‘The Florestan Trio defines great chamber music playing.’ (San Francisco Chronicle). In honouring the Florestan Trio with its award for chamber music in 2000, the Royal Philharmonic Society recognised the achievements of the Trio in a repertoire in which long-standing, dedicated ensembles have always been rare. The Florestan Trio has now pursued this path for fifteen years, and listeners all over the world express their appreciation of the Trio’s devotion to a field of music which they believe deserves wholehearted commitment.

Florestan is one of the most-recorded piano trios in the world today. Its recordings on Hyperion have received outstanding reviews; all their discs have been nominated for Gramophone Awards, and are recommended choices in major collectors’ guides. Their Schumann disc won a 1999 Gramophone Award; their CD of French piano trios is one of Hyperion’s best-sellers in the chamber music field, and all their other discs from Mozart to Saint-Saens have become benchmark recordings. Their latest disc, of Haydn Trios, was greeted by America’s leading record magazine Fanfare with the words, 'The Florestan is the ultimate in gentility and grace… the playing, interpretation, and recorded sound are perfection; every note, every phrase, every balance is beyond criticism.’

The Trio are popular visitors at major European venues such as Wigmore Hall in London, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, the Brussels Conservatoire, the Berlin Konzerthaus, De Singel in Antwerp, the Vienna Konzerthaus, the Philharmonic Society in Bilbao and the Società del Quartetto in Milan. They regularly visit the USA, and past tours have taken them to South America, Israel, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. They have had works specially composed for them by Judith Weir, Peteris Vasks, Sally Beamish, John Casken, Rudi Martinus van Dijk and Dmitri Smirnoff, and they premiered a newly commissioned trio by Huw Watkins in November 2009 at the Wigmore Hall.

A focal point of the Trio’s year is its own festival in Peasmarsh, East Sussex. Each June they present four days of concerts centred on the Trio, but also welcoming guest artists of international stature. Perhaps uniquely, they each appear during the festival as concerto soloists with orchestras such as the Academy of St Martin’s in the Fields and the Florestan Festival Orchestra. 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.

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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.

Anthony also enjoys a flourishing career as a director, and last autumn completed his second 12-concert tour as soloist/director with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. He is looking forward to guest directing Les Violons du Roy in Canada, the Scottish Ensemble and at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne. Since January 2006 he has been Artistic Director of the Irish Chamber Orchestra, and is a regular collaborator with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields (their first CD together winning high praise). His passion for theatre resulted in two UK tours 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 the year by the Daily Telegraph.

He has had many works written for him, including Sally Beamish's 1995 concerto, subsequently televised for BBC4 and recorded on the BIS label. In the 2009-10 season Anthony Marwood will premiere two new concertos written for him, one by American composer Steve Mackey (a concerto for violin and electric guitar, commissioned jointly by the ASMF and the ICO) and one from New Zealander Ross Harris, with the NZSO. Thomas Adès's concerto “Concentric Paths”, which he premiered in September 2005 in Berlin and at the BBC Proms is the result of a fruitful musical partnership with the composer. He has since performed the work on numerous occasions giving the US premiere with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the French premiere in Paris with the CBSO, and the Russian premiere in St Petersburg. His recording of the work on EMI, with the composer conducting the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, received exceptional reviews and was picked as Gramophone Magazine’'s Recording of the Month. Adès and Marwood are touring a programme of the complete works of Stravinsky for violin and piano, a recording of which will be released on the Hyperion label in February 2010. With the cellist Steven Isserlis they will perform at Carnegie Hall in New York this March.

Anthony has made well over 30 recordings, and is a Hyperion Artist. Future plans include two concerto CDs for Hyperion in 2011.

He enjoys teaching and each summer attends the Yellow Barn Festival in Vermont, where students and faculty perform together in a rural setting.

He plays on a beautiful violin by Carlo Bergonzi (1736), kindly bought by a syndicate of purchasers.

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

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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.

Recent highlights include concerts as soloist, conductor and director with the OAE, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Irish Chamber Orchestra, and in Montreal and Quebec with Les Violons du Roy. This season the Florestan Trio is appearing throughout Europe and at the Wigmore Hall, and at its own annual festival in Peasmarsh, Sussex.

He has made over 30 highly acclaimed recordings, twice winning the Gramophone award for best chamber-music. His recordings of the complete works of Mendelssohn for cello and piano with Susan Tomes, and a disc of Boccherini sonatas on period instruments are available on the Hyperion label.

Richard Lester teaches at the Guildhall School.

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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.

Writing about music is an important part of her life. She is the author of three books which give an insight into the performer’s life: Beyond the Notes (2004), A Musician’s Alphabet (2006), and Out of Silence (2010). She writes on music 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 gives masterclasses, sits on competition juries, gives seminars, and writes a blog on her own website, www.susantomes.com. In January 2010 The Times, in a review of writing about music, said ‘The best writers are often musicians themselves – Robert Schumann in the 19th century, for example, and Susan Tomes in the 21st.’

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