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Susan Tomes grew
up in Edinburgh and in 1972 was the first
woman to be admitted to study music at King’s College,
Cambridge.
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She spent six years at
King’s and is featured on the Cambridge Educating Eve
website which celebrates 50 distinguished female graduates.
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In 1979 she
was a founder member of the award-wining piano quartet,
Domus. Their first recording, of the two Fauré piano quartets,
won the 1985 Gramophone Award for best chamber music recording,
the German Record Critics’ Prize and the rarely bestowed
Evénement Exceptionelle by the French journal, Télérama.
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Domus toured
with their own portable concert hall, a striking white geodesic
dome seating 200. They played in this throughout the world: on
Italian hilltops, German parks and Australian city squares.
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By 1994,
having recorded virtually all the Romantic piano quartet
repertoire, Domus disbanded, completing their recording career
with the two Fauré quintets (with second violinist, Anthony
Marwood) which again won a Gramophone award.
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Susan Tomes
went on to form the equally acclaimed Florestan Trio with
Marwood and cellist Richard Lester. “Is there a better trio than
the Florestan playing today?” asked the
BBC Music Magazine in 2002.
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The Florestan’s
disc of Schumann Trios won the 1999 Gramophone chamber music
award, was named “best chamber music disc of the year” by
Radio 3’s
Record Review and “best chamber music disc of the past decade”
by
Classic CD magazine.
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They appear
regularly at all the major UK festivals, including the Proms,
Cheltenham, Aldeburgh and Edinburgh; they have also toured Japan,
South America, Australia, New Zealand and of course Europe on a
regular basis.
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The Trio has
had several works composed for it by Judith Weir, Peteris Vasks,
John Casken and Rudi Martinus van Dÿk.
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They first
toured the USA in 2003, performing in Chicago and New York’s
Carnegie Hall.
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Of her 2004
recording of three Mozart piano concertos with the Guadier
Ensemble, the Daily Telegraph wrote: “Susan Tomes's playing has
all the qualities for which Mozart himself was renowned.”
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In addition
to her career as a musician Susan Tomes gives regular talks on BBC
Radio 3 and writes about music for the
Guardian, Financial Times and BBC Music.
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