Bloomsbury Quartet

The Bloomsbury Quartet was formed at the Royal Academy of Music, when Eva and Felicity met while chamber music speed dating. Rather than the usual first-date awkwardness, they wished the twenty-minute time slot would never end. Two was great, but four is so much better; Janell and Rachel joined in and they have not looked back! Since then, they have performed across the country at major festivals, concert series and venues, including Wigmore Hall, Petworth Festival, Leicester International Music Festival’s lunchtime concert series, Lake District Summer Music’s New Generation Artists Concerts, Stroud Green Festival, Romsey Abbey, Old Royal Naval College Greenwich and Brasenose College, University of Oxford. The quartet have also won recognition as a Stroud Green Festival Ensemble Scheme Winner, St Martin in the Fields Chamber Competition Finalist, Making Music Selected Artist, making their nationwide debut live on BBC Radio Three’s primetime In Tune programme, and giving the world premiere at Wigmore Hall of Six Movements for String Quartet by Daniel Fardon, the Wigmore Hall/RPS Rosie Johnson Apprentice Composer. The Bloomsbury Quartet has been appointed as Quartet in Residence of Goodenough College, London. Eva, Janell, Rachel and Felicity are all passionate about inspiring and developing current and future generations of musicians and music-lovers, successfully engaging new and existing audiences with their unique combination of creative and thought-provoking programming, innovative concert formats, and participatory projects. As the Wigmore Hall / Open Academy Fellowship Ensemble, the Bloomsbury Quartet played a major role in facilitating Wigmore Hall’s Learning programme, working with and positively impacting more than a thousand people of all walks of life across London and beyond. The Bloomsbury Quartet embarked on their first UK tour with 'ReCentred', a concert experience about the life and works of Elizabeth Maconchy, supported by the Ambache Charitable Trust and RVW Trust. This led to Wigmore Hall’s Pioneering Women, a spinoff concert experience for schools and families, to highlight other inspiring female composers. The Bloomsbury Quartet received regular coaching from Levon Chilingirian and Jon Thorne, and have also been coached by Hartmut Rohde, the Doric Quartet, Jim Sleigh, and Michael Bochmann. Last year, they were selected for ChamberStudio’s Mentorship scheme and have been receiving coaching with Richard Ireland. As soloists, the members of the Bloomsbury Quartet won competition prizes in the Netherlands, Singapore and the UK. Individually, they are also recipients of the Marylebone Student Award, Howard Davis Scholarship, John Booth Prize, the HSBC Youth Excellence Award, and the Diana Award; all in recognition of their talent, dedication to music making and ability to communicate and share music with others. As orchestral musicians, they have played with the Britten Sinfonia, Rotterdam Philharmonic and Metropole Orchestra, and taken part in the CBSO String Training programme, Oxford Philharmonic Apprenticeship Scheme and Birmingham Royal Ballet Apprenticeship Scheme.