Burletta
Shelley Levy, clarinet, graduated from the University of Cape Town. She was awarded a prestigious Swiss government scholarship to study at the Geneva Conservatoire (‘Premiere Prix de Virtuosité’) before continuing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, London. Her teachers have included Oliver De Groote, Thomas Friedli, Walter Boeykens, Thea King and Michael Whight. She won the Oudemeester Competition for Wind Instruments, the Natal 75th Anniversary Prize for Orchestral Instruments, the wind category of the ATKV Forte Competition in South Africa and was a woodwind finalist in the Royal Overseas League Competition, London. As an orchestral freelancer she has played with the Cape Town Symphony orchestra, The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra amongst others. Shelley has given numerous solo and chamber music concerts in South Africa, Europe and Canada which have included concerto performances with all the major symphony orchestras in South Africa and chamber concerts at the Demetria Festival and Sani International Festival in Greece. Her UK performances include concerts in the Barbican and the Royal Albert Hall. She has been broadcast by BBC Radio 3 with Leto Ensemble.
Shelley Levy
Katalin Kertész, violin, was born in Budapest. After four years at the Béla Bartók Conservatoire, she studied in Germany with Eckhard Fischer and Annette-Barbara Vogel. Additional studies with André Gertler, Tibor Varga and Nelly Söregi-Wunderlich also provided important musical influences. Since moving to the UK she has performed on both period and modern violin in a multitude of chamber groups and ensembles, including the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the City of London Sinfonia, the Philharmonia, the London Handel Orchestra, the Hanover Band, the Brook Street Band (including two Handel trio sonata albums on the Avie label) and Ensemble Burletta. Katalin is leader of the Kertész Quartet, a string quartet performing eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century repertoire on period instruments. With this ensemble she recently recorded the four string quartets by the nineteenth-century Czech composer Wenzel Heinrich Veit for Toccata Classics. Katalin has performed in such prestigious venues as the Wigmore Hall, the Southbank Centre, the Royal Albert Hall (at the BBC Proms) and the Barbican, and has given concerts in Europe, South Africa, New Zealand, China and South America. She has been broadcast on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and Austrian radio, ORF. Katalin’s interest in the music of Hans Gál has led her to give numerous pioneering performances in the UK and South Africa, including the Scottish premiere of Gál’s 1933 violin sonata. She recently recorded Hans Gál's sonatinas and piano quartet with pianist Sarah Beth Briggs and an album of chamber music for clarinet by Gál with Ensemble Burletta for Toccata Classics.
Katalin Kertész
Lucy Hewson, violin, studied music at Royal Holloway, University of London and as a postgraduate at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama under the tutelage of Simon Fischer. In 2004 she gained a master’s degree in Performance Studies from Trinity Laban, studying violin with Clare Thompson. Much in demand as a freelance violinist, she enjoys an exciting and varied career. Amongst many diverse orchestras and ensembles, she has worked for D’Oyly Carte Opera, Carl Rosa Opera, English National Ballet, English Sinfonia, played in London’s West End, toured extensively in North America with London City Opera and performed on the QE2. She works regularly for the Bristol based Lochrian Ensemble and for the historic Pump Room Trio in Bath. Beyond the sphere of classical music Lucy has enjoyed recording for Robbie Williams, performing with Roni Size and Raprazent, with ceilidh dance band Fougere Rouge and is collaborating with singer songwriter Gavin Osborn on a forthcoming album. As a chamber musician she performs concerts and recitals across the South West with the Woodbury String Quartet and her pianist duo partner, Imogen Windsor. Lucy also plays baroque violin and is a core member of Quorum Baroque.
Lucy Hewson
Nichola Joy Blakey, viola, was born and raised in Manchester, before moving to London to commence her studies at the Royal Academy of Music with James Sleigh on viola. Since graduating, she has enjoyed a busy freelance career giving concerts and recitals across the UK and abroad with ensembles and orchestras as diverse as the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, the orchestra of Opera North, Ex Cathedra, Collegium Musicum 90, and the Brook Street Band. She has performed in the Royal Albert Hall (BBC Proms), Symphony Hall Birmingham, and the Bridgewater Hall Manchester, and toured Europe with various international artists including Johann Johannsson and Olafur Arnalds and Fyfe Dangerfield (of the British band Guillemots), as well as appearing with pop artist Emeli Sande at the Royal Albert Hall for a DVD. She has made several recordings for general release including Handel's Dixit Dominus with the Brook Street Band and the choir of Queen's College Oxford for the AVIE label, and has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and Classic FM, as well as Capital Radio. Nichola is a member of the Kertész Quartet, a string quartet performing 18th century repertoire on period instruments. She coaches musicians at the New London Music Society Summer School.
Nichola Joy Blakey
Cressida Nash
Cressida Nash cello, studied music at St Anne’s College, Oxford and cello with Ula Kantrovitch at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and subsequently as a postgraduate with Lowri Blake at Trinity College of Music, London where she won bursaries to study and perform contemporary and chamber music at the Dartington International Festival. As a soloist she has performed in France, Germany, Greece, South Africa and India, and has travelled regularly to the Netherlands to give recitals with Trio de L'Aer. In 2007 she became a founder member of Musicians South West with whose members she has given countless recitals over the past decade including a performance of Mendelssohn and Moscheles cello sonatas at the Mendelssohn Haus in Leipzig as part of the 2011 Gewandhaus’ Mendelssohn and England Festival. With Bath Consort she has given recitals in Bath and at The Pound Arts Centre, and as cellist with Trio Paradis from September 2014 to May 2015 has toured the well-reviewed show Women of World War One supported by many trusts including The Arts Council and Pound Arts. Cressida has recently been invited to join the Kertész Quartet, a string quartet specialising in period performances of 18th Century repertoire
Pavel Timofeyevsky, piano, is quickly gaining a reputation as one of the most exciting and compelling artists of his generation. Pavel gives recitals and appears as a soloist with orchestras at major concert venues worldwide such as the Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Shanghai Oriental Centre for Arts, Guangzhou Opera House, Mumbai National Centre for Performing Arts and Merkin Concert Hall, New York. An eloquent speaker, Timofeyevsky gives regular lecture-concerts for the Kensington Music Society in London. A devoted supporter of connecting with new audiences, Pavel has extensively performed for Live Music Now in community venues all over UK. He has recorded for the music-chamber label with violist Katya Lazareva and British composer Ian Stewart. Pavel is also a sought-after composer, and winner of the prestigious BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year Award. Recently he conducted a world premiere of his new work for orchestra Questors Suite at London’s Cadogan Hall. Timofeyevsky has composed music for several films including the critically acclaimed Le fin de la belle époque documentary for Russian television and a soundtrack for Russia’s oldest animated film studio, Soyuzmultfilm. He has recorded the soundtrack and starred in the US documentary Tchaikovsky.
Pavel Timofeyevsky
