Goldhawk Quartet

The Goldhawk Quartet was formed in January 2018 at the Royal College of Music, London. Shortly after joining Chetham’s School of music in 2009, first violinist Lia Tang began her studies with Jan Repko who she continues to study with as a Lucy Ann Jones scholar supported by a Joan Weller Scholarship at the Royal College of Music. Lia has been a prizewinner in the Tallinn Young Musician Competition and has performed on several occasions as a concert soloist in well regarded concert venues such as the Bridgewater Hall and Dukes Hall. A keen chamber musician, Lia has performed in the Wigmore Hall and live on BBC Radio 3 with her quartet as part of the opening of the prestigious new Stoller Hall. Most recently Lia was appointed as concertmaster of the RCM String Orchestra. Second violinist Olivia Ziani was born in London in 1999 and is currently studying with Yossi Zivoni at the Royal College of Music, where she is an RCM Scholar. Previoulsy, she attended the Purcell School for Young Musicians, where she led the Symphony Orchestra and the Baroque Orchestra. She has performed as a soloist in venues including St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Marlowe Theatre, and also gave a recital as part of Leeds International Concert Season 2017. As a chamber musician, Olivia won the Pro Corda National Chamber Music Festival in 2015 with her string quartet, and has performed as part of the Purcell Contemporary Ensemble. Olivia was also a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain from 2014-2017, where she performed thrice at the BBC Proms, recorded a well-received CD for Chandos, and performed in Festival Berlioz 2017 in France. Olivia has participated in masterclasses with Chloe Hanslip, Tasmin Little and the Wihan Quartet, and has taken part in side-by-side projects with the Palestine Youth Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. In January 2017, she performed in the Voices Beyond Divisions project in St James' Church, Piccadilly, in aid of Syria Relief. Polish violist Kinga Wojdalska is a winner of numerous national viola solo competitions awards including: Szczecin (2012, 2014), Wroclaw (2015), Gdansk (2016). She is also a prizewinner of national and international chamber music competitions e.g.: Rzeszow (2014), two prizes in Warsaw (2015), two prizes in Bydgoszcz (2015). Born in Poland, graduated from Zenon Brzewski High School in Warsaw in 2017, where she was studying viola under the direction of Professor Stefan Kamasa. Currently she is a student of the Royal College of Music in London in Yuri Zhislin’s class with a Musicians’ Company scholarship. During her education at school, she took part in national and international music programmes in solo, chamber and orchestral music. Besides solo and chamber performance, orchestra is also a very important part of her life. In 2016 she helped to organize the new Polish youth chamber orchestra ‘Kameralna N-Harmonia’. In 2013 she won a scholarship from Russian Agency to participate in the 'International Youth Chamber Orchestra' in Austria where she had chance to work with Maestro Yuri Bashmet and other Russian professors. From 2015-2017 she led the viola section of the National Polish Youth Orchestra, which gave her a chance to work with musicians from Philharmonia Orchestra from London. She participated in many significant masterclasses in which she gained experience and knowledge from great Polish musicians including Piotr Reichert, Stefan Kamasa and Ewa Guzowska. In 2017 Kinga received a full scholarship from Ministry of Culture and National Heritage, Government of Canada and Morningside Music Bridge Foundation to participate in a one-month music programme in Boston. She worked under the direction of Teng Li, Yu Jin, Ori Kam and Kim Kashkashian which gave her an opportunity to develop her musical versatility. As a young musician she performed internationally at venues including philharmonic halls in Warsaw, Bydgoszcz, Krakow; National Polish Radio Studio in Warsaw; Headquarters of the UN in Geneve; Musikverein in Vienna and Jordan Hall in Boston. She has performed with musicians including Yuri Bashmet, Richard Berkeley, Jakub Jakowicz, Bonian Tian and Janusz Wawrowski. For the future Kinga plans to take part in some solo competitions, as well set up her own string quartet. Born in Prestwick, Scotland, cellist Laura Williamson began her musical career aged 8 when she was given a cello by her local primary school. She attended the RCS junior department for seven years then spent two years at Chetham’s School of Music. Laura has performed with many orchestra’s including The West of Scotland School’s Symphony Orchestra, both in the section and as a soloist, The Orion Orchestra and The National Youth Orchestra of Great Britten, under the baton of conductors such as Sir Mark Elder and John Wilson. Her proudest musical achievements to date are Winning the Ailie Cullen Memorial Prize at the Glasgow Music festival and directing and arranging music for Prestwick Academy’s cello ensemble. She has also started exploring viol playing to broaden her musical awareness. Now she is a RCM scholar student at the Royal College of Music in London, studying with Raphael Wallfisch. In the future she aspires to work in a professional orchestra.