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The Callino Quartet :
Helena Winkelman • Tom Hankey • Rebecca Jones • Sarah McMahon
Since its formation at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival in 1999 the Callino Quartet has been impressing international audiences and critics alike with their bold, imaginative and sensitive performances. They have cultivated a challenging and eclectic repertoire, performing and collaborating with many diverse musicians including the Belcea string quartet, double bassist Edgar Meyer, pianist Barry Douglas, singer Patricia Rozario, rock band Arcade Fire, Bell Orchestre and jazz musicians John Abercrombie and Sophie Dunér. They are passionately committed to contemporary music and have worked with composers Edgar Meyer, Peteris Vasks, Aleksandra Vrebalov, Alexander Knaifel, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Ian Wilson, Raymond Deane, Ronan Guilfoyle and Ben Dwyer closely on their works for string quartet. The quartet’s first commercially successful CD of the complete quartets by Ian Wilson was followed by a recent Louth Contemporary Music Society recording of music by Arvo Pärt, Valentin Silvestrov, John Tavener and Alexander Knaifel.
Winners of several international prizes and distinctions, including second prize in the 2008 Tromp International String Quartet in the Netherlands, the quartet studied intensively with Rainer Schmidt (Hagen Quartet) in 2008 at the Musik Akademie in Basel, Switzerland. The quartet were also invited to Italy to work with the distinguished Hungarian composer and pedagogue Gyorgy Kurtàg.
In February 2010 they were a resident quartet at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada and gave their Carnegie Hall début in March, at the invitation of the Kronos Quartet. They gave the premiere of a new quartet by Kevin Volans in March 2013 which was commissioned with the support of the Arts Council of Ireland. Their recent release of Haydn’s Seven Last Words on the Coro label has met with critical acclaim.
The Callino Quartet take their name from the Irish air ” Cailin cois tSuir a me” which means Girl by the River Suir. This song was the first Irish air to be notated in the late 16th century and became known as the Callino manuscript. It is now on display in Trinity College library, Dublin.
The Quartet is very grateful to John Whibley for his sponsorship and continued support.
Holidays with Music (www.whibley.co.uk)
Violinist and composer Helena Winkelman has been a member of the Callino Quartet since 2017. She is one of the most appraised and distinct musical voices of her country of origin, Switzerland. Composing and performing are of equal importance to her. As a charismatic player, she establishes a very direct connection to her audience and the promotion of fascinating new repertoire is one of her primary interests.
After winning the Pro Musicis Award in 2001 she gave her debut at Weill recital hall, New York and Salle Cortot, Paris. In 2008 she spent a year in London on a scholarship by Landis & Gyr and in 2012 she received a bursary to work for half a year in Berlin.
As well as taking part in the Musique@Marsac festival in France and the Bastad festival in Sweden, she has also performed at the Lucerne, Gstaad and Davos Music Festivals in Switzerland. For 20 years she has been a participant of IMS open chamber music festival in Prussia Cove. Being a true aficionado of intimate chamber music settings, she and her mixed group, the Camerata Variabile Basel have created their own concert series that often bridges music with social or philosophical themes.
In 2016 she was awarded the Georg Fisher prize of her native town Schaffhausen and in 2017 was the recipient of the Swiss music award.
Her music is performed around the world and is a clever and open fusion of contemporary sounds with rock music, Swiss folk music and Asian traditions.
Today she has written for almost every musical formation from choir works to orchestral and chamber music. Her music has been performed by the Arditti Quartet, the Basle Chamber Orchestra, the ASKOL/Schönberg ensemble Amsterdam, the Munich Chamber Orchestra, the Asian Art Ensemble, Ensemble Phoenix, Ensemble Musikfabrik and soloists like Nicolas Altstaedt, Thomas and Patrick Demenga, Hansheinz Schneeberger, Pekka Kuusiisto, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Simon Höfele, Steamboat Switzerland and others.
She was composer in residence at the Lockenhaus and Ernen festivals.
Besides her teachers Roland Moser and Georg Friedrich Haas, her major musical influences were composers György Kurtag and George Benjamin, percussionist Pierre Favre, violinist Gidon Kremer and conductor Claudio Abbado with whom she worked in the Lucerne Festival Orchestra for 5 years.
Tom Hankey studied the violin with David Takeno, Krzyzstof Smietana, Levon Chilingirian and Yossi Zivoni. As a chamber musician he has performed at major concert halls and festivals in Europe and Canada, and won prizes including the 2006 Royal Over-Seas League ensemble prize. He was a BBC Radio Three New Generation Artist with the Aronowitz Ensemble.
He is a member of the Na Mara Ensemble which specializes in the repertoire for string trio and piano quartet. The group regularly tours in Scotland and often collaborates with violinist/fiddler Donald Grant in mixed programmes of classical and folk music. He is also a member of the Kreisler Ensemble and the Sounds Underground Ensemble, both of which are committed to the performance of contemporary music.
As a soloist he has performed concertos by Prokofiev, Mendelssohn, Bruch, Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi. Tom has worked with the Britten Sinfonia, English Chamber Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Northern Sinfonia, and as leader of Opera East, Iford Opera, and the Southbank Sinfonia.
Rebecca Jones completed her studies at the Universität Mozarteum in Salzburg in September 2005 where she was a pupil of Thomas Riebl. While a student there, she was invited to perform the Balcom concerto for viola and cello with the Universität Mozarteum Orchestra under Dennis Russell Davies. This performance, part of Salzburg’s ‘Mozartwoche’, was broadcast on Austrian national radio.
In addition, Rebecca has been successful in national and international competitions including 4th prize in the Lionel Tertis International Viola Competition, 2nd prize in the Texaco Young Musician of Wales, the Bernard Shore Scholarship for viola (part of the Royal Overseas League Competition), the Trevor Snode Memorial Prize (from the Martin Musical Scholarship fund) and 2nd prize in the NYOS Staffa competition. She also received a ‘star award’ from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and plays with a Pfretzschner bow bought by the Myra Hess Trust.
As well as being a keen chamber musician, Rebecca has been a guest principal with many orchestras, including Camerata Salzburg, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia and Camerata Ireland.
Sarah McMahon is a passionate chamber musician. As a founder member of the Callino String Quartet, Sarah spent many years studying with members of the Amadeus Quartet, Rainer Schmidt, Erich Höbarth and Gyorgy Kurtàg. The Quartet has toured widely, commissioning numerous compositions, and collaborating with diverse artists such as Ailish Tynan, Edgar Meyer, Arvo Pärt, Barry Guy, John Abercrombie and the Kronos Quartet. Their recent recording for Coro of The Seven Last Words by Haydn has met with critical acclaim. Their recent collaboration with Canadian filmmaker Kaveh Nabatian, performing a live score of this work, was premiered at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam in 2019 and will be touring internationally at festivals in Montreal, Buenos Aires, Bilbao, Kerala, Edinburgh and Moscow.
Aside from the Quartet, Sarah enjoys a busy career playing principal cello with the Academy of Ancient Music, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Marsyas and Camerata Kilkenny. She has often appeared as soloist with these ensembles, collaborating with Monica Huggett, Peter Whelan and Richard Egarr amongst others. She is also regularly invited to play as guest principal cello with Florilegium, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Arcangelo, The English Concert, Dunedin Consort, The Sixteen, Aurora Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra.
Sarah is a dedicated teacher and is on the faculty of the Berwick Academy, teaching historical cello and chamber music at the Oregon Bach Festival. Sarah gratefully acknowledges the support of the Arts Council of Ireland through their Capital Awards Scheme.