Artists
Biogs
Katya Apekisheva (piano)
Born in Moscow, into a family of musicians, she attended the Gnessin Music School for exceptionally gifted children making her stage debut at the age of 12. She continued her studies in Jerusalem at the Rubin Music Academy and later at the Royal College of Music in London. From these auspicious beginnings she went on to be a Prize-winner of the Leeds International Piano competition and has gone on to enjoy a career performing with many of the world’s leading orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra, the Halle Orchestra, the Moscow Philharmonic, the Jerusalem Symphony, the English Chamber Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, working with renowned conductors such as Sir Simon Rattle, David Shallon, Jan Latham-Koenig and Alexander Lazarev.
As a recording artist, Katya has received widespread critical acclaim for her interpretations from Gramophone Magazine’s Editor’s Choice award and International Piano Magazine’s Critics’ choice to Classic FM’s CD of the week as well as a Classical Brit award to name but a few. Katya’s discography includes solo and chamber works by Mussorgsky, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, Dvorak and Rachmaninov.
Recent and future highlights include performances in Russia, Norway, Japan, Switzerland, Italy, Denmark, Germany, Australia and at home in the UK, notably at Wigmore Hall where she is a regular presence. Her intense artistry and delicacy makes Katya a most sought after collaborative pianist, working with artists such as Janine Jansen, Natalie Clein, Maxim Rysanov, Jack Liebeck, Boris Brovtsyn, Alexei Ogrinchouk and Nicholas Daniel and she appears regularly at major chamber music festivals around the world. Katya also has a highly successful and personally rewarding piano duo partnership with Charles Owen, performing regularly at festivals worldwide. Together they are co-Artistic Directors of the London Piano Festival which began in 2016.
Adrian Brendel (cello)
One of the most versatile and original cellists of his generation, Adrian Brendel has travelled the world as soloist, collaborator and teacher. His early immersion in the core classical repertoire inspired an enduring fascination
that has led to encounters with many fine musicians at the world’s most prestigious festivals and concert halls. His discovery of contemporary music through the works of Kurtag, Kagel and Ligeti in his teenage years opened a vital avenue that he continues to explore with huge enthusiasm alongside his passion for improvisation and programme curation.
In 2014 he became a member of the Nash Ensemble of London with whom he is resident at Wigmore hall throughout every season. He will be the group’s co-artistic
director with pianist Simon Crawford-Phillips from 2025. Adrian has recorded a wide range of music for Philips, Hyperion, ECM new series, NMC, Bis and other labels.
These include a survey of Beethoven’s complete works for cello and Piano with his father Alfred Brendel, a collection of pieces dedicated to him during many years of valuable collaboration with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and much of the core chamber music repertoire.
2026 will mark the beginning of Adrian’s tenure as artistic director of Bath Mozartfest and Bachfest, one of the UK’s most established classical music festivals. As founder of Plush festival in Dorset from 1995-2017, he forged an original programming style bringing together diverse thematic strands across a wide span of music from Machaut to the present day.
The festival attracted artists such as Sir Andras Schiff, Radu Lupu, Lawrence Power, Miklos Perenyi, Oliver Knussen and John Taylor amongst many regular visitors, and featured music by more than 100 contemporary composers. A new musical
venture - Tree of strings foundation - will begin in southwest England in 2026, with a particular focus on young musicians and education.
Adrian is a familiar presence at many of Europe’s leading festivals including Schubertiade Schwarzenberg, Verbier, Aldeburgh, Edinburgh and Salzburg. He performs as soloist with orchestras including NDR Hamburg, Gulbenkian, Academy of St Martins, Philharmonia and RSNO, and in recital with Till Fellner, Alasdair Beatson, Dame Imogen Cooper and Denes Varjon. His many chamber music partners include the Takacs, Ebene, Belcea and Jerusalem quartets, Ensemble 360, Viviane Hagner and Lawrence Power.
