RCS recruits violinist Daniel Pioro to launch new contemporary music collective

The group will consist of four cellists, two violinists, three viola players, and four composers, with the line-up of musicians changing after 12 months. Pioro plans to release a vinyl recording of their music at the end of the year. 

Renowned for being a groundbreaking violinist, Pioro has performed as a soloist with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, the BBC Philharmonic, the London Contemporary Orchestra, and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. He will also perform as part of BBC Radio 3’s upcoming concert series with pianist Simon Smith. 

As an advocate of new and experimental music, Pioro said: ‘This is not just creating a group to play nice music. It’s about so much more. Studio Collective is a group that exists to see how far we can push music, to explore how the music we make can be a work of art in its truest sense, treated with the same awe and preciousness as art in a gallery.’

‘It's collaborating with people from other creative backgrounds, such as dancers and visual artists, and working in responsive and reflective ways to create our own music inspired by original works, in a format that hasn’t been heard before. It’s showing the students that there are no limits, and challenging them to think deeper. They’re the ones who will decide how far to take things.’

The hand-picked students for the 2021 Studio Collective are: 

Cello

Madelyn Kowalski

Rebekah Lesan

Simone Seales

Cameron Smith

Viola

Bernhard Nicolás Ersfeld Mandujano

Teresa Macedo Ferreira

Samuel Omalyev

Violin

Scott Bryant

Maria Turowska

Composers

Siobhan Dyson

Isidor ten Hooven

Sonia Killmann

Darlene Zarabozo

To find out more about Danuel Pioro visit his website. 

For more information on the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, click here. 

www.rcs.ac.uk