 Gerard Le Feuvre - Cello
Gerard Le Feuvre was born in the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands in 1962. Like many of his generation, his musical inspiration as a child came from Jaqueline Du Pre (also descended from a Jersey family), with whom he is distantly related, and by his mid teens Gerard had won two national awards as one of the most outstanding young British cellists of his generation.
He went on to win scholarships to the Royal Academy of Music, the Banff School of Performing Arts (Canada), and the Sibelius Academy (Finland), studying with some of the greatest teachers and cellists in the world; Florence Hooton, Aldo Parisot, Vladimir Orloff, T. Tsutsumi, Arto Noras and in master class with Paul Tortelier. He was awarded the Lloyd’s Bank national award for "outstanding musicianship and musical attainment", as principal cello in the National Youth Orchestra, and also won a large award for study abroad, given by the Countess of Munster Musical Trust. In 1980 while still a student, he gained first prize (CBS Records award) in the Royal Society of Arts national competition, and performed in the Luzern Festival in Switzerland, after which he was described as "a cellist of the highest class" in the international press.
Over the last 20 years Gerard has given over 500 recitals mostly with the distinguished British pianist Nigel Clayton, and has performed concertos in the UK, Germany, Scandinavia, and in the USA. He has had several works written for him by distinguished British composers and is an active composer himself, writing many works for celli, and for his Bassoonist wife Sarah. He was for 7 years the cellist of the internationally renowned "English String Quartet" (led by Diana Cummings), and has also free-lanced, playing principal cello with the English Chamber Orchestra, the English Sinfonia, the Royal Ballet Sinfonia, the New Queen’s Hall Orchestra, and many other distinguished chamber orchestras.
Gerard and Sarah have three young children (Katie, Alice and Edouard), and Gerard juggles fatherhood with his work as a solo cellist, and directorship of the Kings Chamber Orchestra, and the Kings Celli. These ensembles have given pioneering improvisations in concert, and demonstrate a unique humour and depth that typifies Gerard’s approach to music making. In the year 2000, the Royal Academy of Music awarded Gerard the title of "Associate" in honour of his "outstanding achievements in the music profession". In 2001 Gerard received a standing ovation at the Masterworks Arts Festival in up-state New York for a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Rococo Variations for cello and orchestra, his first collaboration with the distinguished American conductor; Mark Laycock.
" I am convinced of his outstanding musical, artistic, instrumental, and human qualities" Arto Noras - International solo cellist
" Outstandingly talented, as well as a performer, he is a gifted and active composer. He has the very special gift of being able to penetrate to the heart of all that he plays, and thereby rivets the attention of his audience" Sir David Lumsden - Principal , Royal Academy of Music
"His adaptable and original personality enabled us to offer him engagements as a soloist/presenter in situations in which we could have placed none other of the musicians on our comprehensive list. Not only is Gerard an unusually talented musician, but his special qualities of spirituality, and practicality have combined to make him an ideal example of the musician serving his community as envisaged by Sir Yehudi Menuhin in his "Live Music Now" scheme." Sheila Gold - Live Music Now International
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