PROGRAMME

Rossini The Barber of Seville Overture
Elgar Cello Concerto
Dvoräk Symphony No.9, 'From the New World'

BIOGRAPHY - Royal Philharmonic Orchestra

Founded in 1946 by Sir Thomas Beecham, with his vision of bringing world-class performances of the greatest music written to the length of the country, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra continues to maintain Beecham's legacy by offering audiences in the UK and abroad the highest possible standards of music-making, accompanied by some of the most acclaimed artists of the day. Read More...

BIOGRAPHY - Natalie Clein

Natalie Clein's exceptional musicality has earned her a number of prestigious prizes including the Classical Brit Award for Young British Performer of 2005 and the Ingrid zu Solms Cultur Preis at the 2003 Kronberg Academie. She won the BBC Young Musician of the Year (aged 16) in 1994 and in the same year was the first ever British winner of the Eurovision Competition for Young Musicians in Warsaw. She was awarded the Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother Scholarship by the Royal College of Music before completing her studies with Heinrich Schiff in Vienna.

In the 2007/08 season, Natalie will tour Australia and New Zealand, performing the Elgar Cello Concerto with Martin Brabbins and the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and Pietari Inkinen and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. She will also give concerts with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Northen Sinfonia amongst others, as well as recitals and chamber music throughout the UK.

She made her concerto debut at the BBC Proms in August 1997, performing the Haydn Cello Concerto in C major with Sir Roger Norrington and the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain and has since appeared in venues throughout the UK such as the Royal Festival Hall, Barbican, Bridgewater Hall and Birmingham's Symphony Hall. She has performed as a soloist with most of the UK's major orchestras, including the London Philharmonic, Royal Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Bournemouth Symphony, The Philharmonia, Royal Scottish National, Hallé and BBC orchestras with conductors such as Sir Charles Mackerras, Gennardi Rozhdestvensky, Sir Andrew Davis, Heinrich Schiff, Sir Neville Marriner, and Paul Daniel.

Her international career continues to gain momentum with concerts in the United States, Canada, South America, Germany, Austria and Spain. Her debut concerts with the Montreal Symphony and Mark Wigglesworth received critical acclaim as did her Argentinean debut at the Teatro Colon with the Orquesta Filarmónica de Buenos Aires.

Natalie is in great demand as a recitalist and appears every year at London's Wigmore Hall. Next season she will perform there several times as part of Stephen Kovacevich's residency. She has given recitals in Tokyo, Seoul, New York (Lincoln Center) and Vienna and Salzburg. She is an avid chamber musician and each summer takes part in many of the world's great international festivals, including Cheltenham, Mostly Mozart (London), City of London, Bath, Oxford, Australia, Canada (Vancouver Festival), France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Italy and Austria. Besides her regular recital partners - Julius Drake, Kathy Stott and Katya Apekisheva - her chamber music collaborations have included Martha Argerich, Ian Bostridge, Melvyn Tan, Imogen Cooper, Lars Vogt, Itamar Golan, Wayne Marshall, Steven Isserlis, clarinetists Michael Collins, Sharon Kam and Emma Johnson, oboist Nick Daniel and violinists Priya Mitchell, Pekka Kuusisto and Isabelle Faust. She is also regularly invited to perform with the Belcea, Jerusalem and Takacs quartets as well as the Nash Ensemble.

Natalie records exclusively for EMI Classics. Her debut recording, a recital disc with both Brahms Cello Sonatas and Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata with Charles Owen was released in October 2004. She has since released 'The Romantic Cello' with Charles Owen, which includes Rachmaninov's Sonata and Chopin's Sonata and Polonaise. Her latest disc of the Elgar Cello Concerto with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and Vernon Handley, CBE conducting was released in September 2007.

Natalie Clein plays on the "Simpson" Guadagnini cello (1777).*