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She is also a source of considerable national pride. In 2002 Catherine was invited by the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese, to play for the Finnish President and other guests in Finlandia Hall, during a State visit to Finland. The RTE National Symphony, Ulster and Irish Chamber Orchestras regularly invite her to perform as a soloist and she is a regular guest for the "Music in Great Irish Houses," series and the West Cork and Vogler Festivals. Elsewhere she has made repeat appearances at the Prussia Cove Open Chamber Music Seminar, the Perth (Australia) International Chamber Music Festival, the City of London Chamber Music Festival, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Wigmore Hall in London. Ms. Leonard's performances have been featured on BBC Radio 3 in the United Kingdom, National Public Radio and KUSC in the United States and in Ireland on RTE Radio and Television, which recently featured a profile of Catherine with the National Symphony Orchestra. She is a Principal Violin for the California based chamber ensemble, Camerata Pacifica. In that role she works regularly with esteemed colleagues such as pianist Warren Jones and violist Donald McInnes in an eclectic repertory spanning the body of chamber music, ranging from solo sonatas to larger chamber works. In May of 2007 Catherine will premiere a Concerto for Violin and Chamber Ensemble from composer Ian Wilson commissioned for her by the Camerata. In the autumn of 2006 she will be featured in a recital with mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade. An advocate of contemporary Irish composers, Catherine is a champion of the music of Belfast born Ian Wilson. Wilson has written many works specifically for her, including his 1st violin concerto "Messenger," "Eigenschatten" for violin and DAT tape, and "from the Book of Longing" for violin and piano, which recently received its British and American premieres at recitals at the Wigmore Hall and in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara. "from the Book of Longing", is also the title of a CD of Wilson's music for violin and piano recorded with pianist Hugh Tinney. Other collaborators include regular partners pianist Charles Owen, cellist Guy Johnston, Julius Drake, and the Tchaikovsky winning pianist Barry Douglas, with whom she recently performed Beethoven's Triple concerto and Violin Concerto in Dublin's National Concert Hall. Recent chamber music partners include Clarinettist Martin Frost and cellists Christian Poltera and Claudio Behorquez.. Upcoming highlights include performances at the Kilkenny, West Cork and Vogler Festivals, with artists including Finghin Collins, Ailish Tynan, Maxim Rysanov, Tatjana Masurenko, Jan-Erik Gustafson and the Vogler Quartet. She will perform the Tchaikovsky and Mozart concerti in Ireland and South Korea under Kenneth Montgomery and Alexander Anissimov respectively. Her first recital CD will be recorded with Charles Owen for Somm Records, and she will make her Chicago radio debut as part of the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series. Catherine's awards include the Heineken Violin and bow, the Ulster Bank Bursary, first prize winner in the 'Vriendenkrans' of the Concertgebouw "Concours" in the Netherlands, third prize in both the Kulenkampff and the Scheveningen International Violin Competitions, several Arts Council Bursaries and a Fulbright Award for studies in America. After initial studies in Cork and Dublin, she worked with professors Eduard Schmieder in Dallas, Ruggiero Ricci in Salzburg and Herman Krebbers in Amsterdam. http://www.catherineleonard.net
It was an outstanding reading which realised all the alternating ..... a star in the making - Sunday Business Post ...an unfailingly beautiful sound - Martin Adams, The Irish Times Extraordinarly gifted young violinist. Elizabeth Cooney commenced violin studies with Adrian Petcu
at the Cork School of Music in Ireland and has been making her
mark on the international stage ever since. Having won all the
major prizes and awards in her home country, including the Strings
Final of the RTE Millenium Musician of the Future Competition,
she studied with Itzhak Rashkovsky on scholarship at the Royal
College of Music, London. While there she won the Seymour Whinyates
Prize for Strings, the Ian Stoutzker Award for Violin and the
Bernard Stevens Prize for Chamber Music. She gained the highest
mark ever awarded (98%) at the RCM in her Postgraduate Final
Recital. This August she performed Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy and Gounod's Meditation from Thais with the RTE Concert Orchestra, gave three recitals at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and performed Brahms sonatas for violin and piano with Barry Douglas at the Clandeboye Festival in Northern Ireland. She held both the Mills Williams and Phoebe Benham Junior Fellowships
at the Royal College of Music London over the past two years
and has recently joined the string faculty of the Royal Irish
Academy of Music in Dublin. Cellist Jane O’Hara has performed extensively in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the United States. Concerto appearances have been with Philomusica of Gloucester (Elgar concerto) and the Hibernian Orchestra (Saint-Saens concerto). As a recitalist, she has played at such venues as the National Concert Hall, Dublin, the Goethe Institute, Dublin and New York and in March 2006, she will give her New York Debut recital at Carnegie Hall’s Weill Recital Hall, as a result of being awarded an Artists International Prize earlier this year. Jane was the Performing Arts Foundation Artist-in-Residence at International House, New York, for the 2004-05 season. Other awards received include the Sir John Barbirolli and Amy Lindley prizes for cello. Nicola Sweeney (born in Dublin 1975) graduated form the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London in 1997 with a first class honours performance degree, a distinction in her final recital and having won seven competitions and prizes during her time there. A scholarship enabled her to study for two further years with her teacher Prof. David Tokeno on the Advanced Instrumental Studies Course (also at the GSMD) where she led and directed many orchestras, working with such soloists as Rostropovich. Nicola has performed recitals and concertos throughout Europe (Italy, Germany, Serbia, Austria, Turkey, England, Jersey, and Ireland) and also in South America and in North Africa, where she was soloist with the European Union Chamber Orchestra last year. In Ireland she has appeared as soloist with both the national Symphony orchestra of Ireland and the RTE Concert orchestra and has broadcast for radio with both. Nicola has also recorded recital programmes for radio, the most recent being a lunchtime concert for the BBC. Her concerto