Former students of the Royal Northern College, the Heath Quartet was chosen for representation by YCAT and in 2013 was the first ensemble in 15 years to win the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society’s Young Artists' Award.
Highlights of a very busy 17/18 season included a five-concert series at Wigmore Hall featuring Jörg Widmann’s quartets, as well as further Widmann cycles at the Boulez Saal and Kilkenny Festival, a tour of the US including debuts in Chicago and Los Angeles, and recitals in Belgium and The Netherlands with Hannes Minnaar. They recorded the Enescu and Mendelssohn octets, gave the premiere of a new work by Helen Grime, and undertook a two week tour of New Zealand. The Quartet were also on-stage cast members in Calixto Bieito’s play adaptation of Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy, with performances in Birmingham, Brighton, Luxembourg, Bilbao and Amsterdam.
Regular visitors to the United States, the quartet also recently made their debut in New York at both Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Centre, and continue their residence at Middlebury College, Vermont.
Tonight, the Heath Quartet are joined in the second half of the concert by pianist Alexei Grynyuk for a performance of the Schumann Piano Quintet. Alexei Grynyuk partners Nicola Bennedetti and Leonard Elschenbroich in both solo performances and as a member of their Trio. Tonight he returns as soloist for the third time to Oxshott and Cobham Music Society.
Equally at home in classical, romantic and 20th centrury repertoire, Alexei Grynyuk has been invited to give solo recitals and concerto performances at many prestigious venues and festivals around the world, among them:- the Great Hall of Moscow Conservatoire,- Wigmore Hall and the South Bank Centre in London,- Salle Cortot and Salle Gaveau in Paris as well as:- Cervantino Festival in Mexico,- Duszniki Chopin Festival in Poland,- Musical Kremlin Festival in Moscow,- Musica Sacra in Netherlands,- West Cork Music Festival in Ireland,- Newport Music Festival in USA and International Keyboard Festival in New York.
He has also been broadcast on:- BBC Radio 3,- Hessicher Rundfunk,- Bayerischer Radio,- Radio France- and televised on Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Chinese and Russian channels.
Roy Stratford will give a pre-concert talk on the Beethoven String Quartet at 6.50pm. There will be a retiring collection.