| Benedict Holland
Benedict Holland studied the violin at the Royal Academy of Music with Manoug Parikian and later with Yossi Zivoni at the Royal Northern College of Music.
As a chamber musician, he was a founder member of the Matisse Piano quartet and the Music Group of Manchester, broadcasting regularly for the BBC and undertaking British Council tours. As an orchestral player, he has guest led many of the country's major orchestras, including the Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, Northern Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Scottish Ensemble.
Since 2006 he has been a regular guest leader of the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, working with conductors such as Gianandrea Noseda, Vassily Sinaiski and JuanJo Mena. In the past three years, he has particularly enjoyed working on contemporary repertoire with the Orchestra with composers including James MacMillan, Brett Deanand Steven Mackey.
Benedict has been the Leader of Sinfonia ViVa since April 2001 and became its Artistic Advisor in May 2006, appearing as director and soloist, performing chamber music and participating in education projects. Recent appearances with ViVa have included performances of concertos by Mozart, Kurt Weill, Vaughan-Williams, and Vivaldi's Four Seasons; chamber music has taken him from duos to octets and he has directed Viennese concerts from the violin and collaborated with students from schools and colleges in the East Midlands.
Through his association with Sinfonia ViVa, Benedict began working in 2007 with the renowned Indian classical violinist Karla Ramnath on a major project, which culminated in improvisation around a performance of Piazzolla's Four Seasons of Buenos Aires at Kings Place, London. This has led to a forthcoming project for 2011-12 with the Darbar Festival working with sitarist Rupinder Phull. Other notable projects have been with composer and singer Juwon Ogungbe on the African diaspora and with composer/performer Tunde Jegede (2001) on his work, 'Cycle of Reckoning'. There will be a future project with Tunde in 2012 for LOCOG/Music Nation, co-ordinated by BBC Radio 3 as part of the Cultural Olympiad.
Benedict also teaches at the Royal Northern College of Music and Chetham's School of Music.
Ben currently plays on fine violin by Joseph Rocca of 1836
Psappha Ensemble  Conrad Marshall - flute Dov Goldberg - clarinet Richard Casey - piano Tim Williams - percussion Benedict Holland - violin Jennifer Langridge - cello Nicholas Kok - conductor Psappha, Manchester's new music ensemble and one of the UK's top contemporary music groups, was formed in 1991 by its Artistic Director Tim Williams and specialises in the performance of music by living composers and that of the 20th and 21st centuries. The ensemble has an extensive and varied repertoire of hundreds of works and a reputation for technical assurance and interpretive flair. Attracting attention from audiences and music press internationally, it won the Manchester Evening News Award for Opera in 2000 and has twice been shortlisted for a prestigious Royal Philharmonic Society award. Psappha has commissioned and premiered many works by a wide range of composers including the award-winning music-theatre work, Mr Emmet Takes a Walk, by its Patron, Peter Maxwell Davies, also recorded by the original performers. Psappha has appeared throughout the UK, featuring regularly at most of the country's major music festivals, including the BBC Proms, in special Henze and Maxwell Davies portrait series and in the recent Bernstein Project at London's Southbank Centre, and in a residency at the St. Magnus Festival, Orkney in 2009. To celebrate its landmark 20th anniversary in 2011, Psappha has lined up an exciting and diverse array of commissions from John Casken, Sally Beamish, Gordon McPherson and Ian Wilson. It has made highly successful tours to North and South America, Australia, Belgium, France, Holland, Ireland, Jersey, Portugal and Spain and this season appears in the United States as part of a residency at Princeton University. Having made a number of recordings on various labels, Psappha launched its own CD label in 2004 with Maxwell Davies's Eight Songs for a Mad King and Miss Donnithorne's Maggot. The most recent release, Busted Micro Shorts, features music by Steven Mackey. Appointed Contemporary Ensemble in Residence at the University of Manchester in 2010, Psappha encourages the breaking down of barriers between artistic and educational experiences, inspiring creativity and the exchange of ideas with students through interactive and collaborative projects. Autumn 2010 saw the launch of 'Composition Lab', an online resource designed to accompany the composition element of GCSE and A-level music. Tireless champions of the music of today, Psappha is continually seeking to develop new audiences, breaking fresh ground in its innovative development of the digital dissemination of its work through free-to-view films of live performances on its website. Psappha welcomes people of all ages to try something new, and become involved with the ensemble and its composers through its online resources, in performances and projects and at its pre- and post-concert events.  |
Benedict Holland who is leader of Sinfonia ViVa also performs as a regular guest leader with the BBC Philharmonic and many of the UK's major orchestras. 
