Fenella Humpreys (violin) and Joseph Tong (piano)
Saturday 26 September 2026, 7.30pm
Programme
Beethoven Sonata in G Major Op.30 No. 3
Joseph Phibbs Violin Sonata
Sibelius Sonatina Op. 80
Sibelius Four Pieces Op. 115
Franck Sonata in A Major
About
Fenella Humphreys, winner of the 2025 and 2023 BBC Music Magazine Premiere Recording Award, has attracted critical admiration and audience acclaim with the grace and intensity of her remarkable performances. Throughout the 2025/26 season, Fenella is be resident at Wigmore Hall as part of a three-concert series where she is exploring a variety of solo and chamber violin repertoire.
With her playing described in the press as “alluring”, “unforgettable” and “a wonder”, Fenella is one of the UK’s most established and versatile violinists, having also won the 2018 BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Award. She enjoys a busy career combining chamber music with solo work, performing in the most prestigious venues around the world and is frequently broadcast on the BBC, Classic FM, Scala Radio and international radio stations.
Fenella performs widely as a soloist. Her album of Sibelius’ solo works with BBC National Orchestra of Wales and George Vass has been featured in BBC Radio 3’s Building a Library, Gramophone Magazine’s Guide to the Concerto, and was Album of the Week on Scala Radio. BBC Music Magazine has written of the recording: “it takes an unusually fine artist to be able to bridge the two extremes. Fenella Humphreys’s playing is a genuine revelation in the way it brings out the music’s dark and introspective qualities, with no shortage of technical panache meanwhile.”
Most recently her recording of Adrian Sutton's Violin Concerto has been released on Chandos with Michael Seal and BBC Phil. The work was written for Fenella in 2023, and premiered with the RPO at London's Southbank Centre. "Humphreys, Seal and the BBC Philharmonic have its [Violin Concerto] linguistic number. Humphreys brings her endlessly unfurling violin lines taut, silvery weightlessness. The recording beautifully captures her duets with woodwind, and a tremendous dynamic range…” (The Strad) The album received BBC Music Magazine's 2025 Premiere Recording Award.
Over the past decade, Fenella has captured international attention by applying spellbinding virtuosity to a strikingly broad range of compositions. Her Bach 2 the Future albums - the second of which won the coveted BBC Music Magazine Instrumental Award - combined newly commissioned works with two of Bach’s solo sonatas and partitas and other repertoire landmarks. In 2022, Fenella returned to unaccompanied music with ‘Caprices’- the 2023 BBC Music Magazine Award winner - released on Rubicon Classics. The album explores Études and Caprices from Paganini to the present day, including new works by Freya Waley-Cohen, Laurence Osborn and Oliver Leith, and a new set of variations on Paganini’s 24th Caprice with composers including Héloïse Werner, Emily Howard and Robin Haigh. “Really, very impressive” (Gramophone Magazine), “technically and musically superb” (The Strad).
Fenella’s recent recording on Rubicon, Prism, focuses again on unaccompanied violin works - from new works written by young British composers to iconic recent works by Caroline Shaw, Jessie Montgomery and George Walker, with Fenella's new arrangement of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue BWV565 at its heart. Widely critically acclaimed, it was BBC Music Magazine's Monthly Instrumental Choice CD for June 2024 in a five star review - "There’s simply no hiding place with solo violin repertoire. Every vulnerability is exposed to scrutiny, and so much the more when the repertoire itself is largely unfamiliar. Fenella Humphreys is masterful, however, bringing playing of constant allure and vitality to this album… This is a hugely accomplished release, fearlessly and vibrantly performed."
Fenella has given the first performances of scores by a vast range of composers, most notably Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, Sally Beamish, Gordon Crosse, Cheryl Frances-Hoad and Freya Waley-Cohen.
