The Aidan Woodcock Charitable Trust, under the name ‘Maiastra’, provides training for emerging young professionals who are hoping to make chamber music a major part of their career. The main objective of the Trust is to provide courses for advanced students, usually at undergraduate or postgraduate level, in the performance of chamber music. They last for approximately ten days and are held in a b
eautiful converted barn in the heart of the Surrey countryside. The courses are led by a distinguished professional musician, usually either Arisa Fujita, the leader of the prize-winning Gémeaux Quartett and a former Professor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, or Akiko Ono, Principal Violin Teacher at the Yehudi Menuhin School and also a Professor at the Guildhall. Additional coaching is provided by Professor David Takeno, one of the UK’s leading chamber music coaches, David Waterman, cellist of the Endellion Quartet, or Simon Rowland-Jones, founder violist of the Chilingirian Quartet.
Each course culminates in three public concerts for appreciative and discerning audiences in Cobham and West London and occasionally elsewhere in the UK.
Each year we also provide a number of non-residential courses for more advanced students, many of whom have previously benefited from our residential training. These 3-4 day courses, usually based in London, adopt an approach more typical of a professional chamber group and the musicians are paid an appropriate fee.
