![]() |
|
|
|
Michael Lloyd • Byron Parish • Michael Seal • Shulah Oliver • Bethan Morgan • Richard Laing
Byron Parish started to play the violin aged 6 following a visit to his school by a peripatetic teacher. He continued hisstudies at the Birmingham Conservatoire, and graduated in 1993. He then spent 5 years as a freelance musician, including work with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Welsh National Opera and D’Oyly Carte Opera, also playing chamber music and appearing as soloist. Highlights during this time include playing with the Birmingham Ensemble, performing Bartok’s 2nd Concerto with the Birmingham Philharmonic, and touring with Meatloaf ! He joined the CBSO in 1998, and appears regularly in their critically acclaimed Centre Stage lunchtime series, most recently in Messien’s Quartet for the End of Time. He has also continued to perform as soloist, having played Bach concertos and the Beethoven Triple with the Sinfonia of Birmingham, and the Beethoven Concerto with the BPO. He plays a fine violin by Vincenzo Panorno, kindly loaned to him by the CBSO's orchestral endowment fund.
Recent engagements include a series with the BPO in 2007, concerts in Sutton Coldfield and Milton Keynes with the CBSO, and his first subscription concert with the CBSO in March 2007. Michael continues to conduct the Sinfonia of Birmingham, and made his debut with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in June 2007.
Shulah Oliver completed her Masters Degree in Performance with Distinction at the Royal Academy of Music in September 2006, having studied violin with Howard Davis. She was awarded the Diploma of the Royal Academy of Music for her outstanding Final Recital. She has a passion for introducing audiences to the works of lesser-known British composers and performing their works with the hope of keeping their music alive and a part of our musical heritage. As a member of orchestras including the National Youth Orchestra, she has performed at a variety of prestigious events and venues including Cheltenham International Festival, BBC Proms, Young Euro Classic, the South Bank, Concertgebouw and Royal Albert Hall and with prominent conductors such as Yan Pascal Tortelier, Bernard Haitink, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sir Colin Davis and Sir Charles Mackerras.
She is still a regular performer on modern violin and has performed with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Royal Shakespeare Company and live concerts with various bands such as Il Divo, Smokey Robinson and Barry Manilow.
Richard’s operatic work has included Albert Herring, Hansel and Gretel and Noye’s Fludde (Operamus), La Traviata and La Bohème (Dartington Festival Opera), The Magic Flute, The Marriage of Figaro, and Malcolm Williamson’s English Eccentrics (Birmingham Conservatoire), Adrian Cruft’s Dr Syn (Kent Opera) and Handel’s Orlando (Pigotts). He has accompanied many distinguished artists including principal players from the New York Philharmonic, Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, Dresden Staatskapelle, Amsterdam Baroque, Munich Philharmonic, CBSO, RLPO and Scottish Chamber Orchestras, as well as Brigitte Engerer, Emily Pailthorpe, Anthony Halstead, Leonard Schreiber, Robert Hayward, Neil Jenkins, Peter Wedd, John Turner, Alan Hacker, Joanne Lunn, Adrian Bradbury and David LePage. He has premiered dozens of new works including Paul Patterson’s recent Phoenix Concerto, and is in demand as an adjudicator and coach at festivals and summer schools and as a leader of orchestral and choral workshops around the UK. Richard has given several performances with Radio 1 DJ Bobby Friction, who has hailed him as “the Iggy Pop of classical music.” Future engagements include preparing the chorus for the Hallé’s performance of Alexander Nevsky. Richard gained his Master's Degree from Birmingham Conservatoire after nine months of study, along with a postgraduate diploma in conducting and the Conservatoire's Postgraduate Prize for the most outstanding contribution to the musical life of the college. Subsequently he was supported by the Foyle Foundation to work intensively on operatic conducting at Dartington with Diego Masson. Richard studied violin at the University of Illinois and the RNCM, and plays for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Orchestra of the Swan, Southern Sinfonia, the Welsh Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra da Camera, and as a guest leader for Queen’s Park Sinfonia, Sinfonia of Birmingham, Warwickshire Symphony Orchestra and Chandos Symphony Orchestra. In his limited spare time Richard pursues a wide range of academic interests: his undergraduate work in Manchester on John F. Kennedy’s policy in Vietnam won him the Kaiser Award for American History, and he has presented papers on subjects as diverse as Hollywood film, reality TV and the Ring cycle at the International Conferences on Film and Literature at Florida State University and the International Wagner Symposium at the University of Adelaide. Among his proudest achievements are being appointed Vice President of the University of Illinois Triathlon Club and having articles published in the iconic games magazine White Dwarf. Richard is married to the singer and psychologist Karen Wise; they are currently celebrating the recent birth of their first child, Elsa. |
|||
|