Lawrence Power (viola) and Friends

Introducing the performers…

Lawrence Power (viola)

Lawrence Power is one of the foremost violists today and has been on the shortlist for the Royal Philharmonic Society Instrumentalist Award. He is regularly invited to perform with some of the world’s greatest orchestras, including the Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the Royal Concertgebouw, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Stockholm Philharmonic, and Bergen Philharmonic Lawrence Power was Artist in Residence with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for the 2012/13 season and enjoys a close relationship with the London Philharmonic Orchestra with whom he gave the world premiere of James MacMillan’s Viola Concerto, conducted by Vladimir Jurowski, to huge critical acclaim. He has also performed the Walton Concerto conducted by Yannick Nezet-Seguin and Britten’s Lachrymae conducted by Vladimir Jurowski.

Lawrence has given recitals in London, Glasgow, Cardiff and across the UK, and in Stavanger, Zurich and Vienna. A keen champion of contemporary music, he gave the UK premiere of Olga Neuwirth’s concerto Remnants of Song at the 2012 BBC Proms, the world premiere of Luke Bedford’s Wonderful Two-headed Nightingale and the world premiere of Charlotte Bray’s Invisible Cities at the 2012 Verbier Festival. He regularly collaborates with Maxim Vengerov and recently performed with him at the Barbican Centre in London. His Gramophone-nominated recordings for Hyperion include the Bartok, Rosza, Walton and Rubbra concertos and Shostakovich and Brahms sonatas and York Bowen’s complete works for viola and piano with Simon Crawford-Phillips. His three-disc Hindemith survey has become a benchmark recording of this repertoire. Other releases include Strauss’s Don Quixote with the Gürzenich Orchester and Mark-Anthony Turnage’s On Opened Ground with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, both conducted my Markus Stenz; the Britten Double Concerto with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Ilan Volkov and Anthony Marwood and Vaughan Williams’s Concerto with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Martyn Brabbins. His most recent release is the music of Arthur Benjamin, with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips, on which Lawrence plays both viola and violin music.

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Annabelle Meare (violin)

As principal second violin with both the Philharmonia and the English Chamber Orchestra, Annabelle Meare has toured and recorded extensively. She is in much demand as a guest principal and has worked with the Halle, London Symphony and London Philharmonic Orchestras. As an active chamber musician, she has performed at venues such as Wigmore Hall and Berlin Philharmonie with such groups as Kungsbacka Trio, ECO Chamber Ensemble, Nash Ensemble and the Vertavo Quartet.

Max Baillie (violin)

Violinist/violist Max Baillie is one of the most versatile musicians in the UK and is in demand across an exciting spectrum of music and performance mediums including classical, improvisation, composing and directing, and collaborations with dance and electronics. Artists he has worked with include American vocalist Bobby McFerrin, Indian tabla master Zakir Hussain, guitarist John Williams, and pop superstar Tinie Tempah. Max has appeared on stages from Carnegie Hall to Glastonbury, from Mali to Moscow, and plays regularly for TV and radio broadcast. A Bach obsessive, Max’s major projects have included the Bach Voyager, creating a new online resource with leading ideas and interviews about Bach’s solo string music. Max appeared on the BBC Proms Extra television program, speaking on Bach and performing solo music from the great composer as featured guest.

Coming from a classical background, Max’s interest in other music and dance forms inspired a series of unique collaboration projects. His first brought together classical music and the Brazilian martial dance form capoeira, with follow-ups for both the City of London Festival and the Proms with leading capoeira master Ponciano and the Aurora Orchestra, in which Max has played principal viola since 2007. Aurora features in a series of three discs for Warner Classics, including two tracks written and produced by Max alongside works by Adams, Copland, Ives and Muhly. Aurora regularly receives shining reviews in the national press as well as international touring to China, Russia and Australia, and is a regular at the BBC Proms, where for two years running they performed Mozart and Beethoven Symphonies entirely from memory.

For Aurora’s “New Moves” series, Max featured in a major new work by Julian Philips entitled Maxamorphosis. As well as featuring as viola soloist, the piece saw Max revisiting his past as a trained dancer, morphing from the ensemble to join members of distinguished choreographer Mickael “Marso” Riviere’s dance Company Decalage. Max also curated a diverse programme of concerts for the “Late Night Lock-in” series at Kings Place throughout 2016 for Aurora’s Mozart series. Other collaboration projects Max has directed have involved working with Gambian kora master Sura Susso, with whom Max often plays as a duo that mixes Baroque and West African lute music.

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Simon Crawford Philips (piano)

Simon Crawford-Phillips graduated with first class honours from the Royal Academy of Music and in 2000 completed a Master’s Degree and a Fellowship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Much in demand as a soloist, chamber musician and accompanist Simon can be heard regularly on BBC Radio 3. Simon frequently works with singers including Alice Coote, Emma Bell, Sarah Fox, Andrew Kennedy, James Gilchrist and James Rutherford, and instrumentalists Emily Beynon, Colin Currie, Janine Jansen, Pekka Kuusisto, Sergei Krylov, Lawrence Power, Christian Poltera, Natalie Clein, Truls Mork, Martin Frost and Ronald van Spaendonck. He also appears regularly as a guest with the Nash Ensemble, the ECO chamber ensemble, Leopold String Trio and Yggdrasil String Quartet.

A founding member of the Kungsbacka Piano Trio, selected by the Young Concert Artists Trust in 1999, Simon joined the BBC New Generation Artists scheme in 2000. In 2003 the Trio made their Carnegie Hall debut and appeared at major European Concert Halls as part of the ‘Rising Stars’ series. Over the last year their concerts have included debuts at the Berlin Philharmonie, Schwetzinger Festspiele and Muziekcentrum Vredenburg in Utrecht. The Trio has recorded for the NAXOS and BIS labels. In 2001 Simon made his BBC Proms debut with his piano duo partner Philip Moore and in 2004 the Duo received a Borletti-Buitoni Fellowship and were appointed Steinway Artists. Recent highlights have included concerts at the Edinburgh Festival and return visits to the South Bank, Bridgewater Hall and Wigmore Hall.

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