Deirdre Bencsik

Principal Cello

Deirdre studied at the Guildhall School of Music with Leonard Stehn and Raphael Wallfisch and later with Robert Gardener in Aspen, Colorado. She has played with many of the country’s leading orchestras and was a member of the Usher Piano Trio for more than 15 years. During this time, she also qualified as a Music Therapist and worked part-time in the Mental Health sector with autistic and disabled children in her local special needs school.
 

Deirdre has also appeared as a soloist, performing the Concertos of: C.P.E Bach, Saint-Saens, Haydn, Elgar, Martinu and Kabalevsky, Tchaikowsky’s “Rococo” Variations, Beethoven’s Triple Concerto, the Brahms Double Concerto, Kurt Nystedt’s “Stabat Mater” for solo cello and choir and an arrangement made especially for her of Clara Schuman’s “Romances” for cello and orchestra. 
 

Deirdre has enjoyed innovative collaborations, including the “Past Lives” Project: performing new compositions alongside archive film footage collected from the public. She is also a member of the band ‘Be’ which created a unique soundscape for the “The Hive” at the Milan Expo. Combining science, art and music, ‘Be’ perform with a live stream of 40,000 bees and have performed at numerous UK festivals (including Glastonbury), in “The Hive” (now residing at Kew Gardens) and given live performances on BBC Radio 6.
 

As principal cello of Sinfonia Viva, Deirdre currently enjoys the variety of orchestral and chamber music concerts as well as the education and outreach work in the community, bringing her Music Therapy experience to the various special needs projects with young people in SEN schools. Deirdre also enjoys teaching the cello privately and in the Music Department of Nottingham University