Florestan is one of the world’s leading piano trios. The group stands in the great European tradition of chamber music playing which aims to make the expressive purpose of every detail understood, like the words in a sentence or paragraph – to make the music ‘speak’. This approach was epitomised by the violinist Sandor Végh, by whom all three players were taught. In 2000 the Trio was honoured to receive Britain’s Royal Philharmonic Society Award for chamber music – the first time this has been given to a piano trio.

Florestan’s records on the Hyperion label have received outstanding reviews. All their discs have been nominated for Gramophone Awards, and are recommended choices in major collectors’ guides. Their disc of the first two trios by Schumann won the 1999 Gramophone Award for chamber music and a host of other accolades. Their disc of French piano trios was cited by Classic CD as ‘proof, if proof were needed, that the Florestan Trio is one of the finest chamber ensembles of the present day.’ Their recording of Schubert’s B flat trio was described by The Times of London as ‘marvellously alive, played with palpable joy and an unerring sense of ensemble.’ They followed this with a CD of Schubert’s great E flat Trio, which The Times greeted with ‘Clear the decks for paradise. Lock the doors, unplug the phone. Bliss awaits.’

Their Hyperion recording of the complete Beethoven piano trios has again had critics reaching for superlatives. The Independent acclaimed Volume 1: ‘This is playing of quite extraordinary sensitivity and depth. I can hardly wait for the next volume.’ Of Volume 2, The Strad wrote, ‘The Florestan have made some truly remarkable records, but this may be their finest yet.’ The Sunday Times went further when Volume 3 appeared: ‘Perhaps the finest contemporary exponents of this repertoire performing on modern instruments today.’ The Times greeted Volume 4 by saying that ‘with the Florestan Trio’s fourth and last Hyperion CD of Beethoven piano trios, you enter the Elysian fields straight away. Is there any team of musicians that currently plays this repertoire with such ensemble spirit, verve and understanding?’

Florestan is a regular guest at all the UK’s major festivals and performs frequently in London’s principal concert halls. Recent tours have taken them to South America, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Japan, and they regularly visit other European countries. This season they have performed the Beethoven Triple with the Ulster Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata, and appeared in the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and in the Konzerthaus in Vienna. Their first major tour of the USA, including their Carnegie Hall debut, took place in March this year and they follow it up with a second tour in February 2005.

The trio has had several works specially composed for it by Peteris Vasks, Judith Weir, Sally Beamish, John Casken, and Rudi Martinus van Dijk, and in June 2004 they gave the world premiere of a new trio specially written for them by Judith Weir.

Recently the Trio has founded a charitable company, The Florestan Trust, which aims to develop public awareness and knowledge of music through the presentation of concerts, educational work and commissioning new works. The Florestan Trust runs the Trio’s Chamber Music Festival at Peasmarsh in East Sussex which was started in 1998 and is now an annual event in June.

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In May 2006 Anthony Marwood was named Instrumentalist of the Year at the prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society Awards, the first string player to receive this honour in more than a decade, confirming him as one of the most sought-after and versatile violinists of his generation. He has a growing reputation as soloist/director and in January 2006 became Artistic Director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and of the Shannon International Music Festival. He is a regular collaborator with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (their first CD together winning high praise), and in summer 2005 his passion for theatre resulted in a UK tour with the Academy of a fully staged production of Stravinsky's A Soldier's Tale, in which he acted the role of the Soldier as well as playing the violin part – his performance, directed by Lawrence Evans, was picked as one of the cultural highlights of 2005 by the Daily Telegraph.

Since his concerto debut at the BBC Proms in London in 1993 he has inspired some exciting collaborations with the major British Orchestras, as is now in increasing demand internationally. He has had many works written for him, including Sally Beamish's 1995 concerto, subsequently televised for BBC4 and due for release on the BIS label in spring 2007. Thomas Adès's concerto “Concentric Paths”, which he premiered in September 2005 in Berlin and at the BBC Proms (an event which was nominated for a South Bank Show Award), is the result of a fruitful musical partnership with the composer. Adès and Marwood are currently touring a programme of all of Stravinsky's music for violin and piano. In February 2006 they performed together in Los Angeles, where they also gave the US premiere of Adès's Violin Concerto with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, both events winning rave reviews from the LA press. In April 2006 he returned to the US to give three performances of the Kurt Weill concerto with the Detroit Symphony. Other forthcoming engagements include opening the 06-07 Chamber Music Season at the Wigmore Hall in a recital with Thomas Ades, a tour of Germany as soloist/director with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, concertos with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe at the Barbican, the London Philharmonic at the South Bank, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra at the Aldeburgh Festival and in Paris, the Malaysian Philharmonic, the NDR Hamburg, and a major tour as soloist/director with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.

