Introducing the performers…

Olivier Stankiewicz (oboe)

Appointed principal oboe with the London Symphony Orchestra in May 2015, oboist Olivier Stankiewicz has also performed with Amsterdam’s Royal Concertegebouw and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. Olivier worked with Toulouse’s Orchestre National du Capitole (ONCT) from 2011 to 2015, with whom he performed the world premiere of Benjamin Attahir’s oboe concerto “Nur under Tugan Sokhiev”. Since his first concerto appeareance at the age of 16 with the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic, Olivier has performed with the French National Orchestra, the Wallonie Royal Chamber Orchestra, the Pro-Arte orchestra of Hong-Kong and the Tokyo Sinfonietta.

Called a “classical revelation” in 2013 by the French association ADAMI, Olivier also took First Prize at the 10th International Oboe Competition of Japan, and won the 2015 European and American YCA auditions in Leipzig and New-York, and the YCAT Auditions at the Wigmore Hall in London. Olivier’s chamber music partners include Thomas Dunfort, Jean Rondeau, Amy Harman and the Castalian String Quartet. He has performed at the Prades international festival, the Brighton festival, and the Warsaw Opera. Olivier has performed at Tokyo’s Toppan Hall and at the Wigmore Hall with pianist Alvise Siniva (as co-founder of the Duo Widmung), in which he focuses on adaptations of vocal repertoire.

Olivier’s comprehensive approach to musical performance has led him to study theory and conducting as well as oboe studies with Jacques Tys, David Walter, and Jean-Claude Jaboulay. He was appointed oboe professor at the Royal College of Music in London in 2015.

Sini Simonen (violin)
Daniel Roberts (violin)
Charlotte Bonneton (viola)
Christopher Graves (cello)

Winner of the First Prize at the 2015 Lyon International Chamber Music Competition, the Castalian String Quartet is fast becoming a favourite with audiences in the United Kingdom and elsewhere for its “richly romantic energy and passion” (Strad Magazine). Formed in 2011, the quartet has been the beneficiary of awards from the Royal Over-Seas League (2011 Elias Fawcett Trust Award); the Countess of Munster Trust; the Tunnell Trust; the Royal Philharmonic Society; St Peter’s Eaton Square; Kirckman Concert Society and Mozarteum de France. In 2013, the Castalian String Quartet won both the Audience Prize and First Prize in the Kammermusik Hannover Next Generation Competition, broadcast on German radio station NDR.

Engagements in 2016/17 include recitals at the Wigmore Hall, Jubilee Hall Aldeburgh, and the Hitzacker, Peasmarsh and Conques Festivals as well as quartetaffairs Frankfurt. Highlights from previous seasons include performances at the Wigmore Hall, the Purcell Room, Kings Place, Lake District Summer Music, the Edinburgh Festival and a BBC Radio 3 recital from the Cheltenham Festival. The quartet also toured China at the invitation of the British Council. 2013 saw its German recital debut in the Heidelberger Frühling String Quartet Festival and first concerts in Switzerland at the Ceresio Estate Festival, Lugano.

2014 brought the release of the quartet’s recording of Mendelssohn on the Champs Hill label (awarded BBC Music Magazine’s “Critic’s Choice” for September 2014 and “Chamber Music Disc of the Quarter” by the German Record Critics Association), a second tour of Scotland, quintets in Germany with violist Nils Mönkemeyer, and recitals in Berlin and the Festival de Musique de Conques.

In 2014 the quartet graduated from the Hannover University of Music, Dance and Theatre with a Masters Degree in Chamber Music, studying with their mentor Oliver Wille. The quartet has also worked closely with Thomas Brandis and Levon Chilingirian.

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