Meet our 2025 Young Artists

Our Young Artists Programme, in partnership with the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland (RCS) helps train the next generation of string musicians. Following a week-long residency at RCS in January, two young musicians were selected to join our 2025 Young Artists Programme.

This years young artists are:

Annabel Stevens Violin
Lauren Jack Viola

Find out more about Annabel and Lauren and what they’re looking forward to during the Young Artists programme below.

Tell us a bit about yourself, what you are studying and which instrument you play: 
I’m originally from Nottingham and have been playing the violin since I was five years old. I’m currently studying at RCS – in my fourth year studying for a BMus degree. 

Can you tell us a bit about the side-by-side project at RCS with Scottish Ensemble? 
I’ve been a participant on the side-by-side week for the last two years, a project where we work as a string orchestra with members of Scottish Ensemble. This year we performed repertoire including Shostakovich’s String Quartet No.10 alongside music by Caroline Shaw and Jessie Montgomery which I’d never heard before. It’s always interesting to explore new repertoire and learn skills like listening and extended techniques in these projects. 

How was this project different to other workshops or masterclasses you’ve been involved in? 
It’s a smaller group compared to other orchestral projects and Scottish Ensemble always bring music that is new to us.  This means it challenges us to listen and to be very in the moment and engaged with the players that are leading the rehearsals. And then at the end of the week we perform in the Friday at 1pm concert series at RCS, which is a lovely way to wrap up the week of work and to share it with an audience. 

As a Young Artist you’re going to be performing with Scottish Ensemble this Autumn for Shifting Patterns – what are you looking forward to with this project? 
I’m really looking forward to joining Scottish Ensemble on stage and also experience the process of preparing and rehearsing for the project. We’re going to be performing music by Anna Meredith, which I’ve never played before. My friend introduced me to her music a few years ago and so it’s really exciting to get to play her music for the first time. To prepare, I’m going to listen to lots of recordings of her music and learn as much as I can about Anna and her inspirations. 

What are you listening to right now? 
I’ve been listening to the new Dreamers Circus album that came out in January and to a songwriter called Bella White who I saw performing in Glasgow recently. I’ve also been listening to a lot of Beethoven as I’m performing his violin concerto next month. 

Tell us a bit about yourself, what you are studying and which instrument you play:
I’m from New Zealand, and moved to Scotland in September 2024 to start my Master’s at RCS. I’m studying viola performance, and my teacher is Duncan Fergusson.

I started on the violin when I was seven and switched to viola when I was 17 to play in a string quartet. Something about playing the viola worked for me – maybe because I like being in the middle as I like being the bridge between the upper and lower register in an ensemble, and I get to be involved and be a supporting role for all of them.  

Can you tell us a bit about the side-by-side project at RCS with Scottish Ensemble? 
The side-by-side project at RCS was a highlight of my year at RCS. I loved the project – I found that the way all the Scottish Ensemble musicians talked about and embodied the music was so inspiring. They really encouraged us to think about all the dimensions of the music we were playing and approach it from lots of different angles. 

The week was different from anything I’ve done like that before. I love chamber music, but I hadn’t done much playing in a string ensemble of that size before – I absolutely loved it and definitely want to do more in my career. 

What will you be up to as a Young Artist? 
We’ve already had a day in the Scottish Ensemble office hearing all about how the organisation works, not just from a player’s perspective but from the management team too. I’m looking forward to observing some of the Music for Wellbeing work and of course I’m really excited to be joining the musicians on tour for Concerts by Candlelight. 

As part of the Concerts by Candlelight programme you’ll be performing the European premiere of a new work by Valentin Silvestrov. How do you go about preparing a brand new work? 
Playing new works is aways so exciting but definitely a challenge. I love to listen to pieces a lot before I play them to prepare and absorb it. But with a new piece you need to be a bit of a detective just picking up things from the sheet music. I love looking at the score and playing from the score – so I can see all the different parts, not just my own. It really helps knowing how you fit in, especially when you play the viola and you might not be playing the melody, it’s nice to know what the other parts are up to.   

What are you currently listening to? 
My top three songs are coincidentally all by Scottish artists – Persian Omelette by Juliet Lemoine, Marram by Matt Carmichael and anything by Fergus McCreadie.