The Beatrice Huntington Award for Cellists

Previous Beatrice Huntington Award Winners

2021

Madelyn Kowalski

Joint Senior Award Winner

Cellist Madelyn Kowalski grew up on a small island in the Pacific Northwest of the USA. She is currently a masters student with Alison Wells at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS), where she also completed her BMus degree. She is the recipient of an ABRSM International Postgraduate Scholarship, and awards from the William Syson and Hattori foundations and Help Musicians. In 2018 she was 2nd prize-winner of the Concours International de Violoncelle ‘Tremplin’ in Paris. She has won many other prizes at the RCS and was awarded 2nd prize in the 2019 Cavatina Intercollegiate Chamber Music Competition in London. In 2019 as part of a small ensemble, she premiered a work written and conducted by Sir James MacMillan for HRH Prince Charles’s 70th birthday. Last year she gave the Scottish premiere of Errollyn Wallen's cello concerto with the RCS orchestra.

An avid chamber musician, Madelyn has performed many recitals with her duo, including recording streamed concerts for BBC Radio 3 and Chamber Music Scotland. She has attended festivals and masterclass programs including IMS Prussia Cove and Hellensmusic in the UK, and Yellow Barn, Kneisel Hall, and Sitka in the USA, and has had masterclasses with cellists including Steven Isserlis, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Ralph Kirshbaum, Raphael Wallfisch, David Geringas, and Antônio Meneses. She has performed side-by-side with Scottish orchestras and has collaborated in chamber music projects with Joseph Swensen, and members of the Brodsky Quartet and the Hebrides Ensemble. Madelyn is a huge lover of animals, and back at her childhood home, her beloved German Shepherds, Treu and Elsa, are always waiting patiently for her to visit.

Hugo Eedle

Joint Senior Award Winner

Hugo is a 22 year old cellist from Dumfries, Scotland. Hugo started the cello aged 10, and at 14 successfully auditioned to Chethams school of Music, where he studied with Nicholas Jones, and then went on to study as a scholar with Thomas Carroll at the Royal College of Music, supported by The Dewar Arts Award. He currently studies at the Hochschule für musik und Tanz in Cologne, with Thomas Carroll.

Hugo has taken part in masterclasses with Karine Georgian, Guy Johnson, Robert Cohen, and Francis Guten, and Torleif thedéen, and has also played in Chetham’s symphony orchestra at venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Milton Court, and Dukes Hall. He has also performed many concerts at Chetham’s, in the Royal College of Music, and in Cologne, and is very dedicated to chamber music, having performed with his quartet at the RNCM, Barratt Due Musikkinstitutt in Norway, and the Bridgewater hall.

Layla Ballard

Junior Award Winner

Layla Ballard is a 17-year-old cellist from Edinburgh, Scotland. In September she will be starting her studies at the Royal College of Music in London with teacher Melissa Phelps. She has been part of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain for two years and has played 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.

This year she won the annual St Mary’s Music School Director’s Recital Prize Competition and was also a finalist of the school's Lord Clyde Concerto Competition. She won the Leonid Freidman Chamber Music prize as a member of the St Mary’s String Quartet in both 2020 and 2021. In the past year she has played in masterclasses with Steven Isserlis, Nicolas Aldstadt, Gautier Capuçon, Leonid Gorokhov, Natasha Brofsky and Hannah Roberts.