POSTCARDS FROM EUROPE PROGRAMMES

Our concerts bring together virtuoso gypsy violin music and works by the outstanding composers whose works and lives were also suppressed in 1930’s central Europe -  figures such as Schreker, Zemlinsky, Schulhoff, Gal, Gellhorn, Dauber - some of whom emigrated, others of whom perished in concentration camps.

These works are set against the central European musical background of works by for example, Smetana and Bartok.

Concerts feature narration on the subject of Music & Displacement in central Europe 1933-1945.

Marianne Olyver violin, was the first girl to be invited to lead the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. She studied in London and Geneva with Max Rostal, Yfrah Neaman, Alfredo Campoli and Emanuel Hurwitz CBE. Her guest appearance on Womans Hour, where she performed live, was voted BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Week. Marianne directed the Palm Court Light Orchestra Vancouver Island, and has given recitals extensively in the Far East. She is Director of the Pro Coda/ Royal Academy of Music Young Strings Programme , an Examiner for OCR and ABRSM, and has taught at the Delay Symposium with Itzhak Perlman at The Julliard School, New York. Directing Marianne Olyver and Her Orchestra she has both broadcast and performed at Festivals and major concert halls both in the UK and abroad.

‘Stunning...the thrill of the week!...

The dizzy violin of Marianne Olyver shone brilliantly, as to the manner born ‘  

The Independent

Nigel Yandell piano.  After reading music at the University of York, Nigel was awarded a postgraduate scholarship to study at Wadham College, Oxford, where his doctoral research focused on eighteenth-century instrumental music - in particular, keyboard music written and performed in Russia during the reign of Catherine the Great. Since then his interests have expanded into new areas, including aspects of music publishing and historical performance practice. He was a contributor on Russian and Eastern European music to the latest edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. 

An experienced solo pianist, accompanist, chamber musician, coach and examiner, Nigel has performed and lectured widely, in both the UK and overseas. In 2001 he was elected to a Fellowship at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where most recently he held the position of Senior Researcher in Music. In recent years he has been a director of the London Sinfonietta, Pro Corda, the William Alwyn Foundation and Palace Opera.  He is currently a trustee of the Cambridge Union Society, the Cambridge University Musical Society, the Cambridge Summer Music Festival, as well as member of the senior advisory committee of the Cambridge University Opera Society.