ABOUT LILIUM

Conductor, composer and scholar VICENTE CHAVARRÍA serves as Artistic Director of Lilium Convallium, Principal Conductor of Manchester Chamber Choir, Musical Director of The Handful Chamber Choir, and Interim Conductor of the Southampton University Symphony Orchestra. He is also the Sir Charles Mackerras Conducting Fellow at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music & Dance. He studied Early Music and Spanish at the University of Southern California, Musicology at the University of Miami, and Conducting and Composition at the Royal College of Music. He has performed with the Boston Camerata, Bach-Collegium San Diego, Dowland Works (with Dame Emma Kirkby), and Park Collegium (Belgium), among many others, and participated in masterclasses with Andreas Scholl, Anne Azéma, Xavier Díaz-Latorre, and the Hilliard Ensemble. He is also a former Choral Scholar at St Stephen Walbrook and St Martin-in-the-Fields in London. As part of his previous studies in Musicology, he specialised in the music of the Mexican Baroque and Spanish Renaissance, and founded and led early music ensembles Flos Campi and Fra Angelico to explore this repertoire. He regularly deputises as a singer with St Martin's Voices and Mosaic Voices. In his spare time (?), he enjoys cooking, planespotting, and is a budding podcaster.

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Tenor PETER MARTIN graduated from the Royal College of Music with a Masters in Performance in 2019. He continues to study privately with Russell Smythe, and works freelance in London and across the UK as an operatic and choral tenor. He worked as a Lay Clerk at St Albans Cathedral between 2015-2019 and returns frequently for services there and in other Churches and Cathedrals around London, most regularly at St Paul’s Cathedral. He has worked with Opera Holland Park over three seasons in the Chorus as well as touring Pirates of Penzance to Cornwall with the Inspire project playing the role of Frederic. He has recently returned from a tour of Malta performing Handel’s Partenope with Hampstead Garden Opera. He has also worked with Grange Park Opera, Opera Sonic and British Youth Opera. Roles include Emilio (Partenope); Frederic (Pirates of Penzance); Sellem Cover (The Rake’s Progress); Alfredo (Fledermaus); Damon (Acis and Galatea); Spolleta (Tosca); Rinnucio (Gianni Schicchi) and Beppe (I Pagliacci). Peter has premiered many new works including Todd’s If I Had Wings and Dudley’s I am Alban at the Royal Albert Hall; Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus at the Royal College of Music and Blake’s Scoring A Century with British Youth Opera. www.petermartintenor.com

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British violinist MAXIM DEL MAR is a graduate of the Royal College of Music, where he studied Baroque violin with Adrian Butterfield. A music graduate from the University of York, where he began to explore historically-informed performance, Maxim has gone on to specialise in this field, performing a wealth of solo, chamber, and orchestral music spanning from Monteverdi to Mendelssohn and beyond on original set-ups. Chamber music forms a large part of Maxim's musical life, and he is an active member of emerging chamber ensembles including Ensemble La Notte, Endelienta Baroque, Eboracum Baroque and Lilium Convallium, with whom he participated in the Brighton Early Music Festival Scheme. He is a regular member of the Hanover Band and the London Handel Orchestra, and has also performed with Florilegium, Instruments of Time & Truth, Gabrieli Consort & Players, London Early Opera and Solomon’s Knot, whilst also enjoying London and the wider UK’s bustling early music freelance scene.

An alumnus, scholar and prize winner of the Royal College of Music in London, ABEL BALAZS is a versatile violinist specialising on historical violins and viola d’amore. His repertoire ranges from the early 17th century and 20th centuries with a particular interest in late 18th century German repertoire and early 19th century music. During his MPerf degree and Artist Diploma studies at the RCM, he was a Parnassus Award Holder studying under professor Catherine Martin and Bojan Čičić. For his Artist Diploma recital in June 2019, he was awarded the McKenna Prize 2019 for the highest mark on a baroque instrument. Abel has participated in masterclasses and received tutoring from various prominent musicians, among them, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Enrico Gatti, Vittorio Ghielmi, Amandine Beyer, Adrian Butterfield, Monica Huggett, and Alessandro Tampieri. Abel has been performing and recording with several leading period instrument ensembles and conductors in the U.K. and abroad, including Florilegium (David Hill, Benjamin Nicholas, Neil Ferris), Gabrieli Consort & Players (Paul McCreesh), Academy of Ancient Music (Richard Egarr, Laurence Cummings), Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (András Schiff, Steven Devine, John Wilson), La Serenissima (Adrian Chandler), and The Illyria Consort (Bojan Čičić), among others. In Portugal, he plays with the Orquestra Barroca da Casa da Música, is a guest artist of Ludovice Ensemble, and more recently invited to be part of the new ensemble Real Câmara led by Enrico Onofri. Abel was a Handel House Talent member at Handel & Hendrix in London (2019-2021) and held a La Serenissima Emerging Artist Chair 2020. Abel plays on a John Betts (c.1800) violin, on loan from the Harrison-Frank Foundation and a Zosimo Bergonzi violin (c.1750)

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MARTYNA JANKOWSKA is a Polish cellist, specialising in historically informed performance. She studied in Poznań (under Dr. Tomasz Lisiecki and then Prof. Jarosław Thiel), Geneva (under Prof. Bruno Cocset) and Frankfurt am Main (under Prof. Kristin von der Goltz). In 2020, as a scholarship holder of the EUBO Development Trust and the Jenny Ward Clarke Scholarship she completed her postgraduate “Professional Diploma” studies at the Royal Academy of Music under prof. Jonathan Manson, receiving the Katie Thomas Memorial Prize. In the season 2018/19 she was a member of Theresia Youth Orchestra, European Union Baroque Orchestra and Accademia Montis Regalis, with whom she performed in many European countries such as UK, Italy, Estonia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Belgium, France, Austria and Germany. She has performed with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Gabrieli Consort and Players, The English Concert, The Sixteen, La Nuova Musica, ExCathedra and was a La Serenissima Emerging Artist Chair 2020 holder. Martyna is also a co-founder of the Polish ensemble "Très Animé", with which in 2018 she won the finalist award at the prestigious International Van Wassenaer Competition in Utrecht. Their debut album will be released later this year. She is based in London, where she is part of the early music ensemble “Lillium Convallium” and works as a freelance performer and cello teacher.