appearances have included those of Mendelssohn, Khachaturian, Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev No 2, Saint-Saëns No 3, Mozart Nos 1 and 3, the Bach Double Concerto as well as other repertoire. She received the coveted concerto prize from GSMD recently for her performance of the Brahms' Violin Concerto at the Chelmsford Festival last year. Cian Ó Dúill began studying the viola with John Vallery at the Cork School of Music in 1990 and in the next four years won all the major viola prizes in Ireland. He graduated from the Royal Academy of music in London last summer where he was a student of John White. He is a founder member of the Regent String Quartet which was formed at the Academy during his first year of studies and thy have recently been appointed Ensemble-in-Residence for Worcestershire County council. In addition to running an exciting programme of Educational Projects the Quartet performs regularly in London and other areas of the UK. Cian has been a member of the European Union Youth orchestra and has toured extensively with them since 1995. He was also principal Viola of the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland. He was invited to join the Vanbrugh String Quartet for a performance of Brahms' String Sextet Opus 18 and undertook a very successful tour with them. He has also performed at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival. Cian was the beneficiary of a Fitzwilton Exceptional talent Award. He has given many recitals in Ireland and England and was chosen to give a recital at the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and Arts. Eyal
Kless Born in 1971 in Tel Aviv, Israel,
Eyal studied under his father, Prof. Yair Eyal has appeared as a soloist,
concertmaster and chamber music player in Israel, Austria, the U.S.A., Germany,
Poland, Denmark France, and Spain. For the last three years he has been
teaching in the prestigious Saltzburg Summer Festival and has conducted
master classes in the U.S.A., as well as at other festivals and schools throughout
Ireland. Dublin-born Finghin Collins is regarded as one of Ireland's leading young musicians. His early piano studies were with his sister Mary, and from the age of six he has been a student of Dr. John O'Conor at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin. He has just completed his final year on the DCU-validated B.A. in Music Performance degree course at the Academy, and intends to continue has studies in Europe with Dominique Merlet. Finghin has won all the major piano prizes and competitions nation wide, including the Morris- Grant Cup and Bursary at Feis Ceoil, Dublin, RTE's Musician of the Future Competition, the Lisney Young Pianist Award, and the Yamaha Music Foundation of Europe Scholarship. He has also had considerable success on an international level, having been a prize winner at Concertino Praga (1991) and at the Ettlingen International Piano Competition (1992). A semi-finalist at both the Leeds International Piano Competition (1996) and the Dublin International Piano Competition (1997; also winner of the Brennan Prize), he took first prize at the Rencontres Internationales des Jeunes Pianistes in both Paris and Strasbourg (1998). Last December, Finghin was the winner of the Classical Category at the Telecom Eireann/Rehab National Entertainment Awards at the National Concert Hall, Dublin. While still a student, Finghin enjoys a very busy international performing career, as soloist, chamber musician and with orchestra. He has performed throughout Europe and in Canada, most extensively in France, Germany and the UK, as well as in over forty venues in Ireland, both north and south. Finghin recently gave a critically acclaimed début recital at the Wigmore Hall, London. He is one of only six pianists to be chosen world wide to take part in intensive master classes and chamber music sessions at the prestigious Ravinia Festival near Chicago this summer. Engagements for the 1999-2000 season include concerto appearances with the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, Wexford Sinfonia, the RTE Concert Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, as well as solo recitals throughout Ireland, Britain and Europe. A final year student on the RIAM/DCU BA in Music Performance degree course, Suzanne is student of John Finucane at the RIAM. She is principal clarinettist with the RIAM Symphony Orchestra and the Hibernian Chamber Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland. Suzanne is also deputy clarinettist with the RTE Concert Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. She has won numerous prizes, including the Senior Clarinet and the Senior Chamber Music (with the Esposito Wind Quintet) at the Dublin Feis Ceoil. In 1997 Suzanne won a scholarship
to the Dartington International Summer School, where she participated
in a series of master classes with the RTE Vanburgh String Quartet.
She also has attended master classes with Michael Collins and
Michael Whight. Ríona is one of Ireland's
most outstanding young musicians. From Carlingford, Co. Louth,
she is at present in the final year of her BA She has been a Feis Ceoil prize
winner on numerous occasions and has a long list of other achievements
in competitive music. In 1997 Ríona is a member of the
National Youth Orchestra and also deputy flautist with both the
National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland and She has given recitals and public
performances across Europe and has made numerous Radio and TV
appearances including in the
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Karl Scully has recently returned to Ireland after completing two years of Post Graduate operatic studies in Genoa, Italy with Gabriella Ravazzi. In Ireland, Karl was a student of the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin, where studied under Dr.Veronica Dunne and Suzanne Murphy. Karl is the newest member of The Irish Tenors along with Finbar Wright and Anthony Kearns, they just completed recording a nine part series The Irish Tenors and Friends which will be broadcast weekly on RTE1 during the Summer months and they are undertaking two American tours this year. 
"Catherine Leonard is Ireland's leading violinist," states the Irish Times. Since the completion of her musical studies just a few years ago, this young musician has captured the attention of audiences and critics across the world for the musical integrity and interpretive insight she brings to standard repertoire and newly composed works alike.
Since
arriving in Ireland in September 1998 as an Associate Professor
in the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dubin,
Eyal has immersed himself in the Irish musical scene. He recently performed
as a soloist with the National Symphony Orchestraof Ireland, established
the Vindobona Piano Trio (with Rory Keery 
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