Born: Feb. 28 in Zug, Switzerland

Background

I grew up in Switzerland until the age of eleven when my family moved to Bournemouth, England. I started playing the violin at the age of six and continued through school. After that, I went on to study at Trinity College of Music, where I gained a Bmus Performance degree. I've played in a lot of youth orchestras and this gave me a lot of enthusiasm for carrying on the violin through my teens and, also, a lot of memorable tours. I've traveled a lot on my own as wellŠmost memorably, a month in a camper van around Europe visiting Egypt and La Palma, one of the Canary Islands off North Africa. I love good food and cooking as well, so traveling around lets me taste new foods and gather ideasŠ.although being a veggie, it's a bit limited sometimes!

 
Influences

My major influences have been my last two teachers, Rosemary Fraser and my teacher at college, Nona Liddell. I also studied jazz violin at college with Aidan Massey ­ thanks for all the advice! Thanks also to Dean for all the motivation and enthusiasm. I listen to all sorts of music: classical, jazz and dance music as well as world music. I've started listening to contemporary classical music in the last few years as well. Violinists that I particularly love to listen to are Heifetz, Grumiaux and Anne Sophie Mutter and since I've been studying jazz violin, I've listed to Joe Venuti, Stuff Smith, Jean-Luc Ponti and, of course, Stephane Grapelli.