About the Florestan Trio

The award winning Florestan Trio are celebrated as one of the leading piano trios in the world. All their discs have been nominated for Gramophone Awards, and are recommended choices in major collectors’ guides. The Trio (Anthony Marwood, violin, Richard Lester, cello, and Susan Tomes, piano) are popular visitors at all the major European venues, and have toured the Americas, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. They also have their own, annual chamber music festival in Peasmarsh, East Sussex, England, now in its thirteenth year.

Anthony Marwood (Violin)

Anthony Marwood was named Instrumentalist of the Year by the Royal Philharmonic Society in 2006. He is a frequent soloist with orchestras around the world, and in the next two seasons will make his debuts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the St Louis Symphony, the New Zealand Symphony, the Melbourne Symphony, and has reinvitations to the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Bournemouth Symphony, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. He has worked with conductors such as Valery Gergiev, Thomas Ades, Yan Pascal Tortelier and Douglas Boyd.

Richard Lester (Cello)

Leading chamber-musician, solo-cellist and member of the much-acclaimed Florestan Trio, Richard Lester appears regularly at the world’s foremost concert venues and festivals. Equally at home on both period instruments and ‘modern’, he is principal cello with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and has recently joined the London Haydn Quartet.

Susan Tomes (Piano)

One of Britain’s foremost pianists, Susan Tomes grew up in Edinburgh and was the first woman to study music at King’s College, Cambridge. She is in demand as a recitalist and concerto soloist, and has recorded over fifty CDs. She is particularly renowned for her achievements in chamber music. For sixteen years she was the pianist of the award-winning group Domus, and since 1993 has been the pianist of the Gaudier Ensemble. In 1995 she co-founded the Florestan Trio, now one of the world’s leading piano trios and one of the most-recorded. The trio won a 1999 Gramophone Award and a Royal Philharmonic Society Award 2000.