The Boscobel Quartet:
The Boscobelles are four friends with a wealth of experience playing period instruments and a shared passion for plundering the riches of the golden age of the string quartet, bringing this sound world vividly alive for audiences today.
Haydn String Quartet in C, op 20 no 2, Hob. III:32
Schubert String Quartet no 14 in D minor, D.810, “Death and the Maiden”.
Sophie Barber - violin
Sophie Barber is a freelance violinist who enjoys playing in many different Ensembles and Orchestras.
Sophie plays regularly with the ‘Musical and Amicable Society’, ‘The sixteen’, ‘The English concert’ and ‘Sounds Baroque’.
This Summer she is playing ‘Tamerlano’ at Buxton opera house with the English Concert, and a Pasticcio about Casanova in the ‘Jam on the Marsh’ festival in Kent with ‘Sounds Baroque’.
Since 2013 Sophie has had the good fortune to play in four productions at Shakespeare’s Globe under the directorship of Dominic Dromgoole.
Sophie’s love of Chamber music has been life long, so she was delighted when Iona invited her to play in tonights special programme of the Great Quartet composers. Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven.
Sophie’s violin was made by Antonius Bagatella, Padua, 1749.
Her bow is a Dodd copy, c.2003, by Matthew Coltman,
Iona Davies - violin
Iona Davies is a native of Llangollen in Wales and began playing the violin at the age of nine. Following a music degree at York University she studied Baroque Violin at the Royal Academy of Music and was awarded the ARAM in 2013. She is in high demand as a freelance player in London and plays regularly with The English Baroque Soloists, The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and The Academy of Ancient Music. She has been involved in many recordings with these orchestras and has traveled the world with her violin to such places as North and South America, Japan, Australia and many countries in Europe. She is enjoying playing in a production of The Marriage of Figaro in Glyndebourne this summer.
Iona’s violin: Anon, North Italian school, c.1760
Bows: Gerhard Landwehr 1996, copy of early Classical bow / John Dodd, c.1820
Kate Fawcett - viola
Kate Fawcett began playing the viola aged 9, because no one else wanted to. She was soon besotted, though it was only after an Oxford literature degree that she decided to immerse herself in music. At Birmingham Conservatoire she dipped her toe into the delicious waters of period instrument performance and following a year with the European Union Baroque Orchestra she embarked upon a varied freelance career, appearing with ensembles both famous and obscure, including her own Musical and Amicable Society. Her fascination with music as language led her to Music Therapy, which she now practises alongside education and outreach work. In life as in quartet playing, she aims to espouse John Fuller’s definition of the violist’s role: “My ear is bent closely to the unheard, And what I add is quiet speculation”
Kate’s viola: 18th century German, attributed to Voigt
Bow: Krutzsch (Leipzig) 2005, based on images found in 18th century portraits
Kinga Gáborjáni - cello
Kinga Gáborjáni, originally from Hungary, completed her postgraduate degree at the Royal Academy of Music in London with distinction in 2007. She studied baroque cello with Jennifer Ward Clarke and viola da gamba with Richard Campbell. Kinga enjoys a busy career, playing both cello and gamba. As an orchestral musician, she has performed with most of the period orchestras in the UK and toured all over the world. She plays gamba continuo for Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the English Baroque Soloists. She has been co-principal cellist for the English Touring Opera since 2007 and she has been guest principal cellist with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and the English Concert.
Kinga’s cello: Ferenc Körösi, 2008, Montagnana model
Bow: copy of Classical bow, 2010, by Anthony Baylis.