The London Cello Society announces with great pleasure our newest adventure. We have twinned with the Association Française du Violoncelle, www.levioloncelle.com joining hands, minds and hearts in our common goals with our French brothers and sisters. On the cards are joint projects based on the 40 Popper Cello Studies; Duport, Father of Modern Cello Playing and the Elgar Cello Concerto. Stay tuned for what promises to be a fruitful collaboration! The post Twinned with the Association Française du Violoncelle appeared first on London Cello Society ..read more

The London Cello Society has awarded the bi-annual Keith Harvey Memorial Award of £2,500 to Ben Michaels, primarily for his outstanding performance of Thomas Demenga’s EFEU, which was written for the 2010 Feuermann competition. Ben’s recording can be seen below. Ben Michaels is a British cellist based in London. He began learning cello from his father, Joel Michaels, and later studied with Felix Schmidt and John Myerscough at the Royal Academy of Music. Ben is passionate about chamber and contemporary music. www.benmichaels.co.uk. Ben, who has a degree in biochemistry, decided to establish ..read more

Cello Bello’s 2021 Gala event will celebrate Paul Katz’s 80th birthday on Monday 18th October and will feature an exciting array of performers including Ian Swensen, Catherine Cho, Molly Carr, Edward Gazouleas, Astrid Schween, Natasha Brofsky, Jeffrey Zeigler, Pei-Shan Lee, the Balourdet, Harlem and Borromeo String Quartets….and a few more! The event will additionally be hosted by Josh Aronson, Academy Award-nominated film director of Talent Has Hunger (the documentary that followed Paul’s teaching career). You can find full event details here. The event can be viewed up to 72 hours later. Giv ..read more

Dear Members of the London Cello Society, Keith Harvey, our cherished co-founder and marvellous cellist, performer and collector par excellence, passed away three years ago. The Society, in tandem with his family, has launched a fund to provide a commemorative award to young cellists at the start of their professional life. The family has provided a generous foundational sum and we now seek to raise additional capital funds to assure the Award’s future in service of deserving young cellists. We invite members, friends and lovers of the cello to support this important ambition with a contribu ..read more

Until our LCS OnLine Series is able to resume, we offer in its place a viewing of the eight part series called William Pleeth: A Life in Music on Sundays at 5 PM, beginning Sunday 21st February. These films were produced in 1996 by our London Cello Society Chair Selma Gokcen, and issued on the Cello Classics label www.celloclassics.com  If you have not yet seen them, you are in for a treat. The series was conceived in celebration of the eightieth birthday of the legendary teacher and cellist who taught for many years at the Britten-Pears School for Advanced Musical Studies in Snape. Capt ..read more

To book now, email events@cellobello.org Thanks to the support & partnership of the London Cello Society, CelloBello will be offering a special 20% discount code to LCS members purchasing tickets to our 2020 Virtual Gala: Music & Conversation with Celebrity Cellists, on Sunday October 11th @ 3 pm EST (8 pm BST). To read more about the event click here. This gala will feature an array of CB-exclusive performances from our featured artists: Yo-Yo Ma, Mischa Maisky, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Alisa Weilerstein and Pieter Wispelwey, followed by a real-time Q&A with some of the artists! We wil ..read more

What did I take away from Anner Bylsma? JS Bach’s D minor Suite: Examples and key points from a session in Amsterdam* * This page accompanies a tribute article by Guy Johnston which appears in our Autumn 2020 issue of the LCS Newsletter. Please consider joining our Society to receive a complimentary copy of this issue. Toasting the Bach Suites NB: We recommend reading this with your copy of the Bach Cello Suites in hand. Examples Prelude Play this bar as if you’re looking over your shoulder (bar 6 of the Prelude). Think of the poor homeless man sitting behind Naples Cathedral (leading into b ..read more

  Send Rebecca Gilliver, Principal Cello of the London Symphony Orchestra, your queries about the art of the bow. She has the knowledge, the experience, the insights you’re looking for! And she’s planning a programme around your questions and areas of interest. The email address is events@londoncellos.org. The post All about the Bow! appeared first on London Cello Society ..read more

Please join us for the first in our innovative series of online events to be hosted on the Zoom platform this coming Sunday, 14th June 2020, at 5.00pm. LCS Board member and cellist Michael Jameson will give an illustrated presentation entitled “Great Cellists on Film”, profiling some of the finest cellists of the 20th Century as seen in remarkable film footage. With unique insights into playing characteristics and biographical profiles detailing some of the greatest cellists in musical history, this curtain-raiser event also promises some added surprises along the way! Please see the LCS webs ..read more

Shanti Jayasinha is a well-established trumpeter based in London, playing a wide range of music from around the world. He was a serious ‘cellist in his youth but gave it up when he discovered jazz. A few years ago, he wondered what would happen if he worked on his cello – would he be able to get his technique back or would his fingers be too stiff? Four years later he has worked out some interesting skills on cello. Being very experienced in Latin and Brazilian music, he uses it like a guitar or bass, even playing Cuban piano patterns. In today’s workshop he brought a couple of tunes – ‘Berimb ..read more