Hilary Michael

After 3 years at St Mary’s Music School studying with Claire Docherty, Scottish violinist Hilary Michael went to the Royal Academy of Music to study with Richard Deakin, from where she graduated in 2006 with a 1st class Bmus(hons). She then returned to the Academy for a 2-year Postgraduate Diploma in Historical Performance, studying the Baroque violin with Pavlo Beznosiuk. Whilst at the RAM she won the Mica Comberti Bach Prize, performed Mendelssohn’s Concerto in D minor for Violin and Strings with the Becket Ensemble and David Watkin, led the RAM Baroque Ensemble and was the winner of the 2008 Early Music Prize. She was also a Leverhulme Chamber Music Fellow (with the group The Rare Theatricall) and was awarded one of the inaugural Leverhulme Orchestral Fellowships.

For the past 9 years Hilary has enjoyed a busy freelance career performing and recording all over the world with groups such as the Academy of Ancient Music, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, the Orchestre Romantique et Revolutionnaire, the Avison Ensemble, the Gabrieli Consort and Players, La Serenissima and the Dunedin Consort. In 2010 she performed live on BBC Radio 3’s the Early Music Show playing some traditional Scottish tunes on baroque violin as part of the Brighton Early Music Festival.

Hilary has recently both coached and led The Kellie Consort, a group set up by fellow St Mary’s Music School alumnus Tom Wilkinson as a training ensemble for college students and recent graduates who wish to explore the world of period instrument playing.

Hilary is also a keen jazz player and had tutored on the Richard Michael Jazz Course (formally the Fife Jazz Summer School) for the past 14 years. She has worked alongside Richard Michael and the late Will Michael for Wigmore Hall Education, led worshops on improvisation for Yamaha and most recently for the organisation ‘Making Music’, for whom she and Richard Michael have filmed a series of youtube videos teaching the various stages of how to improvise.