Our 2025 Musicians
Our theme in 2025 is ‘bringing the world to Martinborough’.
We’re presenting a fabulous line-up of musicians coming from all over the world to play chamber music by many different composers.
Photo credits: Jane Blundell (Natalia Lomeiko), Agatha Yim (Wilma Smith), Katya Brook (Ashley Brown), Katrina Carswell (Simon Brew)
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Born in 1996 into a family of musicians in Novosibirsk, Natalia Lomeiko settled in New Zealand and now, based in London, has an international career. She won first prize at both the Premio Paganini and Michael Hill International Violin Competition and has gone on to perform and collaborate with leading conductors, orchestras and musicians across the world.
She has recorded many chamber works on CD and her latest album of Schumann, Prokofiev and Szymanowski was BBC Music Magazine Chamber Choice of the Month for October 2024.
Natalia is passionate about education and has been a professor of violin at the Royal College of Music in London since 2010 and was appointed to the same role at the Yehudi Menuhin School in 2024.
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Described by The Strad as a ‘virtuoso with a truly romantic temperament’, Yuri Zhislin enjoys a career as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher. His performances have taken him to nearly 60 countries around the globe.
A student of the Royal College of Music in London from 1991, he won the BBC Radio 2 Young Musician of the Year in 1993. Since then he has worked with orchestras and musicians in Europe, Australasia and South America. In 2004, he formed Camerata Tchaikovsky, an ensemble that brings together some of the finest string players in Europe. Their debut CD, Russian Colours was reviewed as ‘beautifully expressive and sensitive music making’, and they recently completed successful tours of South America and Europe.
Yuri is a professor of violin and viola at the Royal College of Music in London and is a visiting professor in Italy, Austria, Spain and Poland.
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Donald Armstrong joined the NZ Symphony Orchestra at the age of 19. He then went on to study and work in the United States and Europe before returning to New Zealand as Associate Concertmaster of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, a role he still holds.
Donald was Music Director of the New Zealand Chamber Orchestra from its inception in 1987 until 2005, and was largely responsible for its dynamic and exciting style. He is currently conductor-in-residence of the Kapiti Concert Orchestra, and his chamber group, the Amici Ensemble is currently in its 38th year of concerts.
Donald is interested in preserving and advancing New Zealand’s musical heritage. He is actively involved with Arohanui Strings+ and has seen first-hand the difference that music can make in young people’s lives. As a violinist, teacher, conductor and mentor he encourages young instrumentalists while continuing his quest for the wild, wacky and wonderful in music.
He joined Wilma as co-artistic director of the Martinborough Music Festival in 2023.
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Born in Fiji and raised in New Zealand, Wilma studied at the New England Conservatory in Boston with Dorothy DeLay (violin) and Louis Krasner (chamber music). She was founding first violin in the Lydian Quartet, winners of the Naumburg Award for Chamber Music and multiple prizes at Evian, Banff and Portsmouth International String Quartet Competitions. She eventually returned to New Zealand as founding first violin in the New Zealand String Quartet.
Following distinguished tenures as Concertmaster of the New Zealand then Melbourne Symphony Orchestras, Wilma has returned to her chamber music roots as second violin of Melbourne’s Flinders Quartet, also curating her own chamber music series, Wilma & Friends. She is Musica Viva Australia’s Artistic Director of Competitions, overseeing the Melbourne International Chamber Music Competition and Strike A Chord, Australia’s national chamber music competition for secondary school students.
Wilma is still actively involved in music in New Zealand as Co-Artistic Director of the Martinborough Music Festival and a Board Director of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra.
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Caroline Henbest is a violist and Feldenkrais Practitioner. She is currently Acting Head of Strings and Head of Viola at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) and is based in Melbourne.
Born in England, she came to Australia in 1993 to be principal viola in the Australian Chamber Orchestra (ACO) following studies at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Guildhall School of Music.
These days she performs as a chamber musician and soloist across Australia and is violist in the Imaginista Quartet and Transfigured Trio. She has recently recorded the string quartets and string trios by William Shield for Naxos with the Dorrit Ensemble.
