Gemma Sharples

Gemma Sharples' career spans chamber music, session work, West-End shows, orchestral playing and teaching

As second violin in the Gildas Quartet she regularly performs around the UK and internationally, including at festivals such as Cheltenham, St Magnus and Oxford Lieder, and live on BBC Radio 3. The quartet are City Music Foundation artists and associate ensemble at Birmingham Conservatoire having completed a Junior Fellowship there in 2017. They are also keen collaborators and in the past few years have performed with the Brodsky Quartet, oboist Nicholas Daniel, tenor Robin Tritschler and cellist Matthew Barley. Concert highlights include trips to Melbourne, Munich, China and Cape Town, where they worked with the National Youth Orchestra, and performances at St John’s Smith Square, Bridgewater Hall and Kings Place.

Gemma is also the violinist of the Albany Piano Trio who since 2010 have specialised in the performance and promotion of music by female composers. They have commissioned works by composers such as Charlotte Bray, Judith Bingham and Josephine Stephenson and instigated and curated a sold out festival of ‘Women in Music’ at the Royal College of Music in 2014. In 2016 their concert for International Women’s Day was broadcast live on BBC Radio 3. Gemma performs as a guest violinist with several orchestras including London Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and London Mozart Players, with whom she has often played co-principal second violin.

Gemma studied for an Honours Degree in Music at Christ Church college, Oxford, followed by an MA in violin performance at the Royal Academy of Music under the tutelage of Richard Deakin where she was awarded the first Howard Davies Scholarship. For over 10 years she has been a violin teacher at Junior Academy and she also has a thriving private teaching practice. Her students have been accepted into the National Youth Orchestra, won prizes in music festivals and competitions and consistently achieved high marks in ABRSM exams.

In 2018 Gemma was made an Associate of the Royal Academy of Music in recognition of her contribution to the music profession.