Status Cymbal - Our Biography

Although STATUS CYMBAL was established as a professional string quartet over 20 years ago, the individual members that make up the group have an actual combined professional performing experience of some 85 years!

As successful free-lance performers, each member of the quartet brings a wealth & variety of classical experience extending from performing with world renowned symphony orchestras including the London Symphony, the London Philharmoni, the BBC Concert and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestras, as well as touring, at home and abroad with opera and ballet companies like the English National Ballet, Ballet Rambert and English Touring Opera. Not only have they all appeared in the most prestigious concert venues in the UK, but have also supported a host of the classical world's most popular solo artists including Russell Watson, Katherine Jenkins, Andrea Bocelli and Vanessa Mae.

As well as being deeply involved in the classical world, members of the quartet have also recorded and performed around the world with many of pop's biggest names. Such artists include Barrie White, Robbie Williams, Snow Patrol, Muse, Take That, Shirley Bassey, Dizzy Rascal, Paul McCartney & most recently George Michael.

The STATUS CYMBAL approach to popular music is both refreshing and adventurous. From the beginning, it commissioned works from some of Britain's finest string arrangers, so that its unrivalled library now extends from Bach to Rock via Strauß, Gershwin, Bernstein, Duke Ellington, the Beatles, Abba, the Carpenters, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead and Queen, to name but a few. The haunting and the beautiful, the lively, the tearful, the passionate and the humorous, all can be heard in a STATUS CYMBAL recital. Variety, originality and entertainment are its watchwords.

Alongside its concert work, STATUS CYMBAL has a foothold in every other field of entertainment. They perform for corporate events, weddings and other private functions, playing in hotels, Banqueting and Livery halls, homes stately and not so stately, and have made several TV appearances most recently including QVC and Channel 4 at the Races. At the 2003 opening of Andrew Lloyd Webber's collection of Pre-Raphaelites at the Royal Academy of Arts, the BBC Arts Correspondent, Rosie Millard, was so taken with STATUS CYMBAL that she began her 10 o'clock News report with their performance of Stairway to Heaven.

STATUS CYMBAL performances are enjoyed not only in Britain, but throughout the world, as well as on the high seas. During a two-month contract on Holland-America's MS Noordam, passengers voted the quartet near perfect marks in a customer satisfaction survey. Cunard invited them to perform three concerts on the prestigious MS Caronia (sister ship to the QE2) during its trans-Atlantic cruise to the Caribbean and P & O chose STAUTS CYMBAL as opening entertainment at the launch, in the presence of the Princess Royal, of their flagship Adonia, as well as entertaining guests at a charity ball aboard the Aurora and a subsequent Caribbean cruise aboard the Arcadia.

So whether it is a recital, corporate event, wedding, anniversary or any other type of prestige occasion, playing the works of the classical masters or music from our unique repertoire of modern arrangements, STATUS CYMBAL will be delighted to entertain you.

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Review

"Thank you so much for coming to play to us at Goldsmiths' Hall last night. Your programme was perfect. You found some very ingenious solutions to the 'Gold' challenge and the inclusion of some Gershwin and Victor Sylvester nostalgia was extremely well suited to our older audience. We are most grateful to you all and thank you again for being so accommodating over our requirements."

Concert for the Queen Elizabeth Foundation