Royal Academy of Music

Mabelle Young-Eun Park, Olwen Miles – violin
Jamie Howe, Wanshu Qiu – viola
Ellen Baumring-Gledhill, Simon Guémy – cello

Multiple-award-winning young musicians studying at London's Royal Academy of Music will provide the opportunity for us to hear two late 19th-century masterpieces for strings.

Four of the ensemble (Mabelle, Olwen, Jamie and Ellen) are undergraduates at the Royal Academy and members of the Regency String Quartet, formed in September 2021 and recipient of a Frost Trust advanced specialist training competitive award. They are joined by two post-graduate students, Simon and Wanshu, who also have wide experience with well-known musicians and conductors, to provide the full complement of two violins, two violas and two cellos.

The Royal Academy is currently celebrating the 200-year anniversary of its founding in 1822.

Mabelle Young-Eun Park has been a recipient of the Harbour Foundation Award since 2020 and has performed as a soloist at the Moscow Music Centre, Carnegie Hall and the Sejong Arts Centre in Seoul. She recently performed for the Draper’s company 28th Annual Concert series and won the Harold Craxton Award; Olwen Miles has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in venues including the Wigmore Hall, Teatro Politeama Palermo and Teatro Massimo Bellini Catania and has won numerous first prizes in national and international competitions, as well as the 2020 Arthur Felstein Leavers Award at the Purcell School; Jamie Howe is a former leader of the City of Belfast Youth Orchestra and the Ulster Youth Orchestra as well as having been principal viola of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain; Ellen Baumring-Gledhill was the only cellist to reach the strings category final of BBC Young Musician 2020 and in the same year won Junior Guildhall’s Lutine Prize at the final. In 2022 she performed the Elgar cello concerto with the North London Sinfonia.

Born in 1998, China. Wanshu started her viola training at the age of fifteen in the Affiliated Secondary School of Sichuan Conservatory of Music. After obtaining a first class bachelor’s degree from the Royal Northern College of Music in 2021, Wanshu finished her Master's study with Distinction at the Royal Academy of Music in the following year. She’s currently doing Professional Diploma studies in viola performance. Wanshu has rich orchestral experience with world-renowned conductors such as Sir Mark Elder, Semyon Bychkov, Elim Chan, Daniele Rustioni, and Ludovic Morlot. Alongside her classical training, she enjoys innovative music and creative performances. Some highlights include performing in Manchester international festival and Melbourne Arts festival with Maxine Peake, London Jazz Festival with Alice Zawadzki, her debut in Wigmore Hall alongside the Nash ensemble and the recent performance of Chemins II by Luciano Berio.

Simon Guémy is a French cellist from Paris. He began playing the cello at the age of seven with Marcel Bardon, and went on to study with Dominique de Williencourt and Juliette Salmona at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris. Simon graduated in 2021 with First Class Honours in a Bachelor of Music Degree at the Royal Academy of Music in London and is continuing to pursue a Master's in Arts under the tutelage of Robert Cohen and Nadège Rochat. Throughout his time at the Academy, Simon has enjoyed collaborating and performing with others, playing in projects led by Ludovic Morlot, Ryan Wigglesworth, Semyon Bychkov, Timothy Weiss, Edvard Gardner, Marin Alsop and Jac Van Steen. In 2021, Simon was awarded first prize in the Piatti Competition at the Royal Academy.
Simon has taken part in the Aldeburgh Festival, Violoncellenseine, Musiques en Vivarais Lignon, Two Moors festival, Timber Festival and Borromeo Music Festival and others. He has played with many established artists such as Tamara Stefanovich and James Ehnes at London venues including the Royal Festival Hall and Wigmore Hall.