Benjamin Nabarro, violin

Tom Dunn, viola

Kate Gould, cello

Ivan Ludlow,  baritone

“Sounds of unfailing beauty and warmth.” The Strad

 

“I cannot recall a more persuasive realisation of the lovely [Bridge] Phantasie Trio –  brain and heart are fully engaged” Gramophone

 

“Ivan Ludlow was able to inject an urgency and yearning that was beautifully complemented by the instrumentalists’ responsive playing.” Classical Source

“These stylish newcomers deserve a place at the top table next to such exalted predecessors as ..Benjamin Britten with members of the Amadeus Quartet..” Gramophone

“Perfect performance by London Bridge Ensemble”...“international-class instrumentalists”...“notes of pure gold resonating from Gould's cello”  Halifax Courier

  

The London Bridge Ensemble has, since making its Wigmore Hall debut in 2005 which included the premiere of a work written for the group by David Matthews, now firmly established itself as one of Britain’s most exciting and brilliant chamber groups.

Festival appearances have included City of London Festival, the Kerry Chamber Music Festival, Leicester International Music Festival’s lunchtime series and Ponte de Lima Festival in North Portugal. Other engagements include a return visit to the Wigmore Hall and concerts at Sheffield Music in the Round, St. David’s Hall Cardiff, St. George’s Bristol and Bridgewater Hall Manchester.  

In April 2008, the Ensemble presented a brand new festival in Winchester, the home town of its cellist Kate Gould, and their recent return, for the 2009 Winchester Chamber Music Festival, drew a full house at every concert. A CD of works by Frank Bridge, from whom the Ensemble takes its name, was released in spring 2008 to critical acclaim, including glowing reviews and recommendations by both Gramophone and International Record Review. The disc is part of the Epoch series for the Dutton label; part two in their survey of Bridge's early works for Dutton will be recorded in December. The London Bridge Ensemble’s recent Schumann recording for Sonimage Classics is also scheduled for release in 2010, to be followed by a recording of works by Fauré on the same label.   

The Ensemble presents innovative and stimulating programmes of chamber music and song, or instrumental music alone, on occasion inviting guest artists to form larger combinations in order to explore an even richer and more versatile repertoire. The name represents the group's special ability to bring together different musical genres and styles from the fields of both chamber music and song. It is also an affectionate homage to the bridge and station of that name in the City of London and, importantly, reflects, through Frank Bridge, an admiration for the English music of the early twentieth century, which has from the outset formed an important part of the group’s varied repertoire.

Daniel Tong (piano), founder of the London Bridge Ensemble, enjoys a varied career, performing regularly at Britain’s major concert halls, festivals and on BBC Radio 3. He has performed solo recitals for the Park Lane Group on the South Bank, at Steinway Hall and the Cheltenham Festival. Concerto appearances have included works by Beethoven, Mozart, Rachmaninov and Gershwin. 

In 2004, Daniel performed Dvořák’s Piano Quartets with the Picander Ensemble at a range of venues, which included Wigmore Hall, the South Bank and Aldeburgh Festival, to commemorate Dvořák’s centenary; they subsequently recorded these works for Merlin Classics.  To celebrate Elgar’s anniversary in 2007, Daniel gave a recital of his rarely-heard piano works at the composer’s birthplace.

Daniel regularly appears in recitals with baritone Ivan Ludlow, and has partnered tenor Charles Daniels, soprano Valerie Gabail and baritone Stephan Loges. Daniel has also collaborated with the Allegri String Quartet and tenor Paul Agnew to record and perform works by Vaughan Williams and Michael Stimpson.

In his duo with violinist Fiona McNaught, Daniel received awards from the Craxton, Tunnell and Tillett Trusts and the Musicians’ Company. In 2002 they performed the complete Sonatas by Beethoven in several venues around the country.

Earlier this year Daniel performed Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto at St Martin-in-the-Fields. A current project is a series of lecture-recitals with broadcaster Richard Wigmore on Beethoven’s piano sonatas and Daniel recently performed Beethoven’s complete cello sonatas with Pierre Doumenge. He gives regular recitals with Jennifer Pike, including several performances at the Wigmore Hall and live on BBC Radio 3, and also performs with violinist Florence Cooke. A CD recording of solo piano works by Debussy and Bartok is planned for 2010 on the new Sonimage label.

Daniel is Artistic Director of the annual Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival, which recently celebrated its 10th year.

Benjamin Nabarro (violin) plays worldwide as soloist and chamber musician. He appears regularly at international festivals such as Cheltenham, the BBC Proms, Aldeburgh, Schleswig-Holstein, Edinburgh, Bucharest, Hanover and  Bullawayo, Zimbabwe. During recent years he has given concerto performances of works by Vivaldi, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Elgar, Sibelius, Leighton and Piazzolla. Benjamin has appeared as director, soloist and leader of the English Chamber Orchestra and was invited to play Rimsky Korsakov's Scheherezade with the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Charles Dutoit.