Since leaving the ACO she has regularly acted as guest principal with many Australian orchestras as well as the NZSO.
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New Zealand-born cellist Matthias Balzat has gained recognition as an international soloist and chamber musician. He has won prestigious competitions, including the Accordi Musicali International Cello Competition, 69th Royal Overseas League Annual Music Competition, Sieghardt-Rometsch Concerto Competition, and the New Zealand National Concerto Competition twice in 2014 and 2017. He has performed with leading orchestras such as the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Sinfonietta Köln. He has worked with renowned musicians, including Daniel Müller-Schott, Johannes Moser and Wolfgang Schmidt.
Balzat has appeared at major festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, Classiche Forme and the Edinburgh Fringe. Currently completing the prestigious Konzertexamen at Robert Schumann Hochschule in Düsseldorf under Pieter Wispelwey, he holds a Master Degree from the same institution and a Bachelor Degree from Waikato University, which he began at the age of 14.
He has recently taken over from Ashley Brown as the cellist in NZTrio.
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Acclaimed as a musician of ‘unimpeachable artistry’, Ashley Brown is one of New Zealand’s leading soloists, collaborators, chamber musicians and recording artists. He is a founder of NZTrio and a passionate advocate for New Zealand music.
His teachers have included Alexander Ivashkin, Aldo Parisot and William Pleeth helping him to succeed in auditions, competitions and awards, both local and international. His musical curiosity has led him from an Artist Diploma at Yale to a Doctorate of Musical Arts exploring the collaborative relationship between composer and performer, and onward to sharing the stage with composers and artists as diverse as Dame Gillian Whitehead, Moana Maniapoto, Michael Houstoun, Kristian Jaarvi and Neil Finn.
He continues to enjoy a musical career that leaves no colour of the musical spectrum unexplored. Ashley plays the 1762 William Forster ‘Liberte’ cello.
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An internationally celebrated concert pianist, chamber musician, and educator, Jian Liu has performed and taught across Europe, Asia, and North America. His artistry has brought him to some of the world’s most prestigious concert halls, including Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center. He earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the Yale School of Music.
He has released numerous solo and chamber albums in New Zealand and the United States, with performances broadcast by various TV and radio stations.
A passionate advocate for New Zealand music, he has premiered and recorded many works by New Zealand composers. In 2022, he collaborated with Shanghai Music Publishing House to edit and publish New Zealand Piano Works, the first publication of New Zealand music in China.
Jian Liu is currently the Deputy Head of School, Associate Professor, and Head of Piano Studies at the New Zealand School of Music, Victoria University of Wellington.
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Simon Brew is a conductor, classical saxophonist and the current General Manager for the Cambridge Town Hall.
His career highlights include being principal saxophonist with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, Rotterdam Philharmonic, Netherlands National Orchestra, and Netherlands Blazers Ensemble at the BBC Proms in London. He was conductor and Director of Music for the RNZAF, leading numerous international tours and conducting Dame Malvina Major in concert.
Awards include being the 2010 winner of the prestigious Grachtenfestival Conservatorium Competition in Amsterdam, the Artez Kunstnacht Competition, best saxophonist under 30 at the International Festival of Single Reeds in Melbourne in 2005, and third in the New Zealand National Concerto Competition. Simon holds a Master of Music degree from the ArtEZ Conservatorium in the Netherlands.
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Almost 40 years since completing her medical training, Auckland paediatrician and child psychiatrist, Louise Webster has added a Doctorate in musical composition to her qualifications.
Despite her heavy workload, she is also a composer, pianist and plays violin with St. Matthew's Chamber Orchestra in Auckland. In 2012, she completed a Masters of Music in composition with first class honours in and gained her doctorate in 2019.
Her compositions have been recorded by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and performed by the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and the New Zealand String Quartet.
She was interviewed by Elizabeth Kerr for Five Lines in 2020 after the premiere of her string quartet The Memory of Earth.
Find out what the artists are playing at the 2025 Martinborough Music Festival
We’ve curated a Spotify playlist so you can sample the music in the 2025 Festival.