Lunchtime Concert: Leora Cohen, violin & Paul Wingfield, piano

British-American violinist Leora Cohen has been praised as “a brilliant player” (Suzi Klein), possessing “a natural feel for melody” (Nicola Benedetti) and “the sound of heavenly beauty” (Maxim Vengerov). A double-first graduate of the University of Cambridge, she completed postgraduate diplomas at the Royal College of Music before establishing a dynamic career as a recitalist, soloist, and ensemble musician. Leora is particularly drawn to innovative recital programming and close collaboration with a wide range of duo partners. Following the passing of composer Carl Davis, she was inspired to bring one of his most beloved scores, Pride and Prejudice, to new audiences, leading her to curate a series of live shows. In the past year, she has founded the Jozef Chasyd Quartet and joined the faculty of Trinity College, Cambridge, where she supervises recital students.

Paul Wingfield (piano) attended 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 with research into Czech music in particular.He is currently editing the Cambridge Companion to Dvořák. Alongside his academic career, Paul is an active performer, giving regular recitals as part of a duo with Leora Cohen. He is also a composer, playing an enthusiastic role in reviving the nineteenth-century genre of melodrama (narrative spoken to music) to which Carl Davis’s and Gill Hornby’s Pride and Prejudice in Words and Music (2016) belongs. His 2025 Einstein’s Violin achieved notable success, and he is currently composing two further melodramas for performance in 2026: Mademoiselle Adagio, based on the life of the nineteenth-century violinist Teresa Milanollo, and A Christmas Carol, based on the famous novella by Charles Dickens.