Postgraduate Diploma Course in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal Academy of Music where she studied with Michael Dussek and Tessa Nicholson. In 2001 she took her undergraduate degree in music from Cambridge University, after which she studied the piano privately with Ronald Smith. Susie is now the Phoebe Benham Junior Fellow in Piano Accompaniment at the Royal College of Music.
While at the Academy, Susie was the recipient of both the Winifred Disney Bursary and the Colin Murray Scholarship, and she was awarded the John B. McEwen Prize on graduation. In 2006 Susie won the Academy’s Harold Craxton chamber music prize, the Harry Isaacs Piano Trio prize and the John Ireland Prize, for which she also received the second prize as a vocal accompanist.
Susie regularly gives recitals with instrumentalists and singers at venues around the country. She has frequently been invited to appear at the Lake District Summer Music Festival and the Ryedale Festival and closer to home has performed at St. John’s, Smith Square, Blackheath Concert Halls, Cadogan Hall, and St. James’, Piccadilly.
Susie is an official accompanist to the Lake District International Summer School and a Junior School Accompanist at Trinity College of Music, having previously held this post at the Birmingham Conservatoire.
Visit Susie's website
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