The Musicians of Lysandra String Quartet

The Quartet

A string quartet with more than 10 years' experience of playing for weddings, parties, formal dinners and the like, we're four accomplished musicians committed to providing a professional service and sound. We're not an agency and we don't work through an agency, so when you contact us you know you'll be talking to someone who'll be playing on the day. It's important to us that the music is right for you, so we make sure we find out your likes and dislikes.

We have wide-ranging musical tastes ourselves - as well as a wealth of wonderful classical music, we love to play arrangements of the songs we enjoy listening to. Whether it's Mozart, Sinatra or Stevie Wonder we're playing, our enjoyment of the music is infectious.

We're not a pool of players. We believe that a string quartet is more than a group of 4 individuals - like any team, it takes time to come to know each other and each other's playing. Performing and rehearsing together regularly over the years has allowed us to develop a consistency of sound and a familiarity with each other's playing, as well as a thorough knowledge of the pieces we play.

And for the odd occasion when one of us is unavailable, we have a couple of regular 'guest' players who are always happy to join us. They rehearse with us too, and have become much more than 'reserves'!

We're based in Bath and cover the surrounding areas - Somerset, Wiltshire and Bristol - but we'd be happy to discuss travelling further afield.

The Musicans

Our first violinist Laurie achieved a full scholarship to Chetham's School of Music at the age of fourteen and went on to lead their classical orchestra, studying for four years with Malcolm Layfield, director of Strings at the Royal Northern College of Music.
She has performed with the Wells Bach Society and in Autumn 2008, gave her inaugural solo recital in Wells Cathedral: with this programme she gained a distinction in the ABRSM performer's diploma in December 2008. She featured in several concerts in the successful Musicians South West concert series last year; a further series is planned for this summer.

Laurie also performs with pianist Jackie Bevan in Sunny Skiez jazz duo.

Our violist and cellist first met while studying music at college and have been together ever since. They both gained a BA degree in music at the Colchester Institute. They now do lots of professional playing and are familiar faces in concert venues in Bath, Somerset and Wiltshire. They've both performed in the Abbey, the Assembly Rooms and the Theatre Royal in Bath, as well as Wells Cathedral and Salisbury Cathedral. Among the groups they play with are the Bath Cantata Group, Frome Symphony and the Trowbridge Philharmonic Choir. Rob teaches the violin and viola in Somerset. As well as playing the cello in the Quartet, Jo arranges much of our music and does the admin (as well as designing our website and making our much-admired frocks!).

Our second violinist studied violin, guitar and composition at the Royal College of Music, after being awarded a scholarship from Nottingham City Council. After graduating she formed a duo, Tapestry, which performed for several years in and around London.
Ruth is also a talented composer, having had compositions accepted for publication at age 17, as well as later having compositions performed in various parts of the world, including at the Vienna festival. More recently she received excellent reviews for her musical based on the story of Jane Eyre. She is now focusing on her violin playing, and in particular, quartet playing.

As our former first violinist, Meg will continue to 'guest' for us. Having decided to concentrate on family and career, she's nonetheless still active on the music scene in Bath, Somerset and Wiltshire.

Our regular 'guest' violinist also leads his own String Quartet and Trio. A member of Bath's Pump Room Trio, Robert studied at the Juilliard School in New York and is a full-time professional musician. He's been 'guesting' for us since the early days of the Quartet.