Capriccio is comprised of experienced professional musicians

who bring  a broad range of chamber music to people of all ages.​

Their enthusiasm for drama and variety in performance is evident

from their dynamic musical expression on stage.

CLARE PITCHFORD - VIOLIN

Clare studied the violin at the Royal Academy of Music with Lionel Bentley and Winifred Roberts, where she was awarded the Gertrude Norman prize. Her great great great grandfather was a Musical Director in Zwickau and her grandfather was hi-fi pioneer G. A. Briggs of Wharfedale Wireless Works, so an interest in music certainly runs in the family! 

She has lived in Italy playing opera with Orchestra Sinfonica dell’Emilia Romagna, where conductors included Zubin Mehta. Clare was Principal Second for Scarborough Spa Orchestra, where they did regular BBC radio broadcasts, and she has also performed with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Northern Ballet and English String and Symphony Orchestras. 

She has also played with The Brigantes Orchestra, Orchestra of Stowe Opera, Orchestra Da Camera and Limelight Orchestra, English Pro Musica, and she also teaches at several private schools. Clare enjoys chamber music ensembles and is a regular session player for TV and film library music. Her string quartet, Arioso, played for the Queen in 2012 to celebrate her Jubilee Celebrations and they have been performing in venues throughout the Midlands and beyond for over 20 years. She plays on a Giovanni Battista Gabrielli, made in Florence C1760.

JOHN BEAN - CELLO
John studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Derek Simpson, cellist in the Aeolian Quartet. He subsequently played with the Halle Orchestra, Manchester. The orchestra toured regularly around Europe and visited countries such as Hong Kong. He subsequently trained as a luthier at the Newark School of Violin Making and enjoys the variety of performing, teaching and restoration of stringed instruments. He has played with a number of Midlands ensembles, including the Heart of England Orchestra, Sinfonia Viva, and also for Her Majesty the Queen’s Golden Jubilee visit to Leicester. He is often in demand with popular music and rock bands and records backing tracks for new releases. He is musical director/conductor of the Loughborough Orchestra.

 

JEREMY KIMBER - PIANO

Jeremy Kimber considered farming as a career but, while out ploughing a field one day, decided to go to the Welsh College of Music and Drama instead (an allergy to cows aided the decision.) He started as a trombonist, then, after becoming bored with playing only one note at a time, changed his first study to the piano, specialising in accompaniment.  

Since leaving college he has taught the piano, performed as soloist and accompanist, conducted and examined.  In addition to concerts in the UK, he has performed in Tanzania, Uruguay, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic.  Jeremy has worked with Young Musician competition winners from Australia, Germany and the UK and performed concertos by Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann and Rachmaninov.  For eleven years he was Director of Music at Emmanuel Church, Loughborough.  

Currently he divides his time between teaching the piano at Nottingham University and performing — now almost exclusively as an accompanist/chamber musician.  A keen walker and now, unexpectedly, a runner, not long ago he walked all 630 miles of the South West Coast Path and is often seen nipping around parkrun courses on a Saturday morning or around Loughborough on training runs.