Ashley Wass piano, Maya Broman Crawford-Phillips violin, Clara Wernig violin, Ignacy Stefanowicz viola, Azamat Mukhtaruly cello
£30 (£10 students and under 25s)
Book Online
Korngold Suite for piano left hand, 2 violins and cello, Op. 23
Schumann/Kirchner Six Etudes in canonic form, Op. 56
Schumann Piano Quintet in E flat major, Op. 44
Ashley Wass piano, Maya Broman Crawford-Phillips violin, Clara Wernig violin, Ignacy Stefanowicz viola, Azamat Mukhtaruly cello
Maya Broman Crawford-Phillips is a Swedish/British violinist studying at the Norwegian Academy of Music with Peter Herresthal. Previous teachers include Akiko Ono and Boris Brovtsyn at the Yehudi Menuhin School. Maya has also benefitted greatly from lessons with David Takeno and Vilde Frang. She has appeared with orchestras such as the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Västerås Sinfonietta, Oxford Symphony Orchestra and the North London Symphony Orchestra. As a part of her participation in Voksenåsen’s Talent Programme she has performed at several festivals across Scandinavia, including the Baltic Sea Festival in Stockholm, Oslo Chamber Music Festival (in which she performed Vivaldi’s Triple Concerto with Elbjørg Hemsing) and recitals at International Bergen Festival. Maya is an avid chamber musician and has collaborated with artists such as Lawrence Power, Priya Mitchell, Hugo Ticcciati, Johan Dalene, Gareth Lubbe, Julian Arp, William Coleman and the Sacconi Quartet performing in venues such as Wigmore Hall and Kings Place. Maya plays a 1690 Matteo Goffriller violin on generous loan from the Aidan Woodcock Charitable Trust.
Born and raised in London with Italian, Austrian, and German roots, 19-year-old violinist Clara-Sophia Wernig comes from a musical background and began violin lessons at the age of four. She was awarded a place at the Yehudi Menuhin School at age 10, where she studied with Professors Natasha Boyarsky and Lutsia Ibragimova, before completing her final two years with Professor Boris Brovtsyn. She is currently an undergraduate student at the Royal College of Music, studying with Professor Lutsia Ibragimova. In 2022, she was among the five string finalists of the BBC Young Musician competition. Clara-Sophia has performed in venues including Kings Place Hall as well as giving recitals at the Austrian Cultural Institute and Embassy, the Garrick Club and Steinway & Sons Hall in Milan. She has participated in masterclasses with distinguished musicians such as Pavel Vernikov, Maxim Rysanov and Mihaela Martin. Chamber music is particularly close to her heart, and she has collaborated with artists including Ashley Wass, Robert Levin, Kathryn Stott, and music producer Andrew Keener. She is a member of Trio Rossetti, with whom she won First Prize at the Cavatina Intercollegiate Chamber Music Competition at Wigmore Hall in May 2026.
Ignacy Stefanowicz is an accomplished Polish violinist who graduated from the Yehudi Menuhin School where he studied with Ning Kam. He now studies at the prestigious Royal Academy of Music where he is completing his Bachelor of Music with his teacher and mentor So-ock Kim. He has given performances in UK’s most renowned venues including the Barbican Hall, Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, King’s Place and 1901 Arts Club.
Azamat Mukhtaruly began playing the cello at the age of six, under Professor Akmaral Emreeva in his hometown Almaty, Kazakhstan. Within just one year of starting the cello, Azamat made his public debut and was awarded first prize in the Second International Cello Competition in Orsk, Russia, paving the way for his growing cello career. In 2022 he was offered a full scholarship and place at the prestigious Yehudi Menuhin School, London. He is currently studying at the Maastricht Conservatory under the guidance of Professor Alexander Chaushian. Azamat was awarded 1st prize in the International competition “Zhubanova”, 2nd prize in the International Cello competition ProArt 2017, Khmelnitsky, Ukraine; 2nd prize in ICF International Classical Bridge 2021, Ukraine; 2nd prize in the VII Russian Open Competition of Young String Musicians West-Siberia-East named after Yu.M.Kramarova, 2018, Novosibirsk, Russia. He was also a participate in the acclaimed X International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians in 2017. Chamber music is also something Azamat is extremely passionate about and has thus given him the opportunity to collaborate with artists such as Ashley Wass, Dinara Klinton and Natalia Lomeiko, as well as giving him the possibility to perform in venues such as the esteemed Kings Place Hall in London, Grange Park Opera and the Razumovsky Academy. Azamat took part in masterclasses with V. Lyudmila Kruzhkova, V. Kirill Rodin, Denis Severin, Atanas Krastev, Oleg Kogan, Raphael Pidoux, A.A. Dzhulmukhammedova and Eldar Saparayev and Marc Coppey.
