Leeds Lunchtime Chamber Music 23/24:

Sterling Elliott – cello
Joseph Havlat – piano

Claude Debussy Rêverie
Maurice Ravel Sonate postume
Vincent D’indy Lied, Op 19
Francis Poulenc Cello Sonata
Nadia Boulanger 3 Pieces for cello and piano

Approximately 50 minutes without interval

Cellist Sterling Elliott is a 2021 Avery Fisher Career Grant recipient and the winner of the Senior Division of the 2019 National Sphinx Competition. He was recently selected by The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center for its Bowers Program, a three-year residency for exceptionally talented young artists.

Sterling has performed with major orchestras including the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Last summer, he made his Aspen Festival debut, performing the Brahms Double Concerto with Gil Shaham. He has been presented in recital by the San Francisco Symphony and the New York Philharmonic, among others.

Sterling will be pursuing an Artist Diploma at Juilliard under the tutelage of Joel Krosnick and Clara Kim. He performs on a 1741 Gennaro Gagliano cello on loan through the Robert F. Smith Fine String Patron Program, in partnership with the Sphinx Organization.

Joseph Havlat is a pianist and composer from Hobart, Australia, based in London. As a chamber musician he has performed with James Ehnes, Steven Isserlis, and Jack Liebeck, alongside regular duo partners Lotte Betts-Dean, Charlotte Saluste-Bridoux and Tim Posner. As a composer his music often explores the sounds of the natural world, imbued with the harsher shapes of human modernity. Current work includes a piano trio for Trio Mazzolini, and a mixed ensemble piece for the Australian Festival of Chamber Music to which he returns this summer.

Joseph studied at the Royal Academy of Music in London under Professor Joanna MacGregor, where he received his BMus and MMus with distinction. He has been a Young Artist of St. John’s Smith Square, the Oxford Lieder Festival and Kirckman Concert Society, and was a first prize winner of the Royal Overseas League Music Competition.

Recent highlights include playing Adès’ In Seven Days with the LSO under the baton of the composer, as well as the premiere of his Növények at Wigmore Hall. In late 2021 he appeared with the BBC Philharmonic giving the premiere of Robert Laidlow’s piano concerto Warp, broadcast on BBC Radio 3, and in 2022 he made his debut at the Concertgebouw Recital Hall in a programme of Dohnanyi and Mendelssohn with cellist Tim Posner.