Catherine Leonard and Hugh Tinney, two of Ireland's foremost musicians, have established highly successful solo careers both in Ireland and on the international performance platform. Their recent collaboration has been well received in musical circles in Ireland following their performance debut as a duo in September 2000 as part of Musicwide. Following a series of three concerts for Music Network in Ireland in the autumn of 2000 they took part in a highly successful international exchange between Music Network and the Swedish Concert Institute (Rikskonserter) in March/April 2001 performing in Stockholm, Ljungby, Tingsryd, Falkenberg and Stenungsund.

Catherine Leonard, "Ireland's leading violinist" (Irish Times) "is a conspicuously gifted player." (Santa Barbara News Press) "Leonard has a dazzling energy and her commitment to each note is refreshingly undaunted by technical obstacles. The faster and the more dangerous the better."(The Strad Magazine)

A Principal Artist for the California-based chamber ensemble, Camerata Pacifica, Catherine works throughout the year with her esteemed colleagues, pianist Warren Jones, violist Richard O'Neill, oboist Nicholas Daniel and cellist Ani Aznavoorian. They perform an eclectic repertoire spanning the body of chamber music, ranging from solo sonatas to larger chamber works. Catherine is a regular guest at Ireland's most prominent festivals and recital series, including the "West Cork Chamber Music Festival" and "Music in Great Irish Houses". Elsewhere she has made repeat appearances at the City of London Chamber Music Festival, Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music Seminar, the Perth Arts Festival, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Wigmore Hall in London.

An advocate of contemporary Irish composers, Catherine is a particular champion of the music of Ian Wilson, whose 'Messenger' concerto was written for her. In 2008 she played the work with Camerata Pacifica http://www.cameratapacifica.org. in venues across America, Ireland and the UK, including the Library of Congress, The Morgan Library in New York and London's Wigmore Hall "...how many violinists will bring the solo part nearer to perfection than Leonard does is harder to predict." (Irish Times), "a very serious group of fine artists"(London's Daily Telegraph)

She has recorded a CD of Wilson's music with regular partner Hugh Tinney. "These are exemplary performances from Hugh Tinney and Catherine Leonard, vividly recorded in the composer's presence ... well worth hunting down.." (Gramophone Magazine). The duo's RTÉ lyric fm disc of Beethoven Sonatas has been received to great acclaim both at home and abroad. "Two of Ireland's greatest instrumentalists take us on a journey into Beethoven's poetic and dramatic genius in violin and piano. There are moments of freshness inspired by familiarity and frequent performance together, each player's virtuosity sparkling." (The Sunday Tribune)

Recent chamber music collaborators included pianists Barry Douglas, Ashley Wass and Charles Owen, cellists Guy Johnston and Sol Gabetta. Last Spring saw Catherine's debut, with colleague Warren Jones, in the "Celebrity Concert Series" at the National Concert Hall in Dublin http://www.nch.ie/Box-Office/The-International-Concert-Series-2008-2009/Season.aspx. "The opening movement was aptly sinewy, the central Andante plaintively haunting, and the brisk finale featherweight and fleet. The balance between the two instruments seemed well-nigh perfect..." (Irish Times)

Also in Dublin, Catherine performed with Nicholas Daniel in his dual roles of oboist and conductor in the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, and the Bach Concerto for Oboe and Violin which was later performed in Los Angeles with oboist Allan Vogel. There were recitals with Charles Owen in the Leicester International Music Series and collaborations with artists including cellist Alex Chaushian and pianist Vahan Mardirossian at the Pharos Trust Recital Series Cyprus, and pianist Max Levinson and friends in Colorado. Summer holidays were provided by a luxurious two week musical cruise of the Baltic in the good company of UK pianist Ashley Wass and cellist Guy Johnston.

In the coming months, there is a recital tour of Ireland with Hugh Tinney and a visit to the Savanna Chamber Music Festival to play with, amongst others, the Artistic Director, Daniel Hope.

Catherine studied initially in Cork and Dublin, where awards included the Heineken Violin and bow and the Ulster Bank Bursary. Further studies followed in the US, the Netherlands and Austria, with the assistance of Arts Council bursaries and a Fulbright award. She was first prizewinner in the 'Vriendenkrans' of the Concertgebouw in the Netherlands, and won third prizes in both the Kulenkampff and the Scheveningen International Violin Competitions.

