Slow Life Presents A Flute Quartet At The Olympia

Mozart Flute Quartet in D Major, K 285

M. Van Dijk Commission title TBC

Ingvild Ness, flute

Jeffrey Armstrong, violin

Lynn Rudolph, viola

Nicola McLachlan, cello

Ingvild Ness is a Norwegian flute player that started her classical music performance studies in Oslo at the Norwegian academy of music in 2018 with prof. Tom Ottar Andreassen and Trond Magne Brekka. She later changed to Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien in Hannover to continue her studies with professor Anna Dina Björn-Larsen. Before she started studying, in 2016, she was accepted for the prestigious talent program at Barratt Due Institutt of music, where she from the age of 11 also had attended the only existing primary school in Norway offering a high level of music education.

Ingvild is also an active chamber- and orchestra musician both in Norway and Germany and is frequently doing projects with the bundesjugendballett where they have performed in well known halls as Konzerthaus Berlin and Prinzregenten-Theater in Munich. She has appeared at several festivals as Oslo contemporary music festival, Ultima, in both 2019 and 2020, and Bayers start festival in May 2023.

In 2021 she was appointed first price in the 20th Friedrich Kuhlau International flute competition with Trio Bris. For this season, Ingvild is playing with the Nordwestdeutsche philharmonie as a praktikant.

South African-born violinist Jeffrey Armstrong enjoys a varied lifestyle of solo work, chamber music, and orchestral playing between Germany, the United Kingdom and South Africa. Currently studying towards a soloist’s diploma with Elisabeth Kufferath at the Hochschule for Music, Theatre and Media in Hannover, Jeffrey also studied in the UK for four years at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

During his studies in Birmingham, Jeffrey was awarded numerous prizes, most notably the Principal’s Prize for outstanding contribution to the life of the conservatoire. He also received masterclasses from, among others, Daniel Rowland, Boris Brovtsyn, Jan Repko, Baiba Skride, Olivier Charlier, and Leonidas Kavakos. In 2021, Jeffrey was awarded first prize in the UNISA National Music Competition.

As a soloist, Jeffrey has made several appearances with orchestras around the world to critical acclaim. Notable performances include a performance of Beethoven’s violin concerto with the Kammerorchester Lehrte in Hannover, as well as a recording of the Brahms Concerto with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Daniel Boico. In July, he will perform Brahms Double Concerto alongside long-term chamber music partner Daniel Brandon, performing in Cadogan Hall with the Cranbrook Symphony Orchestra. Jeffrey also looks forward to a performance of Bartok’s first concerto with Ensemble Geräuschkulisse, a German-based orchestra that he regularly directs and performs with.

The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen has recently appointed Jeffrey as an academist, and he has enjoyed gaining experience working closely with artists including Paavo Järvi, Lang Lang, Elisabeth Leonskaja, and Sol Gabetta. Other musical influences throughout his years of study include Eberhard Feltz, Jian Wang, and Jack de Wet.

Chamber music is close to Jeffrey’s heart, and he regularly appears at festivals in Europe, enjoying musical partnerships with musicians such as Lawrence Power, Vilde Frang, Antje Weithaas, Peter Nagy, Simon Crawford-Phillips, and Claudio Borhorquez. At the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival in South Africa, Jeffrey performed alongside musicians including Tatjana Masurenko, Boris Brovtsyn, Marc Bouchkov, Alissa Margulis, Daniel Rowland, Gareth Lubbe and Xandi van Dijk. Jeffrey was a key exponent in founding the Cape Town-based Cape Chamber Music Collective: an organization the puts on around 40 concerts per year and aims to inspire and uplift audiences and musicians alike.

Recently released under the Naxos label, Jeffrey recorded three unpublished duos by York Bowen for violin and viola with Yue Yu.

Petrus Coetzee obtained a BMus in Solo Violin under Louis van der Watt and an MMus in Chamber Music under Suzanne Martens, both at Stellenbosch University. Thereafter, he left to Austria to complete a Masters’ Diploma in Viola under Prof. Klaus Christa at the Vorarlberger Landeskonservatorium, and then to Germany for another MMus with Viola under Prof. Volker Jacobsen and String Quartet under Prof. Oliver Wille at the Hochschule für Musik Theater und Medien in Hanover.

In Hanover Petrus cultivated his love for chamber music, especially string quartet, performing at festivals such as the Heidelberger Frühling, Hitzacker Musiktage and Quartettaffairs in Frankfurt, and taking part in the semi-final round of the August Everding International String Quartett Competition. He completed a two-year orchestral internship at the NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, and became a founding member of the young innovative Ensemble Reflektor, based in Hamburg. He expanded his musical reach into the operatic repertoire while working permanently as Tutti Violist for the Oldenburgisches Staatsorchester from 2015 to 2017. Other orchestras he worked with, include the Bremer Philharmoniker, the Osnabrücker Symphonieorchester, the Philhramonisches Orchester Bremerhaven and the Orchester Im Treppenhaus.

After eight years abroad, Petrus returned to South Africa in 2018 to take up the position of Principal Violist of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO). Petrus made his debut as soloist with the CPO in April 2021 in the orchestra’s Cyber Symphony Series, and again in February 2022 during the CPO’s Summer Symphony Festival. Besides the CPO, he is also a member of the Cape Town Baroque Orchestra, performs regularly with chamber groups such as the newly formed Disa String Trio, with David Bester (violin) and David Pinoit (cello). Petrus is a part-time lecturer for viola at the Stellenbosch University Konservatorium.

Born into a musical family, Nicola McLachlan started the cello at the age of 8. She has won many scholarships and competitions, including first prize at the Schock Chamber Music Competition (2020 and 2021), Gerry Meyer Memorial (UCT) and Fishhoek Bursary competitions, runner up at the UCT Strings Competition 2022, and was selected to compete in the UNISA National String Competition 2021. Along with regularly playing in and leading in the cello sections of many orchestras in SA, the UK, and Germany, she has appeared as a soloist with the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and the University of Cape Town Symphony Orchestra.

Nicola has drawn inspiration from masterclasses with Steven Isserlis, Reinhard Latzko and Leonid Gorokhov, amongst others. Nicola completed her Bachelor of Music with distinction at the University of Cape Town with Graham du Plessis and is currently completing her Masters at the Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien Hannover under the main tutelage of Vashti Hunter in the newly formed ‘Maestri-Masters’ class.

BOOK HERE