Richard Lester

One of Britain's foremost cellists, Richard Lester has earned distinction as a concerto and recital soloist and as an accomplished chamber musician. He is equally at home in period instrument performance and in ‘modern’ and is associated with some of the finest performers from both fields. He is a member of the award winning Florestan Trio, and is principal cello with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE) and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE).

As a concerto soloist he has performed with COE under conductors such as Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Roger Norrington, Paavo Berglund and Myung Whun Chung. He appeared as a soloist with Sandor Vegh and the Salzburg Camerata, and in Britain with the Ulster Orchestra, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC Scottish, the Manchester Camerata and the Academy of St Martin in the Fields.

Recently he has been developing the idea of directing orchestras from the cello seat: last year he directed the OAE in concerts in London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall and Birmingham City Hall in a programme including Mozart’s Prague Symphony. This season saw performances in Dublin and Limerick directing, conducting and playing solo with the Irish Chamber Orchestra. He has also directed the Academy of St Martin in the Fields in performances of Boccherini and both Haydn cello concertos.
 
Richard Lester was a founder member of the celebrated ensemble Domus, with whom he toured worldwide and recorded most of the repertoire for Piano Quartet. In 1995 he formed the Florestan Trio, described by The Times (London) as “three players of amazing skill, intuition and rapport”. In 1999 they won a Gramophone award for best chamber disc, and in 2000 received the Royal Philharmonic Society award for chamber ensemble. They appear regularly at London’s Wigmore Hall, most recently celebrating their 10th anniversary with a complete Beethoven cycle, as well as the South Bank, at Edinburgh, Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, The Proms and other major festivals. They have toured in Europe, USA, Japan, South America, Israel, Australia and New Zealand. The trio have their own annual U.K. summer festival in Peasmarsh, East Sussex.

He has made over forty discs of chamber music, winning a host of accolades and gathering extraordinary praise. His solo recordings of the complete works of Mendelssohn for cello and piano, and a disc of Boccherini sonatas on period instruments, are both available on the Hyperion label.

He performs on a cello by G.B. Rogeri, made in Brescia, circa 1710.