Robert was born in Glasgow in 1985. He began playing the piano at the age of 5 and the cello at the age of 8.
He is currently a student of Christoph Richter at the International Menuhin Music Academy in Switzerland. He previously studied for a year with Alexander Baillie at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen, and with David Watkin and Robert Irvine at the RSAMD in Glasgow.
At IMMA he has the opportunity to work with musicians such as Gabor Takacs-Nagy, Frans Helmerson and Attila Falvay, giving concerts with Camerata Menuhin in Switzerland and also in Europe and further afield.
He has performed throughout Europe in chamber groups, orchestras and ensembles, incuding at festivals such as Mendlessohn on Mull, St Magnus, Edinburgh Fringe, Glasperlenspiel, Usedom, Menuhin Festival Gstaad, Rheingau, TFF Rudolstaad.
He has also benefitted from the teaching of Johannes Goritzki, Hester Dickson and Martti Rousi, and from baroque cello lessons with Alison McGillivrey and Viola de Hoog.
He has received the Caird Trust's Bloch Prize for Outstanding String Player in both 2009 and 2010, scholarships from the Cross Trust and Scottish Arts Council Dewar Awards, and prizes for chamber music and solo playing from the RSAMD.
He plays on a cello made in 2006 by Tobias Gräter of Heidelberg, for which he is grateful to the Wolfson Foundation, the Abbado Trust and his parents. |