Music on Thursdays
Alex Rolton cello courtesy of the Royal Academy of Music |
Supported by: Leatherhead Concert & Arts Society |
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Alex Rolton, cello
Alex Rolton is a highly versatile cellist who enjoys a lively and varied performing career alongside his studies at the Royal Academy of Music. This year has seen Alex touring in Austria, Norway, France, Germany and China whilst also performing extensively in the UK. He is the winner of this year’s prestigious Muriel Taylor Scholarship Award. From 2009 Alex studied on a Full Scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music with Professor Felix Schmidt, graduating in 2013 with First Class Honours. He will shortly be embarking on the Academy’s Masters Course. At the Academy he 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 Tchaikovsky’s Roccoco Variations; and the ‘Douglas Cameron Prize’.
Alex has performed in masterclasses with some of the world’s most renowned cellists including Truls Mørk, Colin Carr and Raphael Wallfisch. As principal cellist of the Academy’s Opera Concert and Symphony Orchestras, Alex gave the world premiere Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera ‘Kommilitonen’ along with highly acclaimed performance of Hindermith’s Kammermusik no. 1 conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier. This June, again as principal cellist of the Academy Concert Orchestra Alex will perform Strauss’s Heldenleben under the baton of Semyon Bytchkov.
A keen chamber musician, Alex performs regularly with Romanian pianist Florian Mitrea. Together they won the Academy’s Willfred Parry Brahms competition and the pair can often be found with additional musicians as piano trios, quartets and quintets. Alex was also a founder member of the Artesian Quartet with whom he performed extensively across the country playing most notably at the BBC Proms and the Wigmore Hall. As a regular performer of baroque repertoire Alex recently began studying the baroque cello at the Academy where he now performs with the Baroque Ensembles and in the Academy’s Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series.
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 acquired English cello built in the London Piccadilly School of c. 1730.
Alex has performed in masterclasses with some of the world’s most renowned cellists including Truls Mørk, Colin Carr and Raphael Wallfisch. As principal cellist of the Academy’s Opera Concert and Symphony Orchestras, Alex gave the world premiere Sir Peter Maxwell Davies’ opera ‘Kommilitonen’ along with highly acclaimed performance of Hindermith’s Kammermusik no. 1 conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier. This June, again as principal cellist of the Academy Concert Orchestra Alex will perform Strauss’s Heldenleben under the baton of Semyon Bytchkov.
A keen chamber musician, Alex performs regularly with Romanian pianist Florian Mitrea. Together they won the Academy’s Willfred Parry Brahms competition and the pair can often be found with additional musicians as piano trios, quartets and quintets. Alex was also a founder member of the Artesian Quartet with whom he performed extensively across the country playing most notably at the BBC Proms and the Wigmore Hall. As a regular performer of baroque repertoire Alex recently began studying the baroque cello at the Academy where he now performs with the Baroque Ensembles and in the Academy’s Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series.
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 acquired English cello built in the London Piccadilly School of c. 1730.
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Drawing Bach
A spikeless 'cello sits between his knees, Of polished wood from era long ago; Suspended in the Now by second Suite Of J.S.Bach, so intricate the notes His supple fingers play. Melodic line Emerges from the complex chordal web, A self-sufficient solo he recites, In joy and triumph by the Spirit led. Four strings now change in piccolo to five: With subtle tones this instrument he bows Suite 6, in resonance our ears delight – Vibrating gut the heart's emotion grows. The artists chart his movements; with the brush They integrate this challenge, wholly trust. Peter Horsfield 24/10/2013 Alex Rolton played the English Baroque cello for Suite No 2, and a recent copy of a Baroque Violoncello Piccolo for Suite No 6. These two cellos, and the original on which the piccolo is based, are part of the Royal Academy of Music's collection. Unlike the modern cello, Baroque cellos have no spike. They are gripped between the player's lower legs. In 1970, or thereabouts, Peter's late father, Michael Horsfield, had the opportunity to sketch the celebrated cellist, Paul Tortellier. For those who heard the great man in concert the sketch below will quite possibly bring some very happy memories. |
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Music on Thursdays and Leatherhead Art Club are extremely grateful to Alex Rolton for allowing Art Club members to sketch him as he plays today.
We hope this will be the first of many opportunities for lovers of the arts to share such experiences in Leatherhead. For more information about Leatherhead Art Club, please click on the logo. |
