Sadie Fields (violin)

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Canadian/British (and Brussels based) violinist Sadie Fields enjoys a diverse career as soloist, chamber musician, collaborator, and researcher. Sadie discovered the violin at the age of seven when her primary school went to see the famous Axelrod collection of Stradivarius violins. After she heard these Strads being played, she was hooked, and she started performing at an early age. Sadie performs regularly throughout Europe and North America, and her concerts also bring her to the Middle East, Asia, and New Zealand. Sadie is a founder and member of the Brussels-based piano trio, Trio Khnopff, and the Festival Trio (Canada), and she also performs regularly with the New European Ensemble (Netherlands), the Old Ox Chamber Orchestra (Sweden), and many other ensembles around Europe. During the Covid lockdown in 2020 Sadie formed a new ensemble, Flash Ensemble, with some of her long-time chamber music partners, and the ensemble is currently immersed in the complete string trio music of Laszlo Lajtha (Hungary, 1892-1963). Flash Ensemble will release a world-premiere recording of these works on Pavane Records in early 2023.

As a recording artist, Sadie's most recent disc, entitled ‘Weinberg – 1945’ by Trio Khnopff (Pavane Records), has met with great critical acclaim in Europe and North America, and was chosen as BBC Music Magazine’s ‘Chamber Disc of the Month’ for January 2020. Sadie has recorded extensively for BIS Records with the Swedish ensemble Camerata Nordica, and has released two discs with Champs Hill Records. The first, a disc of Mendelssohn chamber music, was chosen as BBC Music Magazine’s Editor’s Choice and ‘Chamber Disc of the Month’, and was also ‘Chamber Music Disc of the Quarter’ by the German Record Critics’ Award Association. Sadie’s second disc for Champs Hill is the complete Brahms Sonatas with pianist Jeremy Young, released in May 2015 to critical acclaim. Sadie also broadcasts regularly on BBC Radio 3, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio New Zealand, NDR (Germany), Swedish radio, Klara (Belgium), Musiq’3 (Belgium), and NPO Radio 4 (Netherlands), amongst others.

Sadie holds a PhD from the Royal Academy of Music, London. Her practice-led doctoral research addresses practical and philosophical ideas associated with the concepts of learning and ‘tradition’, focusing on her own engagement with Bartók’s violin works. Sadie has won awards from over twenty UK and international associations and competitions, and has been a Leverhulme Fellow at the Royal Academy of Music and the Edison Visiting Fellow at the British Library.

Principal teachers include György Pauk, Yair Kless, and Atis Bankas, and Sadie has also been guided and mentored by Ivry Gitlis, Ida Haendel, and Ferenc Rados. As a teacher herself, Sadie teaches violin and chamber music, she taught at King's College London, and she gives masterclasses at conservatoires and universities in China and the UK. Sadie plays on a fine Italian violin by Gioffredo Cappa, made in 1687.

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