As well as his membership of the London Bridge Ensemble, Benjamin is the newly appointed violinist of Ensemble 360.  He is also a regular guest of the Nash Ensemble and Fibonacci Sequence. Other recent collaborations include concerts with the cellist Adrian Brendel. He has made recordings on the Hyperion, Black Box and Dutton labels.

"His reading of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto demonstrated his purity of style, elegance of phrasing and the unsurpassed perfection of his technique which led to him being called back time and again by the capacity audience...He is an outstanding artist". Musical Opinion

Tom Dunn (viola) joined the London Bridge Ensemble in 2006. He has held Co-Principal Viola positions with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and the London Mozart Players and has appeared as Guest Principal Viola with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique and the English Baroque Soloists. In January 2010 he will take up the position of Co-Principal Viola in the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment .

Tom studied at the Royal Northern College of Music and at Manchester University where his teachers included Robin Ireland, Roger Benedict, Nicholas Logie and Annette Isserlis.

Kate Gould (cello) is one of the outstanding chamber musicians of her generation, appearing regularly at Wigmore Hall, on BBC Radio 3 and at the major international concert halls and festivals world-wide. In addition to her membership of the London Bridge Ensemble, she is a founder member of the Leopold String Trio, with violinist, Isabelle van Keulen and violist, Lawrence Power. She spends the rest of her concert life giving duo recitals and playing with a wide range of chamber ensembles. In 1997 she was a winner of the Tillett Trust Young Artists Platform and the BBC Radio 3 Young Artists’ Forum with her duo partner, Viv McLean.

The Leopold String Trio recently won the Chamber Music category at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards and in 2004 was the winner of a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Award, set up by Mitsuko Uchida to assist established ensembles and soloists. In 2001, the Trio represented Wigmore Hall at major international concert halls in the ECHO Rising Stars series and in the same year was selected for the inaugural BBC Radio 3’s New Generation Artists scheme. The Trio records for Hyperion, on occasion with guest artists such as Paul Lewis and Marc-Andre Hamelin, and all of their discs have received immense critical acclaim as well as two nominations for Gramophone Awards.

She joined the Chamber Orchestra of Europe in 2000 and plays as guest principal cellist of the English Chamber Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Northern Sinfonia, City of London Sinfonia and BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. Kate has recently acquired a Carlo Guiseppe Testore cello of 1711, which she is hoping to purchase through a scheme run by Nigel Brown and the Stradivari Trust'.

“I doubt we will ever hear better recorded performances of the three piano quartets than we have here...Kate Gould's cello in the moving slow movements of Nos 2 and 3 is breathtakingly beautiful...” Classic FM Magazine, Brahms’ Piano Quartets.

Ivan Ludlow (baritone) is a regular guest at some of Europe’s most prestigious opera houses including Opéra National de Lyon, Capitole de Toulouse, Welsh National Opera, Teatro San Carlo (Naples), Opéra Comique (Paris), Opéra National du Rhin (Strasbourg), Opéra de Marseille, Opéra National de Bordeaux, Opéra de Metz, Casa da Musica (Porto), Vlaamse Oper (Antwerp), Opéra de Lausanne and Opera Faber (Ponte de Lima Festival, Portugal).  He performs with conductors such as Christophe Rousset, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Jean-Yves Ossonce, Adam Fischer, Cyril Diedrich, Franck Ollu, Christoph Ullrich Meyer, Gerard Korsten and Gustav Kuhn. He has sung the title roles in Don Giovanni and Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, Guglielmo (Così fan Tutte), Nick Shadow, (Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress), Danilo (Lehàr’s Die Lustige Witwe), Iarba (Cavalli’s La Didone), Escamillo (Carmen), Nevers (Les Huguenots by Meyerbeer), The Count (in Strauss’ Capriccio) Marcello (La Bohème), Aeneas, Demetrius (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), The Traveller (Curlew River), Astrologer (Burning Fiery Furnace), Baritone (Maxwell-Davies’ No. 11 Bus).

Ivan is a frequent recitalist, performing throughout Europe and the United States and is often partnered by Daniel Tong, pianist of the London Bridge Ensemble. Concert, recital and oratorio engagements include performances with orchestras such as Ensemble Modern, Le Parlement de Musique, Orquestra Nacional do Porto, Il Seminario Musicale, Northern Sinfonietta and the Remix Ensemble.

Ivan studied at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the National Opera Studio.

“Ivan Ludlow’s powerful and beautiful voice was able both to illuminate the proud and masculine sides of this song cycle as well as to delve in to the subtler semantics of the poems.” (Music and Vision, Schumann op. 24 Liederkreis, Wigmore Hall)