Introducing the performers…

Tim Horton (piano)

Tim Horton studied at Chetham’s School of Music with Charles Hopkins and Heather Slade-Lipkin and graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge in 1995. In the same year he replaced Alfred Brendel at short notice in two performances of Schoenberg’s Piano Concerto with the CBSO and Sir Simon Rattle at Symphony Hall, Birmingham and at the Royal Festival Hall, London. Since then he has played with the RLPO, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.

In 2005 Tim was chosen as the scholar of the Klavier Festival Ruhr at the recommendation of Alfred Brendel, an honour that included a recital at the Festival and a bursary. Tim has a duo partnership with cellist Adrian Brendel with whom he has given tours of Spain, Germany, Italy and the UK, including concerts at the Wigmore Hall, London. In 2011 they made their debut at the Enescu Festival in Bucharest. He has played regularly at the Plush, Aldeburgh, Bath and Elverum Festivals and has collaborated with many leading chamber musicians including Paul Lewis, Peter Cropper, the Elias Quartet, the Vertavo Quartet and the members of the Kungsbacka Piano Trio.

Tim has been playing with violist Robin Ireland since 2008 and they have toured Britain extensively. Their Nimbus Alliance disc of Shostakovich and Prokofiev was highly acclaimed on its release. They have also released a disc of the Brahms Sonatas and the Schubert Arpeggione Sonata. With the Leonore Piano Trio, Tim has given concerts in Italy and throughout the UK, touring New Zealand in 2012. The trio have recorded discs of the two Arensky Piano Trios for Hyperion and the trios of David Matthews.

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Benjamin Nabarro (violin)

Born in Nottingham, Benjamin Nabarro attended Chetham’s School of Music, where he studied the violin with Roger Raphael. Benjamin went on to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Gyorgy Pauk and Erich Gruenberg. Following graduation, he studied privately in Chicago with Shmuel Ashkenasi, with the generous assistance of an English Speaking Union Scholarship.

Described by Musical Opinion as “an outstanding artist”, Benjamin has performed throughout Europe, North America, Africa, and the Middle and Far East. As a soloist or guest concertmaster, he has played with the BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, English Chamber and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, and with the Philharmonia, where he played Scheherezade under the baton of Charles Dutoit. Benjamin’s concerto performances have won praise for their “purity of style, elegance of phrasing and unsurpassed perfection of technique” (Musical Opinion).

Since 2009, Benjamin has been first violin of the internationally renowned Ensemble 360, and he is also a regular guest first violin of the Nash Ensemble, where he has appeared in concerts worldwide. He has made numerous recording for Hyperion and Dutton. His concerto engagements have included performances of works by Glazunov, Mendelssohn, Mozart, Brahms, Watkins, Piazzola, Vivaldi and Bach, and he has regularly been invited to the festivals of Cheltenham, BBC Proms, Aldeburgh, Bath, Schleswig Holstein, Mecklenberg-Vorpommern and Nuremberg, where he also made his conducting debut in 2012.

Benjamin is a member of the Leonore Piano Trio, together with cellist Gemma Rosefield and pianist Tim Horton. The Leonore Trio have given concerts throughout the UK and Europe, as well as a three week tour of New Zealand, where they broadcast for Radio New Zealand and gave a concert in the New Zealand Parliament. The Leonore Trio’s debut recording for Hyperion records of music by Arensky and Rachmaninov was released in March 2014 to great critical acclaim. Their second recording, also for Hyperion, of works by Lalo, has won universal praise and both discs were featured on BBC Radio 3’s “Disk of the Week”. They have also recorded the complete trios of David Matthews, at the composers request, and a third disk for Hyperion of music by Taneyev and Rimsky Korsakov. Both were released in 2016.

Benjamin has given concerts and masterclasses in Schools and conservatoires throughout the UK, Europe and further afield, including a day of workshops with the Leonore Trio in Otara, New Zealand, as part of the Sistema programme. He has also given masterclasses at London’s Royal Academy of Music and in Canada.