BMus Hons, MA Dist., DipRAM, LRAM

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British violinist Madeleine Pickering loves to use her performances as a way to bless people with music. Her playing reveals her delight in the rich depth and aching sweetness of the violin, and her passion is to use this versatile instrument to offer audiences experiences of imagination and reflection.

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In 2021 Madeleine was made a Philip and Dorothy Green Young Artist for Making Music UK. She has given recitals at concert series across the UK and performed many of the major violin and viola concertos. She was recipient of the Len Lickorish Memorial Prize in the strings category of the Royal Overseas League Annual Music Competition 2022, and has been a member of the Musicians’ Company Young Artist Programme since 2019 when she received the Biddy Baxter and John Hosier Music Trust Special Award. As a student of the Royal Academy of Music in London she won all the major prizes for her instruments including the Theodore Holland Viola Prize, the Winifred Small Prize for Solo Violin and the Martin/Hooton Violin Concerto Prize. In 2023 she was selected to perform Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in the Historische Stadthalle Wuppertal as winner of the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Köln’s concerto prize.

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Currently, Madeleine bases herself between Germany and the UK while completing her studies in the Konzertexamen programme in the class of Prof. Michael Foyle at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz, Köln. Previously, she was a scholar at the Royal Academy of Music in London where she studied under professors Maureen Smith (violin), Garfield Jackson and Martin Outram (viola).

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Alongside her studies and solo performing Madeleine loves working with other musicians in a variety of settings. She won a place on the LSO String Experience scheme as an undergraduate and has since worked regularly with them as a freelancer, as well as with other orchestras including the Britten Sinfonia, Fantasia Orchestra, and Lawrence Power’s Collegium. She has worked with the Salome String Quartet on occasions as a deputy second violinist/violist, and from 2020-2023 she was co-artistic director and leader/1st violinist of Seida Ensemble, an exciting young unconducted string orchestra formed of musicians from London and Europe. In the past she has worked as an assistant teacher and chamber music coach at the Primary and Junior departments of the Royal Academy of Music, where she spent her Saturdays as a young musician.

 

Madeleine is grateful to play a violin by Giovanni Pistucci of Naples, dating from c.1920, generously loaned to her by the Harrison-Frank Foundation in association with J&A Beare.