Ruth Palmer is a British violinist.

Career

* She graduated from the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is one of the oldest music schools in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the firs ...

in 2000 with 1st class honours, the 'Roth Prize' for best violin final recital and the 'Lesley Alexander Award' for excellence. She won a Hattori Foundation Junior Award in 1999/2000 * She went on to study at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music (RCM) is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including pe ...

under Dr. Felix Andrievsky, who had been present at the first performance of Shostakovich's 1st Violin Concerto. In 2005 Ruth was made the first ever recipient of the prestigious Ritterman Junior Fellowship at the RCM, having previously been the Mills Williams Junior Fellow in 2004. In 2004 she gave the world première of ''Irony of Fate'', a ballet for one female dancer with solo violinist on-stage created by Rafael Bonachela,

Ballet Rambert Rambert (known as Rambert Dance Company before 2014) is a leading British dance company. Formed at the start of the 20th century as a classical ballet company, it exerted a great deal of influence on the development of dance in the United Kingd ...

's Associate Choreographer for the Madrid International Day of Dance 2004, using the solo violin partita of

Vytautas Barkauskas Vytautas Barkauskas (25 March 1931 – 25 April 2020) was a Lithuanian composer and Professor of Composition of the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Life and career Barkauskas was born in Kaunas. He studied music at the Vilnius Con ...

. She debuted at

Wigmore Hall The Wigmore Hall is a concert hall at 36 Wigmore Street, in west London. It was designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt and opened in 1901 as the Bechstein Hall; it is considered to have particularly good building acoustics, acoustics. It specialis ...

In London, and she has given recitals at the

Ravinia Festival Ravinia Festival is a primarily outdoor music venue in Highland Park, Illinois. It hosts a series of outdoor concerts and performances every summer from June to September in a wide variety of musical genres from classical to pop. The first orche ...

in Chicago,

Royal Opera House The Royal Opera House (ROH) is a theatre in Covent Garden, central London. The building is often referred to as simply Covent Garden, after a previous use of the site. The ROH is the main home of The Royal Opera, The Royal Ballet, and the Orch ...

Edinburgh Festival __NOTOC__ This is a list of Arts festival, arts and cultural festivals regularly taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland. The city has become known for its festivals since the establishment in 1947 of the Edinburgh International Festival and the ...

, Cheltenham International Festival of Music,

Queen Elizabeth Hall The Queen Elizabeth Hall (QEH) is a music venue on the South Bank in London, England, that hosts European classical music, classical, jazz, and avant-garde music, talks and dance performances. It was opened in 1967, with a concert conducted by ...

Purcell Room The Purcell Room is a concert and performance venue which forms part of the Southbank Centre, one of central London's leading cultural complexes. It is named after the 17th century English composer Henry Purcell and has 370 seats. The Purcell Ro ...

, Teatro Albeniz Madrid, Munich Opera House Gala and

Snape Maltings Britten Pears Arts is a large music education organisation based in Suffolk, England. It aims to continue the legacy of composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, singer Peter Pears, and to promote the enjoyment and experience of music for all ...

First Shostakovich CD and DVD

In 2006, her début CD "Shostakovich Violin Concerto No 1 & Violin Sonata" was released, with the

Philharmonia Orchestra The Philharmonia Orchestra is a British orchestra based in London. It was founded in 1945 by Walter Legge, a classical music record producer for EMI Classics, EMI. Among the conductors who worked with the orchestra in its early years were Rich ...

conducted by Ben Wallfisch, and recorded on the "Turkish"

Guarneri Del Gesu Bartolomeo Giuseppe "del Gesù" Guarneri (, , ; 21 August 1698 – 17 October 1744) was an Italian luthier from the Guarneri family of Cremona. He rivals Antonio Stradivari (1644–1737) with regard to the respect and reverence accorded his inst ...

(1737) loaned to her by Charles Beare. The

BBC The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...

had commissioned a documentary about her preparation for this called ''A People's Music'' and a DVD version of this is included with the CD. This was rated 5-stars by the

Independent on Sunday ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publishe ...

