Cavatina Intercollegiate Chamber Music Competition Announces Winners for 2025

The Tamesis Quartet from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama received First Prize

The Cavatina Intercollegiate Chamber Music Competition was founded in 1961 with support from the Gerard Heller Memorial Quartet Fund and Rosemary Rapaport, and was given a fresh endowment in 2012 by the CAVATINA Chamber Music Trust.

The competition is open to chamber ensembles from the leading UK conservatoires, and each year it alternates between a focus on the string quartet and the piano trio. The 2025 edition was dedicated to the string quartet, and each ensemble played the compulsory work, which was Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 7 in F, Op. 59/1 "Razumovsky."

The Tamesis Quartet from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama was named as the winner of First Prize. The group comprises Matteo Cimatti and Phoebe Rousochatzaki (violin), Emily Clark (viola), and Theo Bently-Curtin (cello). As part of their prize, each player was given £500, and the group will make an appearance in the Sunday Concert series at Conway Hall.

The Karelia Quartet from the Royal Academy of Music (violinists Megan Yang and Bjorg Pas, violist Felix Pasco, and cellist Daniel Schultz) picked up Second Prize, and each player will receive £250.

Third Prize went to the Heartwood Quartet (violinists Bruno Robalo and Audrey Doyle, violist Michaela Jones, and cellist Jasmine Blackshaw-Britton) from the Royal Northern College of Music, and they each receive £150. This group also won the Audience Award.

The Irish cellist Brian O’Kane, who regularly appears with both the Cappa Ensemble and Navarra Quartet, was the 2025 competition adjudicator.