Described as an ‘endlessly fascinating artist’, Ashley Wass’s musical career is one of unusual creativity and variety. Alongside his work as soloist and chamber musician, he is co-founder of Mash Productions, was Artistic Director of the Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival for eleven years, has devoted over 15 years to music education, and is currently the Director of Music at the Yehudi Menuhin School. The diverse list of people and organisations with whom he has collaborated include film festivals, art galleries and animators, children’s television presenters and stars of the stage and screen, illustrators, literary festivals and renowned authors, and mime artists and comedians.
Ashley began playing the piano at the age of five, and studied music at Chetham’s School of Music from age 11. In his teens he studied on a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music, where his teachers included Christopher Elton, Maria Curcio and Hamish Milne.
His watershed moment came in 1997 when he won the London International Piano Competition (the only British winner this far), a success that led to a recording contract with Naxos, making him the first solo artist to obtain an exclusive deal with the label. His debut recording was a highly praised CD of César Franck piano music, released in 1999. He was also a prizewinner at the Leeds Piano Competition, and is a former BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist.
Ashley has performed at many of the world’s finest concert halls, including the Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and the Vienna Konzerthaus. He has performed regularly as soloist with all of the BBC orchestras, the Philharmonia, Orchestre National de Lille, Vienna Chamber Orchestra, Slovak Philharmonic, Hong Kong Philharmonic, RLPO, and Bournemouth Symphony under the baton of conductors such as Simon Rattle, Osmo Vanska, Donald Runnicles, Ilan Volkov and Vassily Sinaisky. He appeared alongside the likes of Sir Thomas Allen, Mstislav Rostropovich and Angela Gheorghiu in a gala concert at Buckingham Palace to mark the Golden Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, a performance broadcast live to millions of viewers around the world. He made his BBC Proms debut in 2008 with Vaughan Williams’ Piano Concerto, and returned in following seasons to perform works by Foulds, Stravinsky, Antheil, and McCabe. Recent highlights have included a debut at the Melbourne Recital Centre, acclaimed performances with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and BBC NOW, and a tour to South America, as well as an extensive solo recital tour with a programme of music inspired by Shakespeare.
Renowned for a broad and eclectic repertoire, Ashley has received great critical acclaim for his recordings of music from a wide range of styles and eras, with glowing reviews of his interpretations of composers such as Liszt, Franck, Beethoven, and Bridge. His survey of Bax’s piano music was nominated for a Gramophone Award and his discography boasts a number of Gramophone ‘Editor’s Choice’ recordings and BBC Music Magazine ‘Choices’.
Much in demand as a chamber musician, Ashley is a frequent guest of international festivals such as Pharos (Cyprus), Bath, Ako (Japan), Cheltenham, Kuhmo, Mecklenburg, Gstaad, City of London, and Ravinia and Marlboro in the USA, playing solo recitals and chamber works with musicians such as Mitsuko Uchida, Sarah Chang, Steven Isserlis, Emmanuel Pahud, Maxim Rysanov, Richard Goode and members of the Guarneri Quartet and Beaux Arts Trio. He is also a co-founder of Trio Apaches, alongside the violinist Matthew Trusler and the cellist Thomas Carroll. The group has broadcast frequently on BBC Radio 3, including Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with the BBC NOW, and is renowned for its imaginative programming and engaging stage presence.
A long-standing collaboration with Matthew Trusler has been particularly rewarding and in 2016 they co-founded Mash Productions, a production company that is focused on realising innovative and ambitious projects. Together they have commissioned over a dozen new works from some of the world’s leading composers, produced a series of musical plays, worked with illustrators and animators to create a number of short films set to music, collaborated with Carl Davis and the Chaplin Foundation on a show about the life and music of Charlie Chaplin, and curated a number of mini-festivals for leading arts organisations around the UK. Their acclaimed series for children – Musical Myths – which combines their own specially written scripts with great pieces of classical music has been toured and performed to thousands of children by orchestras around the UK and Europe, including the Bournemouth Symphony, Opera North, Southbank Sinfonia and the Lahti and Latvian Symphony orchestras.
Ashley Wass was the Artistic Director of the Lincolnshire International Chamber Music Festival from 2007-2018 and helped develop the festival into one the UK’s leading events of its type, with with sold-out performances of challenging and diverse repertoire, and regular broadcasts on BBC Radio 3.
Music education is a central focus of Ashley’s professional life. He was Professor of Piano at the Royal College of Music from 2008-2018, Deputy Head of Keyboard Studies at the Royal Northern College of Music from 2018-2020, and is currently the Director of Music of both the Yehudi Menuhin School in the UK and its sister school in Qingdao.