ABBA

Violinist who started playing at four years of age and attended the Royal Northern College of Music and the Wells Cathedral Specialist Music School, where she studied under the watchful eye of Richard Ireland.

Groups with whom she has worked include The Brandenburg Sinfonia, the Brodowski String Quartet, the Chicele String Quartet, the Manchester Beethoven Orchestra, the Manchester Camerata, The National Schools Symphony Orchestra, the Northern Chamber Orchestra, Opera North, The Philharmonia Chamber Ensemble and Orchestra, the Red Skies Strings, the RNCM Chamber and Symphony Orchestras, the Roques Piano Trio, The Rosina Trio, the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, the Southbank Sinfonia, the Stillman Quartet, and the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra.

On 18^th July 1999, she was the lead violinist at Eton College Hall with The National Schools Symphony Orchestra, which performed the overture from Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor, Gustav Holst’s The Planets, and Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, sung by soprano Susan Bullock.

She appeared on the David Childs album, Prodigy, in 2000.

On 16^th June 2001, the Chicele String Quartet performed Ludwig van Beethoven’s “String Quartet No. 2 in E minor, Op. 59” (“Razumovsky”), Franz Joseph Haydn’s “String Quartet No. 6 in D, Op. 33” and Dmitri Shostakovich’s “String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 122” at Heptonstall Parish Church in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire, England.

She was the solo violinist with the Manchester Beethoven Orchestra on 15^th November 2003 at Holy Innocents where they performed Johannes Brahms’ “Violin Concerto”, Jean Sibelius’s “Symphony No. 3”, and Bedrich Smetana’s overture from The Bartered Bride.

On 7^th July 2004, Helena, along with clarinetist Ovanir Buosi, cellist Verity Harding and pianist James Longford, interpreted Olivier Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” at St. John’s Waterloo as part of its Lunchtime Concerts series.

She again took center stage on 17^th June 2007 when the Worthing Philharmonic Orchestra appeared at Assembly Hall in a Father’s Day concert of Sir Edward Elgar’s Froissart Overture, Felix Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto”, and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Symphony No. 4”.

On 24^th November 2007, she helped the Parish Church of St. Mary and St. Nicholas inaugurate their newly renovated Thomas Parker organ with The Brandenburg Sinfonia. The program comprised “Adagio for Strings” and “Concerto for Two Oboes” by Tomaso Albinoni, “In Nomine” by Richard Alwood, “A Fugue”, “Organ Concerto in B flat major” and “Organ Concerto in D minor” by George Frideric Handel, “Voluntary XVI” by John Keble, “A Trumpet Air” by John Reading, and “Voluntary VIII” by John Stanley.

The Rosina Trio, which included Helena and clarinetist Luisa Rosina and pianist Tom Ostrovkis, teamed up with harpist LiehsjaBlaxland-de Lange for the 2007 Bramley & Little London Music Festival at St. James’s Church in Bramley, Hampshire, England.

On 25^th March 2010, the Philharmonia appeared at the Grand Auditorium with soloist Joshua Bell in a Beethoven double-header that included the master’s “Konzert fur Violine und Orchester D-Dur, Op. 61” and “Symphonie No. 3 Es-Dur, Op. 55” (“Eroica”).

The Philharmonia Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, composed of Helena and fellow violinists Fiona Conall, Julian Malone and Gideon Robinson and double bassist Neil Tarlton, presented “An Evening of Art and Music” at the New Walk Museum & Art Gallery in Leicester, England, on 23^rd April 2010. On the menu: Milone’s “Fantasy on Bizet’s Carmen”; Astor Piazzolla’s “Tango Suite”; Maximo Diego Pujol’s “Il Palermo”; and, Kurt Weill’s “Eine Kleine Dreigroschenoper”.

On 11^th January 2011, the Philharmonia joined forces with violinist Leila Josefowicz at the Grande Auditorio for Bela Bartok’s “Musica para cordas, percussao e celesta, Sz 106”, Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” and “Ma mere l’Oye (suite)”, and Maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen’s “Concerto para Violino e Orquestra”.

They collaborated with Coro Gulbenkian, tenor Attila Fekete and baritone Michele Kalmandi in a concert of Bartok’s “Cantata Profana, Sz 94” and O Mandarin Maravilhoso, Op. 19 and Igor Stravinsky’s A Sagracao da Primavera at Coliseu dos Recreios on 13^th January 2011.

On 4^th February 2011, they shared the stage with violinist Sergey Khachatryan in a performance of Shostakovich’s “Concierto para violin No. 1 en La m, Op. 77” and Tchaikovsky’s “Sinfonia en Si m, Op. 58” (“Manfred”).

Helena is also a runner, and clocked in at about two hours and ten minutes at the City of Norwich Half Marathon on 13^th March 2011.

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