, and 4-stars by ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' and

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

. The review in ''International Record Review'' described her performance of the Concerto as "a performance which has astounded me...it a truly magnificent account" and on the Sonata commented "although two recordings exist of

David Oistrakh David Fyodorovich Oistrakh (; – 24 October 1974) was a Soviet Russian violinist, List of violists, violist, and Conducting, conductor. He was also Professor at the Moscow Conservatory, People's Artist of the USSR (1953), and Laureate of the ...

playing this work (with

Sviatoslav Richter Sviatoslav Teofilovich Richter ( – August 1, 1997) was a Soviet and Russian classical pianist. He is regarded as one of the greatest pianists of all time,Great Pianists of the 20th Century and has been praised for the "depth of his interpreta ...

and with

Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded ...

himself – the last recorded in the composer's apartment), Palmer's recording is the finest all-round I have experienced – indeed, her intellectual understanding of this extremely difficult work is wholly exceptional, and her musical acuity is admirable". It was selected as Orchestral Disk of the Month in ''Classic FM Review'' who gave it 5 stars and declared "for my money, this is the Shostakovich centenary's most outstanding release" She was profiled by Norman Lebrecht in the

Evening Standard The ''London Standard'', formerly the ''Evening Standard'' (1904–2024) and originally ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), is a long-established regional newspaper published weekly and distributed free newspaper, free of charge in London, Engl ...

in Feb 2007 who commented that of the seven new releases of the concerto during 2006 Palmer's "got the best reviews. At fifth hearing, months later, it unfolds further layers of expressive depth. Her pacing is compelling from the opening phrase, and each stylistic option, every whisper and flutter, has the kind of logic that makes you wonder how the piece could ever have been played otherwise. It is both gravely authoritative and unmistakably personal."

Subsequent work

She also performed Vivaldi's ''The Four Seasons'' at Kenwood House for Classic FM Live. In 2007 she performed the Brahms violin concerto and the Elgar Violin Concerto and gave her 3rd

recital on 14 May as well as performing on Radio 3. In October 2007 she gave the world premiere of the "Durham Concerto" by

Jon Lord John Douglas "Jon" Lord (9 June 194116 July 2012) was an English keyboardist and composer. In 1968, Lord co-founded the hard rock band Deep Purple. Lord performed on most of the band's most popular songs; he and drummer Ian Paice were the only ...

Durham Cathedral Durham Cathedral, formally the , is a Church of England cathedral in the city of Durham, England. The cathedral is the seat of the bishop of Durham and is the Mother Church#Cathedral, mother church of the diocese of Durham. It also contains the ...

with the

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Royal Liverpool Philharmonic is a music organisation based in Liverpool, England, that manages a professional symphony orchestra, a concert venue, and extensive programmes of learning through music. Its orchestra, the Royal Liverpool Philharmo ...

International recognition

On 23 February 2007, Palmer made a guest appearance (reported in the UK, Continental Europe, Asia, America and elsewhere) during a press conference at

Christie's Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...

to play the 1729

Stradivarius A Stradivarius is one of the string instruments, such as violins, violas, cellos, and guitars, crafted by members of the Stradivari family, particularly Antonio Stradivari (Latin: Antonius Stradivarius), in Cremona, Italy, during the late 17th ...

violin Solomon, ex-Lambert which was auctioned in New York on 2 April for $2.7M compared to the estimated $1–1.5M. Palmer was nominated for a classical BRIT Award for her Shostakovich recording in the "Young British Classical Performer" category along with Nicky Spence and

Nicola Benedetti Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti (born 20 July 1987) is a Scottish classical solo violinist and festival director. Her ability was recognised when she was a child, including the award of BBC Young Musician of the Year when she was 16. She works wi ...

. She was invited to perform at the launch of the awards, described as "exceptional violinist Ruth Palmer" and her presence was reported around the world. The co-Chair of the Awards Committee said of her "she experienced the typical struggle to be heard. But she took many courageous and unusual steps... Her persistence and artistic accomplishment have clearly paid off!" She won the award on 3 May 2007 at a ceremony in the

Royal Albert Hall The Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall on the northern edge of South Kensington, London, England. It has a seating capacity of 5,272. Since the hall's opening by Queen Victoria in 1871, the world's leading artists from many performance genres ...

. She performed the Bartók Solo Sonata at the Crossing Border Festival, Royal Theatre,

The Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

, in 2007 and the World Premiere of the Sinatra Suite by

Gwilym Simcock Gwilym Simcock (born 24 February 1981) is a Welsh pianist and composer working in both jazz and classical music. He was chosen as one of the 1000 Most Influential People in London by the ''Evening Standard'' in 2009. He was featured on the fr ...

at the

World Economic Forum The World Economic Forum (WEF) is an international non-governmental organization, international advocacy non-governmental organization and think tank, based in Cologny, Canton of Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded on 24 January 1971 by German ...

2008

Notes and references

Relevant links

*
Ballet Rambert

Irony of Fate

* Profile in ''

'' The DIY violinist 3 May 2007 * Profile in ''

'' Violinist who made own album is rewarded with Classic BRITs win 4 May 2007 {{DEFAULTSORT:Palmer, Ruth Living people English classical violinists Alumni of the Royal Academy of Music Alumni of the Royal College of Music Brit Award winners 21st-century British classical violinists Year of birth missing (living people) British women classical violinists