Mathilde Milwidsky & Sam Haywood
Biographie Mathilde Milwidsky & Sam Haywood
Mathilde Milwidsky
Born in London in 1994, 25 year old violinist Mathilde Milwidsky has been praised by The Strad (2017) for her "perfect intonation and beautiful shaping and colouring...comprehensively nailing each new stylistic and emotional universe as she went" as well as by the Ostfriesen Zeitung (2018) – “Milwidsky showed in the interplay with the pianist Thomas Hoppe a unique, rarely heard musical experience... that was sensational.” She has performed as a soloist at venues in the UK such as the Royal Festival Hall, the Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, St John's Smith Square, Cadogan Hall and the Royal Albert Hall as well as across Europe in Finland, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Greece, Spain, Ireland and Sweden. Recent live broadcasts include BBC Radio 3 ‘In Tune’, BBC Radio 4, Radio Swiss Classic, Classic FM and the BBC One Show. Mathilde’s debut CD for Toccata Classics with pianist Sam Haywood, comprising the world premiere of the three Sonatas for Violin and Piano by Agnes Zimmermann, will be released in 2020.
Mathilde was the sole British violinist to be selected for the 2019 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition in Brussels and recently won 3rd Prize at the Windsor Festival International String Competition 2019. At the inaugural Aurora Music Competition 2018 (Sweden) the jury, chaired by Gordan Nikolic, unanimously awarded her First Prize, alongside the Audience Prize. Mathilde is a semi-finalist laureate of the 2018 International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition Hanover and won the String Section of the 2017 Royal Overseas League Music Competition. She became a St John's Smith Square Young Artist for the 2017/18 season, for which she gave the world premiere of a piece written for her by the acclaimed composer Sally Beamish. She is very grateful for scholarships awarded by the Hattori Foundation, the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, the Philharmonia Orchestra's Martin Musical Scholarship, the Drake Calleja Foundation, the Tillett Trust and the Sir John Cass Foundation.
She is regularly invited to festivals such as Prussia Cove, East Neuk, Fraenkische Musiktage, Musikdorf Ernen, Musique à Marsac, Lichfield, Presteigne, Peasmarsh, Kings Lynn and Roman River, collaborating with musicians such as Anthony Marwood, Thomas Hoppe, Lilli Maijala, Avi Avital, Huw Watkins, Rosanne Philippens, Christian Poltéra, Hariolf Schlichtig, Christoph Richter and Ksenija Sidorova, as well as woodwind principals of the Philharmonia and die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen. Between 2011-2015 she was the first violinist of the Celan Quartet, with whom she toured the UK and recorded a CD of Berg’s Op 3 Quartet. She has worked closely with such esteemed composers as Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Huw Watkins, Sally Beamish, David Matthews and James Frances-Brown.
Mathilde's studies began at the Royal College of Music Junior Department where she was a Tsukanov Scholar taught by Viktoria Grigoreva and David Takeno. She was then offered a place at Trinity College, Cambridge but instead studied at the Royal Academy of Music as a full scholarship student under György Pauk, graduating in July 2017 with First Class Honours and the Regency Award for notable achievement, the Louise Child Memorial Prize for highest-achieving graduate and the Marjorie Heyward Fund for the highest violin mark of the year. She is currently studying under Professor Mi-kyung Lee at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München.
Additional inspiration has come from members of the London Haydn Quartet, masterclasses with violinists such as Leonidas Kavakos, Maxim Vengerov, Mihaela Martin, Pierre Amoyal, Gerhard Schulz, Miriam Fried and Igor Ozim at festivals such as IMS Prussia Cove, Salzburg Mozarteum Sommerakademie, International Holland Music Sessions and the Lac Leman Masterclasses.
