Madeleine Mitchell has been described by The Times as ‘one of the UK’s liveliest musical forces (and) foremost violinists’. She has performed as solo violinist and chamber musician in 50 countries in a wide repertoire, frequently broadcast for radio and TV, in major festivals including the BBC Proms. Her latest album, Violin Conversations of premiere recordings of works mostly by living UK composers, several written for Mitchell, has been very favourably reviewed in both The Telegraph and The Observer. It follows her successful previous Naxos album, no.2 in the Classical Charts. Last year she won a Royal Philharmonic Society Enterprise Award to make a short film with the V&A Fabergé exhibition and the live quartet concert she curated with the London Chamber Ensemble which she founded: https://youtu.be/J_ChAdTj4xA

 

Madeleine Mitchell has performed concertos including, most recently with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales Grace Williams Violin Concerto live for BBC Radio 3 and Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending, the Czech and Polish Radio Symphony orchestras, Wurttemberg and Munich Chamber, Kiev Radio/TV, St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic and other London orchestras, Orchestra of the Swan, Welsh Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra de Bahia Brazil and for the BBC. She has been invited to tour Japan, performing Bruch Violin Concerto in Tokyo.

 

As a recording artist with a wide discography, Madeleine has been nominated for Grammy and BBC Music Awards. Many well known composers have written works specially for her which she’s recorded including Sir James MacMillan and Michael Nyman.  Her popular albums include Violin Songs and Violin Muse (with Nigel Clayton and Guto Puw Violin Concerto written for her, with BBC NOW) as well as FiddleSticks – with Lou Harrison Violin Concerto with Percussion Orchestra and companion pieces as part of a major award by Arts Council England for her collaboration with ensemble bash. She’s also championed early 20th century music including Grace Williams Chamber Music, music by William Alwyn and Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time, the widely recommended recording for many years. Her recording of the Suite written for her by Robert Saxton, premiered at Three Choirs Festival with Clare Hammond, was released last year and a new solo violin piece by Michael, Lord Berkeley will feature on an album for his 75th birthday. Following Madeleine’s British Treasures album for SOMM, her London Chamber Ensemble Quartet have been invited to record the original version of Howells String Quartet no.3.

 

In recital Madeleine Mitchell represented Britain in the Canberra International Music Festival,  UKinNY at Lincoln Center, for the Queen’s Jubilee in Rome and ‘Great British Week’ in Kuwait. She has given recitals at Sydney Opera House, Seoul Center for the Arts – part of a 3 month world tour, in Vienna, Moscow, London’s Southbank Centre as well as Singapore, Wigmore Hall and for BBC Radio 3 with Nigel Clayton.

 

Amongst many awards, Madeleine won the Tagore Gold Medal as a Foundation Scholar at the Royal College of Music, where she is now a Professor, followed by the prestigious Fulbright/ITT Fellowship to study in New York for a Master’s Degree at the Eastman and Juilliard schools. She frequently returns to tour the USA, receiving standing ovations for her recitals in San Francisco and Texas in January 2023 and a return invitation in October.

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A highly creative personality, Madeleine devised the eclectic Red Violin, the first international festival celebrating the violin across the arts, Founder Patron Lord Menuhin. She gives master classes worldwide and is on the faculty of www.orfeomusicfestival.com in the Dolomites and www.lmfl.org, performing and teaching.  (www.madeleinemitchell.com)

 

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Nigel Clayton studied with Stephen Savage and Angus Morrison at the Royal College of Music, London, where he won prizes in every category of piano performance and was awarded the College's yearly prize for his Bachelor of Music Degree. Whilst there, a particular interest in chamber music and accompanying developed and was further encouraged by international prizes from competitions in London, New York (Concert Artists Guild) and from the English Speaking Union. Since then his worldwide travel has included four major tours of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan with the Indian cellist Anup Kumar Biswas, tours of the Middle East and America with Wissam Boustany, of Scandinavia with Gerard LeFeuvre and throughout every European country. He performs more than eighty concerts every season and has also played at most of the music clubs and festivals in his native Great Britain, appearing regularly on the BBC's radio network, at the Wigmore Hall and at the South Bank Centre, where he has already performed over fifty recitals. His most recent concerts have been in Taiwan and Japan, his first time to tour in the Far East.

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Nigel also continues to perform as a soloist and has given more than one hundred solo recitals on board the British cruise liners SS Canberra, Oriana, Victoria and Arcadia. He has performed concertos by Beethoven, Shostakovich, Ravel, Rachmaninov, Mozart and Liszt and was a soloist in Poulenc's two piano concerto in the Royal Albert Hall whilst still a junior student at the Royal College of Music.

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Apart from several long standing partnerships, Nigel has appeared alongside such artists as Michael Collins, Sylvia Marcovici, Ofra Harnoy, Tasmin Little and Bryan Rayner Cook, the Chilingirian, Sorrel and Bingham Quartets and with instrumentalists from Japan, Korea, Canada, Spain, America, Poland and Iceland. He is engaged as Official Accompanist each year for the Tibor Varga International Violin Competition in Switzerland, and has recorded six commercial compact discs. He teaches at a specialist school for young pianists in Surrey, is visiting professor of piano at the North East of Scotland Music School and was recently appointed Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music, London.

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