Adrian was made an honorary member of the Royal Academy of music in 2021 where he also gives masterclasses as guest professor, alongside a cello class at Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London and private tuition. Increasingly in demand as a teacher, his schedule takes him to academies around Europe every year.
Tim Crawford (violin)
Tim recently completed his undergraduate degree with Alexander Janiczek at the Guildhall School of Music in London where he was awarded a Concert Recital Diploma and the Lord Mayor’s Prize for the highest mark across the music department, and was subsequently invited to return as a Chamber Fellow.
Born to two violinist parents, Tim attended the Royal Academy of Music from the age of 4. He was also a chorister at the Temple Choir in London, and head chorister for his final two year, recording disks for both Signum and Decca labels. Starting his first serious string quartet in 2011, the Celan Quartet, he has been a regular at many of the chamber festivals both in the UK and abroad. Now a member of the Barbican Quartet, who recently won the Royal Philharmonic Society Eugenie Frost Music Prize, as well as support from the Hattori Foundation and winning the St James’ Chamber Music Prize.
Tim has attended the IMS Prussia Cove masterclasses since he turned 18, and in 2018 was invited to play on the IMS Open Chamber Music Tour, ending at the Wigmore Hall in London, alongside artists such as Adrian Brendel and Las Anders Tomter. Tim has performed alongside artists such as Steven Isserlis, Lawrence Power, Alexi Kenney, Philippe Graffin, Amy Norrington, Alasdair Beatson, Bengt Forsberg, Timothy Ridout, Paolo Giacometti. He is a regular of Musikdorf Ernen, IMS Prussia Cove, Lewes Chamber Festival and looks forward to attending the West Wycombe Chamber Festival and Resonances festivals this year. He has also recently been asked to lead the new string ensemble set up by Lawrence Power, Collegium.
Tim plays a Ferdinand Gagliano, c.1770.
Simone van der Giessen (viola)
Simone van der Giessen was born in Amsterdam and moved to the UK in 2002 to continue her violin studies with Jan Repko at the Royal Northern College of Music. It was in Manchester, that as a founding member of the Navarra String Quartet, chamber music became the centre of her musical life. In 2004 she began studying viola with Predrag Katanic and after graduating in June 2006 with First Class Honours she won the RNCM’s Cecil Aronowitz Prize for viola and performed Walton’s concerto for viola with the RNCM Symphony Orchestra.
With the Navarra quartet, Simone performed internationally for 16 years. There have been many highlights in her years with the Navarra quartet, a few of them performing in the Sydney Operahouse, playing at the Esterhazy castle, and studying with Ferenc Rados.They have been awarded the MIDEM Classique Young Artist Award, a Borletti- Buitoni Trust Fellowship, a Musica Viva tour and prizes at the Melbourne, Florence and at the Banff International String Quartet Competition.
Simone is now a member of the Elias quartet. This quartet is steadily building a recording catalogue that has been met with widespread critical acclaim. They have recorded the Schumann and Dvorak piano quintets with Jonathan Biss, a Britten Quartets disc for Sonimage, a Mendelssohn disc for ASV Gold and most recently Schumann string quartets for Outhere. Their two mixed programme recordings for Wigmore Live were praised unanimously, the first winning a BBC Music Magazine Newcomers award. The final volume of their complete Beethoven Quartet Cycle had just been released. In 2020 they returned to the US with a Beethoven cycle apart from fulfilling a busy concert schedule across Europe.
Outside of the quartet, Simone is in much demand as a chamber musician and is frequently invited to perform with various musicians and ensembles such as the Nash ensemble, Britten Sinfonia, Ensemble 360, the Mahler Chamber Orchestra and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe
Tim Lowe (cello)
Tim spends much of his time playing solo and chamber recitals throughout the UK and Europe and has played recitals many times in major London venues including Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square, QEH, Cadogan Hall and Purcell Room.
