KNIGHTON AND DISTRICT CONCERT SOCIETY

The Neapolitan pianist Emma Abbate enjoys a demanding career as a piano accompanist and chamber musician. Described as "an amazingly talented pianist" by the leading Italian magazine Musica, she has performed in duo recitals for international festivals and concert societies in Austria, Portugal, Italy, Poland and USA, and at many prestigious UK venues such as the Wigmore Hall, Southbank Centre, Royal Opera House, St John’s Smith Square, St George’s, Bristol and at the Aldeburgh Festival. She also regularly broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and has recently presented an episode of Inside Music.

Emma is making a series of acclaimed recordings devoted to 20th century Italian vocal chamber music, the latest of which is the world-première Franco Alfano: Songs with the leading Italian soprano Anna Pirozzi. Previously, Emma has released Sera d'inverno: Songs by Ildebrando Pizzetti with mezzo-soprano Hanna Hipp, and Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco: Shakespeare Sonnets with bass-baritone Ashley Riches. A keen advocate of contemporary music, Emma has also released two discs devoted to works by Stephen Dodgson that include his piano quintets with the Tippett Quartet. Other world-première recordings include works for cello and piano by Algernon Ashton and Krzysztof Meyer with Evva Mizerska.

Emma also cultivates an active interest in historical keyboards, and has performed and recorded on a range of original instruments for the Finchcocks Charity and at Hatchlands Park and the Russell Collection. Together with Julian Perkins, she has recorded the complete keyboard duets by Mozart and Weber on original Viennese fortepianos. Julian and Emma's latest duet release, entitled Summer Dreams, brings together the complete works for piano duet by three major American composers: Edward MacDowell, Amy Beach and Samuel Barber. Previously, they had released Tournament for Twenty Fingers, featuring piano duets by British composers from the twentieth century: the disc has received 5 star reviews on BBC Music Magazine and has been chosen by Scala Radio as Album of the Weekend.

Based in London, Emma is a regular coach at the Royal Opera House, Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Verbier Festival Academy. She is passionate about inspiring the next generation of singers and collaborative pianists to explore the rich soundscape of 20th-century Italian art song. Emma has been elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of her ‘significant contribution’ thus far to the music profession.

British–Polish violinist Michał Ćwiżewicz has performed across Europe, the Middle East and the USA, with broadcasts on BBC Television and Radio and Polish national television. He appears regularly with the Cwizewicz Brothers violin duo and directs the Ognisko Chamber Ensemble. For ten years he was violinist of the Minerva Piano Trio, recording the acclaimed album Dance!.

A sought-after teacher, Michał is a violin professor at the Royal College of Music and Head of Strings at Uppingham School. Numerous prizes enabled his studies at the Royal College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, the Paris Conservatoire and the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía in Madrid. He also holds a Master’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Imperial College London.

He has performed for HM King Charles III and was presented to Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace’s Young Artists’ Reception.

Alongside classical repertoire, Michał has a longstanding interest in the folk music of Eastern Europe, particularly that of the Carpathian Mountains, which he has played since childhood after learning from the Podhale violinists Eugenius Wilczek and Władysław Trebunia-Tutka.