Lunchtime Recital: Layla Ballard, cello

This long-running and very popular series of lunchtime recitals features a wide variety of performers, playing and singing in one of Edinburgh's most beautiful concert spaces. These concerts are free by donation, and a perfect way to spend a lunchtime during the busy festival!

Programme

Sonata no. 2 in F Major......... J. Brahms (1833-1897)

Cello Sonata....... F. Bridge (1878-1941)

Biography

Layla Ballard is a cellist based in London, originally from Edinburgh, Scotland. She began her studies at St Mary’s Music School with teacher and member of the Maxwell Quartet Duncan Strachan, and also studied composition with Tom Wilson and Jazz Piano with Chick Lyall. Her cello studies have continued at the Royal College of Music in London with teacher Melissa Phelps where she is awarded as the Leverhulme Arts Scholar supported by the Geoffrey Boyes Memorial Scholarship and is also supported by the Dewar Arts Award and the Talent Unlimited Foundation. She has previously been awarded by the Cross Trust and Beatrice Huntington Award.

She has debuted as a soloist and chamber musician at the Edinburgh International Festival and Fringe as well as in high profile venues such as the Royal Albert Hall, Konzerthaus in Berlin and Queens Hall in Edinburgh as both an orchestral player and soloist. She has been lucky enough to have played in masterclasses with Steven Isserlis, Nicolas Aldstadt, Gautier Capuçon, Leonid Gorokhov, Marc Coppey and Torleif Thedéen to name a few.

Her cello is an English, Kennedy School make kindly donated by a private owner.