Madeleine Mitchell, described by The Times as “one of the UK’s liveliest musical forces (and) foremost violinists”, has performed in a wide repertoire as a soloist and chamber musician in 50 countries, in major festivals including the BBC Proms, and is frequently broadcast for radio and TV. Madeleine has performed concertos with orchestras including the BBC National Orchestra of Wales (including her album Violin Muse, Czech and Polish Radio Symphony, Wurttemberg and Munich Chamber, Kiev Radio/TV, St Petersburg Philharmonic, the Royal Philharmonic and other London orchestras, Orchestra de Bahia Brazil and in the USA. In recital Madeleine represented Britain in the festival UKinNY at Lincoln Centre, the Queen’s Jubilee in Rome, as Artist-in-Residence at the Canberra International Festival and ‘Great British Week’ in Kuwait. She has given recitals at Sydney Opera House, Seoul Centre for the Arts and Hong Kong – part of a three-month world tour, Singapore, Vienna, London’s Wigmore and Barbican Halls and throughout the USA. Madeleine’s acclaimed discography includes Violin Songs – Classic FM’s featured CD; two albums of works written for her including by MacMillan and Nyman: In Sunlight and FiddleSticks (with Lou Harrison Violin Concerto) – nominated for Grammy and BBC Music Awards; Naxos albums of Alwyn and Howard Blake; British Treasures; Hummel sonatas; and Messiaen Quartet for the End of Time with Joanna MacGregor. Her CD of MacMillan with Cappella Nova was BBC Music Choral CD of the Month. Madeleine founded and directs the London Chamber Ensemble; their album of Grace Williams Chamber Music was no.2 in the Classical Charts. She won a Royal Philharmonic Society Enterprise Award in 2022 to make a film combining art and music with the V&A Fabergé exhibition and Anglo-Russian music which can be seen on her youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuvvf9nc1XSSUg3joWb-19g. Madeleine devised the Red Violin Festival in Cardiff under Lord Menuhin’s patronage, the first international eclectic celebration of the fiddle across the arts, for which she was shortlisted for the European Woman of Achievement Award. She was Fulbright/ITT Fellow to the USA, is a Professor at the Royal College of Music, where as a scholar she won the Tagore Gold Medal, presented by HM the Queen Mother and is on the faculty of www.orfeomusicfestival.org and www.lmfl.org summer courses.
Madeleine was born in Gidea Park, attended Hornchurch Grammar (now Emerson Park Academy) and led the Havering Youth Orchestra, playing alongside some current members of the Havering Concert Orchestra. She has frequently supported Havering Young Musicians, donating a prize, giving workshops and appearing as soloist with them in the Queen Elizabeth Hall in a work written for her by Michael Nyman, Havering Music School Patron.
