Shona Fenion

Shona started playing the violin and piano at the age of four in her native Dumfries and Galloway. At eleven she was awarded a Junior Exhibition to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow where she went on to win the Sheila Mossman prize for highest ABRSM Grade 8 mark in the UK. During this time she played at some of Europe’s most prestigious concert venues such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and at the BBC Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, with various leading European youth orchestras, including the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and Orchestre Francais des Jeunes. Winning the Dumfries and Galloway Rotary Young Musician of the Year in 2002, Shona was a finalist at the National Rotary Young Musician of the Year in the same year. Awarded a place to read music at Cambridge University in 2004, Shona played with most of Cambridge’s numerous orchestras, as well as playing recitals and concertos for various Cambridge venues. Shona went on to study violin with Simon Fischer, Detlef Hahn and Samuel Burstin, and was also fortunate to have baroque coaching with Maggie Faultless, Simon Standage and Judy Tarling. She has been playing professionally in the London area since in 2011. Recent freelance work includes Endellion, Minehead and Dartington Festivals, as well as recent performances at the London Coliseum. She also teaches privately and is a visiting professor at Laleham Lea Preparatory and Coloma Covent School. Shona plays on an 1880 Caussin violin and Paesold bow, both generously loaned by The Archdeacon and Mrs Richard Pratt.