Introducing the performers…

One of the world’s leading period instrument string quartets, The London Haydn Quartet was born out of a passion for Haydn. The quartet has received invitations to many of the most important concert series in the UK, the USA, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Germany, Spain and Switzerland. It has given recitals of all-Haydn programmes at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Cheltenham Festival, Utrecht Festival, Bath Mozartfest, Klara Festival, the Granada International Festival and at Haydn festivals in Esterhazy, Lincoln and Lyon as well as the English Haydn Festival.

The London Haydn Quartet’s series of recordings of Haydn’s quartets on the Hyperion label (the opp 9, 17, 20, 33, 50, 54 and 55 to date) has met with international critical acclaim. In collaboration with period clarinettist Eric Hoeprich, it has also recorded the Brahms and Mozart quintets on the Glossa label.

Catherine Manson (violin)

Catherine Manson enjoys a versatile performing career specializing in period performance as a soloist, chamber musician and orchestral leader. She was appointed as leader of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra in 2006. In a duo partnership with Ton Koopman, she has recorded the six obbligato sonatas by Bach, Haydn’s concerto for violin and organ and the complete chamber music by Buxtehude. They have also given many concerts together throughout Europe.

Teaching has always been an important part of Catherine’s musical life. In 2001, she co-founded and now directs MusicWorks, presenting chamber music courses for young musicians. In addition to giving classes and seminars at King’s College, the Royal Academy of Music and Royal College of Music, she has taught at the Baroque Performance Institute in Oberlin College, USA, the Granada International Festival’s ‘Musical Interpretation’ course and the Domaine Forget chamber music courses in Canada, and given masterclasses at Juilliard School, Yale and Indiana Universities.

Michael Gurevich (violin)

Dutch violinist and violist Michael Gurevich enjoys a varied performing career. Michael is devoted to chamber music, not only as member of the London Haydn Quartet which he joined in 2008, but also as a guest with the Nash Ensemble and many other groups. He has appeared at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Royal Concertgebouw, the Louvre, Melbourne Recital Centre and at festivals including Aldeburgh, Edinburgh, Aix-en-Provence and Verbier. His recording of Schumann’s piano trios with the Rhodes Piano Trio is on Champs Hill Records and he has appeared on all the London Haydn Quartet recordings from the op 20 set.

Michael is frequently invited as a guest leader or principal by various ensembles including Arcangelo, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, The King’s Consort, the Amsterdam Sinfonietta and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. As a teacher Michael was on the faculty at Chetham’s School of Music in Manchester for nine years and has given chamber music masterclasses at the Juilliard School, Indiana University, Yale University, Oxford University, Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Royal Northern College of Music, Sydney Conservatorium, Australian National Academy of Music, Yong Siew Toh Conservatory in Singapore and at the Domaine Forget in Canada.

John Crockatt (viola)

Born and brought up in Norfolk, John’s interests extend into many areas of music. As a player, he performs on both the violin and viola, specialising in the music of the baroque and classical eras. He has performed as principal viola with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, principal violin with Solomon’s Knot, and played and recorded with groups including the English Baroque Soloists, the Gabrieli Players and the Early Opera Company.

As well as the performance of early music, John takes a keen interest in the anthropology of music and holds a masters degree in ethnomusicology from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London.

Jonathan Manson (cello)

Cellist and viol player Jonathan Manson was born in Edinburgh and received his formative training at the International Cello Centre in Scotland under the direction of Jane Cowan, later going on to study with Steven Doane and Christel Thielmann at the Eastman School of Music in New York. A growing fascination with early music led Jonathan to Holland, where he studied viola da gamba with Wieland Kuijken. For ten years he was the principal cellist of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, with whom he performed and recorded more than 150 Bach cantatas and, together with Yo-Yo Ma, Vivaldi’s Concerto for two cellos. As a concerto soloist he has appeared at the Wigmore Hall, the Carnegie Hall and the South Bank Centre.

Jonathan is an active chamber musician, performing repertoire from the Renaissance to the Romantic. His long-standing partnership with the harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock has led to critically acclaimed recordings of the Bach gamba sonatas and, together with Rachel Podger, Rameau’s Pièces de clavecin en concert. In recent years, they have joined forces with the flautist Emmanuel Pahud and violinist Matthew Truscott for two recordings of Bach, plus successful tours of Europe, the USA and the Far East. Jonathan is also co-principal of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and a founder member of the renowned viol consort Phantasm as well as a professor at the Royal Academy of Music.

“The musicians imbued both works with myriad details of shading and contrast, and beautifully calibrated phrasing.”

New York Times