Catherine Rimer

Catherine Rimer began her studies with Emma Ferrand at the Royal Northern College of Music, where she was awarded all the chamber music prizes and continued them with Alexander Baillie and the Amadeus Quartet at the Royal Academy of Music supported by a Countess of Munster Scholarship. Following masterclasses with Steven Isserlis at Prussia Cove, she completed her formal studies with Steven Doane at the Eastman School of Music, N.Y. While in America she pursued her interest in historical performance practice with lutenist Paul O'Dette and fortepianist Malcolm Bilson and won the J. C. Graue Fellowship for her Master's.

On returning to the UK she gave the annual prize winner's recital for the Gordon Clark Trust, since when she has played with leading ensembles on both period and modern instruments.

Catherine has been a member of the English Baroque Soloists and Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique since 1996, taking part in the Bach Cantata Pilgrimage throughout 2000. She also plays regularly with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and as guest principal with various other groups including the Classical Opera Company, Florilegium, Gabrieli Consort and Hanover Band.

As a soloist on gut strings she has appeared at the St. Ceceliatide International Festival, London in Haydn's Concerto in D (2002) and in Beethoven's Triple Concerto (with violinist Nadja Zwiener and fortepianist Maggie Cole, 2003) and she recently performed the original version of Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations at Exeter University. Chamber concerts during 2002/3 included Schubert's String Quintet with the Eroica Quartet, the Trout Quintet with Melvyn Tan and friends and the Arpeggione Sonata with Concerto Cristofori in the Purcell Room.

From 1998-99 she was acting 'cellist of the Skampa Quartet on extensive tours of Europe and the USA and has also performed with Configure8 (strings/wind octet) on the NFMS scheme, with Orbestra in televised broadcasts from Istanbul Festival, at the Orlando Festival Holland, the Festival of British Music, Czechoslovakia and in Open Chamber Music at Prussia Cove.

Catherine currently teaches Baroque and Classical Cello at the Royal College of Music.