Described by The Guardian as "powerfully eloquent" and The Strad as "a cellist who can hold a stage and captivate an audience", Marie Macleod is a passionate and diverse artist, performing extensively as soloist and chamber musician at major concert venues across Europe. She has appeared as soloist with orchestras throughout the UK and Sweden such as the London Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra, and her performances are frequently broadcast by the BBC, Classic FM, Dutch Radio 4 and Swedish Radio. At the age of seventeen Marie won the Eastbourne Young Musician of the Year; she went on to win the string section of the BBC Young Musician of the Year, the Royal Over-Seas League competition, the Suggia Gift for Cello and the Bronze Medal in the Shell/LSO competition, as well as awards from the Tunnell, Leverhulme and Countess of Munster Trusts.
As a member of the Aronowitz Ensemble, Marie is a BBC New Generation Artist and has performed at Wigmore Hall, Cadogan and Bridgewater Halls, the BBC Proms and Cheltenham, Aldeburgh, Bath and the City of London Festivals, as well as recording extensively for the BBC. Marie is also cellist in the Lendvai String Trio, who perform at major concert halls such as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Wigmore Hall, Purcell Room, Barbican, St John's Smith Square and Kings Place in London, and the Berwaldhall and Nybrokajen in Stockholm. In 2005 the trio won awards from the Kirckman Concert Society, Worshipful Company of Musicians and the Park Lane Group, and were also selected for the Holland Music Sessions 'New Masters on Tour', giving concerts in Latvia, Romania, Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Hungary and Cyprus.
Marie has a strong interest in contemporary music and has had several works specially written for her by composers Edwin Roxburgh, Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Gunnar Valkare. She enjoys regular chamber music collaborations with artists such as Pekka Kuusisto, Tasmin Little, Nicholas Daniel, Anthony Marwood, Paul Watkins, Alison Balsom, Robert Mann and Ivry Gitlis. Between 2006 and 2008 Marie was principal cellist of the Västerås Sinfonietta in Sweden; in 2007 and 2008 she also performed with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra as guest principal cellist. She studied with Louise Hopkins at the Yehudi Menuhin School, David Takeno at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama where she gained a Masters with Distinction and was awarded the prestigious Concert Recital Diploma, Frans Helmerson at the Musikhochschule in Cologne and Steven Isserlis at IMS Prussia Cove. Marie plays a Matteo Goffriller cello from 1706.
Swedish pianist Martin Sturfält enjoys a busy international career as a concerto soloist and recitalist, and is also a passionate chamber musician. While his repertoire includes a large number of standard works from the baroque, classical and romantic periods, Martin is also keen to promote newer music and lesser known works in his concert programmes. In recent years he has gained much recognition for his performances of the piano music by Swedish late romantic composer Wilhelm Stenhammar as well as for his interpretations of the music by Olivier Messiaen. Martin's innovative recital programmes have earned him a reputation as a highly versatile and imaginative artist.
Born in Sweden in 1979, Martin started to play the piano around the age of four. He studied at the Stockholm Royal College of Music and at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London. His principal teachers have been Esther Bodin-Karpe and Stefan Bojsten in Stockholm, and Paul Roberts and Ronan O'Hora in London.
Martin began giving regular concerts at the age of 11, and has since performed extensively throughout Scandinavia, UK and the rest of Europe, as well as in the Far East and the USA. Highlights in recent years have included solo and chamber music recitals in all the major venues in Stockholm and the rest of Sweden as well as at London's Purcell Room, Barbican Hall, Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Martin is regularly invited as a soloist with orchestras and has appeared with among others the Hallé Orchestra and most Swedish orchestras such as the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic and the Swedish Radio Symphony, collaborating with conductors such as Mark Elder and Alexander Vedernikov. His performances have been broadcast throughout Europe and the USA and he has made frequent television appearances. His début solo CD recording of the Wilhelm Stenhammar piano works is being released by Hyperion Records in the autumn of 2008.
Martin has had considerable success in piano competitions, winning first prize in both the 1999 Swedish and the 2002 UK Yamaha competitions as well as the 2002 Malmö Nordic 'Blüthner' Piano Competition, the 2004 John Ogdon Prize, and the 2005 Terence Judd Award.