Date: Thursday 14 June 2007

Time: 8pm

Venue: The Spiro Ark Centre - 25-26 Enford St, W1

Price: £10 / £5

Programme:

Vivaldi, Haydn, Popper, Camille Saint-Saëns and Israeli music

JOANNE KEITHLEY

After hearing her brother learn the cello and not wanting to be left out, Joanne decided it was the instrument for her and began at the age of nine. She achieved the DipABRSM with distinction in 2004, having won the regional rotary competition, the James Etherington Award, the previous year in her hometown of Durham.

Joanne is currently in her third year at Trinity College of Music with a full scholarship, studying with Joely Koos. She already has had an active musical career, including solo and chamber recitals in London and

Durham, playing with a variety of orchestras and conductors. Her studies and performances have taken her all over Britain and also further a field, for example Denmark, Norway and Spain.

Israeli-born cellist SAGI HARTOV came to the UK in September 2000 to study at the Royal Academy of Music with Mats Lidstrom. He graduated in 2002 with a Postgraduate Diploma with Distinction and was also awarded an LRAM teaching qualification.

Sagi commenced his cello studies at the age of ten at the Rubin Conservatorium in Haifa. At the age of fifteen he performed with the Haifa Symphony Orchestra and in 1996 was elected to the ‘Outstanding Musician’ programme as a member of the Israeli Forces String Quartet. From 1995 to 1999 he studied with the distinguished professor Uzi Wiezel, first at Tel Aviv University and then at the Sydney Conservatorium.

He has won several major awards from the Royal Academy of Music, Ferdinand Beck Fund, American-Israel Foundation, Muriel Taylor National Competition for Cello and many others.

He has recorded for BBC radio 4, BBC Channel 1, Universal Records and performed at St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields in Trafalgar Square; Steinway Hall; London’s City Hall; the Pump Room in Bath and many other venues in the UK, Israel, Belgium, Germany and Australia. He has also participated in master-classes with Aldo Parisot, Janos Starker, Zara Nelsova, Robert Cohen and Colin Carr. His outstanding talent has been rewarded by lifetime loans of both a Macatel 1849 cello from a benefactor, as well as a Sylvester et Macotel, (Paris 1912), by a group of donors. He currently plays a Guarneri 1720 - also given on loan from an anonymous donor. Forthcoming performances include recitals in Israel, France, Belgium, Ireland and Britain.