Brought up in Turkey and England, Michael Bochmann comes from a family of professional musicians. At 16, he entered the Royal Academy of Music on a scholarship to study the violin with Frederick Grinke. While still a student, he was the winner of the British Prize in the 1972 Carl Flesch International Violin Competition and a year later, prizewinner in the Jacques Thibaud Competition in Paris. He received lessons at this time also from Sandor Vegh and Henryk Szeryng. Shortly after he made his first solo broadcasts for the BBC. The Bochmann Quartet was founded in 1977 and has since toured internationally and made many recordings and broadcasts. It currently performs extensively throughout Britain and abroad. He was appointed concertmaster of the English String and Symphony Orchestras in 1988. Two years later he partnered Yehudi Menuhin in Bach’s Double Violin Concerto in a tour of eighteen concerts in the USA and Britain. He frequently visits Germany to perform and teach and in other spare moments promotes 10 chamber music series through his new enterprise “Opus 2000”. He holds courses for young professional ensembles and soloists at his home in Gloucestershire.

Mark Messenger

At the age of sixteen, Mark Messenger was awarded a scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music under David Martin and Sidney Griller. Two years later he was appointed violin professor at Goldsmith's College in London, and at the age of nineteen made his Wigmore Hall debut. He has since played as soloist and chamber musician in all of London's major concert halls and throughout the world, appearing in many national and international festivals. He has broadcast many times on television and radio, and has been recorded by six labels.1990 saw the launch of his immediately popular jazz/rock group, Mercury Jazz. For four years he was director of Chamber Music at the Aberystwyth International Summer Music Festival and was influential in the development of educational policies for orchestras through his work with the English Symphony Orchestra. He is currently a consultant on music education policies for Colchester Borough Council and the Brighton Philharmonic Orchestra. However, it is in the world of chamber music where he has made his reputation. For eight years he was a member of the Bingham String Quartet which championed the cause of contemporary music through its adventurous commissioning and performance programme. Currently in addition to his work with the Bochmann Quartet, he is also leader of the European Chamber Opera, conductor of the Essex Young People's Orchestra and Head of String Studies at the Colchester Institute.

Helen Roberts was born in Newport, Gwent and studied the viola with Walter Gerhardt. At the age of seventeen she joined the BBC Training Orchestra and two years later the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. She was then appointed principal viola with the BBC Midland Radio Orchestra and in 1980 became principal of the English String Orchestra, with whom she has made many recordings and solo appearances. In 1990 she became violist with the Bochmann String Quartet and has performed and recorded a wide repertoire to critical acclaim. Helen is also a regular guest principal with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and Welsh National Opera Orchestra and frequently appears with the CBSO.

Peter Adams

Peter Adams was born in London in 1963 and began his musical studies whilst still at school, learning piano and later ’cello with Dennis Nesbitt and Maurice Zimbler. At the age of sixteen he joined the orchestra of London Festival Ballet and in 1984 he was made principal ’cellist with the London String Orchestra and London City Ballet. At an early stage Peter became interested in the viola da gamba and this lead to the forming of the early music group Musicos da Camera and his appointment in 1984 as the youngest ever professor at the Royal Academy of Music, teaching viol and baroque ’cello. In the autumn of 1988 Peter left England to take a two year break from professional activities to study again. He travelled to Indiana University, Bloomington, USA where he took lessons and masterclasses with Tsuyoshi Tsutsumi, Janos Starker and Paul Tortelier. Whilst there, he also worked with Rostislav Dubinsky, the leader and founder of the Borodin Quartet, Franco Gulli and Luba Edlin of the Borodin Trio. In 1991 Peter became director of the Elizabethan Consort of Viols, and for five years he was senior lecturer at the London Guildhall University, and is currently visiting lecturer at Leicester University. Peter is a founder member of the Rogeri Piano Trio with whom he performed widely throughout the world with a constant schedule of concerts for music clubs and festivals, broadcasts on the BBC and Classic FM and recording for Meridian Records. Peter joined the Bochmann Quartet in 1996, and a year later he was appointed to the Principal Chair of the English String and Symphony Orchestras. He plays a ’cello by G.B.Rogeri dated 1697.