2025 Winners

     George studied the oboe with Janet Craxton and Evelyn Barbirolli at the Royal Academy of Music, with Helmut Winschermann at the Nordwestdeutsche Musikakademie, and privately with Neil Black. He gained an MA in music at Peterhouse, Cambridge, graduating to pursue a freelance career as an oboist. He worked with many of London’s major orchestras including the London Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, and City of London Sinfonia and was a member of The Academy of St. Martin-in-the- Fields from 1983 to 1993. George has also been a member of several ensembles, notably as a founder-member of The Albion Ensemble, Vega Wind Quintet and Caird Oboe Quartet. 

In addition to many orchestral recordings, he has recorded CDs of solo and chamber music repertoire including ‘An English Renaissance’ of quintets and quartets for oboe and strings, and Britten’s Six Metamorphoses after Ovid as part of his published study on that work. Among the works written for him are Paul Patterson’s Duologue, John Gardner’s Second Oboe Sonata, Andrew Downes’ Sonata, In the Gardens of Burdwan, John Mayer’s Abhut Sangit, Gregory Rose’s Oboe Concerto and in chamber music, Elizabeth Maconchy's Wind Quintet, Paul Patterson's Comedy for Winds and Jim Parker's 

Mississippi Five. 

George joined the Royal Academy of Music as professor of oboe in 1984, became Head of Woodwind in 1987 and Head of Orchestral Studies in 1989. In September 1993, he was appointed Principal of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, Birmingham City University, a post that he held until August 2010. From 2011 - 2016, George was Artistic Director of the Classical Music Academy, Codarts Rotterdam, from 2017 - 2018, Interim Principal of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and from 2020 – 2021, Interim Principal of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. 

     After 13 rich and exciting years at the Conservatoire National Supérieur Musique et Danse (CNSMD) in Lyon, Françoise Gnéri was appointed in 2023 to the CNSMD in Paris. She is a musician with an eclectic and original background, who stands out for her passionate commitment to teaching and the most varied projects. She has been a soloist at the orchestra of the Paris Opera for several years, where she met and played with some of the greatest conductors (Seiji Osawa, Georges Prêtre, Myung-Whun Chung...) and developed a sense of lyricism and drama that will never leave her.      

Her intense chamber music activity and deep knowledge of 20th and 21st century music earned her an invitation to the most important French stages such as Châtelet, Radio-France, Théâtre des Champs Elysées, Beaubourg and worldwide stages including Brême, Venice, Lisbon, Tokyo, New York where she performed with artists such as Philip Hirschorn, Christoph Henkel, Roland Pidoux, Jean-Pierre Wallez, Maxim Vengerov, Bruno Pasquier, François Salque, Claire Désert, Olivier Charlier. She recorded the Brahms sonatas and the sonata for violin and piano in A minor by Schumann, transcribed for the viola, with Denis Pascal, a disc for which she received the best reviews. She also recorded the 6 Suites de Jean-Sébastien Bach at Polymnie. 

By request from Jean-François Zygel to participate in her music lessons and classical cabaret, Françoise shares with him the opportunity to create a dynamic relationship between the public and the musicians, creating original, imaginative musical events mixing new audiences, in unusual places, with the outcome for a shared new mode of communication. In 2015, she created the Collectif Fractales, a collective of young artists dedicated to spreading classical music wherever it doesn't naturally fit. During this process, Françoise created two festivals in which innovation has an important part: Sanary in Music, and Quinte et Sens, musical delicacies in Amboisie. 

She plays on a viola by Raphael and Anton Gagliano from 1856 and on a viola by Charotte from 1837. 

     Robin Ireland was violist with the celebrated Lindsay String Quartet between 1985 and 2005 and with the Primrose Piano Quartet from 2007 to 2015. He was Head of Chamber Music at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire from 2014 to 2021. He now performs as a soloist and freelance chamber musician and continues to teach, coach chamber music, and give master classes. He has recorded two CDs for viola and piano with Tim Horton, on the Nimbus label, and in 2024 completed his recording of the six Bach Cello Suites, on viola. 

Robin was a student at Cambridge University and at the Eastman School of Music, Rochester, New York. He had a short spell as leader of the Las Palmas Symphony Orchestra while still a violinist and 

subsequently became a founder member of the Piano Quartet, Domus, which toured with its own portable concert hall (a geodesic dome) as well as having great success in more conventional venues. 

Robin is also a composer and has a CD of his String Quartet and three Duos, “Pairings” on the Meridian label. During the Covid lockdown, he made arrangements for four violas of the fugues and other movements from Bach’s Sonatas for unaccompanied violin and these are available as a recording of a live concert. 

Robin now lives in Brittany, and in addition to his work in the UK is exploring new avenues for making music locally, as well as composing and arranging. 

One of the most sought-after Nordic string players, Lilli Maijala has carved out a distinguished voice as a violist in all elements of musical engagement. 

As a concerto soloist, she has performed with orchestras including the Helsinki and Tampere Philharmonic Orchestras, Lahti Symphony Orchestra, and Tallinn Chamber Orchestra with conductors such as Nathalie Stutzmann, Santtu-Matias Rouvali and John Storgårds. 

Maijala’s latest recordings include Pehr Henrik Nordgren’s Concerto for Viola, Double Bass and Chamber Orchestra and the Peteris Vasks Viola Concerto, both for Alba Records. 

Thomas Selditz has been a professor in Germany and Austria for more than 25 years. After a career as 1st solo violist at the Berlin State Opera, he worked as a chamber musician in permanent formations such as the Gaede Trio and the Hugo Wolf Quartet Vienna. His solo and chamber music recordings have been honoured worldwide. He currently teaches at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. 

Thomas Selditz comes from a family of musicians. He was principal violist under Daniel Barenboim at the Staatskapelle Berlin. Later he taught as a professor in Hanover and Hamburg until 2010, when he was appointed 

professor of viola at the University of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. 

Founder of the renowned Gaede Trio for more than 20 years, he performed first as violist and later as violinist of the trio. He was also a regular member of the Hugo Wolf Quartet between 2013 and 2016, with which he performed at New York's Carnegie Hall, Vienna's Konzerthaus, London's Wigmore Hall and the Cité de la Musique, in Paris. 

As a chamber musician, he has been invited to many renowned international music festivals and has released more than 20 CD recordings for numerous labels including Sony, Largo Records, Tacet, MDG, Audite and Phoenix. His CD with works for viola and piano by Henri Vieuxtemps was awarded the Diapason d'Or/ France and the German Record Critics’ Award in 2003. He recorded as a soloist the Sinfonia Concertante by Walter Braunfels with the BBC Concert Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Wildner. This recording was also awarded the German Record Critics Award in 2019.