“An adrenaline shock to the UK new music scene…” – Kate Molleson, BBC Radio 3

“The Queen of Clarinet Mulitphonics” – Sara Mohr-Pietsch, BBC Radio 3

“…multiphonic virtuosity” – The Guardian

“…brilliant…” – The Times

“…performed by the excellent Heather Roche…brought vividly to life by Roche’s controlled but expressive performance… 5 stars” –  BBC Music Magazine

“…a figurehead for contemporary music performance practice” – Neil Luck, BBC Radio 3

“…undoubtedly one of the great instrumentalists of her generation.” – Graham McKenzie, Artistic Director of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival

“What makes all of this so fully absorbing is how Roche has completely internalized extended techniques for clarinet into her playing, with nothing sounding forced or contrived.” – Point of Departure

Born in Canada, clarinetist Heather Roche trained in England, lived in Germany for 7 years and now lives in London.

She has played with Apartment House (London) since 2016. With them, she has recorded 28 albums for the Another Timbre label, and the ensemble is currently Ensemble-in-Residence at Wigmore Hall. She started working with the band Modern Nature in 2022, joining them first for their King's Place show in December of that month. 

In 2015 she formed a duo with the German accordionist Eva Zöllner, with whom she has performed at the Venice Biennale, MIXTUR festival (Barcelona), the Darmstadt Summer Courses, Gaudeamus (Holland), and the Bludenzer Tage (Austria). They also toured extensively in Mexico (2019), Sweden (2021) and Colombia (2022). They have commissioned dozens of new pieces for their duo, including works by Annika Socolofsky, Elnaz Seyedi, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Christopher Fox, and Johan Svensson. Their latest call for composers (supported by NeuStart Kultur) attracted 100 applications from around the world, from which they chose four – which will be premiered in January 2023 in Germany. www.zoellner-roche.com

She was a member of Mimitabu (Gothenburg) from 2018-2020, and she was a founding member of hand werk, a 6-person chamber music ensemble based in Cologne, and worked with the group from 2010-2017.

She has performed with ensembles and orchestras including Musikfabrik (Cologne), the WDR Orchestra (Cologne), mimitabu (Gothenburg), the London Symphony Orchestra (London), the London Sinfonietta (London), ensemble Garage (Cologne), ensemble interface (Berlin), the Riot Ensemble (London), the Alisios Camerata (Zagreb), manufaktur für aktuelle musik (Frankfurt), and ensemble proton (Bern).

She has performed at most of the major European festivals, including musikFest (Berlin), BachFest (Leipzig), Musica Nova (Helsinki), Acht Brücken (Cologne), the International Computer Music Conference (Huddersfield, Ljubljana), the Dias de Música Electroacústica (Seia, Portugal) the Bludenzer Tage (Bludenz, Austria), and the Agora Festival (Ircam, Paris). She has also performed solo programmes at the Zagreb Music Biennale, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, the New York Electroacoustic Symposium, at CIRMMT (Montreal), Sound Festival (Aberdeen), Unerhörte Musik (Berlin), Eavesdropping (London), Rainy Days (Luxembourg) and with the Birmingham Electroacoustic Sound Theatre (BEAST).

She has premiered many solo works for her instrument, including pieces by Maija Hynninen, Simon Emmerson, Martin Iddon, Lisa Robertson, Christopher Fox, Dai Fujikura, Martin Rane Bauck, Chikako Morishita, Michelle Lou, etc. In 2020, Scott McLaughlin wrote his clarinet concerto, Natura Naturans, for her, and it was premiered at Tectonics (Glasgow) with the BBCSSO under Ilan Volkov. Her CD of Martin Iddon’s clarinet music, Sapindales, recently sold out on the Another Timbre label. She also has solo CDs out on the HCR/NMC and Métier labels. 

Since 2016 she has acted as the Reviews Editor for TEMPO, a quarterly journal for contemporary music published by Cambridge University Press. She also writes regularly for the Clarinet and Saxophone Society Magazine, and has written feature pieces for MusicWorks Magazine (Canada).

