About us

Piano

 

Tim Horton is one of the UK’s leading pianists, equally at home in solo and chamber repertoire. He is a founder member of both the Leonore Piano Trio and Ensemble 360 and has been a regular guest pianist with the Nash Ensemble.

 

He was invited to make his solo debut at Wigmore Hall in 2016, and presents his complete Chopin Cycle there over the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 seasons.  

 

​Tim has performed for Sheffield’s Music in the Round and with their resident group Ensemble 360 to great acclaim.

 

He has also performed for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Sir Simon Rattle at Symphony Hall, Birmingham and the Royal Festival Hall, London, as well as with the RLPO, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Trondheim Symphony Orchestra.

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Concertmaster and Violinist

 

Sergey Levitin is the Concertmaster of the Royal Opera House.

 

In 1996, he became the youngest ever Concertmaster of the Mariinsky Theatre in St Petersburg with whom he toured and recorded extensively, notably Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade under the baton of Valery Gergiev for Decca. 

 

Sergey performs as a soloist internationally and has collaborated with highly acclaimed artists including Gianandrea Noseda, Sir Antonio Pappano and Alison Balsam.

 

He regularly guest leads British and European orchestras including Tonhalle in Zurich and Mahler Chamber Orchestra.

 

Sergey has won many international competitions, including the Paganini International Violin Competition.​

Violin

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Described by Musical Opinion as 'an outstanding artist', Benjamin Nabarro has performed throughout Europe, North America, Africa, and the Middle and Far East, as a violin soloist, director and conductor.

 

He has performed with the BBC Symphony, BBC Scottish Symphony, English Chamber and Scottish Chamber Orchestras and the Philharmonia, among others. His concerto performances have won praise for their 'purity of style, elegance of phrasing and unsurpassed perfection of technique' (Musical Opinion)

 

Since 2009, Ben has been first violin of Ensemble 360, and he also plays regularly as first violinist of the Nash Ensemble where he has appeared in concerts worldwide.  In 2016 he conducted and played as a soloist with the European Sinfonietta in a concert to celebrate the Queen’s 90th birthday in Gibraltar.

 

Benjamin Nabarro is the violinist of the Leonore Piano Trio.

Violin

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Claudia Ajmone-Marsan is a member of Camerata Bern, Switzerland, who were awarded the BBC Music Magazine award in 2022 for their CD recording Plaisirs Illuminées. She is also a member of Ensemble 360 who were nominated for the Royal Philharmonic Society award. With Ensemble 360 and others she  performs chamber music all over the UK and features regularly on BBC radio. Always active as a chamber musician, Claudia has taken part in international festivals and has played regularly in orchestras such as the Staatskapelle Berlin, the Royal Danish Orchestra, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Opera House and the Philharmonia in London. ​​

 

Claudia has recorded a CD with pianist Tanya Bannister, which was selected on ArtsBeat as the Pick of the Week by the New York Times. 

 

As a founding faculty member, Claudia is co-artistic director of Alpenkammermusik in Austria, and has coached and played alongside both amateur and pre-professional musicians.

 

Claudia is currently training to become an Alexander Technique teacher at LCATT in London. 
 

Cello

 

Winner of the prestigious Pierre Fournier Award in 2007, Gemma Rosefield made her concerto debut at the age of sixteen when she won First Prize in the European Music for Youth Competition in Oslo, Norway, playing a televised performance of the Saint-Saens Concerto with the Norwegian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

 

Described by The Strad on her 2003 Wigmore Hall debut as ‘a mesmerising musical treasure’, by the London Evening Standard as ‘a phenomenal talent’, and featured in BBC Music Magazine as ‘one to watch', Gemma has made her solo debut in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam and in The Diligentia, The Hague, in the New Masters International Recital Series.

 

She gave the highly successful Pierre Fournier Award recital in September 2008 at Wigmore Hall, as well as the 2008 and 2009 Jacqueline du Pré Memorial Concerts at the same venue.​​​​​​

Cello

 

Born in London in 1976, Brendel studied cello with William Pleeth and soon shared his teacher’s
profound attachment to chamber music. He later received lessons from Alexander Baillie and Frans
Helmerson in London and Cologne, and participated in masterclasses with Kurtág, Ferenc Rados, members of the Alban Berg Quartet and with his father, Alfred Brendel. A critically acclaimed recording of Beethoven’s cello sonatas with his father is available on Philips.

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Brendel’s presence on the international stage is closely bound to his work as a recitalist and chamber musician. His duo partners include Aleksandar Madžar, Imogen Cooper, Till Fellner, Tim Horton, Kit Armstrong and Christian Ihle Hadland, while he also performs regularly with, among others, Henning Kraggerud, Lisa Batiashvili, Lars-Anders Tomter, Andrej Bielow, Katharine Gowers and Alasdair Beatson. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and many orchestras throughout Germany and Eastern Europe. 

Cello

 

Josephine Knight holds the Alfredo Piatti Chair as Professor of Cello at the Royal Academy of Music.

 

She made her Proms debut in 2005 and has gone on to perform as a soloist with leading orchestras in the UK and abroad with conductors Sir Colin Davis, Ed Gardner, Vasily Petrenko and Jac Van Steen.

 

Josephine has recorded for EMI Classics, Deutsche Grammophon, Chandos and Orchid Classics, and has appeared at multiple international festivals.

 

Her edition of Schumann's Cello Concerto is the first ever publication of the original version published by Edition Peters and her recent CD release Schubert Reimagined was chosen for the Apple Ten Best, receiving over 150,000 streams. ​

Clarinet

 

Robert Plane’s career as a solo and chamber clarinettist is rich and varied. Frequent concerto appearances have featured worldwide performances of Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto and the world premieres of concertos by Judith Bingham, Diana Burrell, Piers Hellawell and Mark Boden. Rob has tirelessly pursued a particular passion for British clarinet music in concert and on disc, winning a Gramophone Award for his account of Finzi’s Concerto.

 

As a chamber musician, Rob has explored the clarinet quintet repertoire with a number of the finest string quartets, including Brahms live on BBC Radio 3 with the Skampa Quartet and multiple appearances with the Elias Quartet, amongst many others.

 

He has performed and recorded with the Gould Piano Trio for thirty years, commissioning Huw Watkins to compose Four Fables in 2018, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Corbridge Chamber Music Festival which they direct together. He is clarinettist of Ensemble 360 and enjoys exploring chamber music of all kinds with them at their home in the Crucible, Sheffield and country-wide.
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