Aldwych Sinfonia
The Aldwych Sinfonia is one of the very few unconducted orchestras in the world. Please see below to find out more about our players.
Thomas Aldren - Leader and Director
Thomas studies the violin with Mateja Marinkovic at the Royal Academy of Music. Over the past four years, he has been making the most of the musical life in London, both playing in and attending concerts most weeks. In particular, he has enjoyed appearing as director and soloist with various ensembles, such as Aldwych Sinfonia and King’s Baroque. Concerto performances of this nature have included Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante, Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, and the Bach Brandenburg Concertos, and he has directed a very wide range of repertoire from Corelli to Bartok.
During the 2012-13 season he also led the University of London Symphony Orchestra and performed the Sibelius Violin Concerto three times, as well as Saint-Saens’ Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso. He was winner of the Kenneth Page Foundation Competition in 2013.
Thomas is also an active chamber musician performing a great deal of repertoire over the past years, including the Clarinet Quintets by Mozart, Brahms and Howells and Stravinksy’s L’Histoire du Soldat.
Prior to coming to King’s, Thomas attended the Royal Academy of Music Junior Department, where he led the Symphony Orchestra, and was the winner of the Senior Violin Prize. He was also a member of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and led the orchestra in 2011. He currently holds a scholarship for postgraduate study at the Royal Academy of Music and is enjoying many solo performances within the institution. Thomas plays on a violin by Antonio Gragnani made in Livorno, 1779.
Eleanor Corr - Leader and DIrector
Eleanor has been a full scholar at the Royal Academy of Music since age 17, studying with Clio Gould. Eleanor holds the Albert and Eugenie Frost Music Trust Award, Leverhulme Undergraduate Award, Foundation Award and Poulett Scholarship. She has enjoyed masterclasses from eminent teachers including Thomas Brandis and Maxim Vengerov. Prior to her studies at RAM, Eleanor was a scholar at Wells Cathedral School from the age of nine.
As a soloist, Eleanor has performed concertos by Bruch, Mendelssohn, Corelli, Vivaldi, Dvorak, Kabalevsky, Mozart, Shostakovich and Bach. Eleanor's piano trio, winners of the Harry Isaacs Prize 2012, recently performed for the Schubert Society of Great Britain. The trio was also nominated to compete in the RAM Club Prize in June 2013. Eleanor is currently the first violinist of the Delmege Quartet which includes graduates from both the Royal Academy of Music and the Royal College of Music.
Eleanor has led the University of London Symphony Orchestra and the Royal Academy of Music String Orchestra as well as being a member of the celebrated Sainsbury Royal Academy Soloists. She led a recent project of War Requiem at the southbank centre under Marin Alsop. Prior to the RAM, she was principal second in her final year of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (2006-2010). In 2010, Eleanor won a place at the prestigious LSO Strings Academy and was runner up for the course prize.
Eleanor is a prizewinner in several other competitions. She was named BBC Proms/Guardian Young Composer of the Year 2005.
She plays an N. Gagliano violin generously loaned from the RAM.
Olivia Jarvis - Musical Director and Orchestral Manager
Having recently graduated with a music degree from King’s College London, Olivia is now studying her performance masters degree at the Royal Academy of Music under the tutelage of Richard Deakin.
Olivia has always been very active in her music-making and during her university years set up her own young professional orchestra; the Aldwych Sinfonia as well as being a founder of a similar orchestra back home in Cambridge, the New Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. Inspiration for these new orchestras stem from her younger years in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (4 years) and the Junior Department of the Royal Academy of Music (5 years). During these years she was fortunate enough to be able to perform solo and chamber music in concert halls such as the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre and St Martin-in-the-Fields.
Since then, she has gone on to perform in recitals, concertos and orchestral concerts in London and abroad in Europe. Her most recent highlights being the Szymanowkski Violin Concerto No.2 with the King’s College London Symphony Orchestra in London and Shostakovich Violin Concerto No.2 with the Imperial Sinfonietta in Prague. She has enjoyed other performances of Mozart, Bach and Haydn concertos over the years. As well as her solo performances, Olivia takes great joy in participating in orchestras symphonic and operatic; Olivia currently leads orchestras in London such as the London Mahler Orchestra and the University of London Symphony Orchestra.
As a chamber musician, Olivia participates in many ensembles from jazz to classical. Her most active group being the Pinto Trio who are looking forward to many performances and masterclasses in the UK this year.
Olivia plays on a Carlo Antonio Testore violin c1701 from Sotheby’s Auction House which she enjoys playing immensely.