Sara Wolstenholme

Sara Wolstenholme has gained reputation as a dynamic chamber musician on the international music scene. Her performances with The Heath Quartet take her to the world’s most important music venues, and their recordings have won several awards including a Gramophone award and Limelight Magazine Recording of the Year award.

Chosen for representation by YCAT, the Quartet are also prizewinners in the Tromp International String Quartet Competition, The Haydn International Chamber Music Competition and are recipients of prestigious awards by the Royal Philharmonic Society (Young Artist Award), Borletti Buttoni Trust and Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommen. The Quartet has a close relationship with many concert halls and festivals around the world including Wigmore Hall, Boulez Saal, Berlin; Aldeburgh, Brighton Festivals and their performances take them from Europe to the USA, New Zealand and Australia. They have recorded for Harmonia Mundi, NMC, Wigmore Hall Live and Signum Records.

In increasing demand as a pedagogue, she coaches chamber music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She has given masterclasses throughout UK, USA and Europe, including Musica Mundi (Belgium), ConChorda (Ireland), Middlebury College (USA) and has taught at Dartington Summer School and Britten Pears Young Artists Programme. She was in residence at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (2016-2018) with the Heath Quartet and a Junior Fellow at both Royal Northern College of Music and Trinity Laban as member of the Finzi String Quartet.

She studied at Chetham’s School of Music, Royal Northern College of Music and Royal College of Music where her principal Violin teachers were Thomas Kemp and Maciej Rakowski. She furthered her String Quartet studies at the Escuela Superior de Música Reina Sofía (Madrid) with Günter Pichler and Heime Müller.

She has drawn much inspiration from her studies and collaborations with the European Chamber Music Academy and IMS Prussia Cove - some influential teachers including Hatto Beyerle, Ferenc Rados, Shmuel Askenasi, Gábor Takács-Nagy and Gerhard Schulz.

Passionate also about Contemporary music, she has worked with leading figures such as Jörg Widmann, Thomas Larcher, Brett Dean, Mark Anthony-Turnage and Helen Grime. She has enjoyed many chamber music collaborations including Anastasia Kobekina, Anthony Marwood, Tom Poster, Carolyn Sampson, Steven Osborne, Richard Lester and members of the Elias, Armida and Doric String Quartets.

She has played as soloist with the RLPO and Hallé Orchestras and has held principal positions in orchestras in the UK and Sweden. She is invited as Guest and Co-Leader in various orchestras and chamber ensembles around the UK.