Navarra String Quartet, Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, Alison Teale, Rob Buckland
Biography Navarra String Quartet, Benjamin Marquise Gilmore, Alison Teale, Rob Buckland
Navarra Quartet
The London based Navarra Quartet has built an international reputation as one of the most dynamic and poetic string quartets of today. Selected for representation by YCAT (2006-10), they have been awarded the MIDEM Classique Young Artist Award, a Borletti-Buitoni Trust Fellowship, a Musica Viva tour, and prizes at the Banff, Melbourne and Florence International String Quartet Competitions.
The Navarra Quartet appears regularly at major venues throughout the world including the Wigmore Hall, Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall, the Sydney Opera House, Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Esterházy Palace, Luxembourg Philharmonie, Berlin Konzerthaus, the Laeiszhalle in Hamburg, the Lincoln Centre and international festivals such as Lockenhaus, Aldeburgh, Bath, Lammermuir, Presteigne, Bergen, Grachten, Sandviken, Schwetzinger, Rheingau, Heidelberg, Aix-en-Provence, Bellerive, Harrogate Chamber Music and the BBC Proms.
Looking forward to the new season, the Navarra Quartet will be touring to Ireland, Scotland, Spain, and their festival in Weesp (Holland) focusing on eclectic repertoires containing Mozart, Bartok and Dvorak quartets as well as new commissions dedicated to the group. Navarra Quartet will be recording Edward Gregson’s complete chamber music for strings and the first volume of the Mozart Celebrated String Quartets.
The Navarra Quartet would like to express a great debt of gratitude to the Kersjes Foundation for their generous prize, to their agency Rayfield Allied for their continuous support and to all their followers and audience whom they welcome wholeheartedly to the upcoming concerts.
Alison Teale
is the Principal Cor Anglais player with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. She is currently embarking on an exciting project which aims to expand the Cor Anglais repertoire and bring the instrument to the fore.
Whilst studying at Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Alison was appointed Co Principal Oboe with the Hong Kong Philharmonic orchestra. In 2003 she moved to Cardiff to become the Principal Cor Anglais player for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.
Winning the Isle of Wight International Oboe competition in 2001 led to her Purcell Room debut and numerous concertos for BBC radio 3 broadcasts, notably Quiet City with Alison Balsom and Spaghetti Western with BBC NOW.
In addition to her career with the BBC Symphony orchestra she is an oboe professor at Guildhall School of Music, freelances with both British and International orchestras, performs solo and chamber recitals and is regularly asked to give masterclasses throughout the UK and Europe.
Rob Buckland
has crafted a career around his primary work as a saxophonist that defies categorisation. Moving effortlessly between genres, performing as classical soloist, chamber musician, contemporary specialist and improviser, with an international reputation as an insightful and forward-thinking educator. Renowned for a highly distinctive, original sound, with real personality and projection, combined with an open-minded approach to repertoire and performance styles, his work takes him around the globe in an astonishing variety of musical settings.
His most enduring and significant musical partnership is with the Apollo Saxophone Quartet, which he co-founded in 1985, which has commissioned and premiered well over 100 new works for the medium and recorded eight CDs, all themselves world premiere recordings. The quartet has toured extensively across the UK, Europe, Japan and South Africa. He has released three CDs with his duo partner pianist Peter Lawson, one of which features his Equivox Trio (adding in percussionist Simone Rebello), and numerous albums with artists such as the Michael Nyman Band, London Saxophonic and orchestras such as the BBC Philharmonic, Halle and RLPO.
He has performed as concerto soloist with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of Opera North, Chinese National Symphony, Macau Chamber Orchestra, Strasbourg Radio Philharmonic, Atlantica String Ensemble, Banda Sinfonica Porto, Portuguese Air Force Band, Slovenian Army Band, Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines and the Central Band of the RAF.
Over the years he has worked with a wide variety of jazz, pop and commercial artists, including notable performances with Michael Buble and Elvis Costello, Jason Rebello, the Storyhouse Big Band, Andy Scott’s ‘Group S’ (formerly SaxAssault), BBC Big Band and many others.
Constantly evolving, his most recent projects include a new collaboration with world-renowned Jazz pianist and composer Gwilym Simcock. Featuring the two musicians in both classical and jazz contexts, joined by string quartet, this project merges genres seamlessly to create a new take on some beautiful classical inspired repertoire, with improvisation sympathetically woven into the fabric of the music. This project will record a CD in 2021, and has expanded to a programme with jazz quartet and orchestra. He is also a founder member of the Neoteric Ensemble, a six-piece brass and saxophones chamber group that is currently commissioning and recording a new programme of original music.
