Kerenza Peacock, Huw Watkins, Laura van der Heijden
Biography Kerenza Peacock, Huw Watkins, Laura van der Heijden
Kerenza Peacock
is a musical wanderer—equally at home playing classical works by Vivaldi and Mozart as she is performing new works by contemporary composers like Oliver Davis or letting her hair down playing fiddle with Anglo-American Bluegrass band The Coal Porters.
Kerenza studied violin at the Royal Academy of Music with Howard Davis. Kerenza has recorded many classical solo and chamber discs, all receiving 5 star reviews. Her debut solo disc was the world premiere recording of the Holbrooke Violin Concerto for the Naxos record label, praised in Gramophone magazine for her 'lithe, elegant violin-playing and her easy conquest of the virtuoso demands' .
Kerenza was leader of the Pavao Quartet for 15 years, recording five albums and touring the world. Their disc of Elgar and Bax Quartets (‘an ensemble of real depth and musical distinction’ Classic FM Magazine), was followed by their ‘Dreaming’ CD, which was described as ‘Chamber music for a new century’ on Radio 2. Kerenza played on Eric Whitacre’s album ‘Light and Gold’, which reached No 1 in the Classical Charts on both sides of the Atlantic, and won a Grammy Award in 2012. Her extensive experience in the recording studio has led to her recording for film and television programmes.
You are equally likely to hear her playing on Radio One as you are on Classic FM or Radio Three. She has performed with many artists including Sir Paul McCartney and Kanye West. At one point she was playing on all top 3 albums in the the Pop Charts, as well as the Classical No 1. In 2016, she led the orchestra on Adele’s world tour.
Kerenza has recently been appointed an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music for having made 'a significant contribution to the music industry'.
Laura Van Der Heijden
has already made a name for herself as a very special emerging talent, captivating audiences and critics alike with the sensitivity of her sound and interpretations. This soulful and evocative artist can already look back on a number of exceptional achievements, among them being the winner – at the age of just 15 - of the BBC Young Musician competition.
Her 2018 debut album “1948”, featuring Russian music for cello and piano with pianist Petr Limonov, won the 2018 Edison Klassiek Award (broadcast live on Dutch television), and the 2019 BBC Music Magazine Newcomer Award. The CD has been hailed as a “dazzling, imaginative and impressive” debut recording.
In 2019, Laura graduated from Cambridge University, and is currently in the middle of a busy 2019/20 season, which sees her perform with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales in Aldeburgh, the Tchaikovsky Symphony in Moscow, the Prague Symphony in the UK, the London Philharmonic and BBC Philharmonic Orchestras in the UK, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in the US.
Other highlights include performing the Saint-Saëns Concerto in the opening concert of the inaugural BBC Proms Australia with Sir Andrew Davis and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra; recitals at Wigmore Hall, Tonhalle Zürich, and Musashino Cultural Foundation in Japan; as well as her participation in the music festivals of West Cork, OCM Prussia Cove, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, and Krzyzowa Music.
Collaborative music-making is immensely important to Laura, and she regularly participates in international chamber music courses and festivals. She is a member of the Kaleidoscope Chamber Collective, frequently performs with the Brodsky Quartet, and her chamber music partners have included Nicholas Daniel, Krzysztof Chorzelski, Radovan Vlatkovic, Midori, Nils Moenkemeyer, Mark Simpson, Amy Harman, Matthew McDonald, and Fazil Say. In her duo recitals, Laura collaborates with pianists Tom Poster, Jâms Coleman, Petr Limonov, Katya Apekisheva, Finghin Collins, and Huw Watkins.
Laura was born in England to Dutch-Swiss parents and gave her first public performance at the age of 9. Since 2008 she has been a student of the renowned British-Russian cellist Leonid Gorokhov, and participates regularly in masterclasses with David Geringas, Ralph Kirshbaum and Miklós Perényi. In 2016 Laura was chosen by the Orpheum Stiftung in Switzerland, a foundation encouraging and assisting exceptionally talented young instrumental soloists. She is an Ambassador for both the Prince’s Foundation for Children & the Arts and Brighton Youth Orchestra.
Laura plays a late 17th-century cello by Francesco Ruggieri of Cremona, on generous loan from a private collection.
Rodrigo Ruiz
was raised in Tijuana, Mexico, where he enjoyed playing with his friends, as all children do, but also loved music and literature. Although barely able to reach the keyboard, he was drawn to a small Steinway spinet that his great-grandfather had gifted his mother for her twelfth birthday. While studying piano under Zarema Tchibirova, and only fifteen at the time, he wrote his first piano sonata, which later received the Outstanding Composition Prize (2008) by the state of Baja California.
Even if many of his early compositions were naturally works for solo piano, his creative efforts also extend into the realm of art song and chamber music. One of his most recent compositions, Venus & Adonis, a song cycle written for Grace Davidson after Shakespeare’s homonymous poem, was sparked by their collaboration in An Everlasting Dawn, Rodrigo’s first album, released independently in 2017 after a successful crowdfunding campaign, which also featured Christopher Glynn and Alison Farr. His first album for Signum Classics, featuring a piano trio and violin sonata performed by Kerenza Peacock, Laura van der Heijden and Huw Watkins, will be released in March 2021.
An avid reader of classics, he is currently preparing his own Italian translation of Shakespeare’s King Lear which will be the basis for a new opera libretto, early sketches of which already populate his sketchbook next to drafts for a string quartet.
After earning his Bachelor of Music cum laude from Lawrence University, Rodrigo was offered a scholarship at University of Michigan’s orchestral conducting program where he completed his Master in 2014. During this time he was assistant conductor in the recording of Milhaud’s L’Orestie d’Eschyle for Naxos Records, a project that was nominated for the 2015 Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording.
Rodrigo is now pursuing a Ph.D. in Mythological Studies at Pacifica Graduate Institute, investigating novel ways to fuse music and myth through opera, oratorio, masses, programmatic music, and other genre-bending works, such as Tattvas, a five-work project ‘for orchestra and elemental nature’, as he likes to call it, which crowds his piano and writing desk; in it, each of the five elements of the ancient world—earth, water, fire, air and ether—are portrayed through an orchestra, ethnic instruments, and pre-recorded sounds and effects.
In his spare time Rodrigo takes joy in hiking the outdoors, reading, and cooking for family and friends.
