Members of IBO
Claire Duff, Violin
Claire Duff graduated from Trinity College Dublin with a BAHons Degree in Music and French, received distinction for the Postgraduate Diploma in Baroque Violin from the Royal Academy of Music, London, and graduated from the Conservatorium van Amsterdam with a Masters in Performance. She has studied with Monica Huggett, Pavlo Beznosiuk and Lucy van Dael. While at the Academy, Claire was the recipient of numerous prizes and awards.
She is the first person from the Republic of Ireland to become a member of the European Union Baroque Orchestra and returned as principal second violinist for a tour with Andrew Manze. Claire has played as leader with Florilegium, English Touring Opera and The Kings Consort, with whom she has performed at the Wigmore Hall, London and across Europe and appears on the highly acclaimed Monteverdi Vespers CD.
Huw Daniel, Violin
Huw Daniel was a pupil at Ysgol Gymraeg Castell-nedd and Ysgol Gyfun Ystalyfera, South Wales, and continued his education as an organ scholar at Robinson College, Cambridge, graduating with a first-class honours degree in Music in 2001. He then studied at the Royal Academy of Music for two years, learning the baroque violin with Simon Standage and the modern violin with Hu Kun. In 2004, Huw was a member of EUBO, the members of which formed Harmony of Nations and continue to play together under this name; they released their first CD in 2007, and another CD is planned in 2010.
He is a member of the English Concert, the Irish Baroque Orchestra, and Harmony of Nations, and also plays with the Sixteen, London Handel Orchestra, Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Retrospect Ensemble, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and Florilegium.
As leader he works regularly with the Orquestra Barroca Casa da Música, Porto, Portugal, European Union Baroque Orchestra (EUBO), Harmony of Nations, and English Touring Opera's baroque orchestra, and as guest-leader with St James's Baroque, Collegium Musicum Telemann, Osaka, Japan, and Haydn Sinfonietta Wien. Huw plays with many chamber groups including Florilegium, the Musical and Amicable Society, and Le Chardon.
Hannah Tibell, Violin
Hannah Tibell was born in Sweden in 1980. In 1998 she moved to London to study at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Although Hannah began her undergraduate course as a modern violinist, she managed to change her first study from modern to baroque violin for her final 2 years of study, thus becoming the first ever undergraduate baroque violinist to study at the Guildhall. Hannah went on to study at postgraduate level at the Royal Academy of Music. Her teachers have included Rachel Podger and Micaela Comberti.
Sarah McMahon, Violoncello
Sarah McMahon is widely considered to be one of Ireland’s finest and most versatile young musicians. She began her cello studies with Nora Gilleece at the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin in 1987. In 1995 she moved to London where she studied at the Royal Academy of Music with David Strange, Jenny Ward-Clarke and Colin Carr graduating in 2001 with a first class B Mus degree and Dip RAM.
Malcolm Proud, Keyboards
The Irish harpsichordist and organist, Malcolm Proud was born and educated in Dublin where he read music at Trinity. In 1982 he won 1st prize at the Edinburgh International Harpsichord Competition.
In demand as a soloist and continuo player he has worked with singers Emma Kirkby, Nancy Argenta, Isabelle Poulenard, John Elwes, Julianne Baird and Lenneke Ruiten, flautists Wilbert Hazelzet and Lisa Beznosiuk, violinists Maya Homburger, Pavlo Beznosiuk, Monica Huggett, Nadja Zwiener and Elizabeth Wallfisch, oboists Marcel Ponseele and Paul Goodwin, and bass viol players Sarah Cunningham and John Dornenburg. He has performed harpsichord concertos by Bach with the Chandos Baroque Players in Montreal, Calgary, Ottawa and Pasadena, with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment under Gustav Leonhardt in the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London and Birmingham and with the English Baroque Soloists under John Eliot Gardiner in Zürich. As a continuo player he participated in John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach Cantata Pilgrimage in 2000, toured Japan in 2001 with tenor Mark Padmore in the Purcell Quartet’s production of Monteverdi’s Orfeo and in 2005 played in a reconstruction of Bach’s St. Mark’s Passion with the Academy of Ancient Music in Lucerne.
Malcolm Proud is a full time lecturer on the BA Degree Course in Music at the Waterford Institute of Technology and organist and choirmaster at St. Canice’s Cathedral in Kilkenny.
Richard Sweeney, Theorbo
Richard was born in Dublin in 1978 into a musical family. In 1985 he began playing the cello and 3 years later received a guitar under the Christmas tree. Richard enjoyed playing string quartets from an early age but always disliked playing with larger ensembles. In his teens, he decided that he wanted to become a rock guitarist - it went pretty well for a while - but was eventually lured back to classical music via the classical guitar.
Andreas Helm, Oboe & Recorders
Andreas Helm studied recorder, oboe with Carin van Heerden at the Bruckner Konservatorium in Linz, where he completed his degree in 1999. Subsequently he studied baroque oboe with Alfredo Bernardini at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam graduating in 2002.
From 2001 to 2003 he was principal oboe and solo recorder player with the European Union Baroque Orchestra.
Peter Whelan, Bassoon
Equally at home on modern and historical instruments, Peter Whelan has a diverse repertoire that spans over four centuries. As a concerto soloist, he has appeared with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Bach Consort Wien, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and the Irish Baroque Orchestra (of which he is principal bassoon).
He recently toured Mexico as soloist with the ensemble La Serenissima, with whom he is currently recording a series of Vivaldi bassoon concertos on the Avie label.
