Born in Manchester , Ronan O’Hora studied with Professor Ryszard Bakst at the Royal Northern College of Music, where he won several awards, including the Dayas Gold Medal and the Silver Medal of the worshipful Company of Musicians. In 1985 he won the Stefania Niekrasz Prize, awarded every five years to an outstanding exponent of Chopin.

Ronan O’Hora has performed extensively throughout the world, playing with such orchestras as the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony, Royal Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields , The Halle, Indianapolis Symphony, Zurich Tonhalle, Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonia Hungarica, Brno Philharmonic, Winnipeg Symphony, Florida Philharmonic and Queensland Philharmonic. He has performed in every major country in Europe as well as in the USA , Canada , Australasia and South Africa.

He has worked with many leading conductors, including Sir Yehudi Menuhin, Raymond Leppard, Edo de Waart and Hans Vonk, and has appeared at many of the most prestigious music festivals, including Salzburg , Gstaad, Ravinia, Montpelier , Bath , Harrogate and Brno.

Television and radio performances throughout the world include a televised recital at the Chopin Society in Warsaw , a televised performance of Beethoven’s 4 th Piano Concerto with the Netherlands Radio Symphony, two performances of Mozart chamber music for BBC TV, as well as over eighty concerts on BBC Radio 3.

Ronan O’Hora has made many highly acclaimed recordings over recent years for the Virgin Classics, Tring International, Dinemic and Fone labels. These include concertos by Mozart, Grieg and Tchaikowsky, and solo repertoire by Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, Schumann, Beethoven, Chopin, Mozart, Mendelssohn and Satie, as well as chamber music by Faure, Britten, Debussy, Dvorak and Mozart, amounting to a discography of over thirty CDs.

In recent seasons Ronan O’Hora has performed at the Salzburg Festival, the Kennedy Centre in Washington, and Sydney Opera House, in addition to tours of USA , Italy , Switzerland , Germany , Australia and New Zealand. Engagement this seasons include an appearance with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and recitals in the US, Canada and France as well as numerous appearances in the UK.

Stefan Popov has established an international reputation for performances of deep musical sensitivity combined with an apparent1y effortless virtuoso technique. He has many times been a prize winner in competitions, including Moscow, Geneva, Vienna and Florence. In 1966 he won a prize in the Tchaikovsky International cello competition and was also awarded an exceptional medal from the Union of Soviet Composers.

He regularly performs and gives masterclasses in conservatoires throughout the world, and is on the panel of several international juries. Now one of the most widely acclaimed professors in London, he combines his busy career as a performer with teaching at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and holds the post of cellist-in-residence at the City University. In 1981, he was awarded an honorary degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Born in Bulgaria in 1940, he developed an interest in music from an early age. As a result of his exceptional progress, he entered a special music boarding school for very talented children where he studied with Kyril Vaporjiev. Soon after that, he won a government scholarship and entered the Moscow conservatoire where he studied with Knushevitsky and Rostropovich.

His career subsequently developed rapidly, both as a performer and as a teacher. He was invited to the Boston University in the USA and later became Head of the Cello Department at the New England Conservatoire. In 1977 he was invited toEngland from where he is now based.

His repertoire includes all major works for cello from the Baroque period to the present day. Stefan Popov has played with leading orchestras and distinguished conductors. Many composers have dedicated their works to him and he has given their first performances.

“ …a violinist with robust sound, played boldly with empathy and character…one was struck by how expressively and vividly Smietana was able to mould his sound… and to produce his tone from every fibre of his body.”

The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

Krzysztof Smietana was born in Poland, first studied at the Cracow Academy of Music with Zbigniew Szlezer, later moving to London to study with Yfrah Neaman at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, where he himself now teaches. He won most of the national awards in Poland and has been a prizewinner in several major international violin competitions.

He has made many recital and concerto appearances throughout Britain as well as abroad and is regularly heard on BBC Radio3 including the highly acclaimed performances of both Szymanowski's concertos with the BBC Symphony Orchestra. His recording of the Panufnik's Violin Concerto with London Musici for Conifer became the CD of the month in CD Review magazine. He has played the concerto throughout Europe , prompting the Strad comment on his “beautifully controlled slow bowing and languorous vibrato”. He has recorded Faure's Sonatas for Meridian , the Brahms' Sonatas for ASV and recently Stravinsky's Violin Concerto with the Philharmonia conducted by Robert Craft for Music Masters.

Adding to his activities as a soloist and chamber musician, he has been appearing as a guest of several British Orchestras including the London Symphony Orchestra. He has also performed as a soloist at the PROMS Festival with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.