MUSICAL GEMS

London Music Club

 

Pianist,Lorna Griffitt, began her performing career at 16 as a soloist with the Louisville Orchestra under the direction of Robert Whitney in a performance of the Grieg Piano Concerto in A Minor. Her teachers include Gyorgy Sebok and Maria Curcio. She received her doctorate with distinction in piano performance from Indiana University under the tutelage of Menahem Pressler. Griffitt enjoys an active career as soloist, chamber musician and pedagogue here in the US and in South America, Europe and the Middle East.

 

Griffitt has enjoyed a long career as a professor of piano, beginning her teaching career in 1974 at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana and, after more than two decades there, joining the music faculty at the University of California, Irvine in 1993.  Griffitt recorded in London a compact disc of solo piano and violin duo works by Clara Schumann, Robert Schumann and Johannes Brahms with violinist Haroutune Bedelian, produced by Michael Ponder and released by Centaur Records in 2022.

Currently during the summers, Griffitt is invited as guest artist to the Orfeo International Music Festival in Vipiteno, Italy and to the Rio International Cello Festival in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil where she teaches, gives master classes and performs in concerto and chamber concerts with various international artists.

 

Haroutune Bedelian is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, where at age 20 he won the first prize in the BBC Violin Competition. His teachers have included Ivan Galamian and Nathan Milstein. He has performed in major cities, festivals and concert halls throughout North and South America, the United Kingdom, Europe and the Middle East and has appeared in numerous radio and television broadcasts. Quotes from reviews of performances in major newspapers: "Alert, subtle artist as well as a superb instrumentalist" New York Times; "The result was a powerful music making, virtuosity going hand in hand with unswerving loyalty to the composer" The Strad Magazine; "Mr. Bedelian has an unforced silvery tone and showed his musicianship in his immaculate phrasing" London Daily Telegraph; "Virtuosity comes to him as second nature, but it is used as a means to the interpretive freedom and sense of style that characterizes his playing above all else" The London Times; "Refined and sensitive musician. Controlled, clean and effortless playing making light of the most formidable difficulties" The London Guardian; "Technical and musical resources of virtuoso class" The Los Angeles Times.

 

David Chew is an English cellist living in Brazil since 1981. His awards include a Latin Grammy nomination, Honorary Citizen (Key to the City) of the state of Rio de Janeiro, an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Hull, and an O.B.E. from Queen Elizabeth II for his work bringing music to underprivileged communities in Brazil.  David Chew recently retired as the principal cellist of the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra and from the University of Rio, where he taught cello and played in the University’s resident string quartet. 

 

Russell Guyver has played viola in orchestras in England, Scotland, Venezuela and the U.S.  For many years he has been a guest artist at The Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival (AK), Gold Coast Chamber Music Festival (CA), and Rio International Cello Encounter (Brazil). Guyver is recently retired from the University of Northern Colorado, where he served as the Director of Orchestras for twenty-five years.
 

The London Music Club Quartet began performing together in Rio de Janeiro almost twenty-five years ago as a part of the Rio International Cello Festival created by David Chew, which celebrated its thirtieth anniversary in August in Brazil. The ensemble takes its name from the London Musical Club (LMC) which was established in London immediately after the 2nd World War as a residence for visiting performing artists. Many celebrated musicians stayed there as they visited the city for concerto appearances or recitals in major venues..

David Chew and Russell Guyver were students at the Guildhall School of Music in 1973 when they first met Haroutune Bedelian at the Cyprus International Music Festival. On returning to London they frequently visited Haroutune at the LMC to read chamber music together. Haroutune Bedelian met his future wife, Lorna Griffitt there in 1977 when she stayed there while studying piano during that summer. David Chew also met his first wife at the LMC.  So it seemed appropriate that a chamber group including these four friends should adopt the moniker ‘London Music Club’.