Patricia Auchterlonie

Described by the Guardian as “especially impressive,” Patricia Auchterlonie is a young Canadian soprano living and working in London. She is a passionate performer of new, experimental and unheard music, equally at home in opera and chamber music. She is interested in innovative uses for the voice, experimental performance practice and cross-arts collaboration as well as more traditional forms of music-making.

Patricia's 2019/2020 work will (COVID-19 permitting!) include recording songs by Param Vir for NMC, and performances of Stockhausen's Sternklang with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Past work includes performances with Music Theatre Wales, Tete-a-Tete, Snape Maltings, Plus-Minus Ensemble, London Contemporary Music Festival, An Assembly, Borough New Music, Orpheus Sinfonia, and Illuminate Women's Music. She has been broadcast on BBC Radio Three and Resonance FM's Sound Out.

Patricia is one half of experimental flute-voice duo, teethe. She’s is also an avid reader, an amateur seamstress and a shameless lover of the banjo (which she plays with enthusiasm rather than skill).

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John Reid                         

John’s career to date has shown him to be a pianist of notable versatility and range, with wide experience as an outstanding chamber musician, song accompanist, soloist and exponent of new music. Increasingly in demand as a teacher, he is a professor at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

In November 2017, he made his concerto debut in Germany with the Deutsche Philharmonie Merck (Brahms No. 1) and he continues his collaboration with Aurora Orchestra, both as principal pianist and as a soloist in a series of the complete Mozart concertos at Kings Place in London. He also plays regularly with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Over the course of fifteen years, John has partnered many of the UK’s leading singers and instrumentalists.

Highlights from recent seasons include recitals with violinists Mathilde Milwidsky and John Crockatt (exploring Mozart and Beethoven sonatas on period instruments), singers Nicholas Mulroy and Diana Moore and pianists Iain Farrington and Sam Armstrong. A parallel interest in cross-arts collaboration has led to concerts with Poet in the City, the writer John Hegley, the flamenco dance group Dot Dot Dot, and the artist Will Lindley.

John studied at Clare College, Cambridge and at the Royal Academy of Music with Michael Dussek. His teachers have also included Christine Croshaw and Rudolf Jansen. He was a recipient of the 2004 Gerald Moore Award and he is now an Associate of the RAM. 

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Alexandra Wood           

Alexandra graduated with a starred double first from Selwyn College, Cambridge, before going on to the Royal College of Music, where she was President Emerita Scholar and studied with Itzhak Rashkovsky. She became a Junior Fellow. She has won major prizes at the Wieniawski, Tibor Varga, Lipizer and Yampolsky international violin competitions.

As a concerto soloist she has performed with the City of London Sinfonia, Philharmonia orchestra, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Philharmonic and BCMG and has given the premieres of concertos written specially for her by Hugh Wood (2009) and Charlotte Bray (2010).Leader and creative director of City of London Sinfonia and leader of Aurora orchestra she regularly guest-leads other ensembles, including the RPO, BBC Symphony Orchestra, BCMG, London Sinfonietta and London Mozart players and has collaborated with chamber groups such as The Schubert Ensemble, Endymion and Callino Quartet.

Her discography includes Chimera – a disc of contemporary works with pianist Huw Watkins – as well as solo works by Oliver Knussen and Charlotte Bray for NMC.

She plays a violin made by Nicolò Gagliano in 1767, purchased with assistance from the Countess of Munster Trust, Abbado Young Musicians’ Trust, and The Loan Fund for Musical Instruments.

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Ulrich Heinen                 

Ulrich was born in Ittenbach near Bonn in Germany. He studied at the Cologne Conservatoire under Siegfried Palm and at the Juilliard School of Music in New York with Leonard Rose. He won several national and international competitions: 1st prize of the Cello Competition of all German Music Colleges in Frankfurt, Rostropovich Competition in La Rochelle (France) and Vittorio Gui Competition in Florence (Italy). After graduating from Juilliard, he took up the position of principal cello with the Radio Orchestra Saarbrücken, Germany and in the same year became member of the Czapary String Trio, earning an outstanding reputation for the interpretation of Mozart and Schubert.

In 1984 Ulrich settled in England, at Sir Simon Rattle’s invitation to become principal cellist and section leader of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. In 1987 he co-founded BCMG, and has appeared with the group in many festivals in Britain and abroad, both as member of the ensemble and as soloist. He has recorded Mark Anthony Turnage’s ‘Kai’, which was written for him, for EMI and Bach’s Cello Suites together with cello solo pieces by Howard Skempton, Gerald Barry, Simon Holt, Bernd Alois Zimmermann and Hans Werner Henze for METIER (Divine-Arts).