Programme:
WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART: Horn Quintet K. 407 (arranged for horn trio)
SIR LENNOX BERKELEY: Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano
Interval
MARK SIMPSON: Nachtstück
JOHANNES BRAHMS: Horn Trio in E-flat major Op. 40
We’re delighted to welcome Ben Goldscheider, who first came to the public’s attention as a concerto finalist in BBC Young Musician in 2016, together with the violinist Callum Smart and pianist Richard Uttley.
Ben Goldscheider has premiered over 50 new works for the horn to date including concerti, solo, chamber and cross-genre projects including with live electronics and lighting. Further to the world premiere performances of two new concerti by composers Gavin Higgins and Huw Watkins in the 2023/24 season, upcoming highlights for Ben include debuts with the Uppsala Chamber Orchestra (Rebecca Miler) for the Swedish Premiere of Watkins’ Horn Concerto, the London Philharmonic (Valentina Peleggi) with Strauss, Horn Concerto No.2 and Norwegian Radio Orchestra (Jamie Phillips) with the Higgins Horn Concerto. Ben will return to Ulster Orchestra (Paweł Kapuła) for the Irish Premiere of Higgins’ concerto, as well as to the Aldeburgh Festival for the World Premiere of the Brian Elias Horn Concerto with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sakari Oramo. Ben will also join the London Symphony Orchestra for a performance of Lachenmann’s My Melodies for eight horns and orchestra.
Further recent highlights include recitals at major concert halls across Europe including at the Concertgebouw, Musikverein, Pierre Boulez Saal, Elbphilharmonie Hamburg, Koln Philharmonie, Southbank Centre and Wigmore Hall and as soloist with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (BBC Proms), Ulster Orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, London Mozart Players, Lucerne Symphony, Philharmonie Zuidnederland, Tapiola Sinfonietta, Musikkollegium Winterthur, Prague Philharmonia, Munich Chamber Orchestra (Klosters Music), Das Sinfonie Orchester Berlin and Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen among others.
A committed chamber musician, Ben has collaborated with Daniel Barenboim, Martha Argerich, Sergei Babayan, Kirill Gerstein, Denis Kozuhkin, Sunwook Kim, Clara Jumi-Kang and Allan Clayton at the Verbier, Salzburg, Jerusalem, Intonations (Berlin) and Barenboim (Buenos Aires) Festivals, among others. In recital, Ben has collaborated with Michael Barenboim, Stephen Hough, Tom Poster, Benjamin Baker and Richard Uttley and is a member of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective. Upcoming highlights include a return to the Heidelberger Frühling for multiple performances including a solo recital and Schubert Octet, as well in the US to Camerata Pacifica in Santa Barbara. In 2025, Ben will also be artist-in-residence at the Barnes Music Festival featuring in concerti and chamber music performances.
His recordings include Legacy: A Tribute to Dennis Brain on Three Worlds Records with newly commissioned pieces by Huw Watkins and Roxanna Panufnik and a solo concerto recording with the Philharmonia Orchestra featuring the works of Arnold, Schoenberg and Gipps conducted by Lee Reynolds. Ben also recorded the solo horn call from Wagner’s Siegfried with the Hallé Orchestra conducted by Sir Mark Elder.
Ben is a member of the Boulez Ensemble and Principal Horn of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra . He holds a professorship at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp and is the Artist in Association at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.
Born in London in 1997, Ben studied at the Royal College of Music Junior Department with Susan Dent and in 2020 Ben completed his studies with honours at the Barenboim-Said Academy in Berlin with Radek Baborák. He was a prize-winner at the 2019 YCAT International Auditions, Concerto Finalist in the 2016 BBC Young Musician Competition, and an ECHO Rising Star for the 2021/22 season nominated by the Barbican, London.
Critically acclaimed violinist Callum Smart enjoys an international reputation as a performer, pedagogue, and innovator. He is celebrated for the sincerity of his singing line, combining ‘a winning sense of natural authority’ (the Strad) with his ‘utterly convincing’ interpretations (BBC Music Magazine).
Smart has performed a wide range of concerti with major orchestras, including the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Philharmonia Orchestra, Hallé Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic, Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, European Union Chamber Orchestra, and more, in collaboration with conductors such as Vasily Petrenko, John Wilson, and Grant Llewellyn. As a recitalist, Smart performs duo and trio recitals on the world’s leading stages including Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin, Auditorium du Louvre, as well as a number of European festivals including the Cheltenham Festival, Dvorak Festival, Menuhin Festival, Mecklenburg Vorpommern and the Malmo International String Festival. Now with 3 recital discs to his name, Smart’s most recent album, ‘Transatlantic’, reached the top 30 in the UK’s classical charts and earned Smart features as Classic FM and Scala Artist of the Week.
