David Watkin
As Principal Cello in some of the world’s leading ensembles English Baroque Soloists, Orchestre Revolutionnaire et Romantique, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Scottish Chamber Orchestra David Watkin has played a key role at the heart of some ground-breaking performances.

He has made a wide range of solo recordings: of Vivaldi (Hyperion) Beethoven (Chandos) and Francis Pott (Guild), Haydn’s Sinfonia Concertante with OAE (Virgin), Schubert Quintet with the Tokyo Quartet (hmusa). He has been a soloist at Wigmore Hall, Barbican, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, New York and performed the Schumann Concerto with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and ORR at Lincoln Center, New York. As a guest artist he has collaborated with, among others, Robert Levin and Fredericka von Stade.

He has played solo Bach at Bach’s birthplace in Eisenach, at Frederick the Great’s Palace, in the Prague Spring Festival and featured in Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s TV programme “Bach, A Passionate Life”. He has twice been a juror for the Leipzig Bach Competition. David’s recording of Bach’s Cello Suites won both a Gramophone Award and a BBC Music Magazine Award. It was one of three recordings included alongside Casals’ in Gramophone’s list of “The 50 Greatest Bach Recordings”.

As a member of the Eroica Quartet he has performed all over Europe and the US and their recordings of Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Debussy and Ravel have received great acclaim.

He read Music at Cambridge whilst studying the cello with William Pleeth and singing with Kenneth Bowen. He was a Shell/LSO Finalist, received the Bulgin Medal and was Principal cello in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain. Conducting is now a major part of his music making.

He has conducted groups including the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Malta Philharmonic, the Swedish Baroque Orchestra, the Academy of Ancient Music, the Manchester Consort and has been Assistant Conductor at Glyndebourne Festival Opera. He conducted Mahler’s First Symphony with the European Union Youth Orchestra at European Forum Alpbach and completed a cycle of Brahms Symphonies with the Meadows Chamber Orchestra. He has conducted ensembles at the Royal Academy of Music, The Guildhall School of Music, the Royal Welsh College and the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.

Stanislav Vavřínek
born 26 February 1972, in Uherské Hradiště, is a Czech conductor and teacher at the department of conducting at the Faculty of Music of the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in Prague.

Vavřínek first studied flute and conducting at the Brno Conservatory, then he continued his studies at the department of conducting at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in Prague (with Eliška, Vajnar, Štych) and afterward he attended courses by Roberto Benzi in Switzerland.He started his profession in 1994 as the Chief Conductor of the Prague Student Orchestra.Since the beginning of his career he has worked with orchestras including for example the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Brno Philharmonic Orchestra, Prague Philharmonia, Prague Symphony Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic and with exceptional soloists like Ivan Moravec, Igor Ardašev, Eugen Indjic, Gabriela Beňačková, Eva Urbanová, Dagmar Pecková, Ivan Kusnjer, Radek Baborák, Václav Hudeček, Bohuslav Matoušek, Sophia Jaffé, Jiří Bárta, Milan Svoboda etc. He also appeared as a guest conductor in many European countries and Japan and was a guest at many international music festivals (Prague Autumn, Prague Spring etc.).Between 1999 and 2008 he was the Chief Conductor of the Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra of South Bohemia.Since 2008, he has been the Chief Conductor of the Bohuslav Martinů Philharmonic Orchestra and since 2006, a professor at the department of conducting at the Faculty of Music of the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in Prague.