Elizabeth Cooney – violin

Cooney's star has risen and enchants audiences.  Sunday Tribune, 2006.

It was an outstanding reading which realised all the alternating drama and lyricism of the piece. She is a talent to watch. Tully Potter, The Strad.

Cooney produces a tone that is easy and fluid.....held no fears for her...delighting in technical fireworks.  Michael Dervan, The Irish Times

Extraordinarly gifted young violinist. Plays really beautifully - exceptionally musical. - Martin Lovett, Amadeus Quartet

Selected as Ireland's Rising Star 2006 by the National Concert Hall, Dublin, Elizabeth Cooney's debút recital in February 2006 was highly acclaimed.   In 2002 she made her Royal Festival Hall debut with Tully Potter describing her as 'a talent to watch' and in 2004 she performed a recital at London's Wigmore Hall with Daniel Hill which was also critically acclaimed.  She has performed in major venues throughout Europe and the USA and will make her Carnegie Hall, New York, debút this autumn.  An increasingly busy concert diary will include a solo performance this summer with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland in the RTE 2006 Summer Proms in Farmleigh when she will play works by Sarasate, Wieniawski and Kreisler.

In August 2002 Elizabeth won second prize at the Sion-Valais International Competition for Violin in Switzerland, the audience prize and the award for best interpretation of the compulsory piece. The final concert was in the Victoria Hall, Geneva, where she performed Prokofiev's 1st Concerto with the Slovenian Philharmonic. She was invited back to record a CD of Vivaldi concerti with the Liszt Chamber Orchestra and Shlomo Mintz.  Elizabeth also performed the Sibelius concerto at the 2004 Katya Popova Festival in Bulgaria.  She has played for Ida Haendal, Dorothy DeLay, Nam Yun Kim, Edvard Grach and Yehudi Menuhin among others.  Elizabeth has performed numerous concerti and recorded for both TV and radio with the RTE Concert Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.  

In August 2005 she performed Sarasate's Carmen Fantasy and Gounod's Meditation from Thais with the RTE Concert Orchestra August, gave three recitals at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and performed Brahms sonatas for violin and piano with Barry Douglas at the Clandeboye Festival in Northern Ireland.

Elizabeth Cooney commenced violin studies with Adrian Petcu at the Cork School of Music in Ireland and has been making her mark on the international stage ever since.  Having won all the major prizes and awards in her home country, including the Strings Final of the RTE Millenium Musician of the Future Competition, she studied with Itzhak Rashkovsky on scholarship at the Royal College of Music, London.   While there she won the Seymour Whinyates Prize for Strings, the Ian Stoutzker Award for Violin and the Bernard Stevens Prize for Chamber Music.  She gained the highest mark ever awarded (98%) at the RCM in her Postgraduate Final Recital.

She held both the Mills Williams and Phoebe Benham Junior Fellowhips at the Royal College of Music London over the past two years and has recently joined the string faculty of the Royal Irish Academy of Music in Dublin.

Elizabeth has just released her first CD for Tzar Records consisting of works by Robert and Clara Schumann, Brahms and Wieniawski.   The CD is available on towerrecords.com and tzarrecords.com. Elizabeth was credited for her 'remarkable virtuosity' by Ian Fox in the Sunday Tribune for the CD, 'Debut', which received four stars.   The CD may be downloaded on Apple iTunes.

She performs in the Sans Souci Piano Trio with Huw Watkins, piano and Gabiella Swallow, cello. The three have recorded for BBC 3 and Lyric FM and performed at the West Cork Chamber Music Festival.  The Trio recently premiered Mark Anthony Turnage's A Fast Stomp in Canterbury.   Chamber music performances have included recitals with pianist John O'Conor and violinist Fionnuala Hunt.    Elizabeth and Sally Pryce have formed a duo and will cover a wide spectrum of music for violin and harp.   Elizabeth and Isabelle O'Connell, piano, gave three recitals in Ireland in February and will perform together in late summer/autumn.    Elizabeth also collaborates with guitarist Redmond O'Toole.

June 2006

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