For background information about the Isca Ensemble please see the next page.

Tickets are available in advance online at  
www.iscaensemble.org.uk or www.ticketsource.co.uk

Sidmouth concert tickets are also available from

Paragon Books, 38 High Street, Sidmouth (01395 514516).

Tickets may also be obtained in person or by phone at

Exeter Visitor and Information & tickets tel. 01392 665885, 1 Dix's' Field, Exeter, EX1 1GF

 Chloé Stratta              Anna Marie McLachlan

Elgar : Violin Concerto. The concerto was composed for the violinist Fritz Kreisler, who gave the premiere in London in 1910, with the composer conducting. Plans by the recording company His Master's Voice to record the work with Kreisler and Elgar did not reach fruition, Instead, the composer made a recording with the teenaged Yehudi Menuhin that has remained in the catalogues since its first release in 1932.

Joo Yeon Sir.

Described by Strad Magazine as "exuberant... seductive... with bravura and oodles of personality" Korean-born British violinist Joo Yeon Sir is winner of the prestigious Arts Club Karl Jenkins Classical Music Award, in association with Classic FM, and the Royal College of Music's President's Award. She has performed at the Royal Albert Hall with Sir Karl Jenkins and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Manchester Bridgewater Hall, Fairfield Halls and at St. James's Palace for HRH The Prince of Wales. She regularly appears on BBC Radio 3, Classic FM and Scala Radio.

Her repertoire is striking and diverse. She has played concertos by Mozart, Mendelssohn, Barber, Dvorak, Sibelius, Walton, Bruch and Brahms; other concerto repertoire includes Haydn, Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, and a particular interest in 20th century works - Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Elgar, Britten, Schnittke, Khachaturian and Shostakovich. In recital, she is equally at home in solo violin repertoire (Bach, Ysaye, Kreisler and Paganini) as she is in close collaboration with piano or guitar (the latter as one half of the Snowden-Sir Duo). Her collaboration with Sir Karl Jenkins has already resulted in two works especially written for her unique sound and personality - Lament for the Valley (which became part of his choral work Cantata Memoria) and Chatterbox! (originally for violin/piano, but now also orchestrated for violin/string orchestra).

Aged sixteen, Joo Yeon was overall Grand Prix Laureate at the Nedyalka Simeonova International Violin Competition in Bulgaria. After studying at the Royal College of Music, with Dr. Felix Andrievsky, in 2015-6 she was selected for the St. John's Smith Square young Artist Residency. She has also been a Tillett Trust Young Artist and the grateful recipient of many awards, from the Royal Philharmonic Society, Making Music and others.

Also a composer, Joo Yeon won the coveted BBC/Guardian Young Composer of the Year and her works have been premiered and performed at the Wigmore Hall and on BBC Radio 3. Her work, written for herself and duo guitar partner, Laura Snowden, was premiered on BBC Radio 3 to celebrate International Women's Day 2017.

The 2016-2017 season saw the release of two discs: the Deutsche Grammophon CD and world premiere of Sir Karl Jenkins' Cantata Memoria - For the Children, recorded with Sinfonia Cymru, and her first solo CD - Suites & Fantasies - with her duo partner Irina Andrievsky, which was released to great critical acclaim by Rubicon: "A dazzling debut... Joo Yeon Sir melds technical assurance with rare artistic sensibility" The Guardian.

2018 saw a busy residency at the Lichfield Festival, where she performed the complete Paganini Caprices for the first time, along with a world premiere by Ninfea Cruttwell-Reade, concerto performances in Prague and at St John's Smith Square and The Lark Ascending at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall, as well as recitals in London and in Cheltenham.

Last season saw her debut with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, playing the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, plus concertos by Glazunov, Prokofiev, Bruch, Barber and Elgar, alongside recitals in London and at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire.

Listen to Joo Yeon playing her latest composition for solo violin.