Her first concerto recording - Christopher Wright’s Violin Concerto with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra and Martin Yates (Dutton Epoch) - was released in 2012 to great critical acclaim (“Fenella Humphreys’ performance is a wonder” – International Record Review), and was selected as Orchestral CD of the Month in a 5 star review in BBC Music Magazine.
Four Seasons Recomposed with Covent Garden Sinfonia and Ben Palmer (Rubicon), was released in June 2019. The album unites Max Richter’s iconic Recomposed: The Four Seasons with Pēteris Vasks' Lonely Angel and Arvo Pärt’s Fratres to produce a compelling meditation on the profound power of melody. It was chosen as one of BBC Radio 3’s pick of new releases on Essential Classics; chosen for Apple Music’s Classical A-List; was Scala Radio’s Album of the Week, and was been described by Radio 3’s Record Review as “...a delight. The whole thing is gently expressive, meditative, touching and very effective.” In 2023 the Vasks performance was included in The Times' list of “The 100 Best Pieces of Classical Music - as chosen by the critics”.
Fenella’s previous disc, So Many Stars with acclaimed pianist Nicola Eimer, was released on Stone Records in February 2019. It was described as “hugely rewarding” by The Observer; “an absolutely exquisite album” by BBC Radio 3’s Record Review, and was The Strad’s Recommended Recording that month. Her 2022 album of Sibelius’ duo works with Joseph Tong was chosen as BBC Music Magazine’s Chamber Music Choice recording - “From start to finish Humphreys’s playing is a feast of flawless tuning, beautifully focused and coloured tone and rich characterisation.”
As an avid and passionate chamber musician, Fenella enjoys performances with the Roscoe Piano Trio, Perpetuo and Counterpoise, as well as collaborations with artists including Nicholas Daniel, Martin Roscoe, Sir John Tomlinson and Peter Donohoe, and is regularly invited by Steven Isserlis to take part in the International Musicians’ Seminar, Prussia Cove. A new collaboration with the writer and broadcaster Leah Broad, and pianist Nicola Eimer, has seen the creation of a new project ‘Lost Voices’ which explores one of Fenella’s passions: unknown and under-performed repertoire by female composers, something which Fenella seeks to champion in all areas of her programming.
For the launch of Apple Music Classical in April 2023, Fenella was one of a handful of artists invited to record a ‘Classical Session’ at home, alongside Daniel Barenboim, Beatrice Rana and Gautier Capuçon.
Fenella is grateful for the support of the Royal Philharmonic Society, Harriet’s Trust and Arts Council England for their support to keep making music during the Covid Pandemic.
Fenella’s teachers have included Sidney Griller CBE, Itzhak Rashkovsky, Ida Bieler and David Takeno at the Purcell School, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Robert-Schumann-Hochschule in Düsseldorf where she was awarded the highest attainable marks both for the ‘Diplom’ exam and the ‘Konzertexamen’ soloists’ diploma.
Fenella plays on a G.B. Guadagnini violin kindly on loan from Jonathan Sparey.
Joseph Tong
Performer, recording artist and writer with expertise in the field of Jean Sibelius’ solo piano works and as a renowned duo pianist, Joseph extended his series of Sibelius recordings through a collaboration with the violinist Fenella Humphreys for Resonus Classics released in 2022.
His solo Wigmore Hall recital in November 2022 featured Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, marking 200 years since this work was composed, and also the London Premiere of David Matthews’s ‘Five Trees’ performed alongside the ‘Tree Pieces’ Op. 75 by Sibelius.
An enthusiastic review in International Piano Magazine commented that ” Someone from whom we don’t het hear enough is the British pianist Joseph Tong, whose lunchtime recital – a satisfying blend of old and new – was perfect in every way.”
A versatile and imaginative pianist, much in demand as a soloist, duo pianist and chamber musician, Joseph Tong enjoys a busy and varied career giving regular performances at concert venues and festivals throughout the UK and abroad whilst producing critically acclaimed new recordings reflecting his musical interests and passions.