Since 2003 Catherine has played a Francesco Ruggieri violin made in Cremona in 1672.

Born in Dublin in 1958, Hugh Tinney first came to international recognition by winning first-prize in two international competitions, the 1983 Pozzoli in Italy and the 1984 Paloma O'Shea in Spain, and since then he has performed in more than 30 countries throughout Europe, the United States, South America and the Far East. His festival engagements have taken him to Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Finland, France, Japan and the USA, and he has broadcast on radio or TV in more than 15 countries.

In 1987, he was a prize-winner in the Leeds Piano Competition. Two years later he made his debut at the Proms playing Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra, and since then he has had a busy career in the UK, performing with orchestras such as the London Philharmonic, the Philharmonia, the Royal Philharmonic, the City of Birmingham Symphony, the Royal Scottish Orchestra and the London Mozart Players. Conductors he has worked with include Simon Rattle, Norman del Mar, Yan Pascal Tortelier, Libor Pesek, Jerzy Maksymiuk and Jacek Kaspryk. He has performed over sixty concertos.

Hugh Tinney's contribution to Irish concert life in the 1990's has been significant. Highlights include his 1991 "Chopin Plus" recital series at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA) in Dublin, later repeated in Cork; a second major recital series at the IMMA in 1995, focusing on the late sonatas of Schubert; and in 1998, he completed a three-year project to perform the complete Mozart piano concertos at Dublin's National Concert Hall with the Orchestra of St Cecilia. A complete cycle of the Beethoven concertos followed in 1999. All of these series received the highest plaudits from Irish critics and audiences. More recently, he gave the first three instalments of the cycle of 32 Beethoven sonatas at the Royal Dublin Society in 2000, 2001 and 2002; in a separate project, he performed the full Beethoven sonata cycle jointly with Philippe Cassard and Joanna MacGregor at Bantry House in April 2004. In January 2003, he gave a sell-out recital in Dublin's National Concert Hall as part of the NCH/Irish Times Celebrity Series.

He has been a regular soloist for more than twenty years with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, touring with them in the UK in 1993 and performing with them at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam in 1998. He played every year from 1997 to 2000 and again in 2003 at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in Bantry, and partners there or elsewhere have included Stephen Isserlis, Richard Watkins, the Borodin Quartet, the Vogler Quartet (at the Vogler Spring Festival in Sligo in 2000) and the Vanbrugh Quartet with whom he has appeared frequently over the past decade. His interest in contemporary Irish music has led to new works commissioned from Raymond Deane and Ian Wilson; Wilson's "Limena" was premiered in 1999 in an 8-concert tour of Ireland with the Irish Chamber Orchestra. Hugh Tinney's discography includes a Liszt recital for Decca, Liszt's Harmonies Poétiques et Religieuses on Meridian, the Mendelssohn Concertos for 2 pianos on the Naxos label, the Aloys Fleischmann Piano Quintet and a collection of Irish songs with Bernadette Greevy, both of these on Marco Polo. Raymond Deane's After-Pieces for solo piano are included on a CD of Deane's works on Black Box. He recently recorded a CD of the piano solo and (with Catherine Leonard) violin/piano duo music of Ian Wilson which was released by Riverrun in 2004.

In 2000, Hugh Tinney became Artistic Director of the Music Festival in Great Irish Houses. He teaches at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and he has been a jury member at several international piano competitions, including Santander and Dublin. In 2004, he took part as principal pianist in the Sean O'Mordha documentary for RTÉ television "PIANO - The King of Instruments".

Sample Programmes

Beethoven 'Spring' Sonata, Op 24
Allegro
Adagio molto espressivo
Scherzo. Allegro molto
Rondò. Allegro ma non troppo

Debussy Sonata for Violin & Piano (1916-17)
Allegro vivo
Intermède; Fantasque et léger
Finale; Très animé

Interval

Tchaikovsky Serenade Melacholique, Op 26

Elgar Sonata for violin and piano

Allegro
Romance
Allegro non Troppo

Reviews

More Info

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