Callum Smart & Richard Uttley

Callum Smart
(photo: Patrick Allen, Operaomnia.co.uk)

Thursday 23 July, 2015, 7:30pm

Programme to include music for violin and piano by Ravel and Poulenc.

Tickets: £10 on the door (under-18s FREE) or pre-book here

Callum Smart attracted wide public attention at the age of thirteen having won the strings category of the 2010 BBC Young Musicians Competition. Also, in 2010, he became the top European prize-winner in the Oslo Menuhin Competition.

He has since appeared at a number of European festivals including the Dvorak Festival in Prague, the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, Les Sommets Musicaux in Gstaad and the Valdres Sommersymfoni Festival with pianist Gordon Back, Mecklenburg Vorpommern with the Polish Chamber Orchestra and the Malmö International String Festival with Jonas Vitaud. UK recitals include Birmingham, the Cheltenham Festival, Glasgow, Leeds, the Lichfield Festival, Manchester, Newport and Perth. In March 2016 he gives recital performances with Richard Uttley in Birmingham, London’s Wigmore Hall, Konzerthaus Berlin and the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris.

Last season Callum made his Royal Festival Hall debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra performing Beethoven’s Triple Concerto under Michael Collins. Previous concerto appearances include venues such as Cadogan Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall, London and performances with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales with the Glazunov Concerto under Grant Llewellyn and Mozart Violin Concerto No. 5 as part of a North Wales tour with Nicholas Collon, Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No.2 in Liverpool with Vasily Petrenko, Mozart’s Violin Concerto No.5 with the European Union Chamber Orchestra, and Britten’s Violin Concerto with the Chethams Symphony Orchestra at Lichfield and Cheltenham Festivals and the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester. In 2013 he made his North American debut with the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Grant Llewellyn, as well as performing Tchaikovsky’s Concerto with the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera.

Born in Bradford, Richard Uttley studied at Cambridge University, graduating with a double first, and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama where he became a Fellow between 2010-2012. He was selected by YCAT in 2011. Over the last year Richard has performed Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring with Rolf Hind in Galway, premiered a new collaborative work by Dobrinka Tabakova at the South Bank Centre and in Glasgow, and returned as soloist to Wigmore Hall. He has given recitals at The Sage Gateshead and Wigmore Hall with Mark Simpson broadcast live by Radio 3, and with Huw Watkins for the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

A passionate exponent of new music, Richard has recorded music by Andriessen and Ferneyhough for Radio 3 and released two discs of 20th and 21st Century piano music to critical acclaim. In 2014 he was invited to join Thomas Adès’s class at IMS Prussia Cove, and this autumn releases a third CD exploring symmetry and life cycles including Marvin Wolfthal’s Lulu Fantasy.