This season’s highlights include a multi-week tour of China and Hong Kong with a directing debut at the Shenzhen Belt & Road Festival, concerto appearances across the UK, and recital collaborations with the Cong Quartet, Ben Goldscheider, and Richard Uttley. Smart also launches ‘Classical Shuffle’, an interactive community recital series in partnership with Age UK with funding from the Arts Council England.
As Professor of Violin at the Royal Northern College of Music, Smart attracts and mentors top-level violinists from the UK, Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. He also maintains faculty positions at Orford Musique, the Benedetti Foundation, and Music Masters, and is a regular guest at universities across the globe including the Royal College of Music, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, and Shenzhen Conservatory, among others.
Building on his reputation as a prominent violin soloist and celebrated pedagogue, Smart also enjoys wide media coverage and a significant online following. In keeping with his mission to make quality violin education available to all, he built an Instagram community of 60K followers where he shares violin tutorials. Most recently, he launched Caidence: a revolutionary AI practice companion to support violinists in their musical journeys, which attracted users from 25+ countries across 5 continents within 3 days of its release. Recognized as a forward thinker in the industry, Smart has been featured in BBC Music Magazine, the Strad, Interlude, Mind Over Finger, Crushing Classical, amongst others, and has served as a brand ambassador for D’Addario, Henle, IMSLP, and more.
Smart earned an Artist Diploma from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, studying with Mauricio Fuks. He then earned an International Artist Diploma at the Royal Northern College of Music, with Ana Chumachenco and Noah Bendix-Bagley. He was the winner of the BBC Young Musician strings category and the top European prize-winner at the Menuhin Competition in 2010. Smart plays on a c.1730-35 violin by Carlo Bergonzi.
Noted for the integrity and breadth of his musicianship as soloist, chamber musician and recording artist, pianist Richard Uttley has been recognised for his ‘musical intelligence and pristine facility’ (International Record Review), ‘amazing decisiveness’, and ‘tumultuous performance’ (Daily Telegraph). His playing has been frequently broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and has featured on BBC Two, BBC Four, BBC World Service, Classic FM and Sky Arts. He won first prize in the British Contemporary Piano Competition in 2006 and the Young Classical Artists Trust (YCAT) International Auditions in 2011.
Richard studied with Ian Buckle at the Junior School of the Royal Northern College of Music, before going on to read Music at Clare College, Cambridge (graduating with a double first in 2008), and studying with Martin Roscoe at Guildhall School. His London debut at the Southbank Centre’s Purcell Room in 2010 was described by The Times as a ‘brilliant recital’.
Richard has released several solo recordings to critical acclaim and appeared at venues and festivals including: Auditorium du Louvre (Paris), Banff Centre (Alberta), Bath Festival, Bridgewater Hall, BOZAR (Brussels), Cadogan Hall, Elbphilharmonie (Hamburg), Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Fundacíon Juan March (Madrid), Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon), Het Concertgebouw (Amsterdam), Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, Klangspuren Festival (Innsbruck), Kings Place, Konzerthaus Berlin, Modulus Festival (Vancouver), Musikverein (Vienna), National Centre for Performing Arts (Mumbai), Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, and Wigmore Hall, and has toured in China and Colombia.
Highlights this season include duo recitals at Lucerne Festival and Wigmore Hall with horn player Ben Goldscheider, and in trio (with Callum Smart) at Wigmore Hall and on tour in Sweden; the release of a new disc for Delphian Records with violist Jordan Bak; and chamber music with composer-clarinettist Mark Simpson.
A passionate exponent of new music, Richard has given major solo recitals at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival and commissioned new work. He has given world premieres of pieces by composers including Julian Anderson, Fransisco Coll, Michael Cutting, Rolf Hind, Matthew Kaner, Daniel Kidane, Naomi Pinnock, Mark Simpson, Dobrinka Tabakova, and Kate Whitley. Other composers Richard has worked with on their solo piano music include Thomas Adès, Louis Andriessen, Chaya Czernowin, Brian Ferneyhough, Erika Fox, Georg Friedrich Haas and Robin Holloway. Richard was a Trustee of New Dots – a charity promoting new music and supporting emerging composers – from 2013 to 2016. In 2018, Richard and composer Kate Whitley became the first UK prize winners of the Yvar Mikhashoff Trust Pianist/Composer Commission prize. In recent years Richard has returned to writing music, after many years away from composition; he is currently working on a score for a short film on artist-craftsman David Parr.
Richard was a contributor to Edition Peters’ Piano Masterworks series on the Tido Music iPad app, which includes films of him performing and giving tutorials on core piano repertoire. He also records for the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM) Piano Syllabus CDs.
Richard is a Piano professor at the Royal College of Music and a Professor of Academic Studies at Guildhall School of Music & Drama. He also teaches at the RCM Junior Department. In 2021 he became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He lives in London with his wife and two children.