About
The Fira ensemble met during their studies at Trinity Laban College of Music and Dance, Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the University of Cambridge. After this they began making music together and during their studies they were winners of the Colin Blythe Chamber Music Award. They have played at venues and societies throughout the UK, and their music ranges from Baroque through to Contemporary. They have worked with several composers promoting new works and along with their chamber music concerts they work in outreach with Music In Hospitals. As an ensemble they work with a number of pianists in their concerts including Dr Paul Wingfield and Raymond Yiu.
Liz
Liz is a freelance flautist based in London. Worked with several orchestras including: Hampstead Garden Opera, Hastings Philharmonic and London’s New Opera Group. She has also been a guest soloist with the Chichester Chorale. She has done outreach work with London Philharmonic Orchestra in their Open Sound project and Side by Side schemes with London Philharmonia and Welsh National Opera. She has played in several shows including Miss Saigon, Phantom of the Opera, The Pirates of Penzance and Oliver.
Other work has included recitals alongside several acclaimed musicians including Richard Shaw, Nicky Spence, Richard Pierson, Cathy White and Robin Ireland. She has given performances for Elysian Residences and venues that she has performed at include Birmingham Symphony Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and St John’s Smith Square.
She studied at Birmingham Conservatoire with Jonathan Rimmer and Marie Christine Zupanzic completing her BMus(Hons) degree and her DipABRSM and LRSM diplomas. Liz later studied privately with Paul Edmund Davies and then continued her studies at Trinity Laban College of Music and Dance with Anna Pope completing a Masters degree and her FTCL diploma. Her studies were supported by the Denne Gilkes Memorial Fund and she was later invited back to give a performance for the Trinity College of London Honorary Awards.
Liz is a highly recognised teacher. Her pupils range from complete beginners to advanced. She has worked with several organisations including the Junior Birmingham Conservatoire and Flutewise. Liz is also currently a flute professor and chamber music coach at the University of Chichester.
Along with performing Liz is the founder and agent for Fira Events. The company has worked for both intimate and large scale events throughout the UK and internationally. Companies she has worked with include The National Wedding Show and JR Events Ltd.
Leora
British-American violinist of Iraqi-Kurdish descent, Leora Cohen, enjoys a diverse career performing as a recitalist, soloist and ensemble musician around the world. She holds a first-class degree from the University of Cambridge and two postgraduate Diplomas from the Royal College of Music.
Leora made her debut at 16 performing Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole at St John’s Smith Square. In 2020 she performed Beethoven’s Violin Concerto at West Road Concert Hall, was a finalist in the Sir Karl Jenkins Music Competition and played Shostakovich Violin Concerto No.1 in masterclass with Michael Vaiman live-streamed on the Violin Channel. For over two years she toured with the LGT Young Soloists, performing regularly to Liechtenstein Royalty and opening the 2022 Heidelberg Festival playing Kreisler. In her final year at the RCM, Leora was soloist with the RCM Symphony Orchestra in a public masterclass with Maxim Vengerov on Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor. She currently performs regularly as soloist with the Albion Chamber Orchestra in London, as a recitalist across the UK with Paul Wingfield and Germany with Parvis Hejazi and in Fira Duo with flautist, Liz Meyer.
Leora has played chamber music on BBC Radio 3, at Kings Place, and at the Wigmore Hall, and held an Instrumental Award for chamber music during her time at Cambridge.
A prominent concertmaster of her generation, she has led all orchestras of the RCM senior and junior departments, the National Youth Orchestra of GB, and the Cambridge University Orchestra under the baton of many renowned conductors including John Wilson, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Antonio Pappano, Jac van Steen and Thomas Adés at the BBC Proms, and collaborating with soloists such as Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Guy Johnson. She has played alongside the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Philharmonia, BBC Symphony Orchestra, English National Ballet, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Chamber Orchestra of Europe and Chineke!.
In her spare time, Leora edits and typesets manuscripts for publishing houses such as Bärenreiter, Schott, the Frank Bridge Trust and the Bohuslav Martinů Institute.
Leora plays a Vincenzo Panormo violin on loan from the Harrison-Frank Family Foundation, and is grateful for the support she has received from the University of Cambridge, the Royal College of Music, Talent Unlimited, Help Musicians, the Countess of Munster Musical Trust, the Stephen Bell Trust, the Honourable Society of Knights of the Round Table and the MCSC/H.S. Barlow Charitable Trust.
Raymond
Born in Hong Kong, Raymond Wui Man Yiu moved to Aberdeen, Scotland in 2008 and attended the Aberdeen City Music School studying the piano with Peter Evans. During his time at ACMS, he made his concerto debut performing Mozart Piano Concerto No. 20 with the Meadows Chamber Orchestra in Edinburgh in 2010. Since winning the title of Aberdeen Young Musician of the Year, he performed concertos by Schumann, Prokofiev, Rachmaninoff and Grieg with orchestras. He gave recitals at music festivals around Scotland including the Aberdeen International Youth Festival and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
In 2012 he won a scholarship to study with Senior Professor Joan Havill at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London, where he obtained his Master's and Bachelor's degrees with Distinction.
Being a recipient of numerous national and international prizes, he won concerto prizes at festivals including Springboard, Worthing and Edinburgh,3rd Prize at 2019 Norah Sande Awards, Highly Commended Prize at 2019 Bromsgrove International Musicians' Competition, 3rd Prize Christopher Duke International Piano Competition, 3rd Prize Moray International Piano Competition, 5th Prize at the First New Stars International Music Competition for Strings and Piano, and 3rd Prize at 2018 Windsor International Piano Competition, which led to an invitation to join the KNS Classical Label.
He was recently on the Artist Diploma programme as a Trinity College of Music Scholar studying with Gabriele Baldocci at Trinty Laban Conservatoire, where he has won the John Longmire and Alfred Kitchin Competitions for his interpretations of the works by Beethoven and Schumann. Recent highlights include winning the Carne Trust Chamber Music Competition held in Conway Hall, London, as part of the Bolling Trio, and performing Beethoven's Emperor Concerto with the London Gay Symphony Orchestra. He is grateful for the generous support by the Felix Marr Award, Leathersellers' Company, Deena Shypitka Music Award, Dewar Arts Awards, Phyllis Simons Award, the Guildhall School Trust and Christine Brown Trust.
Paul
Paul Wingfield attested Chetham’s School of Music, where he studied the piano with Charles Hopkins. He is now a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, at which he combines teaching and research into Czech music in particular with the role of Secretary to the College Council. Alongside his academic career, Paul is an active performer, giving regular recitals as part of a duo with Leora Cohen, and has begun composing for their performances and collaborations.
In 2023, Paul composed a piece entitled ‘Elegy’, it is dedicated to the victims of the 7/10 massacre in Israel and available to watch on YouTube via the following link: https://youtu.be/hoC1y1k6P4M?si=X3bCIi0TJM8vdfCz
This spring, Paul’s innovative musical drama, ‘Einstein’s Violin’ will be premiered in Cambridge. His most recent composition, 'The Moon and the Stars’, is dedicated to the Fira Duo. It is a piece based on Alfons Mucha’s series of four paintings with the same title and is written for flute, violin and piano. In light of Paul’s specialism in early twentieth-century music, the piece presents a modern take on the Neoclassical style, highlighting Mucha’s integral influence on the contemporary art and culture in Paris between the wars; particularly Art Nouveau and his relationship with composers of the time, such as Stravinsky and Martinu.
