12th April 2012 - 12.30 Lunchtime Concert

Alex Rolton, cello

courtesy of the Royal Academy of Music

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Programme

From J S Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello

Suite No 2 in D minor  BWV 1008

I    Prelude
II   Allemende
III  Courante
IV  Sarabande
V   Minuets I & II
VI  Gigue

Suite no 3 in C  BWV 1009

I    Prelude
II   Allemende
III  Courante
IV  Sarabande
V   Bourées I & II
VI  Gigue

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Alex Rolton, cello

Born into a musical family, Alex aspired to play the cello from a very early age. He attended the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department where he studied cello with Robert Max. Whilst there, Alex performed Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No.1 with the Symphony Orchestra conducted by Peter Stark.

In 2009 Alex Rolton won a Full Scholarship to study at the senior Royal Academy of Music where he is currently studying with Professor Felix Schmidt. At the Academy Alex has won prizes in the Herbert Walenn Solo Bach Competition, the Wilfrid Parry Prize, the ‘Florence Hooten Concerto Competition’ with Elgar’s Cello Concerto and the ‘Douglas Cameron Prize’. As principal cellist of the Academy’s Opera Orchestra, Alex premiered Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera ‘Kommilitonen’.

Alex is also cellist in the Artesian Quartet who are performing increasingly across the country, recently making their BBC Proms debut with a quartet by South African minimalist composer Kevin Volans. The Artesian Quartet will be performing at the Wigmore Hall in September.

For four years, Alex was a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. With the NYO he performed widely throughout the UK playing at major venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, the Barbican and the Sage Gateshead; and performing at events including Glastonbury Music Festival and the BBC Proms. As Co-principal cello he was awarded the ‘Bulgin Medal’ by the Worshipful Company of Musicians for ‘most outstanding overall contribution to the Orchestra’.

Alex plays his recently purchased English cello built in the London Picadilly School of c. 1730.

Alex is developing his own website at: http://alexrolton.com/

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