Laura Samuel, violin

Born in London in 1976, Laura entered the Royal College of Music at the age of 8 as a Junior Exhibitioner, where she won all the major prizes and performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Symphony Orchestra in her final year.

Further studies at the R.C.M, as an Undergraduate Scholar with Professor Itzhak Rashkovsky, led to performances of the Bartok 2nd and Elgar concertos. She won the Musicians Benevolent Fund Manoug Parikian Award, Royal Over-Seas League String Section and the Tunbridge Wells International Young Artists Competition, which resulted in her South Bank Recital debut. It was during this period that she co-founded the Belcea Quartet whose principal teachers were members of the Amadeus, Alban Berg and Chilingirian Quartets.

The Quartet travel worldwide and their recordings for EMI Classics have won Gramophone, Midem and Echo Klassik Awards. They are Quartet in Residence at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London where they teach chamber music.

Laura made her concerto debut at the age of sixteen with the Mendelssohn at Fairfield Halls and has since performed as a soloist with the English Chamber Orchestra and Trondheim Soloists.

Highlights of this season include a performance of the Lark Ascending as part of the Vaughn Williams 50th Anniversary, the Bruch Concerto and guest appearances with the Floristan Trio and Nash Ensemble.

Laura plays the ex ‘Nissel’ Stradivarius made in 1731.

www.belceaquartet.com

 

Performances with the Corinthian Chamber Orchestra