Spring time is concert time as we welcome Royal College of Music, “Seion” String Quartet, with international prize winning guest cello soloist Hugo Svedberg to the Broadstone Music Series.

Date: FRIDAY 31st MAY 2024

Time: 7pm

Venue: UNITED REFORMED CHURCH, HIGHER BLANDFORD ROAD, BROADSTONE

Tickets: £12 in advance (small fee applies) link above or £14 on the door.
Interval refreshments will be provided.

We are delighted to welcome the SEION STRING QUARTET this spring, joining us from Royal College of Music London, with young soloist, Hugo Svedburg joining them for solo items.

Two of the “Seion” string quartet members are alumni from our Poole Society for Young Musicians charity and many of our audience will recognise them so we are proud to present their recital.

Programme:

Smetana String Quartet no 1 in E minor

Shostakovich String Quartet no 8 in C minor op 110

Violin 1: Joe McDonald, Violin 2 Sally Aiko – Dando,

Viola: Joe Berry, Cello: Carys Underwood

Find out more about the Seion Quartet below:

Formed in early 2023 the Seion Quartet have enjoyed a variety of different performances and opportunities in the recent months. Some of these include a collaboration with Merton College Oxford, performing repertoire by Felix Mendelssohn, Webern and Mozart. We were also honoured to perform in the RCM’s Super String Sunday held in the Amaryllis Fleming Concert Hall last May. Last term we played in the Broadstone Music Series in Dorset and thoroughly enjoyed a Shostakovich project alongside the Brodsky Quartet at the RCM. Members of the quartet were chosen to collaborate with the Sacconi Quartet in a concert at the RCM and played in the Sacconi Festival in Folkestone earlier last year. The members of the Seion Quartet are Joe MacDonald who studies with Radu Blidar, Sally Aiko Dando who studies with Lyutsia Ibragimova, Joe Berry who studies with Johnathan Barritt and Carys Underwood who studies with Richard Lester. The Seion Quartet have received coaching from world renowned musicians and quartets such as the Maggini, Solem, Sacconi, Brodsky Quartets, Simon Rowland-Jones and Denis Brott. The name ‘Seion’ ties in with Joe MacDonald and Sally’s Japanese connections which can be translated to ‘tone of voice’ or ‘serenity’.

Hugo Svedberg, aged 15, has been studying cello since the age of 6. He has his
grade 8 ABRSM on both cello and piano with Distinction and was Principal
Cello of the National Children’s Orchestra of Great Britain in 2019.
In 2021, Hugo won the Two Moors Festival Competition and he was a gold
winner in the London Young Musician Competition. He also won the
Bournemouth Symphony ‘Young Musician of the Year Award.
In 2023, he won the Bromsgrove Young Musicians Senior Platform. He was
the second prize winner in the Haslemere International String Competition
and was awarded their Most Promising Young Musician Prize.
In January 2024 Hugo was awarded the 1st prize in ‘Pole Star Prize’ for
Swedish Young Musicians, and performed Schumann Concerto as soloist
with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra in the final. Following his win, he
will represent Sweden competing in EBU, the ‘Eurovision Young Musicians’
in Norway in August 2024.
Hugo had the opportunity to perform the Haydn C major cello concerto with
the Dorset Chamber Orchestra in 2022. In 2023, he performed Tchaikovsky’s
Rococo Variations with The Norddeutsche Philharmonie Rostock at the
Festspiele Mecklenburg Vorpommern.
Upcoming solo concertos included performances with the Boras Symphony
Orchestra and the Lundbysymfornikerna, Sweden.
In 2022 Hugo performed as a member of the National Youth Orchestra of
Great Britain at the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms.
He has taken part in masterclasses with teachers including Johannes Moser,
Natalie Klein and Adrian Brendel.
Hugo is an academic and music scholar at Canford School in Dorset, where
he studies cello with Philippa Stevens and piano with
Bela Hartmann. Hugo has twice won the Dorset Chess Championship for his
age group and he has represented Dorset County in tennis. The sharp-eyed, longstanding supporters of our student musicians may well recall his face from many past years with us too.