Joseph Tong has been particularly associated with the piano music of Jean Sibelius, having recorded three discs of a complete cycle for the Quartz label to critical acclaim and performing regularly in Finland over recent years. He has twice been invited to play at the Korpo Sibelius Festival, taking part in a Sibelius piano ‘marathon’ in 2019, and has given several recitals on the composer’s original Steinway at Ainola. Joseph has also performed at the Helsinki Musiikkitalo (Camerata Hall), Hämeenlinna City Hall, the Sibelius Museum in Turku and, most recently, at the 2024 Joensuu Music Festival.
To mark the 150th anniversary of Sibelius’s birth in 2015, he gave an all-Sibelius recital at
St John’s Smith Square in London together with a live broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s In Tune.
Other recent projects have included a new commission from the British composer David Matthews, a set of Five Trees which Joseph premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in 2022. He also performed the new work at the Sibelius Museum in Turku as part of a collaboration with the Åbo University Foundation, recording a third album of Sibelius’s piano music which was released in 2023.
Joseph has made several critically acclaimed recordings as a soloist and chamber musician including a disc of Schumann, released in 2019 on the Quartz label, which was awarded Instrumental Choice in BBC Music Magazine. Much in demand as a collaborative pianist, his recording of Sibelius works for violin and piano with the British violinist Fenella Humphreys on Resonus Classics was selected as ‘Chamber Choice’ in BBC Music Magazine in 2022 and featured on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review programme. Joseph has also made piano duet recordings of Schubert, Debussy and McCabe in his longstanding duo with Waka Hasegawa, with whom he performed at Wigmore Hall in London, at Music Festivals including Cheltenham, Buxton, York and Oundle as well as in Japan and USA.
He also performs regularly with his brother Daniel, having appeared on Radio 3’s In Tune together and giving recent piano duet recitals at Conway Hall in London, St David’s Hall Cardiff, and the Laidlaw Music Centre at the University of St Andrews.
In 2022 he returned to Wigmore Hall to give a solo recital featuring Schubert’s Wanderer Fantasy, marking 200 years since the work was written. Other recent highlights have included solo recitals in Spain and Germany including the Sendesaal in Bremen and Kloster Konzerte in St. Blasien, St George’s Bristol, Chichester Cathedral, Hatchlands in Surrey and the Presteigne Festival in Wales.
A passionate advocate for new music, Joseph gave the world premiere of Lara Poe’s Koivunrungot Kaarella at Presteigne last summer and has recently commissioned a new work, The Willows Suite, from the Finnish pianist-composer Terhi Dostal.
Joseph was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2008 and is a visiting teacher at Wells Cathedral School and Coordinator of the Wells International Piano Summer School. He is also an adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals.
Joseph studied with Hilary Coates at Wells Cathedral School and Christopher Elton at the Royal Academy of Music, after reading music at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge. He also studied privately with Piers Lane. He won the Maisie Lewis Young Artists Award in 1996 which led to a Wigmore Hall recital debut the following year.
Broadcast appearances and recordings
Joseph Tong has broadcast live in the In Tune studio for BBC Radio 3 in 2022, ahead of a duo recital at St David’s Hall in Cardiff with his brother Daniel, and also a few years previously in 2015 coinciding with his first St John’s Smith Square all-Sibelius recital in London , marking the composer’s 150th anniversary and the release of his first album of Sibelius piano works. His interpretative insight into this large body of relatively neglected repertoire saw a second volume released two years later, further invitations to perform in Finland and the rare opportunity to join Folke Gräsbeck and four other Finnish pianists for a Sibelius Piano Marathon at the Korpo Sibelius Festival in July 2019 which was recorded for later broadcast on Swedish YLE radio.
