Elizabeth Cooney
Violin
Elizabeth has been described by Tully Potter of the Strad magazine as ‘a talent to watch’, by Martin Lovett of the Amadeus Quartet as ‘exceptionally musical’ and credited for her ‘remarkable virtuosity’ by Ian Fox for the Sunday Tribune.
She has performed as soloist with a number of orchestras including the Slovenian Philharmonic, the Musica Vitae Chamber Orchestra of Sweden, the Liszt Chamber Orchestra of Hungary to name but a few and is a regular soloist with the RTE National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland as well as the Ulster Orchestra.
She has collaborated with conductors Alexander Anissimov, Vladimir Altschuler, Paavo Jarvi, Shlomo Mintz, Laurent Wagner, Howard Shelley among others.
Selected as the National Concert Hall Ireland’s ‘Rising Star’ 2006, Elizabeth has played with many distinguished partners at the Wigmore Hall, the Royal Festival Hall,London, the Victoria Hall, Geneva, the Weill Hall at Carnegie, New York and festivals including Brighton Festival, West Cork Chamber Music Festival and most recently Cristina Ortiz’ festival in Bordeaux, France.
Elizabeth performs a very wide spectrum of repertoire spanning from the baroque era to contemporary composers of today. She studied at the Royal College of Music, London with Itzhak Rashkovsky following her studies with Adrian Petcu in Cork, Ireland.
She has been awarded many prizes including second prize and audience prize at the Sion-Valais International Competition for Violin in Switzerland as well as awards from the Martin Musical Fund (RFH debut recital), Maisie Lewis Trust (Wigmore Hall recital), the Royal Overseas League, the Seymour Whinyates Prize for Strings and the Ian Stoutzker Prize for Violin at the RCM, London. She was subsequently a Junior Fellow at the RCM for two years.
Elizabeth is passionate about chamber music and in summer of 09 she did a tour of Japan and last year her piano trio, the Syrius Trio performed at the Musica Nova Contemporary Music Festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
In 2010 there will be two CD releases, firstly a recording for Toccata Classics of the music of Salomon Jadassohn with the Syrius Trio and secondly, a recording of a recital disc featuring Elizabeth and duo partner Redmond O’Toole on Brahms guitar.
In the past year she has given the following premiers
- 5 Pieces for Violin and Piano by Valentyn Silvestrov
- String trio by Alexander Knaifel (collaborations with the Louth Contemporary Music Society)
- A piano trio by Czech composer Adam Skoumal.
Elizabeth is due to perform John Tavener’s Maya Atma with Patricia Rozario, soprano in King’s Place, London in 2010 and also on a tour around Britain in the autumn.
She will also perform a French American programme with Finghin Collins, piano and give concerts with Sally Pryce, harp.
She has performed chamber music with John O’Conor, Barry Douglas, Cristina Ortiz, Fionnula Hunt, Andrea Raubadengo, Mei Yi Foo, Siu Chui Li, Richard Harwood among many others.
She performs on a violin by Matteo Goffriller, Venice, 1700.