He has recorded chamber music CDs for various labels, including for Deutsche Grammophon, Naxos, Chandos and Champs Hill. Tim was the cellist of the Rossetti Ensemble for ten years and plays as a guest in other groups and enjoys many collaborations. As an orchestral player Tim is Guest Principal Cello with major UK orchestras including the English Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia and the Sinfonia of London. Tim has also played on many TV and film scores including Mission Impossible, Downton Abbey and many more.
Tim is Artistic Director of York Chamber Music Festival which he founded in 2013. He has collaborated with musicians such as Steven Isserlis, Angela Hewitt, Anthony Marwood and Philip Glass (recording the opera The Trial).
Tim is Cello Professor at Guildhall School of Music and Drama where he has a large class. He teaches and coaches regularly on courses and festivals throughout the UK giving recitals and teaching in masterclasses.
He plays a cello made by Carolus Tononi in Bologna in 1716.
Lilli Maijala (viola)
The Finish violist Lilli Maijala is one of the most sought-after Nordic string players. She has appeared as soloist with the Helsinki Philharmonic, Lapland Chamber Orchestra, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Camerata Salzburg, Folkwang Kammerorchester Essen and Tapiola Sinfonietta.
Lilli’s interest in new music has seen her premiere viola concertos by Lauri Kilpiö and Sampo Kasurinen, as well as performing in the experimental quartet-lab with violinists Patricia Kopatchinskaja, Pekka Kuusisto and cellist Pieter Wispelwey. She is also a member of the newly formed Valo Quartet.
She has recorded Pehr Henrik Nordgren’s Concerto for Viola, Double Bass and Chamber Orchestra and the Viola Concerto by Peteris Vasks, both recordings to considerable acclaim..
Lilli completed her studies at the Sibelius Academy, Hochschule für Musik Detmold and the Edsberg Chamber Music Institute with teachers such as Teemu Kupiainen, Diemut Poppen and Lars Anders Tomter. She now cherishes the opportunity to actively participate in the moulding of a new generation of violists. Since 2009 she has been Head of Viola Faculty at the famed Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. She was appointed as professor of viola at Zurich University of the Arts, taking on this role in 2023.
Lilli plays on a Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume viola from 1870, on loan by kind permission of the Finnish Cultural Foundation.
Charlotte Scott (violin)
Charlotte enjoys a varied career as a soloist, director and chamber musician. Her critically acclaimed discography includes recordings for LINN Records, Decca, Apple Music, Classical Label and Champs Hill.
Passionate about directing, Charlotte regularly performs with many chamber orchestras worldwide, including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Musica Vitae, and Nederlands Chamber Orchestra, leading with dynamic programmes as a soloist, director or concertmaster. In recent seasons she has taken part in various live broadcasts from Wigmore Hall and the BBC Proms.
As a soloist and chamber player, recent highlights include frequent performances in venues such as Wigmore Hall, Concertgebouw, Purcell Room, Sheldonian Theatre and The Festival Hall. Additionally, she is invited as part an array of summer festivals including the North York Moors Chamber Music Festival, New Paths Chamber Festival, York Chamber Music Festival and Zermatt Festival.
Charlotte regularly gives performance classes and masterclasses at the Royal Academy of Music in London and at Oxford University and has a great interest in exploring and helping others with performance practice from a variety of different approaches. Influencing the art in which she teaches and performs, these approaches are naturally integrated into the relationships with colleagues and in her performances.
Between 2006-2013, Charlotte dedicated her life as the first violinist of the award winning Piatti Quartet, performing internationally and making regular appearances on BBC Radio 3, as well as various further live television and radio broadcasts. The quartet won numerous international prizes and in 2012 was nominated for a prestigious Royal Philharmonic Award, equally reflected in their distinguished discography. Currently first violinist and co-founder of the Oculi Ensemble - a group which was created as the next iteration of the former Badke Quartet. The Oculi Ensemble is made up of a circle of world class string quartet artists, and forms a larger, flexible ensemble that received high critical acclaim globally for their release of Metamorphosen- Richard Strauss Chamber Works.
Charlotte plays a violin by Antonio Stradivarius, 1685 “Gagliano”.
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