Anthony Marwood recordings include Vivaldi's Four Seasons with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra on BMG, but he also enjoys performing and recording more unusual works. He has made acclaimed recordings on the Hyperion label of sonata repertoire with the pianist Susan Tomes of Dvorak (Classic CD Award), Schumann (Gramophone Award nomination) and concertos by Stanford (Gramophone Award nomination), Coleridge-Taylor and Somervell, and with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, concertos by Kurt Weill and Peteris Vasks, “performed with blistering intensity and astonishing accuracy” BBC Radio 3 CD Review.

He recently acquired the use of a beautiful violin by Carlo Bergonzi (1736), kindly bought by a syndicate of purchasers.

To find out schedule and other information, please visit anthonymarwood.com

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One of Britain's foremost cellists, Richard Lester has earned distinction as a concerto and recital soloist and as an accomplished chamber musician. He is equally at home in period instrument performance and in 'modern' and is associated with some of the finest performers from both fields. Alongside his activities with the Florestan Trio, he is principal cello with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.

He has appeared as soloist with conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Roger Norrington, Paavo Berglund, Myung Whun Chung and Sandor Vegh, and has performed frequently as director/soloist with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in some of the world's most prestigious venues. In the UK he has played concertos with, among others, the BBC Scottish SO, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and the Manchester Camerata, and is frequently called upon to be guest-leader of the cello sections of the major London orchestras.

Richard Lester was a founder member of the celebrated ensemble Domus, with whom he toured worldwide and recorded most of the repertoire for Piano Quartet. His interest in period performance led him to join Hausmusik, a flexible ensemble performing and recording classical and early romantic chamber music on period instruments. He is a frequent guest with the Nash Ensemble, especially in their series at the Wigmore Hall, and has been invited to take part in many chamber-music festivals around the world, most recently in the USA, Canada, Japan, Italy and Sweden.

Recent highlights include a televised performance of Schubert's Trout Quintet with pianist Andras Schiff as part of the Wigmore Hall's centenary celebrations, and a new, much acclaimed CD release of Boccherini Quintets with the Vanbrugh Quartet.

His recording with Susan Tomes of the complete music for cello and piano by Mendelssohn and a disc of Boccherini sonatas on period instruments, both available on the Hyperion label, have received enthusiastic critical acclaim.

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Susan Tomes grew up in Edinburgh and won an Open Piano Scholarship to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. A year later she was the first woman to be admitted to study music at King’s College, Cambridge. Her discography now contains over fifty discs of solo, duo and chamber music as well as hundreds of radio recordings made around the world. She has won a number of awards including three Gramophone Awards, a Classic CD award, and the Royal Philharmonic Society Award for chamber music. All her discs are recommended choices in collectors’ guides.

Though she performs all kinds of piano music from concertos to light music, she is especially renowned for her achievements in chamber music. For fifteen years she was the pianist of the chamber group Domus, and for another fifteen she has been the pianist of the Florestan Trio, one of the world’s leading trios and one of the most-recorded. Parallel to her work with these two groups, she has been the pianist of the Gaudier Ensemble for seventeen years.

In recent years she has become very involved in writing about music and its performance. She is the author of two books, Beyond the Notes (Boydell Press) and A Musician’s Alphabet (Faber), both glowingly reviewed. She has just finished writing a third book about performance, provisionally titled Out of Silence. She writes for The Guardian, reviews books for The Guardian and The Independent, and has written and presented programmes on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. She also gives masterclasses, sits on competition juries and award panels, gives seminars, and is a keynote speaker at dinners and conferences. She writes a blog on her website, www.susantomes.com.

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