Guest Artists in 2024

Cillian Vallely is the uilleann pipes and low whistle player with the renowned Irish band Lunasa, described as “The hottest Celtic band on the planet” (Irish Voice).  In recent years, he has played and recorded with Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Merchant, Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Tim O’Brien, and Riverdance in addition to recording as a guest on over 50 albums.  With Lunasa, he has performed at The Hollywood Bowl, Glastonbury Festival, Womad Aledaide, Edmonton Folk Festival in addition to multiple tours of Asia, Australia, US and Europe. 
“Vallely, whose family has played a seminal role in piping and Irish music in the north of Ireland for years, shows why he is one of the most respected pipers playing today”  Irish Voice 

Maighréad McCrann has been 1. Concertmaster of the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra since 1993. In 1997 she was appointed Professor of violin at the University of Performing Arts in Graz. During this time she has also enjoyed a versatile career as a soloist, chamber musician and directing chamber orchestras from the violin. Her passion for teaching has resulted in many masterclasses and intense coaching with the youth orchestras of Spain, Catalunya, Columbia, the Vienna Jeunesse Orchestra and the National Orchestral Institute in Washington. Born in Dublin where she studied with Brian McNamara, she graduated from Trinity College of music in 1984 and commenced studying in Vienna with Ernst Kovacic. Further violin lessons with Sandor Vegh and David Takeno. She was a member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and played baroque violin with Nikolaus Harnoncourt’s Concentus Musicus. In 2020 she was appointed to the board of the Wiener Jeunesse Orchestra and became a member of the advisory committee of the Austrian National Bank for the allocation of valuable instruments. She is artistic director of the Neuberg Masterclasses in Austria.

Scottish violist Fiona Winning was until 2014 Principal Viola of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and before that the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. During her years in London she was  a regular guest principal of the Philharmonia and London Philharmonic Orchestras, including four seasons at Glyndebourne Opera with the LPO. As principal she has performed under the batons of eminent conductors such as Charles Dutoit, Vasily Petrenko, Vladimir Jurowski, Yannick Neset-Seguin and Ilan Volkov. She is also a regular guest principal viola of the Aurora Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. A passionate advocate of contemporary music she was a founding member of Ensemble Amorpha, and has been a regular guest principal of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group. Highlights with the BCMG include one of Pierre Boulez’s last conducting engagements (Stravinsky Dumbarton Oaks) and performances of George Benjamin’s Into the Little Hill at the Wigmore Hall.”Fiona Winning’s central viola solo was quite beautifully played” (Erica Jeal, the Guardian). She is a regular visitor to the South Bank Centre as guest principal with the London Sinfonietta, and has also appeared with them at the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, BBC Proms, and broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. She is also a regular guest with the Red Note Ensemble (Scotland), most recently in a nationwide tour of George Crumb’s epic electronic quartet Black Angels. 

For seven years she was a member of the Scottish Ensemble with whom she performed at the Wigmore Hall, BBC Proms, and at the Edinburgh International, Aldeburgh and City of London Festivals, and broadcast regularly on Radio 3. As a chamber musician she has been a regular visitor to the Wigmore Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall and Purcell Room, and has performed at festivals such as Wye Valley, Corbridge. Mendelssohn on Mull and Bargemusic (New York City). She was a member of the Edinburgh String Quartet from 2014-2016.

Fiona studied at the Juilliard School in New York where she lived and worked for 6 years. When not playing the viola she enjoys climbing mountains and recently climbed 6000m peaks in the Bolivian Andes and the Himalayas.

Fiona plays on an Antonio Gragnani viola from 1780 for which she gratefully acknowledges support from the Countess of Munster Musical Trust and the Loan Fund for Musical Instruments. She lives near Loch Lomond with her husband and two sons.