Her website is host to one of the most widely read new music blogs on the Internet. In 2019 it had 90,000 hits from around the world. She successfully crowdfunded in 2014 in order to host her first composition competition. Six young composers were chosen out of 270 applicants to write new pieces, which were premiered in 2016.

She gives workshops in clarinet technique and composition all over Europe, for example in London, Munich and Copenhagen. She has a yearly workshop for fourth-year undergraduate students at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, in which they write a new piece for clarinet and electronics. She has also participated in residencies with young composers at Stanford University, Harvard University, Peabody Conservatory and the University of Leeds, etc.

In 2014 she was awarded a DIVA (Danish International Visiting Artists Fellowship), and lived in Copenhagen for two months.

Heather completed her Masters of Music (Orchestral Training) in 2006 at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, studying under Joy Farrall and Laurent Ben Slimane, in addition to conducting with Sian Edwards. Following her degree she completed residencies with the International Ensemble Modern Academy, at IMPULS in Graz and with ensemble recherche in Freiburg, the Darmstadt Summer Courses 2008 and 2010 and the International Ensemble Modern Academy in Innsbruck, Austria. She performed in masterclasses with Michael Collins, Ernesto Molinari and Shizuyo Oka, to name a few. She completed her BMus in 2005 at the University of Victoria, Canada, studying under Patricia Kostek.

Lauryna Sableviciute 

Lauryna Sableviciute is a Lithuanian born pianist who began to give public recitals at a very early age and by the time she was 15 had already accumulated many prizes and honours in various competitions including prestigious national awards from the Czech Republic and Lithuania. 

At the age of 15 she performed Vainiunas' Piano Concerto together with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Lithuania, as well as Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No.1 in B minor together with the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Lithuania in the Philharmonic Hall in Vilnius, which was broadcast on national radio. She toured with Vilnius Quartet as part of Young Talents of Lithuania scheme.

In 1998 Lauryna has graduated from Vilnius Conservatoire and moved to Glasgow, Scotland to work as an accompanist at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. In 2003 she graduated RCS with MMus Performance under prof. Fali Pavri guidance. Since then, Lauryna has given many recitals in the UK and internationally as a piano soloist, a chamber musician and as an accompanist. 

In addition to her interest in works from the Baroque, Classical and Romantic periods, she is passionate about introducing audiences to new works by living composers from around the world-never forgetting to include some pieces by her native Lithuanian composers. She has accumulated many World Premieres and/or UK performances of works by composers such as Ennio Morricone (Italy), Yuri Kasparov (Russia), Eduardo Miranda (Brazil/UK), Graciela Paraskavaidis (Uruguay), Senderovas (Lithuania), Feliksas Bajoras (Lithiania), Alina Savanenkovaite (Lithuania), Stephen Pratt (UK). Stephen Davismoon (UK), Alan Williams (UK), Camden Reeves (UK) and many others.

Besides her passion to perform she strongly believes in the necessity of introducing young people to classical music and is often involved in various BBC or Buxton Outreach projects traveling to the schools in remote areas of the North of England. Lauryna is also a dedicated piano tutor and Staff Pianist working in the institutions such as Royal Northern College of Music, Chetham's Music School and University of Manchester.

Clarinettist
Contrabass clarinet soloist
New music specialist
Composer
Azalea Ensemble Director

Carlos G. Hernández (*1990 in Mexico) is a composer based in Stuttgart, Germany. He studied with Mark Andre, Clemens Gadenstätter, and Martin Schüttler, among others. His works consist mainly of instrumental, multimedia, installative and electronic pieces, which have been performed by ensembles and musicians such as the SWR-Symphonieorchester, Dresdner Philharmonie, Ensemble Ascolta, Séverine Ballon, Nico Couck and Felix Nagl. In his music, he is particularly interested in the relationship between time and sound, and it's resulting expressive qualities, as well as with producing musical forms that combine different styles, genres or disciplines.

Web: www.carlosghernandez.com/
Youtube: youtube.com/carlosghernandezc

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