BANBHA QUARTET
Lidia Jewloszewicz-Clarke, violin
Maria Ryan, violin
Robin Panter, viola
Paul Grennan, cello
The Banbha Quartet was founded in 2020 and is made up of four of our most celebrated musicians. They return for their sixth tour for the National String Quartet Foundation in spring 2026
Lidia Jewloszewicz-Clarke, violin
Lidia Jewloszewicz-Clarke is an award-winning Polish violinist living in Ireland. She is a winner of the Hibernian Orchestra Concerto Competition (Ireland) and the Gdańsk Mozart Prize (Poland). She was a founding member of the Lupus Piano Trio, with whom she received the Special Prize at the International Brahms Competition in Gdańsk, and was a finalist of the Bacewicz International Chamber Music Competition in Łódź. Lidia is the recipient of a scholarship from the President of the University of Music in Luzern, Switzerland and an Artistic Scholarship from the President of Gdańsk for Special Achievements in Music and Culture. Most recently, Lidia was awarded an Agility Award and a bursary by The Arts Council in Ireland.
Lidia regularly performs with Camerata Ireland, Musici Ireland, the RTÉ Concert Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra and the Ulster Orchestra. Lidia graduated with honours from the Moniuszko Academy of Music in Gdańsk. She furthered her studies in London at The Royal Academy of Music and graduated with an MA in Performance. Her teachers included Remus Azoiței, Sebastian Hamann, Tomotada Soh and Mirosława Pawlak.
Maria Ryan, violin
Award winning Irish violinist Maria Ryan returned to Kilkenny in 2019 after spending ten years performing and touring from London, UK. Maria is a member of the Banbha Quartet, formed in 2020, supported by The National String Quartet Foundation. She also teaches at the MTU Cork School of Music. Maria enjoyed an eclectic mix of orchestral performing in London, from Symphonies with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, to performing at the Proms with The Jacksons and enjoys performing regularly with the Irish Chamber Orchestra, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, Camerata Ireland, and Musici Ireland.
Maria was the winner of the Heineken Violin Competition in 2010, and winner of the Aileen Gore Cup and RDS Music Bursary in 2008. She was a recipient of the Arts Council of Ireland Agility Award in 2021, and was recently awarded the Kilkenny Arts Office EDI Bursary in 2024, striving to make classical music more accessible.
Maria is grateful to the wonderful teachers she had the good fortune to study with, including Philip Edmondson, Maeve Broderick, Geraldine O’ Grady and Ruxandra Petcu-Colan, and Emilian Piedicuta.
Maria currently plays on a Roger Hansell violin and a bow from the renowned Irish bow maker Noel Burke, supported by the Music Network Music Capital Scheme, the Department of Culture, Communications and Sport, and The Arts Council.
Robin Panter, viola
Robin Panter is from Liverpool and studied the viola at the Royal Northern College of Music with Roger Benedict and Scott Dickinson. Robin joined the viola section of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra in 2004, and while in Glasgow teamed up with a group of musicians to set up the Scottish version of El Sistema, visiting Venezuela and applying its ground-breaking social and community development programme to schools in Raploch, Stirling.
Robin now lives in Ireland where he is a member of the Irish Chamber Orchestra and performs with the RTÉ Concert, National Symphony and Ulster Orchestras. Robin is a keen chamber musician and is a member of the Robinson Panoramic Quartet, and more recently Trio Táin with his wife Vourneen Ryan (Flute) and Aisling Ennis (Harp). Robin is a trained Suzuki violin teacher and teaches the viola at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin.
Paul Grennan, cello
Irish cellist Paul Grennan spent his childhood roaming the fields and beaches of County Wicklow. After studying at the RIAM he was accepted to the RNCM following masterclasses and a personal recommendation from the renowned cellist Mstislav Rostropovich. Whilst at the RNCM, Paul won the John Barbirolli Cello Prize, received second place in the Premio Francesco Geminiani in Verona while also receiving scholarships and a Music Education Award from the MBF.
He has given chamber music recitals throughout Europe and worked on a personal basis with composers such as Kurt Schwertsik, Alexander Goehr, James MacMillan and Colin Matthews. Paul has performed chamber and solo works by James MacMillan and quartets and works for Cello and Piano by Goehr at the Wigmore Hall in London.
As well as being a member of the wonderful Hallé cello section, Paul freelances with orchestras throughout the UK and Ireland including the The BBC Philharmonic, RLPO, Irish Chamber Orchestra, RSNO, BBC National Orchestra of Wales and more. He is currently on trial for principal cello with the RTE Concert Orchestra in Dublin. Paul has toured Asia, USA, Australia and Europe with various classical and pop groups as well completing a residency in the Hong Kong Academy of Performing Arts with the contemporary ensemble Psappha.
As a soloist, Paul has performed at the Stockhausen Festival and Minimalist Festival at the Onassis Cultural Centre in Athens as well as performing at the Barbican Hall with the BBC Symphony Orchestra in a production of Max Richter's Memoryhouse.