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 Programme - 3 April 2009
23-year old cellist Rowena Calvert has just completed her undergraduate studies at the Royal Northern College of Music, with a first-class Honours degree and, after receiving 100% in her final recital, won the Leonard Rose Award for 2006. Rowena was a national finalist in the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition in 2002 and has also won the Busenhart-Morgen Evans Award (from the Worshipful Company of Musicians). Other awards have been received from the Tillett Trust, Haworth Trust for cellists, Musicians Benevolent Fund (lan Fleming and Myra Hess awards), Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Jellineck and Oglesby Education funds. She has also received a bow from the Scottish Arts Council and an opportunity to play the Dvorak Cello Concerto with the RNCM Symphony Orchestra.
She has undertaken masterclasses and lessons with masters such as the late Mstislav Rostropovich, Steven Isserlis, Ralph Kirshbaum, Bernard Greenhouse, Gary Hoffman, Tsyoshi Tsutsumi, Anner Bylsma, Frans Helmerson, Young Chang Cho and Timothy Eddy in the World Cello Congress (USA). She is now studying for her postgraduate Diploma with Hannah Roberts at the RNCM.
Prominent solo appearances include the Wigmore Hall, the Royal Festival Hall, the Queens Hall (Edinburgh), Fairfield Halls (Croydon), the UNESCO celebrations (Paris), the Kronberg Cello Festival (Germany) and the Manchester Cello Festival. She has performed concerti with orchestras including the London Mozart Players, Guildford Symphony, Edinburgh Festival, Meadows Chamber, Covent Garden Actors, the RNCM Symphony and the Harlow Symphony.
Rowena is part of the Calvert-Turner duo (cello & harp) who have just released their debut CD, El Pano Moruno. They are going on a promotional tour of the UK late in 2007. Rowena's piano trio, Estrella, won the Contemporary Music Award for 2006 from the RNCM. As part of the Yewfield Trio, Rowena went to Bangkok where the ensemble performed for the Thai royal family. As part of a quartet, Rowena has performed at the Wigmore Hall on two occasions, at the Linbury Studio Theatre (Royal Opera House) and has had lessons with the late Mstislav Rostropovich and Yehudi Menuhin. As well as rehearsing recently with the LPO, as a result of being principal cellist of the Britten Pears Orchestra, Rowena has won a place on the PAS Scheme for the Halle and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestras.
 Alison Rhind was educated at Chetham’s School of Music, Oxford University and the Guildhall School of Music where she studied with Edith Vogel. After leaving Guildhall she was invited back to Chetham’s to join the accompanists’ team at the school. During this period she was also asked to be the official accompanist for the BBC Young Musician of The Year and also for the Aberdeen Festival of Youth.
From 1993 until 2006 she was the accompanist at the Yehudi Menuhin School where she accompanied masterclasses given by Yehudi Menuhin, Daniil Schafran, Janos Starker, Steven Isserlis, Mstislav Rostropovich and Andras Schiff amongst others.
She toured extensively with Menuhin School pupils and it was during this period that she was first invited to accompany at the prestigious Kronberg Cello Festival in Germany.
Alison is regularly invited to work at the Royal College of Music in London and was recently asked to be the official accompanist for the String Final Recitals.
She is the regular accompanist of Nicola Benedetti with whom she has played for the last nine years and with whom she enjoys a busy touring schedule. 2006 took them twice to Japan, Europe and the USA, as well as many appearances in UK festivals and concert series. Other regular recital partners have included violinists Dora Schwarzberg and Alina Ibragimova, the great French bassist Francois Rabbath and cellist Leonid Gorokhov.
She regularly appears on radio, television and major venues all over the world.
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