Other highlights have included recitals at the 2018 and 2024 Presteigne Festivals where he gave the World Premières of new works by Cydonie Banting and Lara Poe alongside contemporary works by Huw Watkins, David Matthews, Lynne Plowman and Gareth Moorcraft. Recent recitals have also included the Guildford International Festival, the Three Choirs Festival, Cedars Hall in Wells, St George’s Bristol, the Sendesaal in Bremen and Jimena CODA concerts in Spain.
Joseph also pursued his long-standing admiration and love for Robert Schumann’s music with a visit to Leipzig and Zwickau followed by a highly acclaimed recording for Quartz in 2019 which received excellent reviews in BBC Music Magazine, the Sunday Times, Musical Opinion Quarterly and other publications. Joseph’s discography also includes a series of recordings of piano duo works with Waka Hasegawa (see Piano 4 Hands.)
Piano 4 Hands
He also has as successful parallel career in the piano duo Piano 4 Hands with the Japanese pianist Waka Hasegawa, much in demand as one of the UK’s leading piano duos. They perform regularly in recitals at Wigmore Hall, Bridgewater Hall Manchester, St George’s Bristol, The Lighthouse Poole and major UK festivals including Buxton, York, Guildford, Oundle and Presteigne.
The duo has also appeared at the Cheltenham Music Festival three times since 2010, co-commissioning new works by Dai Fujikura, Daniel Kidane and David Matthews, Nicola LeFanu, Rob Keeley, Edwin Roxburgh and the late John McCabe, giving their premieres at Wigmore Hall and the Purcell Room in London. Their latest project is a new commission from Edwin Roxburgh, ‘Dialogue and Toccata’ which was premiered at St James’s Church, Piccadilly in 2021.
Piano 4 Hands has made a series of critically acclaimed CD recordings on the Quartz label of Debussy, Schubert and John McCabe.
Chamber music
As a chamber musician, Joseph has taken part in concerts and study sessions with the musicologist and broadcaster Richard Wigmore as part of his ongoing Music Discovery Live series in Oxford, teaming up with his brother Daniel Tong, violinist Sara Trickey and cellist Robin Michael.
Joseph has also been a regular performer at the Wye Valley Chamber Music Festival since its inception in 2000. He is also a member of the New Street Ensemble with Marie Lloyd (clarinet), Simon Smith (violin) and Penny Driver (cello).
Joseph also has a regular piano duet partnership with his brother Daniel, appearing together at the Purcell Room in London in a performance of Schubert’s Fantasy in F minor and playing Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring as part of the ballet’s centenary celebrations held at St Hilda’s College, Oxford in 2013 in the presence of Dame Monica Mason.
Music of Sibelius
As a result of their shared interest in the music of Sibelius, Joseph has collaborated with the British violinist Fenella Humphreys on a recording of Sibelius’s violin and piano works for the Resonus Classics label, generously supported by Sibelius One, in Cedars Hall, Wells. Following on from the successful launch of this album, Joseph and Fenella have given recitals at the Three Choirs Festival, York University and at the 2023 Korppoo Sibelius Festival in Finland.
Teaching and Festivals
Joseph Tong was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music (ARAM) in 2008 and is one of the senior piano tutors at Wells Cathedral School. Joseph also holds a teaching and accompaniment post at an all-Steinway school in London, and is regularly invited to adjudicate and give classes at conservatoires and junior colleges.
He is also piano coordinator for the Wells International Summer School and was on the teaching faculty of the Chetham’s International Piano Summer School in 2019.
Joseph Tong is the founder and co-director of the Bristol International Piano Duo Festival (2008-2017), held biennially at St George’s Bristol and the University of Bristol.
He is currently a music adjudicator for the British and International Federation of Festivals (BIFF).
Future plans
Future projects include recording the fourth volume of Sibelius piano works, pursuing his interest in the music of Robert Schumann and Edvard Grieg, further concerts in Finland including a return to the Sibelius Museum in Turku and new commissions including the world premiere of ‘The Willows Suite’ by Terhi Dostal at Blackheath Halls, London.