JACQUELINE SHAVE
director/violin
Jacqueline Shave received her formal training at the Royal Academy of Music but drew her particular performance inspiration and her love of chamber music from her time at the Britten Pears School in Snape.
She has since been in constant demand as a leader, beginning with English Touring Opera on leaving her studies, and subsequently guest leading many of the UK's orchestras including the London Sinfonietta, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Scottish, BBC Symphony and the Nash Ensemble.
Jackie spent fifteen years leading the Brindisi String Quartet, giving concerts worldwide and making many recordings. She has appeared at the Wigmore Hall over fifty times.
She is currently leader and director of the Britten Sinfonia, Associate Ensemble at London's Barbican Centre. Notable performances include The Messiah in the Concertgebouw and Bach’s St John Passion at the Barbican.
She is leader of the Red Note Ensemble, Scotland's leading contemporary music group, and gives concerts regularly as violinist in the Britten Oboe Quartet.
Jackie has appeared as conductor at the Barbican, St John’s Smith Square, Milton Court and at the Loch Shiel Festival, conducting works by Henze, Helen Grime, Anna Clyne and Benjamin Britten.
She gives performance classes at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow and has taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School.
In 2011 she took a year away and based herself on the Isle of Harris in the Hebrides to explore other musical pathways, resulting in ‘Postcards from Home’ a world music/jazz CD in collaboration with Kuljit Bhamra (tabla) and John Parricelli (guitar). During this year she presented a complete Beethoven String Quartet Cycle in a Sculptor's studio on the East coast of Harris, and gave a free improvisation concert in a cave on Hestur in the North Atlantic Faroe Islands, which she sailed to via St Kilda with her husband on their boat Kyle.
Jackie is particularly drawn to Indian music and improvisation, and has collaborated with musicians such as Amjad Ali Khan, Kuljit Bhamra, Nitin Sawhney and Anoushka Shankar. She is the violinist in Simon Thacker’s group committed to Indian music, Svara Kanti, with whom she has performed and made recordings.
She hosts a festival in Northern Italy in the tiny village of Borniga where the concerts are given in the square surrounded by mountains.
Jackie works regularly in the London studios recording music for pop, film and TV. Her string quartet recorded the music for ‘Portrait of a Lady’ ( Nicole Kidman) and were subsequently invited to perform at the Venice Film Festival.
She led the chamber group for Thomas Adès' music for the film ‘Colette’ and for ‘Final Portrait’ directed by Stanley Tucci, and has played on hundreds of soundtracks, including Bond, Shrek, Mission Impossible and Harry Potter.
Jackie lives on Exmoor and is committed to the premise that ‘Music is for All’. She is always searching for ways to bring music out of the concert hall into the community. She has given performances in prisons, refugee centres, Ugandan orphanages, care homes, schools and hospitals and is currently in the process of forming a chamber orchestra for Somerset, Devon and Cornwall, planning to launch later in 2021.
Jackie plays on a violin by Nicolò Amati made in Cremona in 1672, acquired on her behalf by Nigel Brown OBE and the Stradivari Trust.