7.30pm Friday 26th April
A recital by the Astatine Trio, violin, cello and piano. The programme will featureHaydn Trio in E flat Hob XV:29 and Schubert Trio no.2 in E flat.
Bar and snacks available.
Tickets £15 from RVS, by cash/card on the door or online.
BIOGRAPHIES
Berniya Hamie (b. 2002) studies piano with Dina Parakhina and cello with Hélène Dautry at the Royal College of Music on a full scholarship, currently as an ABRSM scholar and previously as the John and Marjorie Coultate Scholar.
In September 2021, she was selected as one of six Tabor Piano Ambassadors for the prestigious Leeds International Piano Competition, representing the RCM, and continues to work with the competition in delivering education and outreach initiatives. Berniya joined the RCM Junior Department as a Wolfson Foundation scholar in 2014 and studied there with Ian Jones and Konstantin Lapshin until 2020; during her studies she won several awards including the Senior Recital and Piano Prizes, Marjorie Humby Memorial Competition and Barbara Boissard Junior Concerto Competition, leading to a concerto performance with the RCMJD Sinfonia. She has twice performed sold out recitals at the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room, having been awarded a solo recital in November 2019 and then performing a duo recital with her sister in February 2023. Berniya was also selected as a junior recording artist and cover model for the 2017-18 ABRSM Piano Grade 1 Syllabus and gave the world premiere of Karen Tanaka’s ‘Masquerade’ at the ABRSM Spectrum 5 launch.
She has won numerous prizes at competitions and festivals around the country, including the Yamaha Foundation of Europe Piano Scholarship 2024, and performed at prestigious venues including the Wigmore Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Cadogan Hall, Purcell Room and Royal Festival Hall. Her concerto highlights include Grieg’s Piano Concerto with the Brighton Youth Orchestra under Andrew Sherwood as part of the 2018 Brighton Festival, and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no.2 with the Worthing Philharmonic under Dominic Grier in March 2023.
Berniya is a founder member of the Astatine Trio, winners of several international prizes and Britten Pears Young Artists for 2023/24. As part of the trio she performs regularly across the UK and abroad, as well as benefiting from the mentorship of Alfred Brendel. An incredibly versatile musician, she is also the cellist of the Fiora Quartet; they were second prize winners in the RCM’s 2022 String Quartet Competition, leading to a performance at the Chipping Campden Festival in May 2022, and are one of three quartets selected for the RCM String Quartet Platform scheme for 2023/24. She has also sat as principal cello of the RCM Philharmonic. Berniya is grateful for the support of the Westdene Fund.
Maja Horvat communicates the spiritual power of music through her performances, offering joy and comfort which enable her audience members to develop their own unique and meaningful connection with the Arts. She explores the full range of magic and versatility of which the violin is capable through her work as a soloist, chamber musician and in collaboration with ensembles, orchestras and composers all over the world. While constantly exploring masterpieces of all eras, Maja’s true passion is giving contemporary works a good start in life and finding fresh resonance in lesser-known gems of 20th-century repertoire.
Maja gave her debut performance at Wigmore Hall in 2021 as first violinist of the Brompton Quartet, of which she is a founding member and with whom she gives frequent world premieres. They won the St. Martin-in-the-Fields Chamber Music Competition and have collaborated with record producer Andrew Keener and many currently active composer. She has performed with some of the world’s most prominent chamber musicians including Sir Andras Schiff, Tabea Zimmerman, Christian Tetzlaff, Vladimir Mendelssohn and David Cohen.
In 2019 Maja was awarded the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Emily Anderson Prize for an outstanding violinist. She is a Tillett Debut Scheme Artist. She has performed as a soloist with orchestras including the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra and Chamber Orchestra, the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra Mladi Solisti and the Mendelssohn Chamber Orchestra. She has appeared at festivals including the Tartini Festival, Stift International Music Festival, ChamberJam Düsseldorf and Festival Ljubljana. Among other accolades, Maja has won the Temsig Slovenian National Competition and the International Tartini Competition; she was awarded the Special Szymanowski Prize at the inaugural Karol Szymanowski International Music Competition. Maja is also an active orchestral member. She has performed as concertmaster of the Royal College of Music’s Philharmonic and Symphony Orchestra, Fidelio Symphony Orchestra and the Echo Ensemble. She has played with Symphonisches Orchester der Jeunesse Leibnitz, Ljubljana International Orchestra the Symphony Orchestra at the Conservatory of Music and Ballet in Ljubljana.
Brighton-born cellist Riya Hamie (b. 2005) is a full scholarship student at the Royal Academy of Music as the recipient of the Sir Elton John Award, studying with John Myerscough.
Riya studied with Michał Kaznowski at the Royal College of Music Junior Department until 2023. She won multiple prizes there, including the Barbara Boissard Junior Concerto Competition, Marjorie Humby Memorial Competition and the prestigious Peter Morrison Concerto Competition – resulting in a performance of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with the RCMJD Symphony Orchestra in March 2022. She was also the second prize winner in the RCMJD Intermediate Piano Competition. Riya was awarded a recital at the Royal Albert Hall’s Elgar Room in February 2023, performing a sold out duo recital with her sister.
A passionate orchestral musician, Riya was selected as one of eight London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) junior artists for 2020/21 and became a member of the National Youth Orchestra in 2021. She was offered the seat of co-principal for 2021/22 and was principal cellist in the NYO’s January 2022 concert at the Barbican (later broadcast on BBC Radio 3). Riya was also principal cellist of both the RCMJD Symphony and Chamber Orchestras. Most recently, she has been selected to participate in the Royal Opera House’s Overture orchestral mentoring scheme for 2023/24. As a chamber musician, Riya is a founder member of the Astatine Trio, winners of several international prizes and Britten Pears Young Artists for 2023/24, and as part of the trio performs regularly across the UK and abroad. She also won the RCMJD Chamber Music Competition in 2023 with her string quintet, resulting in a performance at Wigmore Hall.
She has won many first prizes at music festivals over the years, including the Junior Concerto prizes at both the Hastings International Festival and Brighton Springboard Festival. The venues she has performed at include the Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Leeds Town Hall, Wigmore Hall, St John’s Smith Square and the Barbican; concerto highlights include Haydn’s Cello Concerto no.1 with the Mid Sussex Sinfonia in September 2023 and Dvorak’s Cello Concerto with Trinity Orchestra Harrow under Roy Stratford in June 2024. Riya is featured as the cover model for ABRSM’s Cello Exam Pieces 2020-2023.
Riya plays on a George Panormo cello – on loan from the Benslow Music Instrument Loan Scheme since January 2020 – which was kindly donated by the late Walter Cheney. She is grateful for the support of the Westdene Fund and The Pebble Trust, who awarded her a Talent Grant in January 2022.