RAJA QUARTET

Phoebe White & Claire Wells, violin
Martin Moriarty, viola
Callum Owens, cello

PHOEBE WHITE, violin

Born in Dublin in 1997, Phoebe White has been playing violin since the age of three. In their teens, they studied with Fionnuala Hunt at the Royal Irish Academy of Music. They studied under the tutelage of Mauricio Fuks at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, earning a Bachelor of Music Performance in 2019. In 2020, they moved to Berlin, where they studied with Latica Honda–Rosenberg and earned a Masters degree at the Berlin University of Arts.

In recent years Phoebe has established themselves as one of Ireland’s rising stars in classical music. They have been awarded the RDS Music Bursary, the Collins Memorial Award, the Aileen Gore Cup at the Feis Ceoil and the Blackwater Valley Opera Festival bursary. Previous awards include the National Concert Hall Young Musicians’ Award, the Dublin Philharmonic Award, the Maura Dowdall Award, and the Flax Trust Bursary.

As a soloist, Phoebe has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland, RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Esker Festival Orchestra, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra of Ireland, and the Midlands Youth Orchestra. Phoebe is a passionate chamber musician and has appeared at such festivals as the West Cork Chamber Music Festival, Blackwater Valley Opera Festival, Roscommon Chamber Music Festival, Westport Chamber Music Festival, Encuentro Santander in Spain, the West Wicklow Chamber Music Festival, the Clandeboye Festival, the National Concert Hall Chamber Music Gathering, and Ortús Chamber Music Festival. Phoebe has been concertmaster of the Symphony Orchestra of the Encuentro Santander, the Esker Festival Orchestra, and the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland. They were a member of the Kurt Sanderling Akademie of the Konzerthausorchester Berlin during the 2022-2023 season.

CLAIRE WELLS, violin

Claire Wells captivates audiences with a sound that speaks straight from her heart. Unique in her sparkling imagination and original, honest interpretations, Wells brings a profound presence to the stage with a transparency that touches her listeners.

Solo concert engagements have brought her to halls like the Wigmore Hall, the Meyerson Symphony Center, Bass Performance Hall, Teatro Degollado, andKonzerthaus Berlin, and the American violinist has taken to the stage with major symphonies such as the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, the Belgrade Philharmonic, the Jalisco Philharmonic, and the Nancy Lyric Symphony, among others. The coming 2025-2026 season includes solo performances with the Stuttgarter Philharmoniker and Czech Symphony Orchestra Prague.

Having taken major prizes from several international competitions such as the Indianapolis and Mirecourt competitions, Claire Wells is the Mendelssohn-Prize First Prize and Commission Prize winner at the Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy Competition 2021 along with the 2nd Prize award winner at the Michael Hill International Violin Competition 2023. Claire is the 2023 scholarship winner of the Mozart Gesellschaft Dortmund.Having always held a special place in her heart for chamber music, Claire has been invited to perform at several international festivals such as Chamber Music Northwest, Chamber Music Connects the World, the Gstaad Festival, Krzyzowa Festival and the Verbier Festival. Claire has the pleasure of frequently collaborating with some of the worlds’ top young musicians, as well as sharing the stage with world renowned musicians such as Noah Bendix-Balgley, Christian Tetzlaff, Lars Anders Tomter, Enrico Pace, Nobuko Imai, amongst others.

Born in 2001 to a family of musicians, Claire Wells began playing the violin and piano at the age of 3. Claire studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School with teacher Lutsia Ibragimova, and the Köln Hochschule für Musik und Tanz with Mihaela Martin. Claire has since 2022 continued her studies with Mihaela Martin at the Kronberg Academy.

Claire Wells plays on a Nicolo Amati violin and a Grand Adam bow, on loan from a generous donor.

MARTIN MORIARTY, viola

Violist Martin Moriarty is one of Ireland’s foremost musicians and enjoys and active career as a soloist and as a chamber musician both at home and abroad. Martin has received multiple awards and prizes including the Amsterdam Viola Festival Competition, the Flax Trust Award at the Clandeboye Chamber Music Festival and the Peter Pirazzi Stiftung. As a soloist he has performed with orchestras including the Baden-Baden Philharmonic Orchestra and Amsterdam Sinfonietta under Pavel Baleff and Ed Spanjaard. He recently gave the Czech premier of James MacMillan’s Viola Concerto with the Karlovy Vary Symphony Orchestra under Marc Kissoczy in April 2022.

Martin has performed in venues including the National Concert Hall, Dublin, Het Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Kings Place and St John's Smith Square, London, Franz Liszt Academy of Music Budapest, Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel, Brussels and Ishibashi Memorial Hall, Tokyo. Festival invitations include IMS Prussia Cove, Krzyzowa, West Cork, GAIA, Eggenfelden Klassisch, Dovos, Schiermonnikoog, Grachtenfestival, Tsinandali, Pablo Casals, Virtuoso & Belcanto, Holland Music Sessions and Sligo International Chamber Music Festivals. Martin has a great passion for contemporary music, Martin has worked alongside and premiered works by Garth Knox, Gabriel Prokofiev, Sam Perkin, Seán Doherty,  Raymond Deane, John Kinsella, Oene Van Geel, Sebastian Fagerlund and Thomas Beijer.

CALLUM OWENS, cello

24-year-old cellist Callum Owens from Cork completed his part-time studies with Christopher Marwood at the MTU Cork School of Music. Callum has since moved to Germany to complete his Bachelor's degree at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin with Prof. Stephan Forck. He has participated in masterclasses with cellists such as Frans Helmerson, Mischa Maisky, Daniel Müller- Schott, Andrés Diaz, Marc Coppey and Hannah Roberts. In 2017 he was awarded the National Concert Hall’s Young Musicians’ Award for string players. At the ESB Feis Ceoil, he won the Clyde Twelvetrees Trophy for his performance of the Cello Concerto No. 1 by Shostakovich, achieving a score of 100%. In 2018, he was selected to take part in the Verbier Festival Junior Orchestra in Switzerland and was invited back to the orchestra in July 2019. This gave Callum the opportunity to work with conductors such as Alain Altinoglu, Stanislav Kochanovsky and James Gaffigan