JoEl Hunter
Born in the UK and a proud Yorkshireman, Joel somewhat unusually picked up the viola instead of the violin aged 7. Many years later, after eventually deciding music, not football, was a wiser choice of career, he ended up in London continuing his studies at the Royal Academy of Music. Since then, Joel has been performing all over the world with many leading orchestras and ensembles.
Immediately after finishing his studies, Joel was appointed Co-Principal Viola with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in Glasgow, moving on to the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm a few years later where, as Principal Viola, he worked until 2014. He is currently the principal violist of the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, which he combines with a busy freelance career throughout Europe.
He has appeared as a Guest Principal Violist in most of the UK orchestras, including the Philharmonia, Royal Philharmonic, London Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony, The BBC National Orchestra of Wales, Philharmonic and Concert Orchestras, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, London Chamber Orchestra, Aurora, Royal Northen Sinfonia, as well as internationally with the Symphonie Orchester des Bayerischen Rundfunk, Bamburg Symphony, Oslo Philharmonic, Munich Philharmonic Leipzig Gewandhausorchester Leipzig and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta.
As a chamber musician, Joel has performed with many eminent artists, including Christian Tetzlaff, Alisa Weilerstein, Pascal Roge, Mitzuko Uchida and Leif Ove Andsnes in concerts throughout the world. Recent recordings include the Korngold string sextet for Chandos. He is a founding member of the Logos Chamber Group playing annually at the Joy of Music Festival and International Piano Competition in Hong Kong.
In 2001 he was made an ‘Associate member’ of the Royal Academy of Music in London (ARAM) for his services to the profession.
Nick rOth
Nick Roth is a saxophonist, composer, producer and educator. His work seeks the liberation of improvisation from composition, the poetic syntax of philosophical enquiry, and the function of music as translative epistemology.
A curious predisposition and a steadfast refusal to accept the existence of boundaries between the real and the imaginary has led to collaborations with an array of performers, composers, choreographers, visual artists, poets, sculptors, directors, festivals and ensembles around the world.
Fascinated by emergent behaviour, his work is an investigation into how we can come to know through the art of music, in conversation with scientists from the fields of mathematical biology, astrophysics, forest canopy ecology, evolutionary genetics, high-frequency market trading, neuroscience, quantum loop gravity or hydrology.
Simultaneously subsumed by an insatiable appetite for literature, his compositions often interrogate the resonant symbiosis of language as sound and symbol.
He has served as artist-in-residence at institutions including the European Space Agency (ESTEC), California Academy of Sciences (CalAcademy), Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris (CCI), Porto's Casa da Arquitectura and the Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA).
He is a founding member of the Yurodny Ensemble and The Water Project, artistic co-director of Unreal Cities, and a partner at Diatribe Records, Ireland's leading record label for new music.
His work is represented by the Contemporary Music Centre.
Website: www.nickrothmusic.com