galliard Ensemble and sam haywood

7.30pm Saturday, 8 March 2008

Formerly members of the BBC Radio 3's New Generation Artists scheme, the Galliard Ensemble has been firmly placed as one of Britain's leading chamber ensembles. Its energetic, highly entertaining and communicative performance style has wowed audiences both in Britain and abroad leading to critical acclaim. Commenting on the Galliard's highly praised CD for the Deux Elles label, Michael Oliver wrote in Gramophone Magazine 'pure pleasure... This, in short is wind quintet playing of great distinction... From this admirably recorded disc you also get a very good idea of how enjoyable the Galliard's public concerts must be. Strongly recommended'.

The Galliard Ensemble was founded in 1993 when its members were students at the Royal Academy of Music, and has since won many major awards including the Maisie Lewis Young Artist Award, the BBC Radio 3 Young Artists Forum, and were selected for the Park Lane Group Series and Fresh Series at the Purcell Room. They play regularly in many of Britain's prestigious venues such as Wigmore Hall, South Bank Centre and Bridgewater Hall.

The Galliard Ensemble makes appearances at festivals throughout Europe, having performed at the BBC Proms, Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Bath, Brighton and Harrogate festivals, as well as the Mafra Festival for the British Council, the Castello Branco and Porto Festivals in Portugal.

The Galliard Ensemble has a strong interest in contemporary composition. In addition to working with Paul Patterson, Gyorgy Ligeti and Richard Rodney Bennett, they have also worked with Sir Harrison Birtwistle on his quintet 'Five Distances' for their performance at the 1999 BBC Proms.

The Galliard Ensemble is committed to bringing music to a wider audience and has undertaken educational concerts with Live Music Now! and has enjoyed performing many school concerts, family concerts, workshops and demonstrations. The group's repertoire spans a wide range from Mozart and Beethoven to Berio and Schoenberg. Having now recorded several commercial CDs, the group has attracted much critical acclaim. Their recording of Sir Harrison Birtwistle's chamber music for winds was selected by the Sunday Times, BBC Music Magazine, Gramophone, and BBC Radio 3 in their critics choices of outstanding releases in 2001.

Internationally acclaimed for his "innate passion and virtuosity" and his "finely nuanced and captivating performances", Sam Haywood has established himself as one of the leading pianists of his generation. Following his early successes in the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition and in receiving the Royal Philharmonic Society's prestigious Isserlis Award, he went on to study in Vienna with Paul Badura-Skoda and at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Maria Curcio, the renowned pupil of Artur Schnabel.

Now based in Berlin, he has already performed to high critical acclaim in many of the major concert series and venues in Europe. As a chamber musician he has worked with many distinguished artists, including the concert master of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Rainer Honeck, Steven Isserlis, David Geringas and the Alberni Quartets.

He has written the music for a children's opera, which was given three performances in London. His compositions "Suite for Esther" (based on Esther's intials E.A.A.) and “Autumn in Warsaw” (inspired by an autumn walk in Warsaw’s Lazienki Park) have been widely performed, as has his arrangement of Hummel’s Variations à la Monférine. With the generous support of the Scottish Arts Council he commissioned a piano sonata by the Scottish composer John McLeod. The world premiere was given as part of a recital for the Sound Festival in Aberdeen last year (a breathtakingly brilliant celebrity recital – Alan Cooper).

As a fortepianist he has broadcast on Radio 3 as part of the BBC's Early Music Festival and was awarded the Early Music Prize at the Royal Academy of Music. He has also given several recitals on Chopin’s own Pleyel piano and at London's South Bank Centre using both period and modern instruments.