Our Guest Soloist

The orchestra is happy to welcome back the British violinist Mathilde Milwidsky to Newbury for a third time. Regular audience members will remember her masterful renditions of the Prokofiev and Kornbluth violin concertos. Recently named a 2023 Classic FM Rising Star and One to Watch by Gramophone Magazine, she has been praised by The Strad’s Charlotte Gardner for her “perfect intonation and beautiful shaping and colouring, comprehensively nailing each new stylistic and emotional universe as she went”. She is the sole British violinist to be selected for the 2024 Queen Elisabeth Violin Competition, and in 2019 was awarded 3rd Prize and a Special Prize at the Windsor Festival International String Competition. In 2021 and 2022 Mathilde was invited to the prestigious Verbier Festival Academy on the Soloist & Chamber Music Programme, as one of only seven violinists chosen from across the world.Mathilde has performed as a soloist at leading concert halls such as Wigmore Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Kings Place, Cadogan Hall and St John’s Smith Square. Her frequent radio appearances have included Scala Radio’s ‘One to Watch’, BBC Radio 3 ‘In Tune’, Deutschlandfunk Kultur’s Hörprobe, Radio Swiss Classic, Yle Radio Suomi and Hessischer Rundfunk. She has been invited to perform at Festivals including Musikdorf Ernen, Lerici, Two Moors, IMS Prussia Cove, Fränkische Musiktage, Cheltenham and Fanø, and has enjoyed collaborations with Anthony Marwood, Avi Avital, Mark Simpson, Raphaela Gromes, Adrian Brendel, Ettore Causa and the Doric QuartetMathilde has worked closely with leading composers such as Brett Dean, Mark Simpson, Cheryl Frances-Hoad, Huw Watkins, Sally Beamish and Joseph Phibbs. Notable premieres have included Sally Beamish’s Wild Swans at St John’s Smith Square in 2018 with pianist Huw Watkins, Joseph Phibbs’s Violin Sonata at Presteigne Festival in 2020 partnered by Clare Hammond and Deborah Pritchard’s Liberty for soprano, violin and piano alongside Huw Watkins and Ruby Hughes at the Two Moors Festival in 2023.Mathilde won First Prize and Audience Prize at the 2018 Aurora Music Competition in Sweden, First Prize in the String Section at the 2017 Royal Overseas League Music Competition, and was a semi-finalist laureate of the International Joseph Joachim Violin Competition, Hanover, in 2018. While studying in Germany, she has also been awarded First Prize in the Deutsche Stiftung Musikleben’s Musikinstrumentfonds Competition, Third Prize in the Bundesweiter Hochschulwettbewerb of the Peter-Pirazzi-Stiftung and the prestigious Deutschlandstipendium study scholarship. Mathilde was awarded a place on the St John’s Smith Square Young Artist Scheme for the 2017/18 season, and was an Artist on the Countess of Munster Recital Scheme for two consecutive seasons, 2020-21 and 2021-22.Born in London in 1994, Mathilde's studies began at her local primary school with Ilya Ushakov before joining the Royal College of Music Junior Department as a Tsukanov Scholar under Viktoria Grigoreva and David Takeno. She won a place to read Music at Trinity College, Cambridge and full scholarships to all the London Conservatoires, eventually deciding to attend the Royal Academy of Music on a full scholarship with György Pauk, then undertaking her Masters at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München from 2017-2021. Mathilde is currently completing her Konzertexam (Excellence in Performance) studies under Professor Mi-kyung Lee at the Hochschule.

Our Principal Conductor

Dr Jonathan Williams is a renowned conductor, orchestrator, composer and musicologist. Recent highlights include standing in for Sir Simon Rattle, composing for a new Sony video game and the release of a CD with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment. He is the director of the Rameau Project and is currently co-editing a volume on Rameau. He was appointed as the first director of College Music in 2006 at St Hilda's College Oxford.

Jonathan Williams

Future Concerts

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2025 Spring Concert

Sat 22 March 2025

Dvorak - Cello concerto soloist Oliver Simson

Bizet - Carmen extracts from suites 1 & 2

Mussorgsky/Ravel - Pictures at an Exhibition

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2025 Summer Family Concert

Sat 28 June 2025

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2025 Autumn Concert

Sat 22 Nov 2025