Clare Hoffmann & Christopher Bevan

Christopher Bevan was born in Wales and studied piano and violin at the Royal Academy of Music with David Martin and Sydney Griller. He joined the Strange Quartet at Sussex University and then the violins of the English Chamber Orchestra where he was a member for many years. He started to play harpsichord & keyboard with the ECO and was soon providing continuo for artists such as Zukerman, Stern, Perlman, Vengerov, Zimmerman and Rostropovich. He has taken part in many ECO recordings on harpsichord, including the Bach Violin Concertos, violin & oboe concerto, Brandenburg concertos & Vivaldi’s Seasons. He has also played continuo with the London Mozart Players, Britten Sinfonia, Guildhall Strings and the Bournemouth Sinfonietta.

He still plays regularly with the ECO on harpsichord, piano and violin and has often performed Bach keyboard concertos and complete Brandenburgs in ‘St. Martin in the Fields’ with the London Octave. In the same venue, he recently performed an organ concerto by Handel and played Schubert’s ‘Trout’ quintet & Beethoven’s ‘Spring’ Sonata in an ensemble with violinist Clare Hoffman, with whom he has given many recitals. He has been harpsichordist for many concertos with counter-tenor James Bowman and frequently acts as an audition and Associated Board piano accompanist.

At the age of seventeen, Clare Hoffman performed the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto at the Royal Northern College of Music. She continued her studies in Salzburg, where she joined the Camerata Academica under Sandor Vegh. Clare's talents led to an invitation to Ukraine, where she performed Sir Arthur Bliss’s Violin Concerto with the Odessa Philharmonic. She has served as the Principal Second Violin with the English Chamber Orchestra, appearing with them in London, France, Italy, and the USA. Currently, she frequently engages in performances, often accompanied on the piano by her husband, Christopher Bevan.